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[] A rather short woman. You can almost feel the focus on her eyes.
The person in the mirror stares back at you. The first thing you notice is how short she is, the waist barely higher than the frame of the hospital bed behind her in the reflection.
"Not any taller. Unsurprising. Still disappointed"
Black, unkempt hair falls shortly before the shoulders. The green eyes that stare back at you have a focused edge to them.
This is you. The reflection following every move and expression you make at it confirms as much.
You
also can't recognize the person in the mirror, that uncomfortable emptiness bubbling on the back of your head. There's no memory, familiarity or emotion to the reflection. It can only be you, and nothing else.
The confusion and distress only grow on the corners of your mind. That you're being expected for and the hope for answers is the most you can do to keep it from boiling over.
You have a lot of questions for Adelina, more piling up each second.
---
Moonlight shines from the broken windows. The hallway is on the same state as the room you came from. Glass shards, dried leaves and other dirt litter the ground, along with metal chairs long covered in rust. Plants break through the tiles and water ponds are peppered across the floor.
You find Adelina arguing with someone wearing same uniform as the soldier that came into your room. Said soldier is standing next to a row of wall chairs, speaking with someone covered head-to-toe with a blanket sitting on one of the chairs.
On each side of the hallway stands another soldier. They look out the window, across the hallway then repeat, their eyes lingering on you briefly.
Four soldiers total, that you can count at least, all holding their weapons a little too tightly.
"Hmmm! They sure seem like they're expecting trouble. I'm smelling fun
on the way!"
You wait just past the door to your room for a bit, before deciding to approach Adelina.
"-outside their air zone. We run, they're just gonna pick us out one-by-one. It's just not happening Miss" You catch the man saying.
"Going out we have a shot. They're already on their way. You saw what they can do. Last time they didn't expect you, staying here's suicide."
"I'd rather me and my soldiers not die like dogs. The chopper comes here and we get out, we're not moving."
She notices you and she quickly gestures you to stay away.
"She keeps treating us as if we were a child. Such... disrespect!"
Whatever's going on there, Adelina seems to really not want you there.
Slightly dejected, you move towards the window. The outside is an extension of what you've already seen of the ruined hospital: buildings fallen apart and covered in vegetation, what used to be streets and sidewalks now overrun with trees and grass. On the distance, you only see more of the same.
"A-ah, that's not a good idea! Please stay away from the windows!" Says the soldier that was beside the chair, now next to you. She starts dragging you away from the window.
"Why?"
"Why? I-I mean, you could get shot, or be seen and expose us... Just, it's a really bad idea please stay away"
Moving to the row of chairs you pick one that's less ruined and sit, right next to the person covered in a blanket and the soldier.
Moments pass, looking around the room waiting for Adelina to either finish. You feel helpless, letting yourself be ordered around by someone you just met, doing what she tells you because that's the only thing you have to go on.
"Those fucks were more prepared than you promised. I have all the ground to suspect you,
doc."
"If they catch us I'm as dead as the rest of you, worse,
captain."
The three of you next to the chairs stay in an awkward silence.
You let your mind wander. There's not much you know for certain: these people need you for something, you are in an abandoned hospital in an abandoned city, have spent a long, long time in that hospital bed as the place fell apart around you and are completely healthy despite it.
You don't know how you got here. Nor where you are or when. Beside wanting your help, you have no guarantee that Adelina's people will keep you around after they're done.
You might have even forgotten things you could forget.
"Hello?" The question cuts through your thoughts. It came from the person next to you, a girl on her mid-to-late teens. This close you can make out gray eyes and blond hair from beneath the blanket.
"...Hello" You answer. You haven't forgotten your manners, and you could use anything to distract you right now "What's your. Name?"
She gives you a smile. "Sofia. What's yours?"
Her knees hit the floor, soon after her bowels.
And you're immediately again on the mess of confusion that's your head.
There's not much left of you, is there?
Name. It's something important. Everything has a name, even if you've forgotten it. It can define concepts that have no form and change the nature of things.
A wave that rips through you. Before it passes nothing that makes you will remain rooted.
And you don't remember yours. You feel like floating, as if you looked down and realized the ground you were standing on was nothing but empty black and nothing could keep you standing or stop your fall.
Blinding black, deep endless white.
Like lightning, you realize how deep your ignorance goes.
Too late. It wasn't lack of speed. Or weakness. Just impossible to stop.
The buzzing in your ears you've been ignoring becomes impossible to.
A nameless thing is like a walking void.
"I'm sorry! I didn't mean to say something wrong!" Sofia get closer to you and grabs your hands. She stares into your eyes. You can't imagine what sort of expression you're making.
You focus on the warmth of her hands, and somehow manage to keep the worst of your turmoil at bay.
"I'm okay. Now. I think" You lie.
"I don't believe you" she keeps her hands on you."But it's okay. You're not fine
fine, but you're not freaking out."
