On the planet below, by a river flowing with thick, silvery metal, a pillar of light from the blue sky above deposits what looks like a cross between an oversized crysalis and a womb, sweating life fluids. 

It bulges in places as its contents kick and punch in protest.

Something is wrong. Something is really wrong. He's supposed to wake up in a glass pod or some kind of bed, but it feels like he's suffocating!

He keeps pushing and eventually breaks out, flopping to the ground.

The amniotic fluids gush through the wound in the pod over the child's bare skin, warm yet clammy. The sun beats down on him. He feels... different. They told him he would be groggy when he woke up, but he feels more alert and energized than ever before. The low gurgle of the river is unnaturally clear as crystal in his ears, like before he'd been listening to the world through bad speakers. 

"This is not a medbay," he complains to nobody in particular.

He sits up. "Ew."

He looks at the river. ".....Ew. Whaaaa?"

A young voice:

"Hi."

Behind him, a girl is sitting crosslegged in the red grass. Her skin is white as snow, her hair black as night. The former is easy to tell, given she's stark naked, unless you count a satchel bag. Unlike the boy, though, she's also clean. "Welcome to planetside." 

He kip-ups and spins and tries to act as if he knows what's going on.

"A-huh, thank... You." Pause. "I don't suppose this is a cunningly disguised medbay? Or perhaps heaven."

"Heaven." Tabby remembers her mothers mentioning the idea sometimes. "So, you're really into goop?"

"Yeah, I don't actually think so. But it's supposed to be, like, a pure place, not somewhere you're just constantly happy. I don't feel right, nothing hurts and everything sounds weird and it's too bright but not, which makes 'I'm dead but heaven was real' about as likely as anything else until I know more." Hint hint.

"Poor newbies," the girl says, half-mockingly. "Always so confused. At least till they realize they've got superpoowers. Then they usually stop caring. Or they have a bath."

Superpowers, huh? He doesn't feel very super.

"That river does not look very bathy."

"I mean, it's non toxic. It's pretty fun to run around all silver. Wanna go find some water then if you're too good for that?"

"Yes. Yes I do. By all means lead the way. Is there a usual story? To all this? I think we were supposed to sleep until they built a city on a new planet for everyone..."

"That's what they told my grandmother. Then she woke up in a slime thing in a spaceship graveyard." 

The girl takes off in a run. A very fast run.

"Hey, wait!"

He runs after her.

...He can keep up???

Yes, yes he can. His muscles work like oiled machinery, his breath comes easy and circular. 

"Why. Why are we fast."

“No idea,” the girl calls back at him.

...Well, nothing better to do than follow her to, hopefully, a bath.

She leads him to a small grotto fed by a waterfall. With actual water. "This suit ya?"

He dives in, then swims to the waterfall.

"I could put a generator in here. Hey, where do we get... Stuff? Like, food and tools and clothes."

"You could probably get most of those things at the Pheonix Graveyard. Should learn to hunt, though."

The girl runs at the pond. "CANNOBALL!"

She lands in the water with a great splash.

"Why would I want to hunt when, like, the cafeteria is a thing? That sounds annoying."

Splash. “Where do you think the food comes from?”

"Farms. Where they kill animals for meat sometimes still 'cause vat meat doesn't quite taste right. I'm not stupid I just don't wanna do it myself."

He is trying to let the waterfall wash all the go away.

The girl laughs. “What’s your name, newbie?”

"Call me Nick."

“It’s not like it was on Old Earth, Nick. We don’t have machines doing all the work for us.”

"How boring. And your name is?"

She swims up to Nick. “Tabby. And it’s not boring! Don’t tell me you don’t feel good. Under your skin I mean.”

"Yeah, it's nice, but actually working for stuff sounds so annoying. I'm gonna make robots to do that for me."

Tabby quirks her shoulder. “You got plenty of time. People hear don’t get old once they reach maximum bigness.”

"Okay, that's pretty nice. Just gotta make sure they don't get eaten by bears or stabbed and stuff then."

Tabby tilts her head. "What's a bear?"

He waves his hand dismissively. "Some scary monster from Earth. Big and mean and hungry."

"Great, now I want to fight one."

"Hehehe. Sorry."

"Wonder what you got? Hope it's splodey."

"I dunno, I can't really tell? There's something weird, like, slowly building up, not enough to do anything with. But I think it's barely charging at all for some reason."

"Weird." She points at the bag she left just beyond the water's lip. "Want a snack?"

"Hmm, sure thanks. What's your power then?"

Tabby laughs, darkness blooming like blood in the water around her. Tendrils of solid shadow whip like kraken tentacles, plucking Nick out of the water. “That!”

"Ack!" He squirms and tries to get away, trying to smack through the tentacles to disrupt them.

The darkness evaporates with Nick hanging five feet off the ground.

He catches himself with a handstand and then flips back on his feet.

"-Did you see that! Also my charge went up a bunch. I think I can do something. Wanna be a test subject?"

“Sure!”

Hmmmm....

Zap. It doesn't look like anything but it feels like poking her with his brain.

It does manage to send her flailing on her back for a second or two.

"...Huh."

"That could be useful. It used all my charge though."

"There's snacks in the bag if you still want 'em."

Sure, snacks. He dashes out of the water and searches the bag.

The snacks resemble gems made of coloured crystallised sugar and sweet tasting vegetables.

"...Waaaait a second."

Pause.

"What's it going to cost."

“Cost?”

"Well it's your food. What are you selling it to me for?"

“I’m sharing, dummy.”

"...Sha-ring? What's that? Nah, I'm kidding."

He noms a couple of candies.

