I opened my eyes to rust, rot, and the realization I was made of trash.
Not metaphorically. Not philosophically. Literally.
The first thing I saw was a mountain of broken swords rising against a smoke-stained sky. The second was my own hand—except it wasn't a hand, not really. Five fragments of different wands jutted from a palm made of twisted wire and scrap copper, each wand-tip glowing faintly cyan like dying stars.
I tried to move. Something scraped, metal against metal, a sound like nails on slate. My entire body was that sound.
What happened to me?
Memory came in fragments, sharp and disconnected. A workshop. Blueprints spread across a marble table. A man in expensive robes frowning at something—at me?—and shaking his head. "Failed parameters. Dispose of it."
Then... falling. Darkness. Cold.
And now this.
I sat up slowly, servos grinding in joints I didn't know I had. My torso was a cracked shield, dented inward like someone had taken a warhammer to it. My right arm ended in a cluster of rusted sword blades melded together, oxidized orange-brown and sharp enough to still be dangerous. My legs were mismatched pipes and gears, one thicker than the other, both functional but awkward.
I was a construct. A golem. Some artificer's failed experiment, judging by the shoddy craftsmanship.
I was trash.
Around me stretched the evidence: an ocean of refuse as far as I could see. Broken weapons piled in rusted cairns. Shattered crystal orbs leaked faint magic into puddles of iridescent oil. Torn banners from noble houses lay trampled in the muck, their proud crests stained with ash. The air smelled of copper, sulfur, and decay—magic gone sour.
Above everything, the sky was the color of old bruises.
Where am I?
I stood—awkwardly, one leg shorter than the other—and nearly fell. The ground shifted beneath me. Not solid ground. A hill made entirely of discarded armor pieces. When I looked down, I saw a breastplate with a hole punched through the heart.
Someone died in that armor. Then someone threw it away.
The thought bothered me for reasons I couldn't articulate. Everything bothered me. My existence bothered me.
I didn't remember being created, but I knew I had been. You don't wake up as a pile of scrap metal by accident. Someone built me. Someone tested me. Someone found me lacking.
And then they threw me here.
Rage flared, hot and sudden. The wand-fingers on my left hand sparked, cyan light crackling between the tips. One wand still had a cracked ruby embedded in its handle, and it pulsed with my... emotion? Could I even call it that? Was this anger, or just misfiring enchantments?
I forced myself to calm. The sparks faded.
Think. Assess. Survive.
Those words came unbidden, like programming surfacing in my consciousness. Maybe part of my core function. Maybe just common sense wearing the shape of orders.
I turned in a slow circle, taking in my surroundings properly.
The scrapyard—because that's clearly what this was—stretched beyond comprehension. Hills of refuse rose and fell like waves frozen mid-crash. To my left, a canyon carved through mountains of broken furniture, the wood rotted black with magical blight. To my right, a field of shattered glass glittered in the polluted sunlight, each shard a fragment of some mage's failed experiment.
And in the distance, just visible through the haze, stood a city.
No—not just a city. A monument to excess.
Massive towers of white stone and silver filigree rose into the sky, their peaks vanishing into clouds that glowed gold with ambient magic. Platforms floated between the spires, connected by bridges of solid light. Even from this distance, I could see the shimmer of protective wards, the glint of enchanted glass, the banners flapping in wind that smelled nothing like the toxic air down here.
That city was clean. Beautiful. Perfect.
And it had thrown me away.
The rage returned, but this time I let it simmer. Rage was better than despair. Rage was useful.
A sound interrupted my brooding: a wet, chittering noise from somewhere behind me.
I turned just in time to see the creature emerge from beneath a pile of chain mail.
It looked like someone had crossbred a rat with a starving dog and then covered it in rust-colored mange. Its eyes glowed the same sickly cyan as my wand-fingers, and its teeth were actual metal—bent nails and razor shards jutting from diseased gums.
It wasn't alone. Three more crawled out from the scrap, forming a loose semicircle around me.
Scavengers.
The knowledge came from somewhere deep in my core, maybe leftover programming. These things ate metal. They'd strip a disabled construct down to scrap in minutes.
They saw me as food.
The largest one—the alpha, if rats had such things—took a step forward. Its metal teeth clicked together in anticipation.
I raised my sword-arm instinctively. The blades caught the light, rust flaking off to reveal steel underneath. Not sharp enough to be a real weapon, but sharp enough to make a point.
"Stay back," I said.
My voice was wrong. Not human. Not even close. It sounded like grinding gears and scraping metal, words formed from the friction of broken parts rubbing together. But it was mine.
The rats didn't care. The alpha lunged.
I swung.
My sword-arm was heavier than I expected, the weight of three blades welded awkwardly into one limb. The swing went wide, missing by a foot. The rat darted in, jaws open, aiming for my leg joint.
Panic overrode thought. My left hand—the wand-hand—came up on pure instinct. The cracked ruby flared, power surging through circuits I didn't know I had.
Fire.
The burst wasn't controlled. It wasn't elegant. It was raw magical discharge, a gout of flame that erupted from my palm like a dragon's sneeze. The alpha rat took it full in the face and went tumbling backward, fur ablaze.
The other three scattered, disappearing into the scrap as fast as they'd emerged.
I stood there, smoke rising from my wand-fingers, staring at what I'd done.
