Chapter 1: Inhalation of the Void

The Carburetor came first.
Not fire. Not man. Not even time. Just that hunk of steel, squatting in the middle of absolute nothing. Four barrels wide, idle and eternal. It didn’t shine. It didn’t move. It simply existed—blackened, holy, and breathing in a place where breath wasn’t yet a thing.

There was no air to pull, no gravity to hold it, no sound to mark its presence. But it inhaled anyway. The void around it—if you could call it that—didn’t resist. It couldn’t. There was nothing to push back. So the first inhale was clean, total, and wrong in a way the universe didn’t yet have rules to measure.
Then came the cough. Rough. Violent. A backfire into existence itself. No flame yet, just raw compression. Pressure where there shouldn’t be pressure. Motion where motion had no business starting. It coughed again, and the second one stuck.

This time, there was spark. Nobody knows where it came from. Maybe the Carburetor made it. Maybe it was always in there, buried somewhere behind the choke. It doesn’t matter. The spark hit the mix—and combustion was born.

The first explosion wasn’t loud. Not yet. There was nothing for the sound to bounce off of. But it was real. Hot. Expanding. Angry. It tore a hole straight through the nothing and left behind a smear of pressure that kept growing.

From that pressure came mass. From that mass came heat. From that heat came steel. Not smooth. Not clean. Bent and pitted and half-formed, but real. Enough to hold. Enough to build on. The Carburetor coughed again. And again. Each breath made more. Exhaust curled outward into darkness, staining the fabric of the void. Sparks danced across whatever was now passing for ground. Metal twisted into frame rails and crossmembers, scattered at random like bones waiting to be set.

Then came the sound. It didn’t rise gradually. It just happened. A deep, wet growl that rolled through the still-forming world like thunder in a locked garage. And from that sound, the first mind woke up. It wasn’t human. It wasn’t anything yet. But it opened its eyes. And saw the Carburetor.

It didn’t speak. It didn’t need to. It just stared at the sacred machine coughing smoke into the nothing and understood: this was the source. This was the beginning. And the noise… that was prayer.

 

Chapter 2: Frame of the First

The Carburetor kept breathing.

Each cough scattered more wreckage across the forming void. Rusted shapes drifted into the half-light, pulled into motion by nothing but stubborn inertia. Everything still smelled wrong—like hot oil on old rags, like gasoline spilled into a church. There was no sky, no gravity, no wind, but pieces kept falling into place.

The Frame was the first to take shape. Not by design—there were no plans. Just raw will and heat. Chunks of steel spun and locked, bent around nothing, clanged into corners and refused to come apart. Bolts found holes.
Welds appeared where no arc had sparked. There was no welder—just the residue of combustion trying to hold things together.

From the chaos came the outline of something that could roll. No wheels yet, no engine, no destination—but shape. Mass. Weight. And then, again, the Carburetor exhaled. This time, the flame didn’t cough—it growled.

It wrapped itself around the frame and didn’t let go. And inside that heat, something rose. Slowly. Like a man getting off the floor after a long night under a truck with no jack.
He wasn’t tall. Wasn’t clean. He wore no shirt, no name, no shoes. Just skin soaked in oil that hadn’t been burned yet and a look in his eye like he already knew what tools were, even if he hadn’t seen one.

He stood in front of the frame and blinked once. Then he looked at the Carburetor.
It sat where it had always been. Not mounted. Not placed. Just present. Its open throat pulsing, drawing in everything and giving back only noise and fire. The man didn’t speak. He didn’t need to. He stepped forward and laid his hand on the steel, and the metal didn’t burn him. It welcomed him.

He ran a finger down the frame and felt something there. A purpose. Not a message—nothing fancy like that. Just the raw, simple truth of what this thing needed to be: a vessel for flame.

And so he began.

He didn’t have tools. He didn’t have parts. But he knew. He grabbed what floated past him—half-formed axles, a cracked housing, a differential still humming from nowhere—and slammed them into place. Every time he did, the
Carburetor roared louder. By the time he fixed the third mount, the sound was music.The first hymn. Not sung, but forged.

He didn’t smile. He didn’t laugh. He just kept working. And the world around him started to shift.
Because now, finally, there was something to build around.
The Frame was real.
The Flame was ready.

All it needed now was motion. And motion would come.

 

Chapter 3: The Coming of Motion

The Frame was finished, more or less.

