Chapter 3: Steampunk Dystopia

Orion established that his age regressed to when he was in his teens, he couldn't tell you what age other than maybe fourteen or fifteen as he still had shoulder length hair back then before he started buzzing it. This presented another problem of being on the more skinny to anorexic side as he had yet to get into any boxing let alone the military at this age. The only upside anomaly spotted was his hands having heavy calluses. 

Clenching his teeth, he glanced at the barricaded door and, thankfully, heard no movement. Quietly, he moved toward the curtains, which were gently flapping in the wind. He couldn't see much but what he did see both scared and awed.

A grey fog had settled in, mixing with greenish hues of windows and twisting together with steam ejecting from some pipes, liquids dripping from others that were tainted in various colors, and some large pipes snaking through the streets but couldn't identify what for. Tipping forward this was definitely a two story building and he was situated at the top. His eyes drifted upward only to be startled by these twisting green lights and Steampunk/Victorian buildings dancing up to the sky with bridges and bridges with housing like cobwebs into the night sky.

His heart raced, and his hands trembled with adrenaline and panic. What the fuck was going on and where was he? That question still wasn't answered. He could definitely tell he was in some backstreets of the city. Closing the curtain he turned around and the room felt like it was elongating toward the door as fear gripped his heart. It took awhile to force himself to calm down.

"Let's be thorough here before moving..." he thought, looking at the barred door before checking under the bed and around the stand. The room was truly decrepit with just dust and cobwebs. Why was he here in a barricaded room that looked like it had never been kept? He lifted the mattress and perked up when he saw a small, dirty book.

This is a good start, he thought, as he quickly flicked through it. It definitely looked like a diary but it would have to wait as he placed it on top of the bed and continued searching the room. Under the carpet? Nope. Behind the bookshelves? More dust. Laying out the items in the bin it seems like he had some spare clothes that fitted him, trinkets and mechanical devices that he was unfamiliar with, and the gun.

"I need to at least be able to know how to use this," he thought but it took only a moment to figure out it was just an oversized single-shot pistol. "Why make a gun like this?" He popped the rear and an large round fell out. Realizing he had two more rounds from the bin, he had three life-saving shots with this weird gun. It felt goofy but he was glad to have it in this situation.

Some relief washed over him as he placed the round back in the chamber and went back to the diary. He wasn't relaxed by any means but was at least starting to grab at some feeling of security. "Please have some useful information here..." he pleaded internally as he began skimming it.