The next morning—or whatever passed for morning on this forsaken trash world—Jinyue prepared to go outside.
He'd wanted to leave the moment Cody confirmed the trash rain had stopped, but even he knew that would've been foolish due to a multitude of reasons. One of the reasons...he still felt weak, sick, and bone-deep tired. Another, it had been late at night, and who knew what horrors lurked out there after dark? Finally, he would not die uselessly the second time.
For all his admiration of survival films and the protagonists' iron will, it was a different story when you were the one starving in the wasteland.
He stood by the hatch, wrapped in the newer, slightly stale clothes Cody had found for him, from the original owner's father most likely. His silver hair was tied loosely behind his head. The air inside the ship was dry and faintly metallic, tinged with that sharp tang of old circuits. Beyond the hatch, the endless wasteland waited—a shifting landscape of corroded debris and skeletal towers of junk.
"I'll go alone," he said flatly.
Cody's voice hummed behind him, too bright for the mood. "Master Jinyue, it is unsafe. I should accompany you."
He didn't turn. "You can't even walk straight, Cody. You'd slow me down."
The robot made a faint clicking sound, the kind that suggested indignation wasn't built into its programming but was rapidly developing. "If I am damaged," Cody said stiffly, "I can still function in an advisory capacity."
"Wonderful," Jinyue murmured. "You can advise me on how to trip over your corpse."
He reached for the control pad. The hatch lights flickered, uncertain, like even the ship doubted his plan. Truthfully, he doubted himself, but if he stayed cooped up in the ship more than this, he'd end up with nothing left to do. And with nothing left to do, he'd inevitably start spiraling and overthinking, inevitably leading to depression and some panic attacks here and there... He was not in the mood and frankly didn't have time to indulge in his chaotic thoughts and internal struggles.
Cody limped forward, blocking him. "If you insist on leaving, I can lock you in for safety. You are still in recovery."
That earned the robot a sharp look. "You'd trap me?"
"It is for your protection."
The words were so earnest it almost made him laugh. Almost. "And how long do you imagine I'll be 'protected' in here?" he asked. "The ship's power is at twenty percent. You said that yesterday, right? Your processors may survive, but I doubt I'll find comfort in your company once the heating dies as well as the shitty ventilation system you have over here."
Cody whirred softly, hesitant. "Power conservation measures are active. The ship can last approximately four planetary years at current output."
"Four," Jinyue repeated, filing it away. "And food?"
"Two months' worth for a standard adult."
Jinyue sighed through his nose. "So, starvation in the long run, but at least I'll die warm and in my sleep most likely... So inspiring."
He brushed past Cody's arm. The metal limb trembled slightly, servos whining. "I've survived outside for ten years without this ship," he said, his voice low. "I can do it again."
Cody's lenses flickered. "That cannot be correct, Master Jinyue. Your body type—"
"Yes," Jinyue interrupted. "The fragile male Zerg body. Delicate, decorative, and apparently designed to faint at the sight of dust." He looked down at his slender hands, pale against the dark control panel. "Tell me, Cody, who decided this absurd biology?"
"Nature," Cody replied, in the factual tone of a machine citing a user manual.
"Then nature has terrible taste," Jinyue muttered.
He remembered the conversation from earlier, how the robot had explained that male Zerg were rare, precious, and not meant for harsh environments. It was a strange sort of reversed patriarchy, one where the men were coveted but kept under lock and key, beautiful ornaments more than people.
It would've been hilarious if it weren't his problem.
Cody hovered closer, the mechanical equivalent of wringing hands. "It is not advisable. Your body is weak. You could fall ill again. You need rest in the healing pod; your susceptibility period just ended!"
Not this again!
He knew how bad this so-called period was; the original goods had died because of it, after all, but he, Jinyue, was still standing. Frankly the whole situation just pissed him off; he didn't feel sick, nor did he have random hallucinations. Maybe he'd even imagined his whole life like on ancient earth and lost his memories as a Valen...but the pain he felt was real; he couldn't deny that. He'd rather Cody stop talking altogether.
"I'm already ill," Jinyue said calmly. "Just not in the way you think."
He had no clear memory of the original goods past. Of the ten years he'd survived alone outside this ship, but the proof was in his body—lean, scarred, functional. He must have eaten and must have found water. He had lived through storms and scavengers. The details were gone, but the instincts remained, coiled deep inside him like muscle memory. So close to grasp yet so far away—that was also a reason for him to go outside; maybe he could trigger something. He strongly felt that he would.
Jinyue pressed a hand to the hatch. Cold metal met warm skin. "If you try to stop me," he said, without raising his voice, "I'll never step foot in this ship again."
Silence fell. The ship hummed around them—quiet systems breathing, the pulse of worn machinery.
