Everything was grey. The sky looked as though it had been bleached, and the ground was hard and cracked. Everything was the same uniform color, bleak and weary.
Only a slight breeze stirred the stagnant air, and the boy struggled to his feet. The surroundings seemed dead and lifeless, utterly devoid of all feeling. For a moment, the boy felt the same as the landscape, completely untouchable by any hint of warmth or emotion.
Slowly then, memories began to creep into his head. Memories of a place not like this one, a place filled with fighting and pain. And dying. Always more dying. And then another place. A beautiful place where there was a thing called 'happiness.' A place where not so many people were hurt, and not so many people fought, and not so many people died.
Memories of these places filled his head along with something else. A name. Colin Grey. Is that my name? he thought curiously. Am I Colin?
The answer came without further probing, however, in the form of more memories. A girl, with red eyes and leathery wings. A girl he knew, very well. Autumn, he thought. That's Autumn. And I'm Colin.
Letting his gaze fall to the monotonous terrain, he contemplated still other questions. Where... am I? How did I get-- The unspoken question was answered by the image of pink facets falling upwards as he went down, each perfectly cut little section showing the image of another time, and another world. The M'Kraan Crystal... And falling. There was one thing that was certain; the place where he was now was not his home. Whether that meant the hell that Apocalypse ruled or whether it meant the Professor's Mansion, he wasn't sure, but he knew one thing. Wherever home was, this wasn't it.
Squinting hazel eyes intently at his surroundings, he tried to discern one direction from another. Each was the same uniform shade, each barren stretch identical... No feature set them apart, no distinction marked the baked earth. Only wasteland, still and cold, filled his vision.
A sigh escaped his lips as his eyes roved the forsaken ground. No clues could be seen, nor anything heard but the thickening silence. His mind was disturbingly empty, filled only with thoughts and feelings belonging to himself.
A deep breath and a quick prayer brought him to a descision; a path had been chosen, though it seemed identical to all the others. In spite of the helpless confusion that was threatening to overwhelm him, the boy felt one thing for certain. He knew that, wherever he was, he couldn't stay there.
