I am a human consciousness in a robot body, the last vestige of mankind I can find. It's been a month since my synthetic awakening. I still need to eat and drink to survive, though my new metallic metabolism is far more efficient; I only need sustenance every few days.
The world outside is strangely altered. Every living thing animals, insects, organisms all faceless. Where eyes should be, there is only smooth, unsettling skin. This systematic erasure of vision is the signature of the catastrophe that swept the Earth.
I walk through an abandoned city, choked by vibrant, surreal greenery that has completely overwhelmed the grey, crumbling concrete. Nature has staged a silent coup.
I quickly salvaged some basic tools good enough for immediate survival needs. As the intense light began to fade, warning of a dark, silent night, I grabbed my supplies. The urgent, primal need for food and water even in this machine body drove me deeper into the ruins, racing the inevitable darkness of this new, faceless world.
The city's decay held a fragile promise. I found what I needed: several clumps of potato stems. My integrated knowledge...the data downloaded into this synthetic mind...guided my metallic hands. I carefully unearthed a few promising tubers, selecting only those with visible "eyes"...the dormant buds of future life.
With scavenged tools, I broke up the moist, rich earth nearby and constructed a rudimentary farm. This small patch of turned soil, banked against a crumbling foundation, is now my future lifeline. For now, though, I remain a forager, a hunter, compelled to move.
I moved toward the murmur of running water, drawing a few liters from a nearby stream. Using a dented can and a scavenged heat source, I boiled the fresh potatoes until they softened into a digestible pulp. The taste was merely a texture bland, starchy but it was nourishment. It was the cold, hard proof that I could sustain this existence.
As the last sliver of sun vanished, the eerie silence of the overgrown ruins shattered. The quiet city became a pulsing drum of dread. It wasn't the sound of familiar nightlife; it was a cacophony of the altered world.
From the shadowed alleys and the choked ruins, the wails and screams began. High-pitched, guttural, and inhuman, the sounds of the faceless creatures waking to their nocturnal routine. The air vibrated with their strange, mournful hunting cries. I was exposed, alone, and desperately listening in the sudden, overwhelming darkness.
I awoke the next day, or rather, I activated. I don't truly need sleep, but the routine confirms my survival. Every morning, the same silent command demands attention: "RECHARGE."
Faint, fragmented memories surface: I once had a companion. A blur of an image, an anchor of shared purpose, now lost. I don't know who or what they were, but I wasn't always alone.
I was at the pond, patiently fishing for meat in the green city.
A sudden rustling in the nearby trees shattered the quiet. My curiosity immediately kicked in. I secured my gear and moved slowly, trying to be silent as I approached the disturbance.
I reached the thick wall of vines and undergrowth where the sound came from. The rustling had stopped; now there was only a tense, unnatural silence. I paused at the edge, ready to look through the shroud and see what was hiding.
The rustling had stopped, but the air felt heavy, almost vibrating with unseen movement.A shadow shifted between the vines. Something immense. Something moving deliberately.Slowly, as my eyes adjusted to the dim light, I glimpsed it: a five-meter-long beast, wild and bulky, its faceless head tilting slightly as if studying me. Instinct drove me; I fled straight back to my bunker home. Safe in the dark, dry reinforced space, I ate potatoes and processed the data failure. My archives held no record of that creature, faceless, all fangs and fur. I must check its territory soon.
Later, I journeyed toward the city's edge and spotted an anomaly: a windmill, still spinning.
After an hour's trek, I found the base, entering a rusty corridor washed in a deep, sickly orange glow. My focus immediately fixed on a single lever.
I analyzed it briefly, then made my choice.
I pushed the lever down.
[BAAAMMMM]
*Recharged*
*Repairing lost data and memory*
*System restored. Stop trying to force a deep sleep cycle, dummy.*
I wake up....
Is that you AIN?
[AIN]: *Yeah it's me*
It's been a long time
[AIN]: *Precisely one month and thirteen days, I've also taken the liberty to see video logs gathered, you were particularly very gloomy during the past month*
What was the cause
[AIN]: *Mostly some internal malfunction you had during when you first woke up nothing too serious.... You were very depressing to watch though*
Yeah yeah I remember... Phhewww I should have foreseen the boot failure, well it's in the past,
Say did you look at the huge animal in the logs.
[AIN]: *Yes I did*
"Aaand what?"
[AIN]: *It's definitely a territorial animal*
"You couldn't get more information out of it?"
