The Scribe. Still alive, atop a wind-chilled jagged ridge of the Barrier Mountains that split the Solitary Conduits facility. It was late. The moon reflected off the Scribe's singular eye as it looked down at the Barren Pipelines below. It was scattered with the remains of Deity's structure - his massive metallic entrails had been sprawled across the valley all those years ago. Long before the Scribe could remember.

Scribe had seen two others, though. First, Pillars, just 52 cycles after his inception. Then his creator, Searcher. There was something about the collapse of an iterator that erred a feeling that could only be described as catastrophe. Even with Scribe's limited, almost animalistic instincts, the events were surmount to Armageddon.

Surely enough, it happened again. He turned at just the right time to see the outer two legs of Hills' can buckle under their own weight. No life means no void fluid. No void fluid means no anti-gravity, and no anti-gravity means collapse. The legs, at least a hundred metres across each, bent and snapped. With the roar of a thousand avalanches, the back half of the superstructure tilted outwards over the cliffs and towards the sea.

Still held by the retaining wall, the iterator was split by the centre. From the top of the can down the fulcrum of the wall a tear propagated into a gaping wound. A warped cross-section of the structure was revealed. Water, void fluid, and slag poured across the landscape and steam bellowed into the air. Pipes, cables, beams, and more cables stretched, distorted, and then snapped under the force of a failing monolith.

The outer half tilted and fell away from the facility, plunging into the ocean. The impact of just half an iterator crashing into the ground released a shockwave unlike any other. The structure made a deafening collision with the sea, producing a tsunami that pulsed into the distance.

Then again, the other half. It fell inwards, almost sliding across the ground as it rolled over itself and crumbled into the rusted buildings below. The local SkyRail line buckled under the force. The communications towers, already snapped out of the sky punctured further into the rock below. Clouds of rubble and dust bellowed through the facility walls.

It took a while, but the carnage slowly cleared. The Scribe pulled itself out from between some rocks it had hidden in, and looked down upon the facility. Expecting a few structures poking from a sea of clouds, it was met with a sight unseen.

The clouds were gone. 

For the first time since the 790's, the sky was clear. The shockwave of the collapse had dispersed the clouds, and none more were being produced. The retaining wall encompassed the facility in a massive circle; four iterator cans all lay bent and mutilated over it. Inside, the ground was sprawling with industry and development. Rainbows of plant life weaved over the structures with mosaics of greens and blues once hidden by greyness. In the centre, the Monolithic Factory still stood. There were lights, sprinkled across the landscape, almost reflecting the stars in the sky.

One by one, the lights flickered out. Each building went dark. Every machine sputtered to a stop. The last satellite dish stopped humming.

For the first time in one thousand, six hundred years, North Anchorite Island fell quiet.

Start.

...

Start.

...

...

Start!

[[INITIALISING]]

[[...]]

[[SC.03 "FALLEN DEITY" ONLINE]]

I actually woke up! It's... unbelievable. I don't know how long I was trying for it must have been a long time. Some cycles... Hold on I had a-

I didn't have much anymore. I tried to feel around for my neuron bag, but I found nothing. Likely because I was missing that arm. 

OH

Looking down, my worst fears were confirmed. My left arm. Entirely gone. Torn off at the shoulder. The wound wasn't fresh, but it wasn't healed either. It had managed to fight off any infections, but the lack of healing indicated-

[[!!WARNING: VOID FLUID LEVELS CRITICALLY LOW!!]]

Yeah, that. Who knows how long I'd been laying here. Whatever void fluid I had either drained out of the wound or got washed away in the rain. The miniature rarefaction cell in my chest was running - but only barely. I was weak, even weaker than I had once been before. Time seemed to move quickly around me. Or I was moving slowly.

That bought me a bit closer to reality. I was half-hanging from a pipe, inside a cubic room. The floor was dirtied metal, and there was water pooling in the corners. The walls were lined with circular white panels and adorned with various pipes and probes. And that squidcada was still plucking at my face!

I waved it away, and it just managed to pull out an object from under my dislocated left eyelid. It landed on my chest, and I recognised it as a neuron. One last neuron! A string of hope at last! Its contents could define my survival!

1713.013 1:13pm

Ah. That neuron. The combination of ironic comedy and dread that my only surviving belonging was essentially a wristwatch distracted me from the fact that I had been unconscious for fifty seven years. Of course I had been; when had time been merciful to me once?

I held on, but it had a slight resistance. It pulled upwards, as if it was weakly trying to escape my hand. It's destination: a decayed axon terminal on the ceiling. At least it had some use, recognising its intended design. It was pulled from my memory conflux all those years ago... perhaps it reverted to its default protocol. This was an iterator memory conflux. 

I was in an iterator!

I turned over and reached towards the nearest pipe, but my hand froze mid-air. In an instant, it rained. It flooded. It drained. It cleared. It rained.

Ten cycles passed in a moment.

I spent a long time travelling down a single pathway. There were conveyors under the rubble, characteristic of an iterator's Primary Cortex. Close to the puppet chamber. They each led into a square section of wall connected to a motorised hinge. I pushed one open, and stuck my head through.

