Undoing

Thick clouds rolled as Imminent Accord—a small, dull purple speck against the mechanical hide of a god—climbed up, further up to their home high above them. Through nothing but their own instincts, or a feeling in their gut, they knew it would not be long until the brief respite from this cycle's rains was over. Still moderately far below the cloudline, they forced themself to push onward despite their weariness. Scaling the superstructure was no easy task, after all—despite how many times they had done it.

Tick.

It was by mere chance, and luck, that there existed a way by which a creature like themself was able to make it to the top anyway. The machines jutting out from the structure's sides did not care whether they were scaleable, so there was only a limited selection of traversable paths that simply happened to make it all the way to the top. The sheer scale of the structure didn't help—often, a path that could bring them halfway up would abruptly end, and they would have to waste several cycles backtracking to the beginning. By now, though, Accord knew almost every reliable way up by heart.

Their current route was... not the most convenient, by far. With only one shelter at the junction between the leg they came from and the wall they were currently scaling, they were obligated to make it from the very base of the wall to the top of the cloud layer in one cycle's period of drouth. Unfortunately, the pack of Yellow Lizards that had recently settled in the underhang between this leg and the wall they would have preferred to climb had ensured it would have taken, they guessed, three or four times as many cycles to get home that way than usual, and they were not keen to wait so long to be safe within the structure's walls again. They would have to find another time to convince the Lizards not to eat them.

Tick.

They scurried along, grasping one piece of jutting machinery after another, pulling themself upward. Bit by bit, they progressed toward the top. The material was not well-suited for climbing, but their experience lent them well to the task. They knew by now that the rickety, rusted-over ladders too widely spaced for them to climb could be pulled apart and embedded in walls elsewhere to reach any just-too-high ledges and that a well-timed leap could bring them across the widest gaps if the wind blew in their favor. As they came up to a tall, flat wall they'd faced before, they remembered their strategy—although the slats in the vents weren't sturdy enough to support their full body weight, they could jam their claws between them for just long enough to propel them up to the next ledge. In one rhythmic movement, they kicked off from the ground, against the wall, and up towards their next destination. On this level, they noticed a cluster of blue fruit—and the faint outline of a White Lizard—against the furthest wall. Hunger panged in their stomach as they realized they'd yet to eat this cycle, but the smell of rain as it grew nearer forced them to move on.

Tick.

Carefully, but quickly, they continued upward. They climbed each series of poles with great precision and turned the corners of the pipes in the walls each in an instant, but as hard as they pushed, they couldn't let themself feel they were going fast enough. The stress was beginning to catch up to them, and their mind wandered as they climbed. If they didn't make it up this cycle, was it worth trying the same path again? As they sprinted across one of the large, flat cooling rods, they picked up a stray spear they knew they'd need later. They didn't want to put themself through the long-winded task of taming the Yellow Lizards, but neither did they want to brute force their way through several rain deaths just for the convenience of the shortcut. They swung from one pole to another and barely managed to grasp it in time. They'd almost rather a sudden Dropwig make a meal out of them than be sent plummeting to the surface by the rain from this height, they thought, though they still turned an eye up at every ceiling they passed under. They reached forward—

FWSHHHHHHH.

Right beside them, a puff of steam was sent suddenly and very loudly out of a vent on the wall. Startled by the sudden noise, their spear flew up out of their hand, and they realized just too late what they had done to be able to catch it. They watched as it fell down, clamoring against the metallic floor beneath them, and regretted their decision immediately when their eyes wandered from the spear to the endless pit of nothing below them.

Tick.

There was no time to go back for it. They would have to bank on stumbling upon another before they reached the wall they needed it for. A few jumps later, they realized they were beginning to be able to see the tops of some of the clouds as they rolled by. Almost there. Much to their luck, they spotted some loose rebar jutting out of the next platform in front of them as they rounded a corner.

Tick.

They leaped forward, grabbed the new spear, and continued onward without a second glance. With a jolt, the ground beneath them began to shake, and the roar of thunder underneath the can resonated against its metal walls. Immediately they ducked into a pipe in the wall and climbed up it, choosing its security over the shaky path up a ladder that might've been faster without even thinking about it. As they shot out of the exit, they saw the wall they needed the spear for straight ahead.

Tick.

In an instant, the spear zipped out of their hand and into the seam between two panels on the wall. They clambered onto it, and it bent under their weight, but they didn't linger long. In mere seconds, they had already shot up past it and into another pipe in the wall above. When they emerged on the other side, they realized they could see the stars.

The structure they stood on still shook uneasily beneath their feet, threatening of the rain below—but the rain was below. At eye level, they could barely glimpse the city atop the nearest can in the distance behind the tops of the clouds. Miraculously, they had made it above them before the rain had even begun to fall.

...

Their internal clock still screamed danger despite the fact. Every inch of their hide crawled as their guts twisted and their heart raced and their mind yelled for them to run, jump, climb, GET OUT before the rain pounded down and crushed every bone in their body. With all the strength they could muster, however, they forced themself to ignore it. They stood perfectly still on the same rusted machine they'd found themself at when they looked up and realized they no longer stared into the thick mass of clouds that threatened to kill them. Pride rose in their chest at the realization that they'd made it up above the clouds on their first attempt.

