The Inferno
He woke up.
Brendan rolled over slowly, his head pounding and his chest aching. He raised himself up slowly with his arms, and then achingly brought his legs under himself, standing up woosily.
His chest was aching.
He tore open his shirt, and found actual, real life flesh there once again. A smile started to creep over his face as he inspected his entire body, and not a trace of his robotics were apparent.
"Heh..." he said to himself, "It's good to cuddle the junk again."
A lightning strike behind him made him whirl around, still holding onto his manhood with his left hand and staring wildly.
Everywhere he saw sand. No trees, no buildings, just sand. Dunes and dunes of sand. And in the sky, angry red clouds belched spikes of electic hate upon the ground, sending sand flying up hundreds of feet into the air.
After the shock of the strike faded, he looked around him and found his armor, as well as all of his supplies. He reached down to grab his helmet. Yanking on it, he brought it up... and a skull rolled out of it.
His entire suit of armor was wrapped around a skeleton.
He stopped, staring at the skull which seemed to mock him. He blinked twice, and then shrugged off the feeling of dread, telling himself that "it's my ****, why should I care if there's a skeleton in it?"
...
Now wearing his gear, Brendan walked slowly across the bleak sand, all the while thinking about what he might be doing here.
The last thing he remembers is falling asleep with an entire package of pills and a full bottle of whiskey swimming in his bloodstream, and thinking about that made him mad at himself and whatever it might be that made sure it didn't work.
It was his life, god dammit. He could end it if he so wanted to or not. And he wanted to end it. He was going to find the sorry bastard who revived him and put a bullet or twenty in him, then finish what he started.
When that thught crossed his mind, the entire cloud cover above him seemed to split open like an over ripe apple, dumping foul smelling rain on him in almost pint-sized raindrops. The drops bounced harmlessly off of his armor, but when they hit exposed skin they felt like beanbag shells from a riot gun.
In the distance, he saw something... and that something struck a chord of fear in Brendan's heart.
A humongous tower of glass in the distance, it's sides arcing the lightning off of it and flashing in dark colors... red, purple, black.
Brendan had no choice... he walked toward it.
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