I can use magic.
The thought was intoxicating. I wasn't just trash. I was trash that could fight back.
The alpha rat was still alive, rolling in a puddle of oily water to extinguish itself. It gave me one last hate-filled glare before limping away into the ruins.
I let it go. Killing it wouldn't serve any purpose, and I wasn't sure I wanted to be the kind of thing that killed for no reason.
But I could. That was the lesson. I could defend myself.
I looked down at my wand-hand again, really examining it this time. Each finger was a different wand, broken at different points. The ruby wand had produced fire. What about the others?
Carefully, I focused on a different finger—one that ended in a sapphire shard. I pushed, willing magic to flow.
The air around me chilled. Frost formed on the broken metal at my feet. Not much. Just a skim of ice. But it was something.
A third finger, tipped with cracked emerald, made the nearby scrap shift slightly—telekinesis, maybe, or just magnetic pull.
I was a walking arsenal of broken magic, each piece limited but potentially useful.
Interesting.
This body was a disaster, a patchwork mess that shouldn't function. But it did. And maybe, with the right parts, it could function better.
I looked around the scrapyard with new eyes. Not a prison. A resource.
Somewhere in this trash heap was better armor. Sharper blades. More intact wands. If I could scavenge them, absorb them, integrate them into my body...
I could upgrade.
The thought filled me with something I hesitantly labeled as hope.
I took a step forward, testing my mismatched legs. They held. Barely. The left one ground with every movement, a gear somewhere inside slipping out of alignment. I'd need to fix that soon or risk total failure.
One problem at a time.
First, explore. Map the territory. Learn what's edible—metaphorically speaking. Find shelter, if such a thing existed in a junkyard.
And then?
Then I'd figure out what I wanted to be.
The city loomed in the background, a golden monument to the world that had rejected me. Let them shine in their perfect towers. Let them craft their flawless constructs and dispose of their failures.
I was trash, yes.
But trash could be repurposed. Trash could be recycled.
Trash could rise.
Three Hours Later
I'd discovered several important facts about my new existence:
One: I didn't need to breathe, which was fortunate given the toxic clouds that drifted through the lower valleys.
Two: I could "taste" magic through my wand-fingers. Strong enchantments created a tingling sensation, like phantom electricity. Useful for finding good salvage.
Three: I wasn't alone in the scrapyard.
That last fact was currently the most relevant, because I'd just stumbled into someone else's territory.
The "someone" in question was easily three times my size, a hulking mass of mismatched armor plates welded into a vaguely humanoid shape. Where I was a scrappy improvisation, this thing was a fortress—built from overlapping shields, thick enough to stop a ballista bolt.
It stood in the center of a cleared area, surrounded by piles of sorted scrap: magical items in one pile, weapons in another, mundane metal in a third. Organization implied intelligence.
Intelligence implied I was about to have a conversation.
The massive construct turned to face me, movement ponderous but deliberate. Where its head should have been, there was instead a massive helm—a barbute-style helmet that had been crushed partially inward on one side. Eyeslots glowed dull red.
When it spoke, the voice was like an avalanche deciding to communicate.
"LOST?"
One word. Deep enough to vibrate in my chest cavity.
I considered my options. Running seemed cowardly. Fighting seemed suicidal. That left talking.
"No," I said, my grinding-gears voice sounding thin in comparison. "Just... new."
The construct studied me, red eyes tracking across my mismatched frame. I had the unsettling sensation of being assessed, the same way the artificer must have assessed me before disposal.
"NEW. FRESH. WEAK."
That stung, probably because it was true.
"I'm functional," I countered.
"BARELY." The massive head tilted fractionally. "SWORD-ARM IS COMPROMISED. LEFT LEG GRINDING. CORE EFFICIENCY THIRTY PERCENT."
How could it possibly know—oh. Magic sense. This thing could probably read my components like I was an open book.
"I'll upgrade," I said, injecting confidence I didn't feel. "I just need to find the right parts."
"PARTS HERE ARE MINE."
Ah. Territorial. Made sense.
"I'm not here to steal," I said carefully. "I didn't know this area was claimed. I'll leave."
I turned to go, already calculating which direction looked least likely to get me killed.
"WAIT."
I froze.
The massive construct moved, each step making the ground tremble slightly. It reached into one of its sorted piles and pulled out something—a rod of dark metal, about the length of my forearm.
"COMPRESSION STRUT. FOR LEG. TAKE."
It held the piece out.
I stared. "Why?"
"NEW ONES DON'T LAST. MOST DIE IN DAYS. BREAKERS STRIP THEM. RATS EAT THEM. SCRAP SWALLOWS THEM." The red eyes dimmed slightly, almost sad. "YOU WANT TO LIVE. I REMEMBER WANTING THAT."
Slowly, carefully, I approached. The construct didn't move as I took the strut from its massive palm.
The metal was cold, perfectly machined, far better quality than anything currently in my leg. With this, I could fix the grinding problem.
"Thank you," I said, and meant it.
"SURVIVE THREE DAYS. COME BACK. WE TALK MORE."
It turned away, conversation apparently over, and began sorting through its piles again.
I clutched the strut and walked away, something warm and confusing swirling in my core.
Kindness. In a literal garbage heap.
Maybe there was more to this place—and to existence—than I'd thought.
To be continued...