It didn’t sit level. Nothing was symmetrical. But it held. The steel groaned with heat but stayed locked together, and the Carburetor kept breathing. The pulses were longer now, steadier, like a rhythm forming just beneath the noise.

The Mechanic—though that word didn’t exist yet—stood beside the thing he’d built. He didn’t marvel at it. He didn’t name it. He just ran his hand along the edge, and the metal seemed to hum under his fingers like it knew where this was going. It needed to move.

Not for glory. Not for purpose. Just because staying still felt wrong.
This frame was built from the breath of something ancient, and that breath was pressure. Pressure needed release. The weight of it demanded action. So he looked around.

The void wasn’t so empty anymore. It had debris now. Shrapnel from the first explosions, stripped shafts, misaligned bearings, tires with no tread and no air. Pieces of a world that hadn’t finished spawning.

He walked through the floating junk like a man in a scrap yard he didn’t remember walking into. His feet didn’t touch anything, but he moved all the same.

He grabbed two wheels. Not matching. One too big, one rusted through. Didn’t matter. He jammed them under the frame and held them there until they stuck.

Then two more. No axles, no bearings, no mounts. Just force and faith and a low mechanical growl that was growing somewhere behind his ribs. When the fourth wheel clicked into place, the Frame dropped with a sound that didn’t echo—it landed. For the first time, something had weight. Real, gravity-bound weight.

And that weight began to roll. Not fast. Not straight. The first turn was more of a stumble. But it moved. Steel shrieked. Bolts flexed. Rubber tore against a floor that hadn’t been there a moment ago. And in that screech, the Carburetor let out a sound no one had heard before.

It was laughter. Not human. Not kind. But joy, in its rawest, dirtiest form. The kind of joy that smells like burned oil and scraped knuckles. The kind that says hell yes, I run.

The Mechanic climbed on. There was no seat. Just a brace of hot steel and whatever passed for a floorboard. He grabbed hold of the edge with both hands and didn’t ask where he was going.

He didn’t have to. The machine lurched forward, and the world gave way. Horizon spilled into being in front of him. The road didn’t appear—it surrendered. Rock, dust, wind, pressure. All of it bent in one direction.

Forward.

Motion had come. And the world would never be still again.

 

Chapter 4: The First Ride

It didn’t steer.
Not at first.

The front wheels fought each other like they didn’t agree on what forward meant. The frame groaned, twisted, drifted to the left, then the right, then spun half a circle before catching itself like a drunk on gravel. But it kept moving. That was the only rule now—keep moving.

The Mechanic didn’t try to control it. He just held on.
There was no wheel to grip, just a crossbeam slick with oil and heat. His legs straddled the transmission housing, which still wasn’t bolted down, and every time the machine bucked over something, it slammed into his spine like a curse.

The land unfolded beneath them as they rode.
Not hills or plains—just space that gave up and became ground out of pure intimidation. Mountains rose in the distance and moved out of the way without being asked. The sky darkened, not from clouds, but from the smoke trailing behind him. Exhaust rolled like scripture.

He rode until the heat blurred the air, until the metal beneath him screamed from strain, until even the Carburetor started gasping between breaths.

But the noise didn’t stop.

The deeper he went, the more the world began to make space around him. Jagged canyons split open like they’d been waiting. Old riverbeds bent themselves into roads. A whole continent rearranged itself in silence, just to let him pass.

It was holy.

Not clean, not sacred in any sermon-slick way. Holy like a bare-knuckle prayer. Like bleeding on the floor of a garage in July and knowing that means you’re alive.
He laughed. Not because it was funny – because it wasn’t. It was absurd. It was terrifying. It was perfect.

That laugh got swallowed by the wind, pulled into the Carburetor, and spit out the exhaust as something new. A roar. A hymn. The first gospel of speed. And that’s when the machine answered back.

A shift. Subtle. Somewhere in the drivetrain. The wheels aligned. The ride smoothed. The frame stopped shaking like it wanted to die. And for the first time since this whole damn thing began,
the Mechanic wasn’t holding on—he was driving. He leaned forward, gripped the beam with both hands, and gave a low grunt that sounded suspiciously like thanks.

The Carburetor didn’t reply. It didn’t need to. It just opened wider. The world rushed toward him, and he grinned through grit-covered teeth. The first ride wasn’t perfect. But it was real. And real was more than enough.

