kevinbugle

[kevinbugle]

King of Tin: Chapter 1

Waking up on a pile of plastic, rusty metal, and other spare bits of rotting garbage can never be the ideal way of waking up but unfortunately for me that is how my day started. Speaking of which, who am I? It took me a few minutes. Nix is about as far as I got. Nix. It didn’t sound right like saying a word too many times that it sounded familiar but wrong even though it's still the same word. But it was all I had to go off of so Nix it is. Now onto the next conundrum I faced; where am I? As far as the eye could see where piles upon piles of trash, rotting, bloated, festering trash. How I got here or why I was here completely escaped me. I don’t really know anything to be honest. I got up which was a hard task to complete as everything felt completely numbed until I tried to move my pelvis in under to sit up and then a wave of pain crashed through me. Blood rushed through me.

My predicament changed for better or for worse would be determined when a large figure approached me. It was a person but that could be easily mistaken as a pile of trash that had grown legs and started to move on its own. His hat was nothing more than a lid from a trash can with bits of Styrofoam dangling around the perimeter making it look like the ugliest sombrero ever invented. He wore a giant rain cloak that was covered in a strange greasy, ichor. Underneath the cloak he wore another thick jacket that was equally as musty. Trinkets, baubles, and other random junk strung around his chest and belt. He lumbered my way and I was so perplexed by his appearance I took no thought as to whether I should be afraid or not. But he managed his way over to me. He towered over me as I laid in the filth.

“Hi. My name is Pavel,” the man, Pavel, cheerful said to me. His face to no surprise was caked in grime. He had a prickly black beard and from the looks of it seemed he was bald.

“Nix,” I replied

He hand shot into satchel on the side of his hip. He rummaged and pulled out a little notebook with a pencil tied to it. He opened it up and jotted something down. “N-I-X, I assume?” He asked.

“Yeah,”

He put the notebook away. “It’s my book of names. You're the first Nix I’ve come across,” He smiled at me and waited awkwardly for me to respond. 

“Thanks,” It made sense to say.

“So Nix, what brings you here?”

“I have no idea,”

He frowned and put his hands on his hips. “Really? No idea at all?”

“No idea,”

“Well, that’s a bummer. Can you move okay?”

“Let me see,” and I mustered the strength and attempted to stand up. It hurt but I managed.

“Good work,” Pavel smiled at me

“Thank you,”

“You want to hang out at my house?”

“Yeah, sure,” I didn’t really want to but I had nowhere else to be. But now that I thought about it, he’s house was probably just somewhere here in the junk.

He held onto his smile “Right this way then,”

Pavel turned and started walking and I followed. Maybe it was the weight of all his junk but Pavel was slow as shit. He waddled more than walked but lucky for me I was also sort of waddling as my legs didn’t feel quite right so for the moment I was content with the pace. It didn’t help that the floor was made up of uneven junk so it was like stepping on rocks, jagged, rusty, smelly rocks. We walked for what seemed like half an hour before we were stopped. There was a man in front of us. He wasn’t wearing a shirt. He had a metal skull mask on and his eyes were glowing red. He wore thick, red cargo pants and had various cains hanging between his pockets. The most concerning aspect of him was the big wrench he had in his right hand. Pavel and I stopped. I stood behind Pavel. Pavel didn’t seem all that bothered by the man but I couldn’t see his face.

“Greetings traveler,” Pavel said to the skull man

The man groaned and then coughed or maybe it was a laugh that came out wrong. Some kind of liquid squirted out between the teeth of his skull mask. “Hand it over,” the man finally croaked out. He extended out his hand. “Your Paste,”

“I have no Paste,” replied Pavel, more concerned and serious than he had been with me. I could rightly assume that Pavel wasn’t happy to see this guy. Maybe an old rival.

I was very concerned about what this paste stuff was.

“Haha, I know you got some *ugh* Paste there buddy so *snort* hand it over,” the man shot back.

Pavel pulled back his cloak and grabbed something.

