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It slowly opened its weary eyes, its rough scaly skin shivering as it lie on the cold metal floor of the den. Its stomach tore relentlessly at it as it woke. Another cycle in this glacial wasteland.
It stared at the exit of the small hole with tired eyes, the frigid blizzard outside piercing through the thick natural armor on its dull green skull. It didn't want to move, even cycles after the battle it fought in order to rest here, but it had to. It had to eat.
The old green lizard reluctantly turned to the pipe, joints aching and stomach roaring. Perhaps it will find something out there this time. It struggled to move its old frame, but when the creature finally left its den, it was greeted with nothing but the howling of bitter wind. There were no prey, nor were there any other lizards; there was no life at all for as far as it could see, being stuck close to the ground.
It wandered aimlessly, scouring room after room, squeezing its large, old body through frozen pipes. A dim light of hope flickered in its black skeletal body as it searched for anything at all.
Occasionally, it would come by a morsel or it would see young prey. But the remains were too frozen to bite through, and the prey was too swift, soaring past the lizard in an instant, not even giving it the time to see what it was. The world has evolved, and there was no mercy for a creature who could not. The green lizard was the sole survivor of a world long forgotten.
The lizards looked different from what it remembered: they were now covered in fur and horns, or have evolved to be something else entirely. Most ignored it, not even considering the old creature a worthy opponent.
Most ignored it.
As it wandered, a light brown figure in the distance caught its bleary eyes. As it came a bit closer, the green's eyes widened as realization hit. It was a lizard it recognized to be from the New world.
Much like the green itself, it had a stocky appearance and stayed close to the ground. But it possessed a pale coloration to blend in with the powdered ground and another pair of legs that allowed it to leap through the air, like the cyan lizards of the Old world. They were aggressive and persistent, and the green remembered clearly as they slowly dwindled the numbers of its own kind long ago, when the world began to freeze after the sky screamed and the great metal mountain crashed into the earth.
It heard a distant snarl as the caramel lizard spotted the old green from the other side of the large open room. In an instant, the caramel launched itself through the air and bounded straight towards it. In another cycle, it would have fought gloriously for the sake of the battle, but now, if it wanted to survive, it had no other option than to run.
And while it tried to run, its old legs did not carry it far. Its body was too worn by age, starvation, and frigid winds, while the caramel had grown fat with successful hunts in the environment it had thrived in for so long.
The two tumbled down the snowy hill of metal rubbish as the caramel snapped relentlessly at the green's rough black hide. The green hissed and snarled as it tried to bite back. It was slow, but its bite had not degraded; it was one of the only things in its condition that had not done so.
They fought ferociously, until one of the lizards let out a final, angered screech and fell limp. The green heaved breaths as it watched the caramel's head darken to black, the green's own head stained with inky blood. Another victory. It growled and turned to the nearby pipe and left. There was nothing left for it here.
It stumbled as it trudged on, continuing its journey through the wasteland, refusing to acknowledge the heavy wounds it sustained. It needed food. That was a priority. Even when its trudge reduced to a crawl, and the black blood trail only worsened... it needed to keep going. It made it this far; it had to.
But in the end, when it returned to its territory, the green lizard had caught nothing. It was too old, too tired. All it wanted to do was curl up in a warm den and sleep, just how life was before the mountain fell. It drearily thought about the cycles long past, as it crawled back into the den; cycles where its younger self would indulge itself with fresh prey and battle for territory against its brethren. Now, here it lie in a small hole, starving alone in the cold.
Its irregular breathing slowed as weariness took it. The old green lizard took one last look through the exit as the pipe closed off. It knew what would become of it. The wounds were too severe, its body too weak to mend them. But it wasn't afraid. It slowly closed its eyes as it lie down on the floor. It will wake up again. It always does.