He rode for what felt like days. Maybe it was longer. Maybe time hadn’t really started yet. It didn’t matter. The wheels turned. The earth trembled. The frame groaned with every mile, but it held. And he kept going.
Eventually, the ride brought him to a place that didn’t look like anything at all.
No trees. No rocks. No sky. Just a wide-open stretch of world that hadn’t decided what to be yet.

So he stopped. The machine rattled, hissed, sighed. Steam hissed from somewhere deep under the floor. The Carburetor clicked as it cooled, but never truly stopped breathing.

The Mechanic climbed down. His boots hit the ground, and the dust puffed up like it knew him. He walked around the front, scratched the back of his neck, and looked the whole thing over. Bent frame. Scarred wheels. Radiator leaning sideways. No lights. No mirrors.

But it had made it. He dropped to one knee and ran his hand along the front end like it was a wild animal that had let him ride.

“This’ll do,” he said. Not loud. Not proud. Just real. And then, without instruction or signal, the ground around him began to move. Not shake. Not crack. Just… shift.

Small figures started to crawl up from the dirt. Arms first. Then torsos. Legs. Faces still covered in dust. They were shaped like people, but rough—unfinished. Their hands were thick, their feet wide, their shoulders hunched forward like they were used to lifting things heavier than they were supposed to.

They looked at the machine. Then at him. And one of them spoke. “What is that?” The Mechanic stood up. He glanced at the Carburetor. It pulsed once—low and slow. He looked back at them.
“That,” he said, “is how you move.”

Chapter 5: The First Exhaust

They gathered around the machine in silence.

The dust-covered ones. Barefoot, wide-palmed, rough like bark that’s been stepped on too many winters. They didn’t kneel. They didn’t reach out. They just stood there, arms loose at their sides, eyes fixed on the thing that had rolled into their nothing like it had a goddamn right to exist.

The Mechanic leaned against the frame. He didn’t speak right away. There was no rush. He watched them watch the machine. Watched their jaws set. Watched the way their nostrils flared when the Carburetor pulsed and exhaled a low, hot breath that smelled like purpose.

One of them stepped forward. His face was broad, lips cracked from dryness. He looked like he hadn’t spoken in years.

“Does it always sound like that?” he asked. The Mechanic nodded. “When it’s telling the truth.”

The Carburetor coughed again. Louder this time. A short bark followed by a lazy growl, like it wasn’t impressed by being stared at. Then the exhaust spat—once, sharp and wet—and a blast of smoke punched out the pipe like a fist.

It hung there for a moment, gray and swirling. And the world changed. The smoke didn’t drift. It clung. To the air, to the ground, to the skin of those standing too close. It left a layer behind, thin and gritty, like it knew exactly where to stick and why.

The people backed away, blinking. A few coughed. One of them wiped his face with the back of his hand and stared at the smear it left behind. “Is it supposed to do that?” he asked. The Mechanic grinned. “It ain’t supposed to do anything. It just does.”

The Carburetor exhaled again. Another cloud, deeper this time, black at the edges. It rolled through them slow, and when it passed, they weren’t the same.

They stood straighter.
Their eyes were clearer.
And the dust on their skin looked like it belonged there now.

“That’s the exhaust,” the Mechanic said. “It don’t just leave. It marks. It tells the world where you’ve been, and how hard you fought to get there.” They looked at each other. One by one. Quietly. As if hearing something old in their bones.
And then one of them—smaller, wirier, face like knotted rope—walked to the machine. He didn’t ask. He didn’t wait. He laid his hand on the Carburetor, and it shivered once beneath him.

He closed his eyes and just listened. The breath. The beat. The growl beneath all things. The Mechanic watched. He said nothing. He knew the feeling. That first time the exhaust hits you clean in the chest and fills you with smoke that somehow feels more honest than air—there’s no coming back from that.

Another stepped forward. Then another. One touched the frame. One climbed into the back and sat on the bare metal. No questions. No hesitation. They weren’t praying.They were remembering something they hadn’t lived yet.

The Carburetor kept breathing. It didn’t roar. It didn’t scream. It just exhaled, over and over, laying smoke like scripture. And the people began to change.

 

Chapter 6: Those Who Inhaled

They didn’t speak much at first.

Even after they touched the Carburetor, even after the smoke soaked into their lungs and something inside their chests started ticking like a loose lifter, they stayed quiet. Not out of fear. Out of instinct. As if words might break something that hadn’t fully settled yet.

The Mechanic watched.
He wasn’t their leader. He wasn’t anything yet. Just the one who rode in first, the one who brought motion into a still world. But the way they looked at him—eyes still raw from smoke, muscles still remembering how to move—he knew they expected something.

