The wind is soft against the building as you drift up from consciousness. The surface you're resting on could be a bit softer, but you can't judge too much since you were resting on top of it for so long. You start to stretch and sit up. It feels like you haven't been sleeping in the most comfortable position, but your body must have deemed the sleep it received as far more necessary than the need to readjust in the night. You open your eyes as you start popping your shoulders, and you notice crumbling concrete walls and ceiling.

This is worrying. You're not one to fall asleep in an abandoned building, especially ones like this. You have a home, you have a bed. Did something go wrong? Aren't you supposed to be there? You stand up and head toward one of the cracks in the wall. It's large enough to see though, thankfully, and what you see…

Something's wrong here. You don't just find yourself in the middle of what seems to be an abandoned and overgrown city without some sort of reason. You start running through your memory, but everything relating to how you showed up here is turning up blank. You can remember your parents, your name, your best friends, all of that.

So what happened?

As these thoughts occupy your mind, you start meandering around, trying to get a better grip on things. For the most part, there's nothing but chunks of concrete in large piles of rubble. You're starting to think that this building has been abandoned for a really long time- there's nothing here but the piles of rubble, and going up the stairs nestled in the corner only reveals more of the same. Empty floors, broken concrete, nothing of interest. The third floor up, you notice someone sprawled out, near the middle of the room. You run closer, elated to finally meet someone else. You were getting so worried! Your mind idly goes over the order of questions you'd ask- if they're alright, if they know what's going on, why you woke up here. You flip them over when you reach them and-

The lifeless body clanks over itself as you pull it face up. Your eyes settle on its expressionless face. Its skin- or what might be skin- was torn off in multiple places, leaving a couple tatters left over barely clinging to a metallic skull. You could see nearly every metallic muscle, all of the wires beneath them, some of which poke up between shards of metal like maggots. In its new position, something black and viscous starts to leak out of both its mouth and nose. Its dulled silver eyes silently look at the ceiling .The wiry remnants of its hair stubbornly clung on to their roots.

Taking a step back, you regard the mess that was its body. How desperate were you to find someone else that you ignored all of this? Its left arm was twisted in an unnatural angle halfway to the elbow, broken tubing spilling out of some of the cracks. Its right leg was broken off, two wires were the final vestiges keeping it tethered to the hip.

Normally, thinking of the smell of decomposition would make you retch. Instead, the acrid smell of industrial chemicals and oil are pulling the weight. The human-like body was as lifeless as the concrete it rested on. You stood up and screwed your eyes shut. This couldn't be happening, you told yourself. This just can't be happening. But when you opened your eyes, the broken and twisted body adamantly refused to be just a figment of your imagination.

A dulled shockwave reached your ears, shaking you from your thoughts. Some floors beneath you were the undeniable sounds of combat. Who was fighting who, you couldn't say, but you didn't want to come face-to-face with them. You remembered a pile of rubble downstairs, which was practically seated right against the corner. You could hide yourself behind there, and hope they wouldn't think to look in that nook. Hope. Would you really need to bank on hope? You shuddered. If those people down there were willing to fight and cause those explosions, they'd be willing and far more than able to off you without a second thought.

You crawled into position just as the fighting died off. Not a moment too soon, you think. A few seconds later, two sets of footsteps tap up the stairway you vacated, and thankfully continue their ascension. You strained to hear what was going on after they got to that floor. It was hard to figure out what those two were doing- the concrete muffled any noise that would help you indicate just what was happening. You think there was some conversation, anything else they were doing was too muddled to make out. Things were quiet for a minute, then you heard them walk down the stairwell. You release the breath you didn't know were holding when you hear that they pass the floor you're on. After giving them a few seconds so they wouldn't hear, you started to head back up to continue where you left off. Surely, you could find something if you looked enough, right?

When the rubble stopped blocking your view, you froze in place. The metallic mannequin you saw earlier. It was upright. Its left arm was completely broken off, wires sparking every few seconds. The right leg was reattached crudely, causing the robot to stumble as it hobbled down the stairs. What frightened you the most is that its eyes were open- one was functioning, the other was nothing but a hole- ripped out, as you could surmise from the surrounding material.

The robot landed past the final step and scanned the room. For the longest second, it fixed its eye on you. That dead, soulless, unnatural silver eye relinquished its grip on you when its owner turned to make its way down the next stair. It seemed far more interested in following around whoever was working with it more than you, and you weren't too anxious to find out more. As soon as it was clunking down the stairs, you bolted past it and up the stairs, still trying to minimize the sound you made.

Two floors up, you had to pause to rest. They shouldn't be able to hear you now, and you can continue searching for… whatever you were looking for in the first place. Just what was going on?