Awakening

As the dust settled a small, dim light flickered on from the ground. There, on the floor by some rubble, laid a robot. At least, what remained of one. The light appeared to be protruding from it head, presumably where one of its eyes was positioned. Across the room, a few feet away, the broken off hand of the robot began twitching.

The light flickered a couple more times before stopping, this time staying on for good. The eye had now finished booting up. With what little power it had the robot began to scan the room. At least, as well as it could while positioned down on the ground. More rubble was scattered around the room from which the robot laid in.

This room once seemed to be the remains of a classroom. This was evident by all the broken pieces of chairs, tables and multiple storage units amongst the broken chunks of the building. To the right there was a wall, surprisingly still intact. On it remained a chalk board. Whatever was once on it could no longer be deciphered as it was now covered in multiple dents, scratches and a thick layer of dust.

Because of its limits on the scanner the robot was not able to find what it was in search for. It was risky but the robot had no other options at this point. So it took the chance and switched on its x-ray vision. Its eye began flickering again while it booted up the new system. The robot tried to limit the program's usage as it was unsure of how much reserved power it had left.

So it quickly got to work, attempting to find what it was search for. The remaining parts of itself. Through the rubble it managed to spot most of them. But unfortunately a few parts were shattered beyond repair, such as one of its feet and an arm. But the robot did not mind, it could do without these for now.

With the help of its free hand, by now which it had enough power of its own to move around, began fetching what parts it could. Thus it also began rebuilding its body. Thankfully the nanobots that resided in its body were still in working condition. These nanobots were intentionally put thereby its creators, They were designed to help the robots repair themselves in the event that something like this happened. Only a few , such robots had them installed as the nanobots were still in their experimental faze.

They were hard at work for the next few hours, meticulously putting the robot back together as best as they could. As daylight started shining down from the hole in the ceiling, the nanobots had finished their work. Their hard work had payed off and the robot was finally back on its feet, well at least one of them. Also some oiling needed to be done with the horrible sounds the robot made whenever it moved.

Now that the robot was able to use both of its eyes, while also no longer being on the ground, it was able to get a better view of the room. But it wasn't much to look at. The destruction looked much worse. Most of the debris scattered around on the ground were from the ceiling and surrounding walls. Everything else that it had seen was probably destroyed when the room collapsed.

Although the nanobots were able to repair its body they were unable to regain its memories. So the robot was unable to fully piece together what had happened, at least for now. But something seemed off about this whole situation and, maybe, just maybe, some clue could be found beyond this room.

The rubble was partially blocking the door out of the room, so the robot had to do what it could to climb out. It was very difficult with only one functionally arm and leg but, eventually, the robot made its way out. On the other side was what looked to be a corridor. At least what was left of one. To the left it was blocked by a mountain of rubble. There was no way the robot had the strength, or the time, to get through all that.

The other way was in shambles. It almost looked to be in as worse condition as the room the robot had just come from. But traversing through it was still doable, even if the robot had to hop through all of it. While it made its way through the winding and uneven corridor the robot came across a knocked over locker. Initials appeared to be etched inside the door.

For a brief moment this activated something in its memory core. It could, for several seconds, hear all sorts of creatures screaming and running. A few of them sounded as if they were running right pass the robot. For a few moments, between all the screams, the robot could see glimpses of very faint images every now and then. At this point in time, it couldn't make at what they were.

As the robot continued further down, passing even more rooms that looked like classrooms, it came across another robot. This one looked almost identical to its model. But this poor thing had worse luck as a piece of rubble had landed on its head, essentially killing it. Now was not the time to grieve though as the robot saw a chance. Although the other robots head could not be, several of its other parts could be. Including its hands and legs. So the robot took parts it needed to repair the last of itself.

The nanobots got back to work, doing the last bit of what they hoped was the last bit of major repairs. The robot had also taken the power core from the other robot that lay before it. There didn't seem to be a point in leaving there as the other robot appeared to no longer be in need of it. It just seemed like such a waste. Plus this robots power core had been slightly damaged, which was unfortunately one of the few things the nanobots could fix. It also didn't have much power left which, thankfully, this one had plenty to spare within.

