The air smelt different. It tasted different. Lydia could swear by that. She could feel it from the bottom of her feet to the top of her unbrushed hair on her head. She wasn't in her time. The land was a dry, reddish orange colour, covered in sand and cracked in some places. Water must be further away than she had hoped. She scanned the landscape for any landmarks she might need as reference to find her way back to the machine, her home for the past few months. In the very corner of her eye she noticed a pile of rocks no taller than a one story building not far from where she was standing. She began to make her way over to it for a closer look.

As Lydia got closer to the pile of rocks she realised that it wasn't a pile of rocks at all, instead it was a stone pillar, drawings and writing engraved into the sides, fading due to time. She ran her thin hand across the engravings, trying to understand what they were for. She stood there for a while, tracing the stone indents, mimicking the way the artist would had carved them with her un-cut finger nails. All at once she heard a clanging noise from across the large hills beyond where she stood. Her head whipped around trying to locate the source of the noise. Then she spotted it. A boy, not older than 17 was picking up scraps of metal halfway up one of the hills, near what seemed to be a tunnel. He was too skinny, Lydia could see that. Suffered Malnutrition badly, from what she could tell. But he was a human. Lydia's stomach bubbled with excitement at the thought of civilisation after all those months of being alone in the machine.

She broke into a sprint in order to catch up to the boy who was now turning in the opposite direction. Making sure she placed her feet on areas of the ground where there weren't too many large cracks, she found herself at the base of the hill. 'Maybe I can finally get help and go home' She thought to herself, smiling. But in the back of her mind lurked a thought that she tried her very best to push away. The boy was too skinny. Skinnier than her, who had just spent the last 3 months in a small machine with little to eat. That boy was young, and if there was any civilisation near here, she was scared to what she would find.

She traipsed up the hill, careful not to diminish too much of her energy. Keeping the boy in her sight, she stayed behind him enough for him to not notice her. It took just under an hour to reach where the boy had once stood, and by then he was too far away she only saw a speck of his figure in the distance. Strange, she thought to herself, this hill looked far shorter than it was, as if size is distorted in some way. Brushing the red sand from her legs and arms where it had blown due to the wind, she took a deep breath and slowly spun herself around, surveying the horizon for any trace of, well, anything. Something flashed on the horizon, bright enough for Lydia to have to cover her eyes, blinding her momentarily. When she removed her frail hands from her sunken eyes the light was gone. But what stood in place of the flash made her breath hitch. A city, high-rises and all, lay before her on the horizon. That wasn't there before-she knew that at least. "Yes!" she exclaimed, covering her mouth when her voice echoed back to her softer and softer.

The city seemed no further than 5 kilometres away, and Lydia set off at once, watching the sun in case it set before she could reach the city. She had no clue what she would find out here in the black of night.

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Hey guys!
Long time no see.
I'm not going to talk about how long it took for me to get this up, as I'm pretty sure I talked about either in a previous chapter, on my message board, or in my new updates book. Any who...

Thank you so much for reading this chapter, even if it's short. I really hope you enjoyed it and please leave me some feedback on what you liked/disliked about the chapter because I would really appreciate it☺️.

Wow I felt like gossip girl.

Bai now