At some point your breathing had become ragged. You close your eyes and focus, the buzzing ringing somewhere you can't place.
"Man, you really got that handled buddy" The soldier tells Sofia. She puts her hand away from over her left side, where you can see a glint of steel. "I mean, I guess I'd be all freaked out, were I in your shoes."
"Ah, where's my manners? Name's Rose, you've already met Sophie here." She points to the girl in-between you. "You kinda in the same boat as her, I guess."
"What does. That mean?"
"I'm not sure I can tell you yet? I don't know, need to ask the cap'n."
"Of course. Vital information. Can't share freely. Still frustrating. Still suspecting us. Yet need us."
"We've just met them, same as you I guess" Sofia looks towards where Adelina finally seems to be done. "Me and Adeline. We were in- somewhere else until now."
"Adelina is. Not with them?"
"Yes. I mean, we're with them, but we've only known them for a little. It was a rescue"
"A-Are you sure you should tell her all that, Sophie. I mean, no offense to you buddy, but we're not sure where you at, not really."
So. It's not Adelina's people, as you assumed. There seem to be two factions at play here: Adelina and Sofia; and Rose and her comrades.
"It doesn't change much. We're still at their beck and call, just we know that woman and the child are closer to our situation than we thought."
"It's fine, corporal." Sofia cuts the soldier off. "I don't think there's anything of what happened you can't tell her. Like what you did at the lab? Or why your boss is arguing with the Doctor?"
"What happened. Before? Something you should. Tell me?" You ask, both as a chance to extract answers from the soldier and out of solidarity towards Sofia.
Rose's head moves from you, then Sofia and then back at you before finally landing beyond you, where the captain is now approaching you.
"You the person of the hour, I assume" You expect for a while for someone to answer, before you realize he's speaking to you. "Are you gonna be a problem for my people?"
"Will I. Be a problem? You keeping something. From us."
"I'd be an idiot if I weren't. Far as I know, that doctor's just waiting to stab us in the back" He point behind him towards Adelina. "And it just so happens she's the reason we're here. With you."
"She's amnesiac, Captain Delores. You're just wasting all our times he-"
"And I don't know what that woman's thinking. I don't know. For all I know, we're gonna turn around and you gonna blow up on us."
Captain Delores steps closer with each word, now barely half a meter away from you. You find yourself unconsciously pushing back into the chair, tensing up, Sofia's hand still on yours.
"Oh, we gonna fight? We finally fighting? Come on!"
"So. I want to make sure. After the shitshow back there, I don't know what goes inside that psychos head. And that's why I want you to assure me, fucking convince me, you're not gonna fuck me and my people in the back"
What can you even say? What could possibly make him rest assured that you're not going to betray them. You come up blank on anything that could reassure them that no, you're not a ticking time bomb.
"He's distressed. Still not enough information. Whatever we answer won't matter."
You look him straight in the eyes, open you mouth to try and defend yourself before stopping, something catching your attention at the edge of your sight.
Time freezes. The moonlight carves a figure, standing on the glass-less window frame. It has a foot on the windowsill, the other in the air, pushing itself on the air towards you.
The buzzing
peaks. Before you or anyone has time to react Delores' head is now pinned to the wall by a steel blade, moonlight reflecting off the steel and blood.
"CAPTAIN!"
Thunder rings, the swordsman throws itself away down the hallway as bullets fly by. The body of Delores drops limp to the ground.
The figure lands on the end of the hallway. Cloth, steel and flesh are cut in half, the soldier falling to the ground in two from the waist.
The swordsman stands and studies your group, eerily still and silent as if it were a painting. In the dark, you can't make out much from it's figure- it's lacking an arm, and is covered in bullet holes and slash wounds, somehow moving as it can in the state it's in. It's body is made of a hard material, covered in blood both dry and fresh; it's own and not.
"This fucking asshole" Rose and the remaining soldier aim their guns down, short moments stretch as both sides study each other, seemingly waiting for something. On the corner of your eye, you see Adelina approaching were you and Sofia are.
"Get ready to run" She whispers, not quietly enough as the figures head shudders suddenly in your direction. It breaks its silence, as a wet, wordless gurgle comes from beneath it's mask.
"OOOOh... Gia.. Aaaaa... Uhhhh"
Two people are dead, and you're just sitting. The swordsman breaks its posture and leans forward, Rose and her squadmate already squeezing the triggers, slowly, too slowly as it's about to propel at you, at Sofia and at Adelina.
It's clear that if someone is going to do something, it's going to have to be you. Your mind speeds up, rushing through something, anything that can save you and the people next to you.
An answers comes, from somewhere in the depths:
[] Meaningless sounds, given power across generations and worship from the people now carved in the space between your flesh.
[] A blunt, indiscreet instrument of violence. The contraptions working within are less important than the battles its wielder has seen.
[] A flash of steel, sometimes a coin, sometimes an edge, always a tool.
Character sheet, The Castaway has been added to Informational.
