Chapter 3: A New World

It's been roughly two days since they had exited the bunker. So far, they hadn't found anything or anyone in this desolate landscape. Just more run-down buildings and vast dunes, they had searched them for any clues that could give them an idea of how long they had been virtually dead to the world for but had no luck. All the buildings were just empty husks with nothing inside them, not even a bed or a chair much to Dantes dismay. After spending the first day searching the nearby buildings, they took shelter overnight inside what they assumed was once a town hall.

Dante looked over towards Hal as the android was scanning the building to see if he could accurately date the age of the structure. "It seems as though this structure has been left in disrepair for a great duration of time, far too long to get an accurate representation of its age." He walked over towards where Dante was sitting and sat on his left. "I would recommend sleeping, we should continue searching the area tomorrow for any clues". "I'm not tired Hal", Dante said bluntly. The android looked over towards him and inclined his head to the side. "It wouldn't be logical for you to tire yourself out now, besides there isn't much you can do at this time of night." Dante just sat there for a moment before getting up and walking towards the window, gazing at the view.

It might just be piles of rubble and ruined buildings, but under the illumination of the moonlight, it made for an eye-catching scene. He could see passed the ruins and off into the distance, the many desert dunes creating the illusion of ocean waves. He must have been looking out towards the view for a while for Hal had managed to walk up behind him at some point, "Do you think there is anyone around here Hal?" "Yes, it's doubtful that one person would be left in the world." "Unlikely but not impossible?" he replied in a questioning voice. Hal remained quiet and turned to look towards the view also. Dante returned to his resting position earlier and used his backpack as a makeshift pillow. As he started to fall asleep, he faintly heard Hal reply to his question. "It has been one day, Dante. We have yet to step into this new world. Don't lose hope just yet." He didn't manage to reply before sleep took him into its warm embrace.

Waking up the next morning was not a fun affair. He dreamt of a different morning, one where he woke in a room with blue walls and many posters capturing figures striking various poses. He stood up from the incredibly comfy bed and walked towards the door, he could faintly hear chatter down the corridor. Slowly making his way forwards he leant over the bannister that overlooked the dining room and saw the blurred images of a man and a woman. They seemed to be talking while having toast along with a coffee. "Bout time you got up, we've been waiting for you", the woman said in a cheerful tone. "Come on down ill dish you up some of the bacon that's left". Dante slowly made his way downstairs and sat down next to the man. "You ready for the game today?" "I know I am the rangers are gonna destroy the opposition". Dante started looking between the two while slowly chewing the bacon. "Are you alright dear? You're being awfully quiet today". Dante turned to face her with an unfocused look in his eye, "I don't know I'm, very confused rn" he said in a staggered manner. The woman walked forward and gently placed her hand on his head, "Oh baby, it seems that you're burning up". The man stood from his sitting position and leaned over to check aswell. "Better get back to bed little man, we can always go see the rangers another time". They took him back to the room that he awoke from and placed him back into the bed. "Get some rest mate. We can play baseball in the park if your feeling better" the man said in an optimistic tone. The woman gently placed a damp cloth on to his head, "Night dear make sure to get to sleep, and no phone!", they started to walk out of the room before he could even mutter a word. "Wait," he said weakly, "who are you?" The two looked at each other and then back towards him. "Aw my poor baby, your temperature must really be getting to you". That was the last he heard as they backed out of the room and shut the door behind them. It was utterly pitch black for a few moments before he slowly closed his eyes.

Dante shot up from his sleeping position. He was sweating profusely down his forehead. Trying to calm himself down he slowed his breaths back to a regular rate before putting his head into his palms. "What the hell was that? A dream or a memory?" Whatever that was doesn't matter now though I guess. Not when there isn't anyone else here.

Slowly standing up looking through his bag he pulled out one of his rations. He ate in silence, a fact that he realised would probably be a constant in this new place. Noticing that Hal wasn't in the area where Dante thought the android was last night, he decided to see if he had already started looking through any of the adjacent buildings for things of use. Or possibly an answer. Hopefully, the latter.

He made sure that nothing was left behind and that he had both the sword and pistol strapped in their correct position before walking out of the house. He waited until his eyes adjusted to the glaring sun before looking around the immediate area for the tall android. "Hey, Hal! You out here somewhere?" No reply was heard. Where could he have gone, he thought to himself. Looking around once again, he saw something out of the corner of his eye. It seemed as though the android was walking away from his position towards a large open area, presumably what used to be the town centre. Dante lost sight of him turning a corner in the distance, it was difficult to make out due to the waves of heat coming off the ground. Dante sighed, "Would it kill him to at least wake me before searching around." Slowly making his way towards where he last saw him walking he tried to figure out which pathway Hal had taken, there were three different ones that he could have taken making it even more difficult was the fact that each had a turn after around 20 metres in. Meaning that he couldn't just look down one of them till he found him. Dante sighed once more and just chose the 3rd one randomly. "Not like I've got much else to do," he said to himself.