“Heehee,” the man snickered loudly and I could see his fingers flex around the handle of the wrench. Oh dear. The man lunged forward but with one quick movement, a blur of silver, Pavel demolished him across the face with a club. The man lurched backwards clutching his skull face.

He howled “Ow. Ow. Ow. Ooooooooooo,”

Pavel was holding a metal rod, nothing really special about it, just wrapped with tape at the handle but it was oddly shiny compared to how dirty everything else he carried was. “You done?” Pavel firmly said.

“RAH,” The man hissed back at Pavel. In another swift motion, Pavel extended out his arm and brandished what I assumed was a gun, I don’t know what else you would point at a man with deadly intent. Pavel pulled the trigger and a large spike shot out from the machine and glided straight through the man’s head. The spike impaled itself and the man’s entire brain onto a pile of trash behind him. The skull faced man obviously went slack and collapsed. I gasped.

“Oh bother,” Pavel plainly said.

“You killed that guy,”

“Yeah,”

“Wh-,”

“He’ll be fine,”

“Fine? You blew his brain out, the whole brain!” I exclaimed.

Pavel turned to look at me “He’ll still be revived, might take a couple of days but he’ll be good as new soon enough,”

“Revived? What are you talking about?”

Pavel looked really confused. “You don’t know?”

“No I don’t. I don’t know anything right now. I don’t know who you are, or who is-was that guy, I don’t know where I am or why I’m even here for that matter. So yeah, I don’t know,”

“Oh… my bad. Um, okay let me explain this,” Pavel meekly said. I may have offended him with my little rant but I couldn’t help myself. “People here don’t die. I don’t know if you noticed that green flash in the sky but it’s a satellite. Everytime it passes by everyone that’s dead gets revived at their bed,”

I stared at Pavel. Shit, I had no reason not to believe him. What am I talking about, of course I shouldn’t believe him.

“Here, we can wait here and watch,”

So we did. Sure enough, faintly up in the sky, a bright flash. Then the body of the man turned completely green, even the brain that was impaled on the spike. He glowed and glowed until it finally melted. And then nothing. 

“See,” Pavel looked at me.

I didn’t really know what to say. “So he’s going to be fine?”

“Well,” Pavel itched the back of his head. “It’s not good to die too often. It can cause scarring and if you do it too often in a short amount of time you can go a little mad. I think that's what happened to this fellow. Oh, that’s why he wanted Paste. Paste can help those that have died a lot feel new again. It heals the scars and settles the mind,”

I just stood there and blankly stared at him. Pavel stared back. He got a slight nervous look on his face and slowly started to turn. He began walking and I followed him. Immortality: with some slight downsides. It was a lot to take in. Everything was a lot right now.

We kept walking. We walked for what seemed like hours and the junkyard never seemed to end. But it did. Sort of. The floor stopped being made out of trash and instead turned into what one would assume to be dirt. It was hard and completely white. Other than that, barren. We pressed forward leaving behind this seeming enormous pile of trash that apparently was just laying there in the middle of this desert. Ahead, I saw a cabin. Pavel’s cabin. If one looked at Pavel and then this shack, it would be easy to tell it belonged to him. Trash littered the perimeter. The outside wooden walls had random trinkets and curios hanging off of it. He was a hoarder and damn good at it. Pavel led me inside. I immediately felt claustrophobic as the room we entered was cramped from all the trash. Pavel moved through it with ease like a nimble deer. He disappeared behind some boxes. I looked for a place to sit. I found a beyond dusty little sofa and plopped myself down. It felt nice to sit. I tried to take in all of Pavel’s “collection” but the thought just made me dizzy. So I stared up at the ceiling and waited for Pavel to return. Understandably, it took him about five minutes to remove his whole loadout. He returned to me with a once white flannel turned more ashy gray and a blue beanie. He still wore the same dirty cargo pants. Pavel looked so small now. He looked old too.

Pavel smiled at me, friendly like always. “What do you think? I know its a bit messy, haha, I wasn’t expecting anyone over,”

“It’s nice Pavel,” I kindly said to him.

