IGNIS

Ever since you were young, your mother used to tell you stories about your father.

Stories about a kind and strong man. A soldier who fought impossible wars alongside a giant machine, standing shoulder to shoulder with other colossal robots. She spoke of battles against enormous creatures, cities reduced to ruins, and machines connected directly to human emotions—as though pilots and their machines shared the same soul.

As a child, you loved listening to those stories.

But as you grew older, you began to believe they were nothing more than tales meant to shield your childhood from the truth of who your father really was.

Even so... there was always something strange about them.

Your mother never told those stories as if they were fantasy.

She never said,

"Once upon a time."

Or,

"Imagine if such a thing existed."

She spoke as though she were remembering something real.

As though she had witnessed it all with her own eyes.

And no matter how impossible it sounded, that doubt never completely disappeared.

Maybe she truly believed those stories.

Or maybe...

she had spent her entire life trying to tell the truth in the only way she could.

Still, you always pushed the thought aside.

After all, giant robots linked to human minds, fighting absurd monsters, belonged in fiction... didn't they?

At least, that was what you kept telling yourself.

But recently...

something had changed.

The dreams began a few months ago.

At first, they were rare.

Once a month.

Then every few weeks.

Until they started coming almost every night.

Always the same place.

A vast field of grass stretching endlessly in every direction.

The sky above was impossibly clear—blue, silent, and nearly empty, with only a handful of clouds drifting lazily across the horizon. The wind rolled through the grass in gentle waves, carrying with it the scent of a distant ocean.

And the strangest part...

everything felt far too real.

The grass brushing against your feet.

The sound of the wind.

The temperature of the air.

The salty scent from the sea.

It didn't feel like a dream.

It felt like a memory.

Or perhaps...

a place that truly existed.

At first, you tried to ignore it.

But every time you returned to that field, the feeling grew stronger.

As though something was waiting for you there.

And then the voice began.

Distant.

Metallic.

Quiet.

Almost broken, like an ancient machine struggling to keep running.

A voice calling your father's name.

At first, you thought it was simply part of the dream.

But as the days passed...

the voice began to sound less like an echo...

and more like someone trying to reach you.

The most unsettling part was that it never sounded hostile.

It sounded...

lost.

Like someone searching for a person they hadn't seen in a very long time.

And for some reason you couldn't explain...

every time it spoke your father's name...

you felt a sadness that wasn't your own.

Now the dreams came every night.

And each time you closed your eyes...

the field felt a little closer to reality.

Another night.

Once again, the same dream.

The same endless field of grass swaying beneath the wind.

The same nearly empty blue sky.

The same strange silence that somehow felt more real than anything outside it.

But this time...

something was different.

The previous nights had felt like dreams.

This one didn't.

The wind felt genuinely cold.

The grass brushing against your legs felt real.

Even the scent of the ocean seemed far too vivid to be imagined.

It was as though that place had become...

closer.

Or perhaps...

you were finally getting closer to something.

Then the voice returned.

Quiet.

Metallic.

Distant.

Calling your father's name.

But this time, you could tell where it was coming from.

Without thinking, you began to run.

The tall grass parted around your legs as the wind swept across the field in gentle waves. At first, it felt pointless. No matter how far you ran, nothing seemed to change.

The horizon remained distant.

As though the place itself didn't want to be reached.

But after a while...

something appeared.

Far away.

A dark silhouette.

And beside it...

a gigantic tree.

As you drew closer, you finally understood what you were seeing.

The tree stood at the edge of a seaside cliff, its enormous branches stretching across the sky like roots trying to reach the clouds.

And resting against it...

was a giant robot.

No.

A colossal machine.

Its body was black, scarred by the passage of time. Broken sections exposed ancient internal structures. Moss had grown between its metal plates, while roots slowly crept through parts of its armor, as though nature had begun to accept the machine as part of the landscape itself.

One of its legs hung over the edge of the cliff, partially submerged in the ocean below.

One eye remained completely dark.

The other...

glowed faintly with a nearly lifeless violet light.

As though something inside that colossal being was still awake.

And then you realized.

It was looking at you.

Without saying a word.

Your entire body froze.

For a moment, you tried to convince yourself that this was nothing more than a dream shaped by the stories your mother had told you since childhood.

"I must be dreaming this because of her..."

But before the thought could finish—

a man's voice echoed inside your mind.

Familiar.

Distant.

"IGNIS."

You froze.

Your heart immediately began to race.

The voice sounded...

familiar.

Not just familiar.

Important.

Then, once more:

"IGNIS."

You looked again at the giant beneath the tree.

And for some strange reason...

something about its presence felt familiar.

Like a forgotten memory struggling to return.

You swallowed nervously before speaking.

"So... IGNIS is the name of this thing...?"

For a few seconds, the wind was the only answer.

Then the machine finally spoke.

Its voice was low.

Metallic.

Ancient.

Yet strangely calm.

"Ah..."

The violet glow in its eye dimmed slightly.

"You... are not him."

Silence.

"But... you resemble him very much..."

IGNIS slowly turned its head toward the ocean horizon.

Far below, waves crashed against the cliff while the wind passed through the hair-like cables trailing from behind its head.

Then it spoke again.

Like someone remembering a distant past.

"A vast field... silent... beautiful..."

"A place where many would wish to be..."

"A place to rest the mind..."

"To forget the weight of the world... even if only for a few moments..."

Its voice faltered briefly.

Like a weary machine forcing itself to continue.

Then, without looking at you, it asked:

"Tell me..."

"Did you come here... to empty your mind?"

The wind swept across the field once more.

And then, for the first time, IGNIS turned its gaze directly toward you.

The fading violet glow reflected silently in your eyes.

"If you did..."

"What remains inside it...?"