After they had taken a moment to calm themself down, they continued upward. Though the climb was still tedious, this upper section of it was infinitely preferable to the stretch between the lower shelter and the top of the clouds. They appreciated being able to take the time to make calculated decisions, rather than being forced to push their way up as fast as possible. Slowly, they found their way up to a ledge from which several blue fruit hung, and they sat and relished the flavor as they watched green lightning strike through the clouds in front of the closest Iterator can in the distance. With a full stomach, they got back on their feet and leaped up the nearest pole.

Triumphantly, they heaved their way up the final ledge and into the pipe in the wall they knew meant the end of their tiresome vertical climb. They stumbled their way out of the pipe and into the city's gateway, which after a few seconds of hesitation, sprung to life to let them through, no key required. They struggled to ignore the obnoxious mechanical whirring and the loud thuds as the first gate door shut behind them, but when the steam rose from the grate underneath their feet, everything else melted away. The warm moisture felt so good on their dusty, wind-blown fur, and the soreness of every joint from the climb they'd just made was instantly forgotten. It was over too soon, they determined, but when the gate in front of them opened, they trod on as usual. They were eager to reach their destination.

As soon as they set foot in the outskirts of the city, they were bathed in the warm, orange light. The sun had begun to set, and its rays shone brightly through the cracks between the skyscrapers in their path. Though they wished they could, they didn't stop long to admire it—the only light they would have to guide them through the pitch-black streets would be the soft glow of their Mark, and they didn't want to have to contend with the Spiders. Hurriedly, they tread on into the barren streets. The buildings they passed were dull and dust-covered, weathered by time spent alone. Unlike the ones on the ground, however, they were not battered and ruined by the rain. Delicate structures that would otherwise have been flattened still stood, and the belongings of a people long gone remained strewn across the floors, sun-bleached but otherwise intact. Banners fluttered in the wind atop the buildings, casting colorful shadows on the ground below as the last rays of the sun's light shone through them. They couldn't help but wonder about the city's former inhabitants, and what it might've looked like when the streets still bustled with their activity. As the sky darkened, they walked those same streets with their head turned up towards the skyscrapers. How did they look at night, with their windows aglow? But as they gazed skyward, something else stole their attention. Slowly, something was drifting down from above—like snow, golden flecks of light. They turned and twisted through the air, though they seemed to hold no regard toward the wind, which blew in another direction. The Slugcat froze where they stood and watched them fall, entranced by the way they shimmered. It was something unlike anything they'd seen before. They held out one hand as one of the shards drifted closer, but when it grazed their fingertips, they felt nothing. Instead, it passed by undisturbed, as if their claws were nothing but thin air.

When they turned their head back down towards the buildings, a soft, blue light shone between a cluster of them. It was not in the direction they'd been heading, but... they couldn't help but be pulled away from their path to investigate. Each step toward the light seemed... slower... than the last, and the air gradually grew thicker around them. The golden light continued to fall, more and more of it clouding the sky as they went, until they reached a point at which the light shone down from above them. Another upward climb... but they found themself less reluctant than they had been about the last. Carefully, they made their way up a crooked lamppost, then the sides of two parallel buildings. From the roof of the shorter one, they stared up. They couldn't begin to guess how much time had passed between the first appearance of the light and now, but the sky was black, and the gold flecks of light still rained softly down. The blue glow that drew them in and away from the world around them seemed just above the second building. A spear in the wall and a shortcut through a broken window brought them to the roof, where a thin spire of metal stretched upward. The world spun so slowly, it felt like they swam through the air as they climbed to its peak. And at the top...

How ironic, that I find myself face-to-face with such a beast.

They stared back into the face of a being unlike any other they had yet to see. Its words echoed in their mind and against themselves, as if they existed everywhere, at every point in time, all at once. They forgot ever hearing or seeing anything else as they listened to what it said and watched it sway in the sky. Tattered tendrils twisted like banners in the air (or was it the world, or time itself, that twisted?), and the golden plates that blanketed its face shimmered as they reflected the light around them.

We searched so desperately. We ventured every avenue, considered every possibility. Nothing we did brought us any closer to our destination.

Something about the way it spoke felt wrong. The world itself felt wrong. They felt like they had been untethered from reality and cast into nothingness as they listened to something they felt they had no reason or right to hear.

When we reached our own limits, our grand delusion was that we could create something without them.

It paused, and chuckled to itself lowly. They felt the sound deeply in their chest.

How foolish. We were all undone at the hands of those we created to be our saviors.

...

The very nature of your being is but a reminder of my mistake. I loathe it, and I loathe myself for playing the part.

Although it didn't have eyes, the Slugcat felt its gaze meet their own like a spear to their head.

I have nothing else left to do but regret.

And without another word, the whole world melted into darkness. The nothingness they knew deep down to be true of the encounter had met them suddenly, and everything was gone.

Then... they couldn't place it, but... something within them had changed.

But before they could contemplate it any further, their eyes fluttered open. Shelter doors whirred to life as the rain and crackling electricity outside came to a pause, and the Slugcat came to their senses. They glanced around the... unfortunately familiar, cramped space, and it gradually dawned on them where—or rather, when—they had woken up. With a sigh, they heaved themself off the shelter floor and prepared to make the climb to the top of the can a second time.