The fall through the Cosmic Drain was not like falling through air; it was like sliding down the throat of a giant, metallic beast. The darkness rushed past them, smelling of rust, ozone, and forgotten dreams. Aryan clutched the Mango-Wood Box to his chest, shielding the precious ingredients they had already gathered, while the First Son used his massive wooden body to shield the group from the debris clattering around them.
"I expected a splash!" Barnaby the fish screamed as they plummeted. "But this feels more like a crash!"
CRUNCH.
They didn't land in water. They landed on a mountain of Broken Moons.
The impact was softened by thousands of layers of cosmic dust, but it still rattled Aryan's teeth. He groaned, sitting up and checking his limbs. His mahogany arm flickered with a dull amber light, reacting to the strange, heavy atmosphere of this place.
"Is everyone alive?" Aryan called out, his voice echoing weirdly, as if the air was too thick to carry sound properly.
"Alive," Mira replied, pulling herself out of a pile of twisted metal gears. "But... look at this place."
They were standing in the Junkyard of the Gods.
It was a landscape of tragic magnificence. Mountains of discarded planets rose into a sky that was the color of a bruised plum. Rivers of leaked neon ink flowed through valleys of shattered armor. Aryan saw a giant, stone head of a statue that looked like the Architect, but with three eyes—a design that had been rejected. He saw trees made of glass that had shattered under their own weight.
"It's the Draft Pile," Sarah whispered, picking up a sword that bent like rubber in her hands. "Everything here was made, but not chosen."
"One man's trash is another man's trauma," Barnaby muttered, inspecting a discarded top hat that had a bite mark in it.
Suddenly, a sound echoed through the canyon of junk. Clank... Drag... Clank.
It was the sound of something heavy being pulled.
"Hide," Aryan commanded.
They ducked behind the shell of a dead star. Peeking out, Aryan saw a figure moving through the debris. It was a humanoid, draped in rags made from the banners of fallen kingdoms. It moved with a loping, uneven gait, dragging a massive sack behind it.
The figure stopped near a pile of glowing debris. It reached down with a hand that wasn't made of flesh or wood. It was made of Unfired Clay and Copper Wire.
"A Golem?" Rhea whispered.
The figure stiffened. It turned its head sharply toward their hiding spot. It didn't have ears, but it sensed them.
"I can hear your heartbeats," the figure rasped. Its voice sounded like dry leaves scraping on stone. "They are too loud. Too... finished."
The figure dropped the sack and leaped. It moved with terrifying speed, landing right in front of Aryan.
Aryan drew the Chisel of Truth, but he froze when he saw the figure's face.
The face was made of grey clay, cracked and rough. One eye was a blue marble; the other was a hollow socket. But the structure of the face—the jawline, the nose, the shape of the brow—was unmistakable.
It was Vikram Khanna's face. Or rather, a crude, early attempt at it.
"Who are you?" Aryan whispered, lowering the Chisel.
The creature tilted its head. It looked at Aryan's mahogany arm. It looked at the glowing golden sap in his veins. A sound of pure, agonizing jealousy escaped its clay throat.
"The Masterpiece," the creature hissed. "You are the one he finished."
The Prototype
"He?" Aryan asked, stepping closer. "You mean my father? Vikram?"
"Vikram..." the creature savored the name like a curse. "He made me. Before you. Before the wood. He wanted to see if he could carve life. He practiced on clay. He practiced on wire. But I... I didn't breathe right. I didn't laugh right."
The creature pointed a crumbling finger at its own chest. There was a hole there, empty and dark.
"I had no Seed," the creature said. "So he threw me away. He said, 'Not good enough. I need to save my son, not build a doll.' And then... he made you."
"You are Prototype Zero," Mira realized, her hand covering her mouth. "You are the Aryan that never was."
The creature—Zero—laughed. It was a sound of grinding stones. "I am the Scavenger of this heap. I collect the things the Architect throws away. I collect the sparks."
Zero reached into his rags and pulled out a small, glowing object. It was a jagged crystal, pulsing with a blinding white light.
Star-Dust.
"You want this," Zero said, clutching the crystal to his clay chest. "I saw you fall. I smelled the cookbook. You want to bake a new world."
"We need it to save the old one," Aryan said gently. "Zero, give it to us. Please."