“Ah, lookie here,” He reached down like a bird finding a worm and pulled out a brown paper bag from underneath the heap of trash. He handed it to me. I opened it. It was filled with rubber ducks.

“It’s the start of a little collection I got going on. I’m a collector as you can see. Names, cans, scrap metal, ohhh, boots. I got big collections, ones that I’m really trying to grow but then I have smaller ones that I keep to the side like those duckies there,”

“You collect names?” I cock my head to the side.

“Why yes of course,” He pulls out his notebook from before. He handed it to me and began to flip through the dusty pages. He must have had fifty pages filled top to bottom with names. I gave it back to him with a weak smile.

“Pavel?” I asked.

“Yes?”

“Where are we?”

“This is my house,”

“No I mean, this planet,”

“Oh, this is Tin,”

I paused for a moment. “And where in Tin are we?”

“Oh I don’t really know. We don’t really have names for things, just towns but other than that everything is just Tin,” He paused and he started to frown. “Are you not from here?”

“No,” I answered. I didn’t know where I was from but I know it wasn’t from here. “How do I get out?”

“You can’t. The King doesn't let anyone,”

“The King? There is a king?”

“Yeah,” He plainly responded. “He runs the place, him and his white knights. He’s rules are very relaxed. I’ve never had a run in with him. His one rule is no one leaves,”

“Where is he?”

“You want to see the King? Why?” He looked absolutely baffled.

“I have to get out of here,”

Pavel paused and seemed lost in thought. “I don’t know for sure where he lives but I know someone in Smalltown could help you, the warden perhaps,”

“Can you take me to Smalltown?”

He smiled weakly. “I can show you the way there but I can’t leave this junkyard. It’s too valuable to me,”

“What do you mean?” I asked

“It may seem like junk to you but sometimes you find stuff too precious to let go. You're not the first person I’ve found in the junkyard. Spaceships that fly too close to Tin are shot down by the King. Sometimes the pilots survive and I’m able to get to them before the white knights do,”

I don’t know how to respond so I just nod my head. 

Pavel slaps his knee. “Ah but you can’t go traveling in that, here I’ll let you borrow some stuff,” And with that, he got all giddy again and disappeared into the trash. I slowly got up from the chair. I still had no idea of anything. I don’t know where I came from or how I ended up here on Tin. I don’t know what I did to deserve this. I wasn’t even entirely sure if my name is Nix. But finding the King just felt right to me like it was something I was doing before this happened to me. It was something and is this haze of confusion it was all I could go on. 

Pavel came back with his arms filled with a bundle of what looked like clothes. “Alright. I brought you some better clothes. I know it seems warm now but trust me, sometimes the weather will go on the fritz and next thing you know you're in a territorial downpour and you’ll be thankful for this jacket,” He handed me a black leather with a hoodie stitched into it. It was very thick because of this. He also handed me a gray flannel and some worn out jeans. I stripped in front of him. The clothes somehow fit me almost perfectly. I was wearing a plain white t-shirt and greyish white pants with no pockets. When I take my shirt off, Pavel raises his eyebrows. 

Pavel smiles weakly again. He hands me a device. It’s a cell phone. “Can’t go without one of these. Here, this one is wiped already so you should boot it up real quick,” and I did as he said. Once I finished the installation, Pavel reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. Pavel’s phone had a ginormous case and thus looked like a black metal brick. “Here, I’ll give you my number in case you need any help on your little adventure,” I punch in his number. Next he gives me a simple sandy colored backpack. After I put the pack on, Pavel reaches behind his back and pulls out a gun still in the holster. I swallow hard.

“You’ll need this,”

I nod. I take the gun. My palms start to sweat. I hastily clip the gun onto my belt.

“Thank you Pavel, you saved my life,” I calmly told him.

“It’s what I do Nix,”

I don’t need to say anything. We both nod at each other and head outside. Pavel leads me a few miles away from his house and then stops. “It’ll take you about a day or two on foot but Smalltown is just straight that way. It’s hard to miss,”

“Thank you again Pavel,”

He gives me a big smile again. “Good luck Nix. Don’t be a stranger,”