The Game

I walked along the rainy road on the sidewalk the gloomy sky mirroring my day. Nothing had gone the way I had hoped for. Many days had gone like this since my accident. I didn’t mean to cause any problems. I was only trying to help, I looked up and saw the moonlight brightly shining, beautifully. It glistened with the stars. My accident had been what I made. The technology was overpowered and went out of control. I had destroyed it all, or so I thought.
I stood standing in a puddle drenched in misery. I had been kicked out of my own home. I was eight-teen and wasn’t planning on leaving for at least another year. I walked the empty streets. The downpour was drowning my spirit. I tripped while walking. Because of how I tripped my face clumsily went first. The rain caused the ground to be moist, I stuck my hands out. I felt this drown ding wetness. My hands slipped and my face made contact with the ground. Dirt covered my face, and I tasted the small rocks that were held in it. My face still expressionless, I continued to lay there in the mud. The ground seemed to consume me. Slowly surrounding me. Eating me.
I realized I was sinking in the mud. My eyes darted open as my brain shot ideas rapidly at me. I was completely stuck. I was pulled down into the trap. I closed my eyes and tried to sleep. My life had now truly become a nightmare.
When I awoke I was underground. Roots hung everywhere. I turned and looked around; a dusty haze had filled this underground tunnel, I wheezed the dust had become heavier when I took a step. I could barely breathe. I passed out because I had such a little amount of air.
When I came to I was in an entirely different area. From this higher up place I was at I could clearly see tile, and people walking around most to all of which seemed familiar. This small cave I was in seemed unnatural. It was at the top of a wall, I could reach the ceiling. But I was very high up. Searching for something, someone anything to tell me what to do, and then I found him. I stared for a moment. Confused at what I saw. My baffled expression seemed to confuse, him. He looked up and I noticed, his emotionless face seemed to stare back, but I couldn’t be sure.
He stepped forward using his hand to push roots out of the way. This movement caused dust to be blown around, my eyes started watering. As he got closer and came into the light of the cave’s window I realized that, this wasn’t… Normal. I started to study this shadow. It had my exact shape, an identical clone of me, only as a shadow. Its darkness enabled it to hide easily.
I attempted to look at it, but he jumped backward. “What’s the matter?” I asked proceeding forward slightly smiling and moving on left eyebrow up. He tackled me and pushed me to the ground. The sudden rush winded me. My dry throat throbbed with my lungs as I tried to breathe. With lighting speed, he turned toward me. The sound I made startled him? He made a gesture with his finger; I realized he was shushing me although he was completely silent.
He put his hand down on the ground. Spreading out his fingers his lips moved as if he was talking. I stared at his hand my eyes started to twitch. My mouth ripped open in astonishment. The ground started to open, moving me through down farther. This darkness clone had controlled the ground and pulled me through.
I quickly shut my mouth. The dirt pushed against my face roughly. I was scratched by small rocks. Blood dripped from these small cuts and the dirt started to move into the cuts. Pain shot through me. My mouth opened to release the suffering, but I was still in the ground. The disgusting taste of dirt roots and small bugs filled my mouth. I closed my mouth instantly; the pain struck my wounds as lightening strikes the ground.
I fell out of the ceiling. I crashed down bringing roots and small rocks with me. The rough ground covered my shirt with dirt, making its usually white sheen a musty gray eyesore. I opened my eyes and rubbed them wildly to remove the mud and small rocks. Another small cave, I saw a blinding light at the end of this one, but the shadow next to me was still as dark as night. The dirt caves seemed to fill half of the area I was at, one half I hadn’t even seen. These caves seemed to make a large labyrinth. Something had defiantly been following me in these caves, not only the shadow.
Although I had been dragged around a lot already, the darkness wasn’t done. Its hulking strength gave it the ability to pull me around whenever it really felt like it. When it grabbed my arm this time, its grip ripped my sweater and constricted my arm. At this point I also noticed that the hand of the darkness was colder than the midnight rain.
The shadow treated this like life or death. With full speed it yanked my arm and I was pulled through the air to the brightening light at the end of the cave. This sudden movement caused the air to aggressively slash at me. The coldness of the air stung me with sharp spiky points. The cold pulsed through my body making me shiver uncontrollable. I realized the light at the end of this tunnel was actually really far away. My teeth became possessed and started to chatter.
My head hesitantly turned as I looked at my hand. The normal colour or skin, and life had faded away. The colour that now replaced my hand was blue. This emptiness was moving up my arms. My body was becoming numb, void of life. My eyes began to tighten.
Finally we reached the end of the tunnel. I felt as though the run had lasted an entire lifetime waiting constantly. Inevitable we made it to the end. My eyes felt frozen shut, but opened quickly when the heat started to return. I hurriedly moved around in an attempt to warm up. My body felt like it had an ice coating covering it. But I ended up being warm. The fervent heat scorched me I was instantly warm.
At this point I got a good look around. The tiles covered the ground perfectly. A small path of water followed me. Many different people walked around. All of these people had the darkness clones following them, or vice versa.
I began to think about what had happened. The speed level reached was completely unconceivable. Long ago I had created a robotical creature capable of doing things it was inhumane; somehow it got the “unreachable” goals. But the immense amounts of energy required to fuel these monstrosities created panic and unhappiness. I had to dismantle them because within a day their fuel intake surpassed that of a car that had been used for longer than a year.
I had ensured that the mechanical beasts hadn’t been studied by anyone before I took them apart. I was certain nobody had seen them. Once thinking a little more about the devices I stared long and hard at my shadow. Had this been a dream? No the amounts of pain and many other things had been far too strong for this to have been a dream of any sort.
I thought a tiny bit more. These silhouettes defiantly resembled the things I had made. They had been corrected however. I had studied for awhile on how to cure my machines of this infection but I was kicked out of my home before anything could be discovered. I came to the fruition that my studies had been discovered and used to correct the darkness clones.
They were originally made for the purpose of keeping children content, playing games with them and such. But I couldn’t afford paint while creating my first one I had barely enough pieces to make it in the first place. I had assumed these mechanical shadows had been upgraded for military purposes and would then be used for night missions or at any time when a person was unable to keep hidden.
There would be replacement armies. My technology would be used for destruction. I was very worried about this. I hadn’t been sure why I was kicked out, but I had refused the government of my creations for war purposes. They respected my decision but obviously didn’t agree with me.
I looked up and saw an older man look over to me and say “Welcome to the retreatment. I’m from the future a clone of you only older. I and although I am only a robot I believe I have much to teach you. The future I come from is one of trigger happy morons who created hulking monsters using your technology. This resulted in destruction of parts of the world, until only small parts remained. This location is the last stronghold until the future is doomed. I escaped and came back to prevent you from creating these in the first place. I already failed my mission, but now you must know what to do.”
My mind scattered every which way and I decided, yes I did know what to do. It made perfect sense. Well almost. It would be a lot of work; I’d make more machines to oppose the threat, new creations that weren’t normal abnormal machines to protect.
Then the older man looked directly at me and spoke carefully, “Welcome to your home” He smiled and then directed me toward a room. I saw many pieces of scrap metal and tools. My work had begun.