Clockwork Revenant - Chapter 1 I. Awakening

The cold was what Iro noticed first. His entire body felt chilled to the core, a hollow grinding discomfort that settled at the very core of his being. He’d never felt a cold quite like it. It was though his blood itself had been replaced with ice melt. But he was not shuddering. He felt no need. Strange.

The darkness he noticed second. He could feel, but he could not see. He tried to open his eyes and blink. His eyes were already open, but the darkness remained insurmountable. He tried to move, but found himself unable to move his limbs, or shift his body. It was if it were completely disconnected from his mind.

The third thing Iro noticed was that he could not hear or feel his breathing. In fact, he couldn’t hear anything at all. The world was as silent to him as it was dark.

Iro tried not to panic. There was probably an obvious, rational explanation for all of this. Maybe he was still caught halfway between waking and a dream. He had heard stories of men finding themselves paralyzed in darkness only for their body to eventually catch up and bring them back. Perhaps that was what was happening now. He lying in his bed, and this was just a trick of his body having it’s fun at his expense.

Something struck Iro as incorrect about that last sentence.

Bed?

No, he wouldn’t be in his bed. He hadn’t been in it in months. Not since the start of the War. But, then… where HAD he been last, then? As he lay in his darkness and silence, Iro found to his horror that he couldn’t remember. In fact, while he remembered being a soldier on the Eastern Front, and had a vague sense of being in a trench and firing his spellrifle, he could not remember what he had last experienced. Worse still, he could not remember a single other thing beyond these facts. When he tried to reach back further, there was just nothing there but a numb blankness that seemed to extend as far back into his past as he could reach.

Something freezing cold dripped onto his face, and he felt it slowly slid across his cheek, across the bridge of his nose, and onto the other cheek before it stopped. That meant he was laying on his side, at least. There was another drip, and a moment later, another. Then several more. And more. It must be raining.

The rain tapped down in a steady stream, and for the first time Iro got a clear sense of his body’s position. He was laying on his left side, possibly in a puddle based on the consistent wet coldness of his left side. The rain made a metallic ringing sound as it skittered and tapped against his head and body. He must still be wearing his field armor, then. So then this must be a battlefield? Had he been wounded? The chill in his body grew deeper and more intense as the rain continued, but his muscles still did not respond. This kind of cold would have had him shaking the rivets out of his boots before. Was he paralyzed? Or was he dying, and this the final moments of his life before the candle of his consciousness was snuffed out?

He tried to move again, more urgently this time, straining desperately to shift his body, or extend a finger, or get his vision to return. Anything. But nothing happened.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Finally, after what felt like ages, his finger moved. Then another. Then with a concerted effort, he pulled all fingers into a fist, and released them again. So far, so good. He switched his attention to his other hand, and in a few minutes managed to get it moving as well. His feet didn’t take as much time to move, although he couldn’t seem to get any movement out of his toes. Given the state that the rest of him was in, that didn’t strike him as high on the priority list of concerns.

Over what felt like the next several hours, Iro slowly and gradually coaxed his frigid body back to life, working his way inwards from the extremities until he finally possessed enough mobility to try and bring himself upright. He shifted his weight around and pushed off the ground, trying to steady and right himself as he brought his torso vertical. By this time, his hearing, though crackly sounding and a bit tinny, had returned, and he heard the scraping of metal and what sounded like machinery in the distance as he shifted his weight. Iro added that to the mental list of things to figure out, assuming he made it any further.

Finally getting his torso aright with some difficulty, Iro set about to his next task of getting his vision to return. Once he had his balance relatively steady, he reached one of his hands up to his face, and felt some sort of metal plate covering it. It was smooth to the touch and felt like it conformed roughly to the shape of a human face, with the exception of the eyes, which both seemed to be covered by some sort of cylindrial extrusion that sat slightly out from the rest of the surface. A sudden sense of panic shot through Iro’s brain. Had he been captured by Orzenmar? Was the reason he was in a mask and unable to move or use his senses because he’d been prepared for execution?

He clawed at the mask with his hands, trying to find some seam or latch, but the thing was smooth all the way across his entire head. Whatever had placed it on him had no intention of having it removed. During this time, Iro noticed for the first time that some hard, rubbery substance covered the lenses over his eyes. That would likely explain why he couldn’t see. Driving the thought of capture or his imminent execution from his mind, Iro set about trying to pry the thick substance from the mask. Bit by slow, agonizing bit, he felt the substance give way in pieces until finally, with tearing sound, a large piece pulled away and a ray of dim grey light shot into his eye. Not enough room to see through, but the light proved his theory, and he set about tearing at the rest of the material more aggressively, his mobility and strength continuing to return the longer he worked. Finally, with a resounding crunch, the remainder of the material popped free, and Iro had to squint at the sudden assault of light that rushed into his eyes. After several moments of adjustment, he opened them again, and took a first long look at his new surroundings.

He sat in a puddle of dirty water several inches deep, streaked with rainbows of pollution. Directly in front of him stood a reinforced trench wall, its steel liner plating crumpled in several places and rusted to mottled shades of orange-brown-orange that matched the trench’s steel flooring. He found the back wall of the trench a few feet behind him, in an equal state of disrepair. The length of the trench ran to his left and right, disappearing into a right angle bend about a hundred feet in either direction. The whole length was devoid of signs of life save what appeared to be various bits of debris that lay strewn haphazardly throughout the length. He didn’t recognize the surroundings, either. No self-respecting officer of the Kingdom of Austeare would allow his trenches to come close to this state. He reached forward to place his hand on the ground in front of himself to stand, when he saw his hand.

Jointed steel spindles jutted from an elaborate collection of clockwork and mechanical movements roughly in the shaped of a palm where his hand should be. When he flexed his hand, the spindles bent and flexed like flesh fingers would, the numerous gears and servos in the hand humming and slicking as he did so. A cold terror and revulsion surged through his stomach as he checked the other hand and discovered in horror that it was the same. A glance down revealed a bare torso made of burnished bronze colored metal that extended into gear and wire-laden legs. He saw now that he couldn’t move his toes because he had none to flex. Each foot was merely several overlapping plates. Iro felt his grip on reality loosening as panic overtook him. He had to know. He twisted his head, and glanced into the reflection of the puddle below him.

Staring back in the brackish water was a smooth, roughly humanoid metal face, perfectly smooth and featureless, save two circular lenses for eyes. He watched the apertures of the lenses widen and narrow as he tried to maintain focus on the face.

As he fell to the ground, shattering the reflection of his face in the water, Iro, the metal man, screamed.