Kaithi was standing by the gates of an abandoned amusement park, a horrendously rusted sign welcoming him to the place that had once carried the name of Blue Midnight Peak. Perhaps the park had once been popular, with families visiting it regularly, but now it was just as dead as the rest of the world. The gates hadn't let in a single human being in ages, the stall that sold tickets was badly dilapidated and the fences surrounding the entrance area were just as rusty as the grand sign that still proudly held the amusement park's name. Dead grass was growing all around, infiltrating through asphalt in various patches. A few trees were still standing around, their branches reaching for the dark polluted sky like emaciated hands. A chilling wind was the only regular visitor in the park now, sighing and whispering of the days when Blue Midnight Peak had been bustling with life.
Dark clouds had gathered in the sky while Kaithi had travelled to the amusement park. There was a promise of a storm in the air and he hoped that he could find the Shard he was looking for before the weather would turn worse. Though, in the end it didn't really matter, he was a machine and a storm wouldn't hinder his actions. Kaithi slowly walked through the park's gates, being the only sentient visitor this place had seen in decades. And the further in he got, the more depressing his surroundings became.
Everything had been left to rot. The booths that offered either food or games were in a completely ramshackle state. Stuffed animals that were supposed to be prizes were still smiling and staring into nothingness, and Kaithi felt like they were watching him. Garbage littered the park's grounds, the lightest ones shifting around with the wind. All the rides had rusted and died since they hadn't been able to bring thrill and smiles for people anymore. Some of them were creaking, whimpering as the wind blew around them. Everything just reeked of loneliness. This used to be a happy place, but now it was nothing more but a forgotten memory, a grave for joy. Kaithi felt oddly sentimental about it all as he wandered among the remains of the park. He had visited numerous abandoned places, but this had to be one of the saddest ones.
A detector in his head was beeping uncomfortably while he was looking for the Shard. As the irritating noise got louder and more frequent, he knew that he was getting closer to the Shard's location. Then it got downright maddening when he got a carousel in sight. The impaled horses had once happily carried children on their backs, but now their beauty had faded and they were just shadows of the past, giving rides no more. The paint had flaked from the horses and the rust had conquered the carousel as well. Yet another miserable sight in the abandoned park. Kaithi looked around the carousel more carefully while the beeping in his head was making him want to rip his head off. He tried to be swift, and thankfully, he soon found what he had been looking for.
There it had been, out in the open, next to one of the horses. Anybody could have found it. Kaithi felt relieved when he picked the object up and the noise in his head went silent. The Shard was a piece resembling a fragment of a shattered mirror, having sharp edges that could easily injure a person, and it was glowing a faint blue light. It was about thirty centimeters long in size and it emitted a sensation that it was conscious on some level, something Kaithi had always found strange while looking for these Shards. But it was part of the grand Mother Core, so maybe it wasn't that surprising in the end. Besides, he didn't have to understand anything, he was here to serve Mother Core and bring back her Shards.
Now that his mission was complete and he had successfully recovered the Shard, he could leave the amusement park. Kaithi carefully put the Shard in a slot on his back; this way he had both hands free. As the Shard slid to its place, Kaithi could feel a powerful sensation radiating from it. He found it sort of comfortable, it felt familiar. Then Kaithi headed to the direction where he had come from, intending to leave the park, and stepped away from the rusty carousel.
“Little one, what a burden you carry.”
Kaithi had managed to walk only a few meters away from the carousel when he heard the strange voice. It sounded deep like it was coming from a void and there was a metallic echo to it. It caused Kaithi to stop on his tracks and he looked at the direction of the carousel.
There was an odd creature lying on top of the ride. It had a green and long scaly body, like the one of a snake, but it had many bird-like legs. Black metallic plates protruded mostly from its back, but in various other parts of its body as well. It had a bat-like face, but it was mutilated by mechanical parts. A red glowing robotic eye was staring at Kaithi, while the organic eye appeared grey and clouded; maybe it was blind. The being was like a strange cyborg, and it was bleeding black substance from all around its body. Kaithi had never seen an entity like this one. But maybe it was a mutated monster that had gotten loose when the world died. Abominations thrived on disasters.
“Who or what might you be?” Kaithi asked. “I lack information about being like you.”
The creature let out a hollow laughter. “Oh, little one, no one knows me no more. I am Karakriax, an old god of this world.”
This puzzled Kaithi. “There are no gods but the Mother Core. Your existence is invalid.”
“You are merely a slave. Of course you do not know the truth.” Karakriax swung his tail leisurely. “I do not blame you. No one believes in the gods anymore, people forsake us thousands of years ago. But we have been here, all along. Weak and forgotten, but still here. Just remnants of a once glorious past.” He then shifted his gaze at the dark sky. “Here I am, weeping for our dead world.”
Kaithi stared at the creature, this so-called god, many questions popping in his head. Curiosity, that was the feeling he was experiencing; the desire to know more. How often do you encounter a being that claims to be a deity? And so he spoke: “If you are an ancient god, why do you appear like that, reinforced by parts of a machine?”
Karakriax looked back at Kaithi. “We change with the times or by the faith of mankind. A god cannot live in this world anymore as we once were. My form has drastically changed for this is the age of machines, the metal becoming part of me is how I survive, it is forced upon me.”
