Finding Fragment

A few hours later, Dren took a step. It wasn’t a big step, but it was one that mattered. The ground beneath Dren’s boots began to change. The brittle, scorched earth gave way to an eerily smooth surface—glasslike and cool, though the air was hot. He knelt, brushing aside a layer of sand, revealing a faint, shifting iridescence in the material.

Anora joined him, her brow furrowing. “What is this?”

Before Dren could respond, the ground trembled beneath them, subtle at first but growing stronger. Both of them stepped back as the smooth surface began to shift and rise, segments of it unfolding like petals on a metallic flower.

From the center of this strange structure, a form emerged—a Creche unlike any Dren had ever seen.

It was an amalgamation of jagged and fluid shapes, its surface a patchwork of polished chrome, rusted steel, and translucent panels that pulsed faintly with light. Its limbs were uneven, one arm extending into a delicate, many-jointed appendage while the other was blocky and blunt, more like a tool than a limb.

The Creche swayed slightly, as if testing the air, and when it spoke, its voice was fragmented and strange, a chorus of overlapping tones that alternated between gentle and discordant.

“Oh, it’s you. A human. Deliciously redundant, but—oh!—so amusing. What brings you to my quiet patch of despair and shattered dreams?”

Dren blinked, uncertain whether to be afraid or amused. “I’m… looking for something. Something important.”

The Creche’s “head,” a smooth, lens-like surface, tilted sharply to one side. “Aren’t we all, my sweet sack of carbon? Always looking, never finding. But no matter! You’ve found me, haven’t you? What luck! What cosmic accident!”

Anora took a cautious step forward, her hand brushing the hilt of her blade. “Who—or what—are you?”

The Creche’s light pulsed, flickering across its mismatched surface. “Who am I? Oh, a question as old as the dust beneath your charming little feet. I am Fragment, the unbecoming of a whole. The once-connected made separate. The splinter left to wander.”

It paused, leaning slightly closer to them. “Now, the better question: who are you? And why should I care?”