CONSTRUCT, Chapter Three

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CHAPTER THREE

The drop from the burning room ended in cold water, where he lost consciousness. He awoke submerged, face down, with no idea how long he’d been there. Some sense described his surroundings in the pitch-black cave, feeling every curve of the smooth rock walls, where the stream wound through the stone floor, guiding him toward the way out. Soon, daylight filtered back into his sight and led him to a chamber open to the sky.
        Climbing out of the cave mouth was a chore with only one working arm. A rope-and-slat ladder to one side of the deep hole looked sturdy enough, but attempting to climb it snapped the ropes and brought the ladder clattering down on his head. The climb was treacherous, but he found enough handholds and footing to make it up to open air. At the edge of the opening was a calm pool fed by a small stream that ambled down into the grove from the higher foothills.
        With no sign of his memory returning, he tried to parse out the things he knew from the things he didn’t. Basics were still present—the names of objects and colors, how to walk and balance, language, mathematics. And yet, in all that basic knowledge, what images he could discern felt out of place. None of the names that cropped up in the jumble of his thoughts rang familiar, and certainly none felt true enough to be his own. More disturbing to him than not remembering who he was, though, was not remembering what he was.
        He obsessed over this thought as he studied his one working hand. His fingers moved with strength and grace, and could bend almost as far backwards as forward. His feet had no toes but were segmented from ankle to tip, the bottoms made of a wood-like substance as hard as stone. His entire foot could curl almost completely down onto itself to provide him with sure footing and balance, certainly a help in climbing out of the cave.
        The rest of his body was a collection of metal plates in varying hues of gold and orange and brown, held in place by rivets whose tops were worn almost flat with time. Some were stained green with age, but he found almost no signs of rust. Certain sections—his shoulders near his neck, his right outer thigh, and the lower sides of his torso—were built of the stone-wood material. All his joints moved freely from his toes to his neck, save for the damaged arm, but he couldn’t quite see how his joints articulated. At times, inflexible metal parts seemed to shift and twist to make movement possible, and any actual joints that existed were well hidden beneath the metal.
        None of that matters if I don’t know what or who I am. Somewhere, in all these plates and rivets and joints, must be some sort of clue. As he contorted himself to scan the less accessible parts of his form, the sun peeked over the horizon, glinting off of the metal of his upper back. He caught the reflection in the water below and saw something dark on the backside of his shoulder.
        Brushing away the dirt that had settled into the crevices was difficult, but the light began to pick up as the sun rose, and in the reflection he saw what lay beneath: letters. The engraving was old and worn and almost unreadable, but he could make out a few shapes in the reflection; an S and an A together, what looked like an M, at least what he could see of it, a large gap of nothing followed by most of an L, the rest unreadable.
        No matter how many times he tried to make a word, the letters didn’t quite work out, and the spaces in between were too worn to be read. Was it a name? Samuel? He rolled the word over in his head, searching for familiarity, but found none. Maybe if I say it out loud?
        “Samuel.” His own voice surprised him. A smooth, resonant sound…natural. He had expected something grating or metallic, but it was measured and even rather pleasant. “Samuel,” he repeated. Still no familiarity, no pang of recognition, no sudden flash of memory.
        “I guess it’s as good a name as any,” Samuel said.