The Automaton
As I awoke I couldn't see, my optics were not optimized for darkness but I was able to shift them and gather my surroundings. Ruble surrounding me, rebar scraps and scratched paint. I was able to move to my relief, I had only been in the world for a short amount of time before it had all collapsed. Using the strength I had I pushed away enough ruble to form an exit and fit myself through and see the light of mid-day, looking out onto the field of golden grass. I stepped out and gathered myself. To the north there was nothing but fields of golden grass, to the east there were mountains, to the south were the remains of a factory torn to shreds by nature, and to the west was the city. The sun shone on the buildings showing the wear that nature had put on them, but just past the buildings was a mass of storm clouds, dark and ominous. I made the choice of heading to the mountains, and it seemed I wasn't the only one. There were a number of people that were decayed, barely anything clung to their yellowed worn bones, time showing its toll. It was as I examined some of these bones when my hearing came back, having not noticed it gone it was a surprise when I heard the wind rustling the long grass and birds singing in their formations overhead that I had not noticed until then. I saw that all of these things had thrived and I began to feel something. Then I began to feel something physical, my plating heating up as the steam and vapor rose from below me. It was a short life but as I was shot into the air by the geyser I came to appreciate the earth. The shining sun, the glorious mountains capped with snow yet covered in green and brown, the dark gray storm clouds and the life they brought with them. As I plummeted to the ground all I could think was "This world will be just fine."
The Travelers
I awoke beside my partner as usual, gathering our armor and making our way across the tundra. The pieces of our ship needed to be found or we would never get off of this wasteland. We made the unfortunate choice of landing on the most desolate part of this planet, the cap of ice at the bottom of it. We made our way through the pure white of the flakey water that made up most of the ground, the oranges and browns that made up our armor stood out like a metamorphic among sedentary. As we tracked a chunk of our ship we came across a building that was made of metal and a smooth synthetic material, and the creatures that exited it were hostile. They came out of the building dressed in oranges as bright as our home planet's sun, throwing metal from a mechanical device held in its appendage. The metal it threw was at such high speeds that it chipped our armor and it hit my partners armor on its weakest point, it ended up breaking through and hitting their consciousness, the last thing they said was "run". But I had no intention of running. As the creatures threw more metal I absorbed my partners armor and began to fight back. These creatures were surprisingly fragile, very easy to break into pieces and definitely organic as they seemed to need a red fluid within their bodies to survive. Soon there was not much left other than a large stain of red amongst the pure white, and a fractured building in the middle of the red, almost like a target. I felt peace in knowing I had avenged my partner, and with just a few more pieces of the ship to collect I will have regained enough mass to return to the primary ship and report back on what my findings are. This planet is hostile, and its inhabitants are even more hostile, avoiding it entirely or extermination would be most advisable.
A Myth
Octavia was as normal as any other bird, she sang and she "talked" to her owners, she loved crickets and worms, and she loved flying out in the sky. Sometimes she wondered how high she could fly but she usually only got as high as the tallest buildings. Octavia wanted to go further, she wanted to fly as high as possible, she wanted to fly among the stars. One day she decided that's exactly what she would do, she stepped out onto the roads like a runway and began to flap with all her might, she began to soar higher and higher, passing the roofs of houses, passing the tallest buildings, touching the clouds and flying through them, she flew higher and higher until she did it. She had reached the ocean of stars and space flying through it and seeing all the twinkling stars. She saw all the satellites above the earth, many of them broken. As she glided through the inky black ocean she began to realize something, all of those other stars were so far away, it'd take her so long to get to any of them, and she wanted to make sure she could get back in time for crickets. She decided she'd try again another day, and she flew back past the satellites, into the clouds feeling the moisture stick to her feathers, she saw the planes flying alongside her, she saw the buildings and her shining reflection in the windows. As she landed back on her home's windowsill she made it back just in time for crickets. She had decided that her view would be much better if she stuck to the clouds, the stars were nice but there's no crickets up there so why would she want to stay anyways.