The world got altered severely when the great calamity wiped out most of mankind. It was quite mind-bending to think that the disaster had been so absolute that it affected even something so grandeur as gods. But were gods truly real, like this entity claimed? Kaithi had no data that would prove their existence, though this also didn't deny it, either.
“Mother Core is the only god I serve”, Kaithi said. “She keeps us alive in this dead world.”
“Little one, she is just a machine, and a broken one”, Karakriax stated, shaking his head a little. “She is nothing like us, the gods that molded this world.”
“That is not true”, Kaithi huffed, being a little offended by Karakriax's words. “Mother Core is the most powerful entity there is.”
Karakriax laughed again his hollow laughter. “Of course you think like that, little one, you are a devoted slave. She is corrupting the world, what is left of it. There is no one left to oppose her anymore. But you are too young to understand what the world was like before the calamity, it is no wonder that her reign is the only thing you believe in.”
Maybe the old god was right. Kaithi had been built after the disaster shattered the world. He could always try to gather information about what the world has been like, but he had never experienced those days by himself. But Kaithi firmly believed that better times were coming, he just had to find the Shards for Mother Core.
“Mother Core just needs all her Shards”, Kaithi tried to defend. “Then she will get all her strength back and she will lead us to a better tomorrow.”
“Ah, you are one of the Shard Bearers”, Karakriax muttered. “You are looking for the Shards in order to fix your broken god. Is it really worth it, though? Perhaps there was a good reason for Mother Core to shatter into pieces and scatter around the region when the calamity happened. She was supposed to die, and yet, she refused to do so. A persistent machine, but I suppose only machines can thrive here anymore.”
“She is more benevolent than you think”, Kaithi stated. “She gives us refuge and takes care of us; there are even a handful of people still alive in her care.”
Karakriax's mechanical eye stared intently at Kaithi. “You possess a heart, am I correct?”
“That is correct.” Kaithi's hand got drawn to his chest plate. He decided to open it, to show this gift he had got from Mother Core. A slight click could be heard when the plate unlocked and moved upwards, now revealing the contents inside Kaithi's chest. The bare heart was beating, attached to tubes. It almost looked like an ordinary organ, however it was darker than it should have been.
Karakriax watched his beating heart for a minute, remaining silent. In Kaithi's eyes, he seemed a little saddened, even though it was a little hard to decipher his expressions.
“This is how you can feel”, Karakriax then spoke. “Do you know whose heart it is?”
“No, not really”, Kaithi answered. “All I know is that it belonged to a boy who experienced a severe heartbreak.”
Karakriax slowly nodded. “And that is why it is so dark. Tell me, why do you think Mother Core gave this heart to you?”
Kaithi closed his chest plate, to hide his heart again. “Because Mother Core wanted to grant me the ability to feel. Machines are incapable of doing that. I am grateful for her gift.”
“Exactly.” Kaithi wasn't sure, but it looked like the glow on the god's red eye became slightly brighter. “You may think that possessing feelings is a good thing and inherently, they are. But Mother Core is wicked, she wants nothing but to enslave and control. Making others suffer is where her enjoyment lies. She gave this heart to you so you could feel the misery. That is the burden of the dark heart.”
“That… that cannot be…” A hint of dismay found its way into Kaithi's heart. His hand got drawn to his chest plate again. The old god had managed to plant a seed of disbelief and perhaps the fact he was now feeling this way proved his point. Kaithi's life revolved around collecting Shards and serving Mother Core. He had sworn loyalty to her since the moment his consciousness was switched on and he hadn't even dreamed of a different kind of life. But what else could be out there, where Mother Core's wires didn't reach? Could there be a different life entirely?
Karakriax chuckled in a weirdly shrill way. “Poor little one. You are fake, a shell of a person. Just an artificial slave, carrying an agonized human heart. You can think, but you are nobody. No one will miss you when you are gone and machines like you can always be replaced.”
“I am fake…” Kaithi repeated the god's words. Maybe he was right. Kaithi had never dug out the bottom of his heart, but now Karakriax had forced him to. Perhaps he truly was that, just a shadow of a person, nothing but a mockery of a sentient being. It felt awful to feel like this and at that moment Kaithi hoped that he didn't have a heart. He could tell that misery wasn't a strange concept to his organ.
“Why are you telling me all this?” Kaithi asked quietly, looking at the god with sorrowful eyes.
Karakriax laughed again, this time louder and his voice seemed to resonate eerily with the abandoned amusement park. “Poisoning your mind simply amuses me”, he then said, revealing rows of sharp teeth and the glow in his mechanical eye brightened. “Now go, little one. Go back to your false god. Let her suffocate you with those wires of domination. Serve her until your mind breaks and maybe then your body follows. You are nothing.”
Kaithi couldn't utter a single word after that. He just turned around and began to walk away from the carousal. He could still feel the old god's judging gaze on his back as he strolled through the park, going back to the direction where he had come from. Karakriax had successfully made Kaithi doubt his own existence and he hated it. Why couldn't he just be the same as when he had entered the amusement park; a devoted servant to Mother Core, loyally collecting pieces of her so she could be fixed. Instead, he was now a mess; one who had lost the foundation of his very self. The heart, the damn heart… Kaithi wanted to rip it off his chest, but he was afraid that Mother Core would punish him if he did that.
The Shard in his back suddenly felt cold. It reminded him that no matter what, his fate was bound to Mother Core. He would never get away from her, even if he wanted to.