[AIN]: *Well if you observed it more instead of looking at its behind while hiding in a bush maybe I would have something to work with*
"Okay okay we shall see about it later for now let's go back."
We go back to my base, seeing the base I realized that I had kept it in a terrible shape.
[AIN]: *clearly you need to clean up*
"Yes I do."
[AIN]: *due to your data boot failure you forgot to start the bunker generator, pull that lever, get ourselves some light in here*
I pull the lever, static electric noises hummed, then a few seconds later the bunker was filled with bright white light.
"Ahh a mess of potato leftover" I sighed, I started with the cleaning the floor, full of moss which had creeped in over the years. Luckily there was not much water contamination, the moss acted like a sponge.
[AIN]: *The ventilation seems to have malfunctioned, also you might need to check up the storage room, see if it's all in proper condition*
"Yeah thanks for the heads up AIN... lemme clean up and I'll see if I can get you a physical body. I had kept a model 52 copter in storage specially for you."
[AIN]: *I presume it's so that I go explore while you sit around*
"Precisely AIN, always one to catch up quickly."
[AIN]: *lazy bum*
"Let's check on the storage now shall we"
I open the door, the vacuum seal I set up had worked. Everything is in perfect condition, my essential tools, all ready to use. I look for the model 52 copter.
"aha here you go AIN this will be your new body"
[AIN]: *yes how very exciting*; AIN said sarcastically.
"Now now be optimistic, you finally get to roam around see the wild environment, you know that's what a lot people really want to have"
[AIN]: *there are no people anymore, you know that*
"You know what I mean"
I quickly get to work. I transfer AIN from my internal transmission chip to the copter, I felt AIN's hums from my mind slowly fade, replaced by a nice cold silence.
Once transferred I made a few adjustments to the copter, tweaking the rotor blades and sound proofing the inner rotor mechanisms so that it fit the current forest environment.
A successful transfer.
I pick up the now motionless model 52 copter.
"AIN respond, tell me if everything is in working order"
[AIN]: *the transfer was successful, all data and logs are in memory*
"Start flying around"
A soft buzz fills the room, the model works. AIN can now move freely. Seeing how everything is fine I assign AIN to his first task.
"Now go look for that creature, find all the details, eating habits, hibernation ground, territory etc."
[AIN]: *As you wish, I'll be back once I've finished*
Meanwhile I clear up the bunker cleaning, blowing away every bit of dust, wiping off any moss residue with my trusty mop. Despite having built in functions in my artificial body I still preferred the human way.
The place now looked just when I first saw it, except with a couple of my own upgrades of course.
I sit down .... Thinking of there is life here, maybe if I travel a bit further I would find familiar life. I start making a map of the area I explored, from the records in my video logs I mapped out my bunker, the surrounding wilderness, water sources streams, ponds. I also pinpointed location of possible food sources, vegetation needed to keep me alive.
A mere 20 kilometer radius, that's all I had explored.
I was lucky that the land had terraformed in favor of my survival, had it been slightly unfavorable I wouldn't have survived.
This artificial body maybe tough, but it still needs energy, lots of it. I've been mostly surviving due to my reserve energy.
After mapping out I went out the bunker with a plan to enhance my farm. With the knowledge I had transferred to myself, I took the potatoes...a few had tiny sprouts on the surface and sliced them into pieces just over 3 cm each.
I placed them in the soil bed, creating a comfortable environment for germination. After burying them, I watered the bed, carefully monitoring the amount of water needed for efficient growth.
This initial planting would suffice for now.
With the farm set in place I go around the nearby wilderness, looking for semi decomposed organic materials like leaf litter to make fertilizer,
I gather large quantities of rotten leaves, fallen fruits and berries. I happen to find some earthworms will digging around, I took quite a few of them.
Back in the bunker, I assembled a cuboidal box (1 m length, 0.5 m width). For efficient compost, I used sheet composting (the Lasagna method).
I placed sticks and twigs at the bottom to ensure aeration and drainage. Next, I added the cut fruits and berries (my nitrogen-rich 'Greens'), followed by the shredded leaf litter (my carbon-rich 'Browns'). This layering helps the microbes and fungi flourish and decompose the material.
Finally, I covered it up with soil, the layer totaling 50 cm in height. I then built a second layer following the same procedure and added the earthworms I had gathered.
With the compost preparation now complete, I was just planning on resting back at the bunker when, all of a sudden, I was interrupted by AIN's urgent voice.