Tabby giggles, mostly not at the joke.

Munch, munch, munch. These are yummy.

...Hmm.

"Okay, what's wrong with these then."

“Nothing’s wrong with them! Your brain just tastes them too!”

"Uh oh... Ohhhh. Ow. Wow." He feels dizzy. It's trying to feel nice, but he's scared now. Lost his balance. "I do not like this, I dooon't."

“Sit down and go with it. It won’t last long.”

"How long though. Does all the food do this. I feel weak!"

"Just some. And fifteen minutes?"

"Blargh."

He flops down into the grass and stares at the sky.

The clouds above tint with strange colours, swirling into warring beasts.

"What's this place called again? Is there a moon? Moons are nice. I like moons. Mooooooon."

Tabby climbs onto the shore beside him. “There’s three.”

"Are they nice moons or stupid little rocks like Mars had?"

"Big! They have people on them!"

"Cooool. I don't like those weird snacks and I think it was kinda mean to trick me like that. But... Eh. It'll wear off soon right?"

"Yeah. You wanna go find more people?"

"...Are clothes easy to find? It's a little weird not having 'em. I had this black shirt I really liked."

Tabby tilts her hand. "We can probably find something to cover at least some of you."

"Eh, better than nothing. Like, an animal skin or something? I dunno how to make clothes out of, uh, cotton plants."

"Some people here do."

"That's neat. Hopefully I can make friends." Shrug. "Lead the way. Just know that if you do another nasty trick my revenge will be terrible and come when you don't expect it."

The two start walking, sun drying their skin. 

(Booooored.)

...Ooh, some of his charge came back. And he can use it on a place, not just Tabby.

...Poke? 

He half-stumbles and catches himself as he finds himself suddenly fifteen feet ahead. "Okay, so I can do that too apparently."

Tabby laughs. "Teleporting!"

"Yeah! It's cool. But I don't know what's getting me charge yet. It's really slow most of the time and I wasn't paying attention when it wasn't slow."

"What was it like before you woke up? Like, being a person and all."

"You mean back on Earth? My dad's a total jerk. Mom got rid of him and took me to California. I hope she's okay."

"She's probably in the Sleep-Moon still. Maybe it'll wake her up soon."

"So everyone from the ship is still there, just not awake?"

"Seems like it. So, is it true humans used to suck? Like, we got all dead from living too long and stuff?"

"Uhh... Yeah? I mean, there's doctors to fix some of that but yeah. This seems a lot better. If I were, like, designing things, I'd do it differently though. And then I'd go to Earth and sell it."

"And some people couldn't do handstands? The heck?"

"Ooh, I know this one! Evolution doesn't care about things being good, it just cares about if you make babies, so once people weren't dying fast enough to not make babies they stopped getting better."

"We're pretty good at making babies here!"

"This place is obviously designed by someone. Not evolution. Evolution's when nobody's designing. Anyway, you'll run out of planet eventually like that."

When they climb a hill, the two children find themselves overlooking what appears to be a graveyard of... spaceships? Mostly covered in moss, with streams running between many of them. They also seem to be swarming with children and teens.

"Ooh. Too bad those are all busted. Cool, though. Any bullies I should avoid? Any bosses? Or friends of yours?"

“Bosses?”

"You know, people who think they're in charge. Someone who'd try to make laws or charge taxes."

“Nah, this is just where a lot of us hang out. Near a bunch of tribes and stuff.”

Children are running about the graveyard. Some have odd hair colours, greens and blues and cartoonish, matchstick red. Some are flying, or sculpting light with their bare hands. The general rule seems to be nudity, but with plenty of kids in various types of primitive looking clothing.  Ziplines connect alcoves in the starship hulks. 

"Cool." He walks casually down the hill toward the little settlement, smirking and observing. Anyone who seems to have tech he can go bother?

A few children seem to have set up market stalls. Well, barter stalls. 

"...Ugh, I got nothing to trade yet. 'Cept doing boring chores I guess. Unless you know where to find salvage or something, Tabby?"

"We could go find my brother-cousin."

"It's good to make friends."

“You should meet this cloning kid I know.”

Tabby starts climbing up one of the spaceships.

"Cloning? How's that work?"

Tabby shrugs. “Dunno, there’s machines around that can do it.”

Zipline!

Zipline. Quiet grumbling about wanting clothes.

“Don’t tell me you’re cold!”

"I just want pants, okay?"

Tabby lands on the other end of the zipline. "Better hope you don't have burst into flames powers or something!"

"What, do people have multiple ones? I have the teleporty thing and the stunny thing. And lots of ideas, I guess, but maybe I'm just that smart."

“What sorta ideas?”

"Could make a generator in the stream and make lights and stuff. Just a few odds and ends. Or like, a microwave. Or a TV. Those would be hard though."

"What's a TV?"

"Magic moving picture box."

Tabby leads them into the interior of a ship, through a blasted crater in its hull. The walls seem to glow softly.

"Where's the light coming from?"

"Aren't you the one from spaceship times?"

"This light is diffuse, not point emitted..." He gets a slightly pitying smirky expression on his face. "I mean, it's coming from everywhere, not just one place. Real spaceship light comes from little balls that plug into the wall."

"Two theories. It's aliens, or your spaceship was just lousy."

"...Fair."

Huh, now that he's paying attention he can kinda-sorta-almost feel something in the walls... Weird. Probably powers related.

They turn a corner into an Aladdin’s cave of technology. Robotic fish swim through coral formed of rust in tanks full of mineral oil. Lasers drill through metal that oxidises into song. Thousand pound weights are suspended by threads a molecule thick.