For many centuries, the world has been filled with silence; there are no sounds of birds singing their tunes, no crickets in the night, just silence followed by the wind blowing dust from the dirt, his own clanking metallic footsteps crunching rocks beneath them, and the ruins of forgotten cities in the distance.
The humanoid stood below an old corroding archway covered in vines with the word "HORIZON" written upon it however, he could not remember what the meaning of the word was anymore, but there was something in him, an old code written in his program perhaps that made him find comfort in it. He was made of something far more refined than chrome and wire, bronze plating shaped into human form, his joints whirring quietly, with eyes that glow a soft electric blue, and a faded engraving "Subject-10" on his chest that made him decide on the name Ten for himself.
Ten stood over the grave of the man who gave him life and knowledge about the human race. The man called himself "the last living Human." when Ten asked him why he called himself that, he sighed and looked at the lifeless ground before answering, "It's a reminder of my failure to save my kind, but I have never gave up the fight to save my kind even if they are gone." The last living Human stared directly at Ten's electric blue eyes, sparking with curiosity, "Ten, you are my last creation and the existence of Mankind's last hope; in eighteen years, you'll understand why you are that hope."
Ten remembered that conversation from eighteen years ago, almost like it was yesterday. Strangely, he couldn't remember his creator's face. What point is there in remembering a dead man's face? His dream had died with him. Ten thought with uncertainty about his creator's dream. How would one machine bring a whole race back into existence?
Ten knelt by his creator's —his father's—tombstone. It was a crude memorial made of two rusted pipes, forming a cross based on what Ten had read in ancient human texts, funeral customs, and fragments of religious text. The metal of the rusted pipes creaked slightly as the wind passed through, whispering across the endless plain of sand.
Next to the cross lay a chipped mug with a barely visible image of a cartoon bear; its colors faded and cracked. It was his creator's favorite mug, one that he refused to drink anything without, even though the handle was long since broken off. Ten placed it there—not because of his programming, but something in him that knew it mattered.
Ten sat by his father's grave for a long time, embracing the silence around him that he had experienced for the past eighteen years. The noise of his creator's tinkering is now just a memory barely visible in Ten's database. The silence between Ten and where he buried his creator demanded time a lot of time, with a stillness that no program could interrupt.
He came to the grave every 365.25 rotations around the sun—every year—routinely. However, this year was different because it's been eighteen years since that conversation, and the timer that Ten's father set in his right palm had finally hit zero.
His hand started to spark, and the synthetic skin on his right arm hissed away in strips of glowing filament. Then, another layer of skin glowing the same electric blue as his eyes flowed to Ten's palm. The electricity hovered above the palm of his hand, forming the shape of an Ageratum flower. This was followed by a voice in his head that he never knew existed: Blueprint Unlocked.
Schematics for a machine started to flash before Ten's eyes, and it was so complex that he could barely understand the machine even though he was a machine himself. What caught his eyes the most, though, was the name given to it, Mankind's Last Hope, which is what his creator called him. Ten couldn't help but wonder if he was the final component to make this machine work or was the machine itself. Then, where the timer was where the flower bloomed, a map appeared on a place that he was warned never to venture to until he was ready to go there, the place named Regenesis.
It was where his father came from before he started calling himself the last human. He never asked why going there was dangerous or what had happened. But now, in death, he was sending Ten towards it. Whatever lay in Regenesis it was part of his father's dream. Ten would follow it not because it was his creator's dream but because he wanted to know where he came from and why he was created.
Ten gave one last look at the cross that lay at the top of his father's grave and went on his way down the hill. Upon reaching the end of the hill, he approached a rusty, makeshift metal shack with attempted creations of machines and experiments littered around the outside. With the clanking of his footsteps echoing upon the metal floor, Ten knelt, opened a box, and started packing tools and various devices into a tattered leather bag. "All right, this should be enough now. Which direction was Regenesis again in? North, I think?" the same unknown voice echoes through his head REGENESIS IS IN THE EAST
"Ow, that hurt my synthetic brain CPU. I don't know who or what you are, but refrain from yelling in my head, please." REGENESIS IS EAST, the voice echoes through Ten's head again. "Okay, I'm going, I'm going," Ten replies while covering his ears, thinking that might silence the voice in his head. He stands up and steps away from the box and heads out the door, heading eastbound to Regenesis. Now, Ten's journey begins.