My Gaia System

A boy, who could be no older than fourteen, wandered through a desolate wasteland. Red rocks jutted out of the uneven terrain, giving it a reminiscent look of a certain red planet known as Mars. However, this was simply a similarity. Not a single cloud floated in the crystalline blue sky as the bright sun beat down like a hammer.

The teen's body was unimaginably emaciated. If it wasn't for the fact he was walking, one would confuse him for a corpse. Unceasing winds swept sand into his lifeless eyes. Yet, the boy showed no reaction, continuing at a constant pace, occasionally stumbling but always moving forward.

If this world could be compared to Earth, the first noticeable thing would be the size difference. In fact, in the eyes of Titan, Earth was but a speck of dust. It would then be hard to miss the big lashes cutting deep into the world's crust. One could not even fathom how many years this planet had withstood the tests of time. Any one of these gullies would put the Grand Canyon to shame, a mere paper cut in comparison. The planet had been eroded down to the bone, yet no large bodies of water were visible on the surface. To add insult to injury, enormous craters lay amuck, making the planet look like it had horrible acne scarring.

As the boy continued forward, the winds slowly dwindled. With the dust finally settling, a few shrubs could be made out every few hundred meters, dotting the endless rocks with a tinge of green and yellow.

Without warning, a trickle of blood ran down the boy's cheek. As more blood flowed, tiny grains of sand that had been lodged in his eye fell, bouncing off his cheekbones and falling to the ground. Finally, as the last of the grains fell, the bleeding stopped, and a deep emerald green flooded back into his previously cloudy gray eyes.

"Hahaha, it was naïve of me to hope that there would be anything but the same damn rocks in front of me." The boy laughed crazily in his mind while his facial expression remained unreadable.

To any blind person, regaining vision would make them weep out of joy, yet this weird phenomenon did not seem to faze the boy in the slightest. It was clear that this was not the first time this event had occurred.

However, this was not the only strange occurrence. Soon after, an animal resembling a jackalope stuck its head out of the rocks. As if it were a trained pet, the jackalope hopped over and sat in front of the boy, slightly bowing its head with its antlers pointed down. Staring at the giant underfed rabbit, a small yet inescapable flash of sadness appeared in his eyes. After a few moments of both animal and human standing still as statues, the boy knelt and wrapped his arms around the rabbit, almost half his size. Surprisingly the strange animal did not even blink when it felt the arms wrap around it. As the boy's embrace moved from the fluffy animal's hide to its neck, a small tear fell from his face. As the tear landed on the jackalope, it flinched slightly, distressed by the boy's sudden sadness. However, the jackalope was not concerned for long as the boy gritted his teeth and snapped its neck in one fluid motion.

"Hey bunny, why don't you value your own life? Is it because this shitterland drove you to suicide? Maybe you had the right idea, and I'm the crazy one for not killing myself already." From the boy's speech, it was evident he had lost his sanity a long time ago.

Carrying the jackalope's dead body, the boy headed for a small natural cave cutting into the rock. There, he clumsily skinned and gutted the animal, his actions clearly lacking technique.

"At the very least, I should make use of your gift to me before I end it all. Thank you, Mr. Bunny."

Afterward, he hungrily bit into the raw meat. Even though a few shrubs were scattered amongst the red rocks, one would be kidding themselves if they thought they could gather enough wood to make a fire.

With his appetite satiated, the boy carried the fur and the remaining meat outside the cave, where he laid them out on a rock, letting them cure to the best of his abilities. While passing the time, he broke off the longest part of the jackalope's antler and began whittling it on a rock, turning it into a stake.

The boy inspected his fine new weapon. "This should do the trick!"

Without a second of hesitation, he plunged the antler into his throat, bringing a fountain of blood down upon the consecutive rocks below. No scream left his gurgling throat as his body collapsed.

Silence soon returned to the wasteland void of life. Yet, the peace did not last for long as the antler protruding from his neck was slowly getting pushed out. The process only sped up, and in the blink of an eye, the bloodied antler was lying on the hard rocks next to the boy, who had his eyes open with the wound no longer visible.

Hunched over, the boy buried his face in his hands. The silence of the wasteland was piercing, but slowly it was broken by the sound of maniacal laughter as the boy threw himself back to face the empty sky.

"Hehe, Of course, how silly of me to forget! Why would stabbing myself make any difference when jumping from a cliff, suffocating in the sand, and starving not work. God be damned if I ever find who trapped me in this endless hell!"

While he would have liked nothing more than to rest for another few minutes, his body would not allow it.

Getting up with the failed attempt under his belt, the boy walked over to a small cactus-like plant. As far as the eye could see, there were no other cacti; it was truly a rarity. Using the bloodied antler, he deburred the cactus and dug it out of the ground, poking a small hole in it and holding it up to the sky. After a few seconds passed, half a mouthful of water filled his cracking mouth.

It had been two years since the boy had woken up alone in the endless wasteland of rocks, having zero memories about his life from before that point in time. He knew how to talk and was very knowledgeable about the names of various objects he had never had the pleasure of encountering. And yet, he did not know who he had been before. Even his name eluded him.

In place of his lost memories, an unsatiated hunger drove him to continue walking in a particular direction. There was no understanding of why, just that it was the only way to satiate the need. The hunger was so intense that eating and drinking came second. At times the hunger pains even felt so strong that he would ignore rest or walk-in unfavorable conditions like the previous sandstorm.

In fact, the only reason he was alive was that his body did not seem to want to let him go. It was his prison, and he was the only one locked inside. The boy would get a meal every few days whenever an animal would appear out of the desolate desert to give its life as a sacrifice. Occasionally one would even lead him to a small water source.

Unfortunately, his body had not grown during his two years in the wasteland, probably because of the rough conditions.

Since then, he had long lost his optimism about the future. The endless rocks and constant pain had left him depressed with several loose screws.

Time passed, and the boy picked up the hide of the jackalope and added it to his mix of animal hides covering his body.

The days were almost unbearably hot. That said, they did not even compare to the cold nights, and despite the fur being hotter, it felt better than constantly being baked by the sun.

With nothing else to do, the boy put the remaining meat into a small pouch before continuing his seemingly never-ending journey across the barren landscape.

His life was uneventful for roughly the next three weeks. The remaining meat quickly ran out, and his harsh slow life stayed the same. Only, there was one colossal difference; he could finally feel himself nearing whatever was causing his strange hunger. In turn, his pace, which had remained the same for two years, suddenly picked up. And yet, this change could not compare to when a voice suddenly broke the eternal silence surrounding him.

"Oh, dear! Where are your parents? Are you lost? Are you injured?"

"A voice barraging me with questions? Tch, I must really be losing it again." Voices were nothing he hadn't heard before, only each time, it turned out to be his imagination playing tricks on him. On multiple occasions, his brain had even convinced him into mistaking a rock formation for a person or a settlement.

However, it stupefied him to see a real person running toward him upon turning around. It was not until their soft hands landed on his shoulders that he suddenly became grounded in reality. Unfortunately, the shock hit him so hard that he stumbled back, tripping over his own legs and cracking his head on a rock, immediately blacking out.