Somehow, I had found myself in the universe of Nier Automata. It wasn't as though there was a signpost or anything that would explain it to me—the first thing I remember seeing after waking up was the sight of two giant robot arms reaching out toward one another from opposite sides of the room. With a door on the wall opposite myself. The scene itself seemed like something you'd see on an anime, and when my vision cleared enough for me to realize what I saw before me, I realized the robots looked vaguely familiar.

The robots were made of metal alloys so hard that even their joints looked solidified into place; if pressed against them, your fingers wouldn't be able to get through the seams between each joint.

The robots did not seem to be active. The arms remained firmly planted in the walls while the rest of their body was absent. And yet, despite being completely still, they emitted some kind of aura which caused my heart rate to accelerate rapidly with fear. When I tried moving closer, however, the robots' movements suddenly changed without warning: One arm moved forward, then backward again at incredible speed. A second later, its partner followed suit. Then both simultaneously began swinging violently, smashing into the wall, fracturing it and revealing the rest of their bodies.

They possessed no visible eyes but instead had only lenses on their head that gave off a faint yellow light similar to that produced by an LED lamp. As they adjusted their head to look in my direction, their eyes flashed red. They were glaring directly at me.

"HUMAN."

It garbled out, it sounded nothing like any human voice I knew. As it spoke, I booked it. I'm not dumb enough to think that these things were anything but hostile.

I ran away from the room, down a long hallway, frantically looking for an exit. But as soon as I reached the end of the hall, I came face-to-face with a large machine with a cannon for a torso. I panicked as it shot a large purple ball, but realized it moved quite slowly and dodged under it. Running straight into the nearby doorway. There was a loud bang behind me, but I didn't dare turn around to check. Instead, I kept running until I found myself outside.

The sun shined harshly on the ruined city before me, I rubbed my eyes, not used to the light. "What's going on?" I thought aloud. The more I stared at the world beyond the door, the stranger it became. Everything here was destroyed, buildings were smashed to pieces, cars were scattered about everywhere...but why? This doesn't make sense! What happened?! Where am I?!" My mind raced over everything I could remember. All I remembered was falling asleep watching TV, then waking up somewhere else. How did this happen...?

After a moment, the answer finally hit me. I turned back towards the building where the robots stood. Something felt strange about them. No longer blinded by fear, I realized that these robots looked very similar to the 'machines' from Nier Automata. That game I played last year...it must have been set in this exact same location. I didn't have the luxury of time, as I heard the clanging of what I assumed to be the machine with the cannon bounding after me.

I turned to leave. But just as I took a step forward, a massive explosion shook the ground beneath my feet. I jumped forwards and fell to the ground, coughing at the dust and smoke. When I looked back, the building that I had just left was now just as ruined as the rest of the city, the only difference being the heavy smoke pouring out of the empty windows.

I turned my attention to the road, on my right was a tall ruined building connected to several other buildings to form a corner. This seemed like a strange design choice. On my left was a road that opened up a bit with some tall buildings. The buildings had massive trees entangled with them. The whole city seemed to have been taken back by nature. As I walked toward the more open road I heard something shift in the buildings behind me. With a large rumble, the building next to the one I had come out of began to fall. Before I could react, the rubble barreled towards me, digging a deep crater in the ground where I had once stood. I was thrown backwards by the impact, I rolled to avoid hitting the fallen rubble, barely managing to stay on my feet.

With a few scratches, and a new fear of tall buildings, I decided I did not want to wait around for the surrounding buildings to decide the ground looks like a comfy place to rest.

Moving into the city, I saw one of the smaller machines in a field with a few rusted-out and wheeless cars. I avoided him by following the road in front of me. I figured I might find someone who knew more than I, or perhaps, a clue to the situation around here. I started walking, the road was partially covered with grass, and entire sections were separated, jutting out of the ground. I got the feeling that the road wasn't meant to exist anymore, Living well beyond its intended years.

As I moved down the road, I saw a larger machine and ducked into an alleyway. The alley had several large roots from the humongous trees connected to the buildings. Having played Nier automata, all of this looked very familiar. Unfortunately, I got lost in the game even with a 3d map that told me where I was. I had low hopes of finding my way without some sort of landmark. At an intersection in the ally, there where a trio of small machines attacking vending machine/access point. I wish I could get at what's in there, or even use it to try to contact YoRHa. On the other hand, I have no idea how long that vending machine was left to rust, and I couldn't fight one stubby, let alone three.

I skulk around the robots, and end up at the entrance to the desert. I would go over and see If Jackass or that shopkeep could help me out, unfortunately, there are two machines with shields, and I didn't want to test how fast they were compared to me. Luckily they seem to have the same activation distance as the game.

Wandering right, I came across a female android corpse. Its face was skinned and I could see sections of muscle-like tendons that went up its face. I frowned 'what a waste' I thought. Not wanting to disturb the corpse, I backed away and continued wandering down the road. Continuing roughly straight I came to the road that I knew led to the resistance camp. But what would I say to the androids?

I can't just walk up and tell them that I'm human. Some of the androids are nice, but they do some really messed up stuff. When they find out I'm the only human, they may try to clone me or send my ass to the moon. I'm getting motion sickness just thinking about it. Alright, a lie then. 'I'm a record keeper who wanders around looking for human knowledge' that's what I'll tell them.

As I walked into the camp I saw 2B and 9S walking out, one of the pods spoke out "Recognized, Human".

"Fuck"