The sky was as it had always been for the past fifty years, dark, cloudy, and expulsing nothing but black powder. The clouds, despite their thickness, still gave out a faint copper light to the dying earth below it. Although this light could barely be seen. The ground itself was still just as gray, and rocks dotted the barren gray landscape. There were a few trees here and there, but they were but black, leafless husks of their former selves. There were the remains of the human civilization dotted around the land. A few tilted skyscrapers here, some destroyed buildings lying against each other as if hoping to be able to withstand the test of time together. Every now and then, a gust of wind would kick up the dust resting upon the floor and would took it further away, where each particle would eventually separate and join other particles lost within time. Not a single plant nor animal was left. Everything had died out, and humanity would soon be the next step towards extinction, slowly dying off with hunger.

It had been so long since the world had died out due to the misuse of his technology, and only a few humans were still alive, barely surviving off the scraps left. However he had better plans for his own future. The only thing that came with color in the dead landscape was what resembled a giant golden bird's head. The plating looked like it was bolted together, and it was large enough to hold many people and things. Outside was what looked like a hollowed-out cube. Many cables, pipes, wires, and gears gears were attached to it, and a single man was busy typing something into the computer terminal linked to this strange arch. Everything seemed to clickety-clank as steam eventually exited its host. He liked these sounds very much, as they reminded him of a humanity that had prospered, even if it had been just briefly, with his technology.

He was quite tall for a normal human, reaching almost two meters. Although his average muscle size could be an explanation to his height. He wore black boots made of a strange, shiny material, while his pants seemed to sport a "lined" theme almost plaid-like, with the main lines being a pale white while the others were golden-brown. Instead of there being vertical lines, there were several black dots grouped closely together to give the same idea of "lines" when seen from afar. The shirt, however, despite it having pockets everywhere, was just of a plain copper color. However, the man wore a long, black coat that covered the majority of his body except the upper part of his boots. This jacket was also of the same configuration as the boots. The same material and color. Same thing with the single glove that covered his left hand. Occasionally, he would stop to rub it then continue his work. The character wore simple goggles to cover his eyes. These were circular, and the outing holding the lenses were painted a golden color. The lens themselves were tinted black, so the eyes couldn't be seen. His hair was of a brownish hue; although the rear right side was charred black and had a different consistency from the rest of his hair that ruffled just about everywhere it could. No, this patch stayed perfectly flat and in place.

The man was just about finished with his portal as he typed in the final coding and approached two disconnected cables.

"These things always seem to disconnect. Well then, let's see if this finally works."

With a click, the cube's lining started to glow a bright blue and pink until something started to spark within its center. This spark started to swirl more and more violently as its expansion widened evermore, only to finish into a stable portal of flashing pink and blue.

"Let's see what the terminal says...mhmm...That's about right...Put in these coordinates and voila!" The portal gave off a gentle spark."Perfect! I've been perfecting my theories for twenty years now. Let's see how the traverse is. I'll just have to get into my ship and find out, but, before I do that, let's put in the self-destruction sequence code. Once my ship gets through, the scanner should detect its code and activate the self-destruction. Hmhmhmmmmm...typity-type...and there we go. At least some good has finally happened. If I die, well, I'll finally be able to rest in peace."

The man ran to the entrance to his ship, situated on the right side, and quickly closed it. The staircase dragged itself back in as the golden doors closed themselves. He was already in the cockpit of the ship. Several little gears stuck out here and there, and were working quite furiously now that he was typing in the codes for activation, as well as pressing variously colored buttons all organized in rows. There was only one seat in the cockpit, but, then again, why would he need more? His chair was slightly tilted backwards and had decorative gears and special clockwork engraved onto it. He really liked this chair.

"Well then, into the void of the unknown. Let's see how this other Earth is doing."

The three exhaust ports in the back of the ships spewed flames in a righteous fury as the ship itself started to move slowly towards the portal. Another lever pulling and the ship blasted off the ground and went into the portal. As hoped, the computer terminal made the portal self-destruct. All that remained were a few pieces of the cube and the still intact terminal, which shut down due to lack of energy.

The inside of the portal was much less rough than the man had expected. He had thought that dimensional traveling would be very "bumpy" and cause him to bounce about quite violently. Instead, despite a few disturbances, the travelling was pretty smooth. He lied his head back against the chair and closed his eyes as he hummed a theme that came to mind while seeing the oscillating dimensional walls.

It had been a full five minutes since the ship had entered the dimensional tunnel, and the alerts started to chime in rhythm, along with the ticking clockwork and the occasional steam release, waking the man up. The end of the tunnel was near, and he was ready to act. With a grab of the handle, he started to stabilize the ship's eventual reentry into a new world. He was literally blinded by the light that engulfed him at the exit of the dimension.

He wiped his eyes as his cloaking system was activated in order to hide his entry into the skies. To his surprise, this place didn't have tall cities or planes in the air. It was still a verdant land, however, and all the surviving specimens he had in the storage facility of his ship would be given new life thanks to what looked a very fertile soil.

"Wait...is that a castle? How is it possible to even put a castle on a mountain at that angle? It should be taken apart by gravity. I will need to look more into this when I find a place to land."

An issue started to occur, however. The lower stabilizers keeping the ship in the air despite its lack of wings started to go haywire and began sparked with electricity and steam. An alert resonated in the cockpit as the entire system seemed to be messing up.

"What? Pressure error? System malfunction? Static reintegration necessary? But I reviewed everything before activating the portal. I even replaced a few gears! Damn! What now? Camoflauge error? Perhaps I should've taken into account the possible errors the energies of the dimensional tunnel could have had on these systems. I'm going to have to work hard in keeping this thing up and landing it somewhere it won't be noticed or searched for."

As the instruments on board the cockpit had said, the camoflauge had short-circuited, and with the announcement of thunder and smoke, the ship revealed itself before the world in a trail of black as it descended loudly and quickly towards the incoming ground. The human pulled upwards on the handle with all of his strength as vapor started to seep into his area and started to cloud the window, blinding him from the outside view.

"Damnit! This is NOT going well. HNNNGH!"

Without knowing, the ship plowed through a city made of clouds and tore apart a massive portion of it as it descended ever deeper from the sky. Sounds of screaming were heard on the speakers of the ship.

"At least the outside interceptors still work. Is that screaming? I'm too high for there to be any signs of human life yet. It must be the birds or some form of airborne creature native to this world," the man thought to himself.

The altitude meter on his ship showed him that his ship was getting very close to the ground. The 3d scanner showed that it was a very thick forest coming into view.

"Oh, so NOW the scanner starts working. I better activate the under-shields for better impact survival. There...I hope this works..."

As the massive golden monstrosity slammed into the forest, the ground shook with tremendous force. The ship slid for a few feet as the trees in its line of landing were uprooted and taken with the ship. When it finally came to a stop, the exhaust ports were still smoking, and electricity was jettisoning out of some slightly damaged parts of the ship. Meanwhile, the ship's captain was knocked-out from the crash, despite the protective airbags lining the chair he was sitting in. The only signs of life still being given from the ship were the occasional quiet beeping sounds coming from the red light above the knocked-out pilot.

I had a music video that I had linked to the tune humming of Steamlord. It's here if you still want it.