5 Minutes Earlier

I keep my eye on the three wonderful girls in front of me, swimming at the beach and enjoying themselves, but I mostly eye Kate, the most beautiful girl in the town of Rasent. Since my childhood I’ve tried to court her, even as the years passed by she still refuses, but that doesn’t stop us from being good friends. We have a habit of getting into trouble, mostly me, but she doesn’t hesitate to step in and help me, sometimes I don’t feel as if I’m even worthy of her attention, but that doesn’t stop me either, or at least from confessing my love to her on a monthly basis.

Just as she was about to have what I assume was a breath holding contest with her two friends something emerged from the water a couple of metres away from them. It’s hard to make out at first, it shines brightly in the moonlight, but I believe I can make out the silhouette of a man. Yet as he steps closer I realise that the girls have turned around, even Kate, and have begun running away, Kates friends screaming in terror.

What could make a man so scary? I almost feel bad for him. Perhaps he is very ugly, I think to myself, or handsome. I decide I should greet him and begin walking in his direction, he appears confused, hand on forehead, but I still can’t make him out in the moonlight so I walk closer, and then I see it, and I freeze. The reason he seems to shine so much in the moonlight, the reason the girls ran, in front of me is one of the ancient terrors that sought humanities death years ago. Even 37 years after their initial reign of terror humanity is still recovering.

Frozen in terror I realise I can’t even move, so instead I analyse my enemy, perhaps if I break free from this power I can fight it, hold it back from Kate and the others, no matter how pitiful it might be. Yet as I look at it I can’t help but see that the ancient terror, one of the Machina themselves, is itself frozen. It looks down at its rusted hands in what I can only see as confusion, an emotion displayed by an emotionless species.

The machine seems to realise something then, it looks up at me and I see its mouth move in the most horrible motion, the lips forming horrendous shapes, all of it beaten and broken but alive, and then I hear it, the grating sound of metal with a low rumble before it speaks its grinding words. “Where am I?”

What’s that supposed to mean? Is this a ploy? My pupils dilate as I speak my own words, “Why do you return, ancient devil?” I watch closely as the machine takes a step back and stares at me in an almost curious fashion and in that eye, that horrible, glass eye, I see it, a glint, the glint in your eye that marks the fact that you are…. Alive. I’ve seen these things before yet none of them had that glint, all but one rumoured in legends. But that’s impossible, I must be imagining things.

“You speak as if I am your enemy, yet I do not know who or where I am, it seems that neither do you.”

The machine speaks lies. “You will not fool me, machine. If you come with me, without sudden movements, and let us examine you, perhaps we can let you go.“

I focus on him, staying wary and watching for his next moves, but it simply places its hand under its chin and scratches itself in the most natural and human way that for a moment I cannot help but believe its story. Never. I shake off the belief and regain my posture before once more awaiting his response.

“I also want to know what I am, but I don’t wish to be poked and prodded, could the examinations be conducted with x-rays perhaps?”

Now

I wait for his response, eager to find out exactly what is happening here. He calls me an ancient devil, stares at me as though I am all he has ever hated and all he ever will hate, yet I have not done anything wrong. Is this body one of many like it? Are there others like me out there somewhere?

“What is this… x-ray you speak of?” The voice of the man breaks me from my thoughts, have I travelled through time as well?

I stare long and well at the clothes of the man in front of me and realise how ragged and torn they are. I can see that he is wary, yet also weary, and his gaze flits left to right, cautious of all there is around him. This man looks like he is nothing but a shepherd, his staff laid down beside a tree some distance behind him. This is not my time, my body, or my world. I will never see them again.

The thought hits me hard, and suddenly I fall to my knees. The man in front of me takes a step back, watching me for sudden movements, but he frowns when he sees me throw my arms to my sides, and smash my head into the ground. He looks at me still, his gaze unsure, not that I care about him. My family and friends, never again.

Suddenly that’s the only thing I know, the only thing I can think of, the only thing I can see is them and- never again, never again, NEVER AGAIN NEVER AGAIN! Before I realise it I’m screaming the words aloud, my metallic, grating cries sounding across the mountaintops, no heavy breathing or tears, just my screams. Then silence.

I look up, and I see that the man is sitting cross legged on the sand, still a cautious gaze in his eyes, yet a glimmer of… sympathy, pity even. I don’t want your pity. I look to the sky, stained with a beautiful orange red as the sun rises in the east. East. We’ve been here for hours, and now it’s quiet. For a moment it’s all so beautiful, just like it was underwater, this unexplored beautiful world, before the colours seem to turn grey.

“You want to kill me don't you?” I ask him.

“I never said that.”

“I can see it in your eyes. Whatever this body means to you, you want it to die, to never return to your lands again.”

He looks as though he is going to respond before stopping and pressing his lips into a thin line.

“I believe you.” I look up from the grains of sand, and the shells through the shimmering water to the man in front of me. “You would believe what I can only assume is an enemy from a time of war?”

“That enemy has remained dead for a long time, come with me and I will show you to my home and the land you have found yourself in.”

I stare at him for a moment, taking in how his view towards me has changed over the past hour or so of my sorrow. Clearly he seems to understand that my pain is not fraud, and though I am or was his sworn enemy, he has decided to show me into his home and lands. “I cannot thank you enough for this.”

“It is fine, I never realised that the Machina were people too.”

“Machina?” The man looks at me for a moment before gesturing me over. “Come tell me your name, let us walk together,” he says.