"Save the old one?" Zero sneered. "The world that threw me in the trash? Why should I save it? Here, among the broken things, I am the King!"
Suddenly, the ground beneath them began to rumble. The pile of broken moons shifted. A siren—loud and mechanical—wailed from the sky.
"WARNING. ORGANIC CONTAMINATION DETECTED in SECTOR 4."
"The Recyclers," Zero whispered, his single blue eye widening in terror. "They found you. Your 'Finished' souls smell too sweet."
The Machine that Eats
From the mountains of junk erupted massive, worm-like machines. They were made of spinning grinders and lasers. These were the Recyclers—the immune system of the trash heap, designed to grind everything down into nothingness.
"Run!" Zero screamed, scrambling up a pile of scrap metal.
"We can't outrun them!" Aryan shouted. "First Son! Defense!"
The Siege-Engine stepped forward, raising his massive wooden fists. A Recycler lunged, its grinders screeching. The First Son caught the machine, his ironwood groaning under the pressure.
"There are too many!" Sarah yelled, throwing a rock at a Recycler. It did nothing.
Zero stood at the top of the scrap pile, watching them. He clutched the Star-Dust. He could run. He could hide in his tunnels and let the "Masterpiece" be eaten. It would be justice. It would be revenge.
But then he saw Mira.
Mira wasn't fighting. She was standing in the middle of the chaos, looking up at Zero. She didn't look at him with disgust or pity. She looked at him with Recognition.
"You aren't trash, Zero!" Mira shouted over the roar of the machines. "Vikram didn't throw you away because he hated you! He threw you away because he couldn't bear to see you suffer! A doll cannot feel pain, but you... you are hurting! That makes you real!"
Zero froze. Real?
A Recycler broke through the First Son's defense. It lunged straight for Aryan.
Aryan was busy holding back another machine with his mahogany arm. He didn't see the one coming from behind.
"Aryan!" Mira screamed.
Zero looked at the Star-Dust in his hand. He looked at the brother he was supposed to hate.
"Not... trash," Zero grunted.
The creature of clay and wire leaped. He didn't leap away. He leaped down.
He landed on the back of the Recycler attacking Aryan. He jammed the Star-Dust crystal directly into the machine's exhaust port.
"Eat this!" Zero roared.
BOOM.
The Star-Dust exploded with the force of a dying sun. The Recycler was vaporized instantly. The shockwave knocked the other machines back, burying them under an avalanche of broken planets.
The Spark of the Unfinished
Silence returned to the Junkyard. The dust settled.
Aryan stood up, coughing. "Zero?"
He found the creature lying near the crater of the explosion. Zero's clay body was shattered. His copper wires were frayed. He was fading.
Aryan fell to his knees beside him. "Why? Why did you save me?"
Zero looked up with his one blue eye. The anger was gone.
"Because..." Zero wheezed, his clay chest crumbling. "Because she looked at me... and she didn't see a mistake."
He reached out a trembling hand. In his palm lay a small fragment of the Star-Dust that had survived the explosion. It was no longer jagged; the blast had refined it into a smooth, glowing pearl.
"Take it," Zero whispered. "Put it in the pot. Make a world... where the clay doesn't crack."
"I will," Aryan promised, tears streaming down his face. He took the pearl. "I will make sure they remember your name, Zero. You are the First Brother."
Zero smiled. It was a crooked, broken smile, but it was the most human expression Aryan had ever seen.
"First... Brother..." Zero breathed.
And then, the clay turned to dust. The wires turned to rust. Zero returned to the Junkyard, not as trash, but as a hero.
Aryan stood up, clutching the Star-Dust Pearl. He put it into the Mango-Wood Box.
"We have everything," Aryan said, his voice hard with grief and determination. "Star-Dust. Void-Water. The First Lie. And the Heart."
"Where is the Kitchen?" Barnaby asked quietly, taking off his hat in respect.
Aryan looked at the Mirror-Book. It showed a reflection of a massive Volcano in the distance. But it wasn't spewing lava. It was spewing Creation Mud.
"There," Aryan pointed. "The Core of the World. The Kitchen of Creation."
He looked back at the pile of dust that was Zero.
"We're going to cook a masterpiece," Aryan said. "And it's going to have cracks in it. Just like him."