He slowly made his way down the path, taking in his surroundings so he would be able to remember which way he came from. He turned another corner and was greatly relieved that he saw a Hal in the distance even though the heat waves were still making things blurred. "Why'd you just walk away without me?" he shouted towards him, "It's boring out here as it is, let alone without someone to talk to!" Hal still didn't seem to hear him, or so he thought. Just as he was about to shout once more Hal turned around and faced him. "Find anything useful?" Dante asked, slightly confused as the normally talkative android still didn't seem to acknowledge that he heard him. Maybe I'm still too far away for him to hear me, he thought to himself. He looked over again and saw that Hal was now walking towards him.

As Hal got closer, he could make out more details about him. It was confusing. He seemed bulkier, and the proportions were wrong. As Dante was coming to these conclusions, the figure changed his pace again. It was now close to full-on sprinting towards him. It was only 100 metres away from him now, and he could safely say that it was most definitely not Hal. Its head was a perfect sphere and had horn-like protrusions at the very top. Its body was segmented, it had a slightly wider section on the bottom which joined onto a thinner but longer section as it got closer to the head.

"What the fuck are you?" Dante said under his breath as he took several steps back. The new machine didn't seem to be stopping anytime soon as it kept its pace towards him, now only 50 metres away. "What the hell do I do now? It's not as if id be able to outrun that thing in this sand," thinking quickly as the robot was within 10 metres Dante jumped to his left, narrowly avoiding being impaled by the horns on the robots head. As he stood back up, he reached up towards the blade strapped to his back. He held it in front of him, hoping it would provide some protection. The blade was noticeably shaking side to side as it was pointed towards the machine.

The machine seemed to slide to a halt before turning back towards him. It's now visible red eyes glaring at him. It started to run towards him again, its joints screeching as it did so. As the machine approached Dante screwed his eyes shut and swung in an upwards diagonal arch. He could feel the blade meeting resistance before it being jolted free. Dante heard a crash in the sand next to him. Opening his eyes slightly, he was the right arm of the machine on top of the sand. Its owner was a metre beyond it kneeling over holding itself up with its one remaining arm. It turned to look at him again. Making a move to once again charge.

Suddenly there was a shadow cast above it. 'CRASH!'

As the sand and dust were settling the welcoming view of Hal emerged. His tall frame standing over the now crushed machine. "Dante, are you injured?" he said concerningly. Dante replied by shaking his head, not trusting his mouth to be able to formulate sentences at that particular time. Hal stood off the crushed machine and walked towards him. "Your heart rate is still increasing Dante. You need to slow your breathing." He nodded again and forced his heart rate to slow down by taking shallow breaths.

"What the hell was that thing?" he asked Hal. "From what I can gather, they're a simplistic machine linked to a higher command network. And from your encounter, they're the main objective seems to be attacking unrecognised personnel." From the distance, slight thumpings could be heard. "Must be more of them, can u carry this one? Maybe you could hack into it to find out more." "Yes, it should be easy enough." He lifted the flattened machine into his arms. "Let's make haste into the house we took refuge in last night, from there we can observe if any more come our way and we can study this one."

Once back into the house Dante immediately took a breather. The adrenaline from the encounter was now fully wearing off he realised just how close he had come to his death. Shaking slightly, he just leant back against the wall and calmed himself down.

For the next 20 minutes, he just watched Hal scan and inspect the machine. After a while he had any parts that were deemed useful set-aside, and the husk was left in the corner as it wouldn't provide anything useful. "So found anything?" he asked. Hal turned to him and relayed what he had discovered. "Not as much as I would like I'm afraid, the coding and commands that the unit received weren't in any known language that I have in my databases. However, I did manage to find out that this unit was connected to 99 other units of various models."

"I take it that you mean to say there's 99 more of those things lurking around here." He said sourly, great just what I needed strange machine attacking me out of nowhere he thought to himself. "Yes I assume so, there was also some video files of the last week stored inside its joint memory with the other machines connected to it." "It showed... something interesting." Dante shut his eyes and groaned, "Interesting in the way that there are even stranger things around here?" "Well, I guess you could say that, let me show you."

From Hals visor a projection was played onto the wall. At first, all it showed were a large group of the machines walking towards a building. Then suddenly from outside of the frame a sword pierced through the further most forward machine. Sparks were flying from its shell. The next moment a figure landed onto another one sending it over the head of the machine they were viewing from. It was mostly a blur however, one thing was for sure, the figure was much slender than the machines and it consisted of primarily black with the exception of its face and hair. Through the blurred images, the only details that Dante could see were a porcelain face and silver coloured hair. Suddenly the figure blurred out of view and the next moment a sword could be seen extruding from the torso of the machine the image cuts off after that.

Hal turned off the projection and turned towards Dante's shocked expression. "Seems to me, like we may not be so alone after all."

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Just gotta say, whenever I'm writing sections for this story I'm always listening to Rozen - Nier: Glory to Mankind on Spotify. Really sets the tone. The songs are so brilliant I can just listen to them for hours.