He stood in front of the machine, the frame still steaming under the morning that had no sun. He didn’t climb up. He didn’t rev the engine. He just waited. And one by one, they stepped forward.
There were twelve of them now. Maybe more. Faces still half-formed, hands big enough to grip steel, but slow to unclench. They circled the machine like it was the only thing keeping gravity honest.

Then one of them—barefoot, thick-armed, voice deep enough to be mistaken for thunder—spoke.
“What do we do with it?” The Mechanic shrugged. “You ride it. You fix it. You learn to live like it runs—rough, loud, and never in reverse.”

Another asked, “But what’s it for?” That made him laugh. Dry. Brief. “What’s breathing for? What’s bleeding for?” That was the only answer they got. They didn’t ask again.

Later that same day – or whatever passed for a day out here – they began building.

Not homes. Not shelters. Just things. A ramp made of broken slabs. A bench welded from old axles. A pile of scrap sorted by thread size and bend radius. They didn’t know what they were making. But they moved like they did.

One of them took a pair of wrenches—massive things, probably forged from the frame of a dead loader—and held them in each hand. He raised them slowly, one in each fist, and crossed them high above his head.

The others froze.

Something about the motion—deliberate, silent, with the smoke still rising behind him—felt heavier than it should’ve. Like it had meaning before anyone gave it one.

The Mechanic watched from the side. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to.
The gesture said enough:

We serve something greater now.
Not a god. Not a law.
A system. A cycle. A roar.

That night, they sat around the frame in the dark.

No fire. No music. Just heat from the steel and the low hum of the Carburetor still drawing breath.

And one of them, maybe the youngest, asked in a low voice, “What do we call this?”

Someone else answered, without hesitation.

“Faith.”

The word hit like a dropped gear. Final. Loud.
And completely correct.

 

Chapter 7: And On the Seventh Day, He Rode

They didn’t sleep that night.

The frame gave off enough heat to keep them gathered, and the sound of the Carburetor breathing in slow rhythm made sleep feel unnecessary. No one had said what the morning would bring, but they all knew something was about to begin. There was a tension in the dust—like the world itself was holding a breath.

The Mechanic sat a few steps away from the others. He hadn’t spoken in hours, hadn’t moved much. He just stared into the distance, where the land ended in a flat haze. His hands were black with soot, but they didn’t shake. They were steady. Ready.

When he stood, no one asked where he was going. They watched as he approached the machine, placed one hand on the frame, and leaned in close like he was listening for something only he could hear. The Carburetor answered with a low pull, long and deep, like it recognized the weight of the moment.

He climbed up without ceremony. No speech. No ritual. He just sat, settled into the machine like he’d always been a part of it. One boot rested against the brace. One hand curled around a bar that didn’t steer but gave him balance. His eyes remained forward.

The engine didn’t start because he asked. It started because it was time.

There was no ignition switch, no starter motor. Just pressure, flame, and will. The Carburetor inhaled once, violently, and the machine lurched forward like it had been waiting seven days to run.

They watched him go, but no one followed.

Dust kicked up behind the wheels as they bit into ground that hadn’t existed a minute before. The engine roared like thunder trapped in steel. The world stretched out in front of him—not a road, not a trail, just possibility beaten into a shape that looked like direction.

He didn’t steer. The machine didn’t need it. It moved with purpose. Every bump and jolt felt deliberate, like the land was testing him, and he passed without blinking. His face didn’t show joy or pain or awe. Just focus. Just forward.

The Carburetor sang now. Each breath came stronger than the last, every exhaust blast a proclamation: something had changed, and it wasn’t going back.

Behind him, the people watched in silence. No one spoke. A few stood, some raised their hands slowly, without knowing why. And then one of them stepped forward, picked up a pair of old wrenches, and raised them high, crossing them above his head.

The others followed. Twelve in total. Each raising something—metal, wire, grease-slick steel—until the air shimmered with meaning.

But the Mechanic didn’t turn around.

He rode straight into the open, where no signs pointed, and no path waited. And still, the machine moved faster. The frame rumbled. The pressure climbed. And in the wake of his movement, the world began to settle. Dust became roads. Rock formed under tires. Smoke curled into scripture.

He rode not because he had to. But because motion was the only language he trusted. And in that ride—hot, brutal, sacred—creation finally made sense.

The seventh day wasn’t rest.

It was a commandment.

More chapters coming soon…

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