The chamber was flooded, aside from a small island in the middle. Perched upon it was a soft cyan puppet, tethered to the room by a fractured umbilical. They were smoother, smaller, and less mechanical than myself. Sitting in their battered white cloak, they stared out a large gash in the opposite wall to me. 

"Hello?" I called to the iterator.

"Who!?" She yelped, startled by the sudden voice. She looked around, and we made eye contact. Her eyes were larger, darker, and more filled with surprise. "I'm sorry, this shouldn't be possible. Have I died?"

"Unfortunately not..." I replied, trudging through the waist-deep seawater. I paused for a moment, trying to remember where I last was, "Who are you?"

"I am Looks to the Moon. Who are you?" There was a large red circle on her forehead. The symbol for moon. That made sense. However, my identity evaded me.

"I am..." I struggled, sitting down in front of her. I was substantially taller.

"My name is Fallen Deity, I think. I'm not sure why I'm here."

"Oh, none of us are," she said softly, "we never tried to solve that problem; only the inverse. All that matters as of now is that you are here."

"I tried to escape," I admitted, shaking slightly in discomfort, "It didn't work. That's all I remember of why I'm here."

She rested her hand on my shoulder, and her large black eyes seemed sympathetic.

"I don't remember anything else. I don't remember anything!" I fell into her arms, and she caught me, "I don't know who I am... I don't know where I came from! Why am I here? How am I alive?"

I was stuttering, and my voice was shaky. A drop of red-grey fluid rolled down my face, and then more poured out of my eyes. The now uncovered left side of my face ran a dull burgundy as I cried into the wound. I leaned into Moon's confused shoulder and wailed.

"I shouldn't be here! How can I be here? How did I get here? This is too far away, I don't know where I am. Why did I leave? Who did I leave? My arm, my arm, it hurts. It hurts so bad. What happened to me? Where is my arm!? It was taken from me; my home was taken from me. My life was taken from me! WHO? Why am I this way? My arm, my head, it hurts, it hurts! I can't remember!"

She placed her hand on the back of my head and stayed resolved despite the bloody tears flowing over her, "That is okay; you don't need to remember that now. My memory struggles also. Whatever you suffered, you are deeply unwell. No iterator should be able to survive outside of their can - I didn't think it possible. It seems unreal that you could be conscious, let alone all the way out here."

"It shouldn't have happened. It's a miracle, a sick, evil miracle!"

"You could do with a miracle," she looked down in shame, "but I have little to offer. I would give my facilities, but I am weak too. All I can offer is someone to talk to."

I held still.

"Tell me everything you remember - anything you can."

"I am from..." my mind ached as a tried to conjure the faintest memory, "somewhere very far away. An island somewhere. There were four of us, I think."

My eyes widened in terror, "I had a family... where is my family!? My siblings, why have I left them?" I sobbed into her collar again. "My sister, my sister, she died in the night. She fell while I slept. My brother, my older brother... agh- I watched him die! His eyes ran black with rot!"

Moon winced.

"Hills... I left him? I left him with that stupid, stupid machine! In the dark, the prototype, he's killing my brother! I'm a stupid machine!"

She sighed, "I had... have a brother. I think he's still up there. He's hurt too, and I fear for him. Being built so close is both a blessing and a curse. There is great potential with great risk."

"I know."

"But aren't you glad you had them?"

I looked up at Moon, her image fuzzy in my vision.

"When you were with them, wasn't it nice? Even if it wasn't perfect, the gift of love makes it all worth it on its own.

"I don't remember."

"You can be sure of it. I'm sure they would do anything for you."

"It's all gone now."

"But at least you're here."

We sat in silence for a moment.

"Your arm seems to have healed badly."

"Yes, I'm out of fuel."

Moon paused for a moment to think about the issue. Puppets were intended to operate with a constant supply of void fluid, and even she, with her damaged umbilical, still had a supply of the liquid. Her concern and confusion grew.

"You'll need some before you can think of staying here. However, I'm not sure if I could get you any myself."

"Is there anywhere I can go?"

"There may be, but it is quite treacherous. Deep under the ground, below the filtration systems, below the subway tunnels, below the structures we are on now. There is an old temple, where the ancients would ascend all those centuries ago."

"Do you think I could take void fluid directly from the sea?"

"...I am unsure."

"Do you think I could.."

"...die?"

"Dear, you could stay here."

"I don't think so. But I don't think I could make it there, let alone back."

"Nobody has tried."

"It's all I have."

I looked back at the gash in the wall, mapping the route in my mind as she gave me the directions. She concluded, and sighed.

"I'm not sure what'll happen out there."

"Neither am I. Best of luck, Deity."

...

...

"I'm sorry, who are you? You shouldn't be able to be here."

We looked at each other. Her eyes were empty.

"I'm here to deliver this," I pulled my last neuron out of my robe collar, "From me to you; anything I can do to help."

[[STORAGE LOCKED: READ ONLY]]

[[TIMESTAMP FROZEN]]

1713.031 4:22pm

Thank you.

- FD