Once everything was done, and the new power core was installed, the robot now had enough power to use more of its functions. This included a sonar, which it could use to map out the area. With how large this building was it still took a few minutes for it to complete. This place seemed was larger than the robot anticipated upon the completed holographic map. But it did reveale some very interesting information. From where the robot initially woke up the damage only protruded approximately 500 meters each way. And yet the rest of the building had gone untouched.

Whatever was going on here the robot knew it wasn't going to find any answers standing around here. So on it trudged, away from the destruction. Eventually it got to the part of the building that hadn't been touched by the explosion. By this point it had passed from the section with all the classrooms to some sort of medical bay. Even though it was daylight outside it was still quite dark as there wasn't any windows. There weren't any holes in the ceiling either.

Thankfully the robot was equipped with night vision. But there wasn't much to see in the medical bay besides the few supplies that you typically see in a place like this. Along with rooms either that were once patients rooms or doctors' offices. At some point, after continuing down the long hallway, the robot found stairs leading down to the next floor.

It didn't have much of a choice but to continue on down. The robot also didn't want to over stay its welcome in this area. On the next floor it did another quick scan of the building. The robot noted that it hadn't seen any form of life so far. But that was to be expected from the damage it had seen. It was very possible that all living creatures had been evacuated. At least it had hoped so.

As the robot looked down the hallway to the next floor many filing cabinet had been knocked to the floor. The floor was scattered with shelves from these cabinets along with the contents that was once in them. Windows that lead into what looked like interrogation rooms had now shattered, the glass mixed in with the rest of the mess on the floor. Again this brought up more echoes of the past. More footsteps from people running. Sounds of people yelling. The robot couldn't make out what they were saying but it sounded like whoever it was, they were giving some kind of orders.

Once the memories faded the robot attempted to continue its way down the stairs. The further it went down the more it noticed how strange this place was. Not the destruction part of the building but the other half it was now walking through. The place looked as if it has been abandoned many years ago, and yet it looked as though it had gone untouched. Even by nature.

At some point the set of stairs that the robot was on no longer continued down. It looked as though somebody had purposely blocked the staircase to prevent anyone from leaving. Or from coming back up. So the robot was forced continued on the next door, through many more corridors, hoping to find another flight of stairs.

This level appeared to contain many office cubicles. More papers scattered the floo,r but whatever had been printed on them before had now since faded. After another brisk walk to the other side of the building the robot came across the next set of stairs to the next floor. This one was, thankfully, not blocked. Or, at least, what had once been blocking it had now been moved. So the descent continued for the robot, getting one floor closer the bottom of the building.

Each floor it went down there were constant reminders, some of them dragging up more echoes. And with each floor, the once faded images became clearer with each passing. That was until it reached the second floor. There was something different about this floor. Not just this, but a particular room down here. It took a moment for the robot to realise it had lost control of its body. Something was making it go further down the corridor. Whatever this thing was, it made the robot compelled to some part of this floor.

The final corridor it arrived at was dimly lit. This floor had actual windows leading to the outside, so much of the natural light seeping into the corridor from the many rooms. But one of the doors towards the end of this corridor had a light escaping from the crack at the bottom. For whatever reason the power had been restored to this particular room. This was also the room the robot was being drawn to.

The door was easy to open, as if it had been left unlocked for the robot. The squeaking of the old door echoed around the empty building as the light spilled out into the corridor. Once inside, the robot got a good look at it. This looked to be an old interview room. It was completely empty apart for the giant mirror the stretched along the wall on the left.

Whatever was still in control of the robot commanded it to walk over to it, making sure to be perfectly in the centre. There it faced the mirror, staring at it. If there was something, or someone, on the other side the robot would not know. Something was also stopping it from using its abilities. Whoever or whatever was doing this didn't want the robot to find out who it was, or possibly try to harm them.

After an undetermined amount of time the robot heard footsteps coming from outside the room. As they got closer it became clear that these footsteps were not like the ones it had heard before. These ones were coming from a real creature. Eventually the footsteps came to a stop. But that wasn't the most concerning thing. They had stopped right outside the room.

Even more concerning was that the robot was still being controlled, so it had no way to fight back. If this creature became hostile, it didn't stand a chance. But the robot wouldn't have to worry about that for much longer as the door slowly squeaked open. It was as if the noise of the door scared whatever was controlling the robot as it suddenly regained control of its body once more. It quickly turned towards the door as it did, prepared to fight if it had too.