Cyborg

Chapter 1: Strangers

Calypso was no stranger to being a stranger to herself. This, however, was different. It started one typical day.

The bell rang. Calypso stood up from her desk, and hurriedly walked to the door. Her teacher said something, but she didn't listen. The rank halls of the untamed school had been littered with trash of all kinds. You didn't know how disgusting things could be until you stepped into a public high school. Calypso stepped into her history class, ready to go home, despite it being only 10am. She whipped her head up, to find her teacher, an average, run-of-the-mill, male history teacher. In years past, she'd had countless history teachers that look exactly like him. He smiled at her, and she looked back at the floor. She plopped her backpack on the ground near her desk, and sat herself on her chair.

She put her earbuds in, and drowned out whatever the class was doing, mostly because she didn't care. Her mother had lectured her endlessly about how she needs to care more about her education, but she knew what she wanted, and what she was good at. She wanted to be a computer engineer. Sure, she would need college to be professional, but she was going to start her own business. If people trusted her with their computers, that would be their problem, and their money would be in her pocket. Before long, she nodded off into a deep sleep.

Explosions rang through the air, not recognizing anything about where she was. A man walked up to her, patting her arm, urging her to get into the unmarked building that stood in front of the pair of them, like a proud man with his nose up. The man looked unkempt yet tidy; disgusting yet refined. Walking into the spacious building, Calypso saw a large, grey room. "It's dangerous to be outside these days," the man said, pulling out a cigar, lighting it with a silver lighter. The cylinder of tobacco lit up at the end, letting off a dense cloud of smoke.

"Where am I?" Calypso asked with genuine interest.

"Where you've always been. Where you will always be."

In front of her eyes, the room around her changed into a large room crowded with computers, full of people, typing away.

"I can only offer one bit of sanctuary in the world of squabbling chaos. I'm only one man after all."

"Who are you?"

The man turned around to face the room in its entirety, his back now facing Calypso. She noticed the parts of machinery on the back of his neck, and she could only imagine it descended down his back, which was covered by a black trenchcoat.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" The man asked.

"What is?" Calypso responded.

"My empire."

In an instant, everything around them disappeared, leaving the two of them standing in nothingness.

"I regret that nothing about my empire is real yet." He hesitated. "..But you, Calypso Moon, could build it to its highest peak." He said, as he raised his hand, clenched in a fist.

Calypso stood, confused.

"Who are you?" she asked. "I won't do anything with your empire unless you tell me who you are."

The man turned back around, letting his hand drop to his side. "Everything will be revealed in time. It would be foolish to reveal all my secrets at once." He said as he turned to face Calypso. He rushed up to her, grasping her shoulders. "Think about my offer." He said, as suddenly everything in Calypso's line of sight bent and shifted, until she was awoken by a loud sound.

She snapped her eyes open to find her history teacher hitting her desk with a large textbook. He had a coprophagous grin painted across his face as he watched you wake up. He expected the whole class to start laughing, but nobody did. He cleared his throat. "Well, Miss Moon, but I'm afraid this isn't kindergarten, you don't get a nap time." He stood up straight, looking down on her. "Now, class, can someone read paragraph five?" He rambled on, but Calypso ignored him.

She stood up, grabbing her backpack, and grabbed the hall pass to go to the bathroom. She walked through the doorframe of her class, and promptly started thinking about her strange dream. Whatever that was about, she probably needed to go to the bathroom or something, and her body just woke her up, right? She walked into the bathroom, and saw the state of it.

The bathroom looked as though it had been abandoned for 20 years or more. Cobwebs decorated every corner of the bathroom, a thick layer of dust topped everything in the musty room. Stall doors had fallen off of their hinges, sinks detached from the pipes. Taken aback by the sight in front of her, she gasped and walked backwards out of the bathroom.

Looking around outside of the bathroom, everything looked to be in the same state. She yelled out to anyone, hoping for a reply. Receiving none, she ran through the halls littered with more filth than she ever thought were possible. She tripped, and fell face first into the musty ground.

She snapped open her eyes, with her history teacher hitting her desk with a large textbook. The same coprophagous grin on his face before was on his face again. He cleared his throat. "Well, Miss Moon, but I'm afraid this isn't kindergarten, you don't get a nap time." She stared at him. She got up, and went to leave again. She sped-walked over to the bathroom, to see if what she saw was a dream.

Throwing open the door, the bathroom looked completely normal. No cobwebs in sight, everything in as much order as a public high school bathroom could be. She slowly walked in, her eyes darting around the room to search for any sign of what she saw before. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw someone by the sinks. Turning to face the individual by the sinks, she noticed the full-grown man smoking a cigar, propped up against the wall, staring directly at her. "What do you want?" she asked in true desperation.

"You know." He said.

Suddenly, she heard a loud noise. Her history teacher hit her desk with a large textbook.