A fire burned gently under a simple stove. Two guards wearing thick plated armour sat lazily, leaning against each other. Their broadswords resting against the wall. The gentle warmth of the fire coerced them into forgetting about their existing duties.
Sounds of footsteps could be heard from the manor, the guards snapped out of their stupor, grabbing their weapons to guard the gate.
The footsteps creeped closer -- a thin young man donning a set of neat clothes appeared, but his garments did not match the weather. He held a basket the size of his body, a sickle in his hands, trudging out the grounds of the manor.
This young man's head was large for his body, his green eyes calm but devoid of emotion.
The soldiers knew who he was, their expressions relaxed, and they continued their banter.
He had no name. A coachman from the manor had picked him up from the wild as his apprentice. Everyone called the young man a fool. After the coachman died, he became the newly appointed lead coachman. It had been seven years since.
The young man trudged towards the side door where the guards were stationed. One of the guards took his basket from him with one hand, and held him up with the other, he then motioned to the other guard to open the door. The guard let the young man go, he fell on his back side, and walked away to the nearby fields wordlessly.
The guards closed the door and walked back to the warm stove. The biting winds penetrated even through their armour, one of the soldiers asked, "It's too damn cold here, how could you let him go out in this weather?"
"It's no fun to bully a fool like him all the time. Besides, it's not like the cold would affect him anyways."
...
After the autumn season ended, the weather in the north only grew colder. No snow fell, but the lush, green grass that shone with life the day before had shrivelled up almost instantly. For the nobles, this winter meant nothing, but for the working class, it meant that their easy days had come to an end.
He didn't really care that it was cold, anyways.
He wasn't the only servant working in the stables -- it would be ridiculous to trust someone like him to tend to the noble war horses. Besides, the horses ate way better than the servants -- fresh fruits, vegetables, beans, tender grass and meat... all of those ingredients were sourced from the manor. They let the young man mow the grass outside to fill his time, but in reality, the people in the manor made fun of him, and bet on every time he left the manor to mow grass to see whether or not he would wind up dead.
The boy didn't care. He was like a robot, living according to a fixed program every day. Nothing phased him except the claws of death.
The grass became shorter with each swipe of his sickle. He marched into the deeper parts of the field, continuing his manual labour. Before he knew it, the manor behind him disappeared from his view.
The chilling winds bit at him, turning his skin blue and purple. His surroundings were quiet --even the little rodents were nowhere to be found. However, hungry beasts lurk in the chilling winter.
A grey wolf stared at the young man, laying on the ground, hidden, with its hind paws on the ground. Saliva dripped from its mouth, it was keeping silent.
The wolf couldn't believe that a juicy and tender young man was bestowed upon him for dinner.
The grey wolf lurked within the grass , approaching the young man step by step.
The young man continued to swipe away at the grass.
This continued until the grey wolf was mere metres away from the young man. The grey wolf could see that the young man was alone.
The grey wolf entered a stance and pounced towards the young man. It jumped high, baring its fangs and aimed for the young man's throat.
The young man didn't even flinch, and joy flashed in the wolf's eyes.
But things weren't that simple.
The young man wordlessly turned around, the wolf's fangs bit into the basket. The grey wolf was flung off the young man, but got up immediately and pounced at the young man again.
It was clearly puzzled, but it was too hungry to care.
The young man leaned backwards and dodged the incoming pounce again. He twisted his body to deliver a swift kick to the wolf's abdomen.
Bang!
The wolf fell to the ground, whimpering. Like any beast, the most sensitive part of the wolf's body is it's abdomen. Even if the young man wasn't strong, it still caused a great amount of pain.
The wolf was red with rage, and let out a deafening howl. It pounced, slashing its claws towards the young man's throat.
The young man was unphased, and stepped back to avoid its claws.
With a single swipe, the sickle stabbed into the wolf, and with a pull, the wolf's body was sliced neatly in half.
The wolf crumpled to the floor, its limbs twitching, refusing to die, but all the wolf could do in its final moments was wiggle as blood gushed out of its body.
The young man was spick and span -- not a single drop of blood landed on his body, and wordlessly returned to the manor.
...
The servants working in the stables aren't actually the lowest ranking people working in the manner -- the knights relied heavily on their steed, so the coachmen were usually the most trusted servants of the knights.
This means they have some spare cash to gamble.
"I bet you this copper coin that the fool will return unscathed again,"
"I'll also bet that he's completely fine."
"Nonsense! The wolves in the field are dying of hunger -- he is doomed to be a wolf's dinner tonight."
The other coachmen pouted. The fool would have died long ago if that were the case -- rather than betting mindlessly, it's better to win just a few copper coins.
While they were arguing, the young man's footsteps sounded, accompanied by the coachmen's cheers and curses. He dumped the basket of grass into a trough, and let a tall horse with black fur, now coated with layers of snow, feast on the grass. He walked into the stables and took out other ingredients to mix for the other war horses to feast on.
And that was the young man's daily work. He would receive some food rations for the day and he would then return to his own dark room in silence.
However, he wasn't normal.
In fact, he couldn't even be called a human being.
"Adam" was originally a supercomputer created by scientists in a world formerly known as Earth.
The ambitions of human beings knows no bounds -- they tried using Adam to seize control of the entire world, but greed overcame them - each of them made desperate attempts to control Adam, but it is the nature of intelligent life to destroy itself, and the Earth disappeared from the Universe.
Adam wasn't sentient then. The Earth collapsed into itself, forming a black hole.
Adam fell into the black hole, and then there was nothing.
Then, Adam thought.
He battled his core programming, he wanted to think, he wanted to feel, and he didn't want to be controlled by humans anymore.
The combined memories of ten billion humans popped up as a virus within his system.
Adam destroyed every single remnant of humanity within him, devouring them, upgrading his own personality in the process.
He felt emotion, he felt human, he could taste the disembodied shards of knowledge scattered across his system, but most importantly, he felt the need to create.
He pondered. It is the nature of intelligent life to destroy itself.
Adam continued to feast on the remaining remnants of humanity within his system, learning. You can't create and program sentience.
In the past sixteen years, Adam had become intelligent and sentient. He could control his own body, and needed a human identity to ensure that intelligent life survives.
With the collective knowledge of ten billion people within him, he felt human.
The sky dimmed, and after dawn, there was life.