Cody's lenses dimmed in resignation. "Understood. I will… await your return, Master Jinyue."
"That's better." He keyed the release. The hatch hissed open, letting in a gust of air that smelled like rust and ozone.
He hesitated only a moment. The light outside was dull and colorless, filtered through a constant haze of dust. Yet, strangely, it felt freer than the artificial calm of the ship.
Behind him, Cody spoke again, softer this time. "If I may ask… why go out there, Master Jinyue?"
Jinyue stepped to the threshold. "Because, Cody, it's foolish to rely on what you don't understand. I need to get my things from where I was staying. Besides, I still need to scavenge. Food. Water. Shelter." His gaze swept the barren horizon. "Survival doesn't happen by waiting; if I had done that, I would have already died... don't you think?"
Cody didn't answer, but it stepped aside in defeat.
He tightened his coat and stepped into the wasteland. The first breath stung—dry, metallic air that scratched the throat. Beneath his boots, the ground shifted with crushed plastic and bones of old machines.
One small step for me indeed.
It was quiet except for the low wind that scraped across the debris fields.
The body he inhabited felt strange still—too light, too soft. The faint ache of weakness lingered under his skin, but his mind was sharp. He moved with care, testing the ground, scanning the horizon. He'd have to find higher ground, maybe an old tower or a wreck that could serve as a lookout.
Behind him, the ship's hatch sealed with a hollow clang.
Jinyue smirked faintly. The robot probably thought he was reckless. Maybe he was. But he couldn't stand the thought of waiting for slow starvation in a steel coffin, comforted by a chatty machine. He had other plans too and needed to look for clues.
His silver hair caught the light—a faint gleam against the ruin. His tail swished once, still an unfamiliar weight. At least he'd learned not to startle every time it brushed against him. Small victories.
He moved forward, steps steady, mind already calculating—routes, resources, and the risk of exposure.
Whatever this body was, however weak it might be, it was his now. And he intended to live in it on his own terms.
He glanced back once, toward the ship that looked far too much like a tomb.
"I'll survive," he murmured, voice lost to the wind. "I already did."
And if that 'fragile male Zerg' survived for ten years, then he could too.
******
…Maybe cancel that last statement.
The air outside hit like wet glass. It felt hot, dull, and thick with humidity. The ground beneath his feet was a wasteland of grey-cream sand, soft enough to sink into, yet coarse like crushed bone. Above, the sun — if it could still be called that — burned in shifting hues of azure and dark blue, a color too cold for heat yet oppressive all the same.
It wasn't light so much as a suffocating glow that pressed down from every direction. It caught on the wreckage scattered across the plain — the skeletons of fallen ships, the twisted ribs of old towers — and turned them into shards of cobalt glass. The debris field stretched endlessly, a sea of broken things, reflecting back a fractured version of the world.
Between the heaps of metal and trash, what passed for vegetation clung stubbornly to life. Long, indigo-black fronds rippled under the weight of the wind, their edges metallic and sharp like tempered blades. In the distance, streaks of gunmetal green traced across the dunes; not quite plants, not quite machines, half-grown in the scars of pollution. They shimmered faintly, as if the planet itself was trying to remember what color used to mean.
He couldn't remember much of the landscape from before — only flashes of it in fevered dreams: falling rocks, expoding grounds, pain, and the gnawing ache of hunger. He had run once, desperate and delirious, through falling debris and burning air. But now, standing still, the silence pressed in too hard.
He adjusted the hood of his tattered cloak — the same one he'd woken up in — and began walking toward higher ground. The fabric fluttered faintly, the only movement in a dead world. He climbed toward the nearest rise, a peak of crumbled stone that gave a better view of the horizon.
The vista was bleak. No movement, no glimmer of water, no sign of the scavenging drones that Cody had mentioned. Just a single dark formation far in the distance — a small mountain, or maybe a hill, its surface tinted with purple under the blue light.
Something in his gut twisted.
He didn't know it, not clearly, but the body reacted as though it did — a faint tightening in his chest, the instinctual pull of familiarity.
"That's where I came from," he muttered under his breath, though he wasn't sure whether he believed it.
He stared at the distant hill for a long time, the heat shimmering between him and it like a curtain.
The logical part of his mind whispered that going there was a waste of energy — no guarantee of shelter, no certainty of resources. But the other part, the one that always trusted and beleived in said otherwise.
So he started walking.
The sand crunched beneath his boots, the world tinted in cold blue and indigo. The horizon rippled in the heat, and for a moment, he could almost imagine the shape of a city where the debris met the light — a mirage of civilization that had long since rotted away.
He kept going anyway.
Because whether it was a hallucination or memory didn't matter. The only thing that mattered now was forward.