Squander Not Thy Joys

[Weapon]

Day Two

As Kimiko's senses returned, a small, brutalist concrete enclosure surrounded them. Tucked tightly under blankets in a cramped sleeping spot inset in the wall was Bellamy, their face buried in a pillow. A dull yellow-orange light cast the room in a perpetual atmosphere of both warmth and oppression. A large pot could be heard bubbling through a thin metal door which presumably led to a common area, and the comforting scent of a simple stew circulated through the dismal abode.

As the scenery changed, Kimiko still kept her focus upon Bellamy, a sympathetic look painting her face. Her hair began to lengthen, falling to her waist as her skin grew paler, now more porcelain in appearance than flesh. She sat down next to the sleeping corner, gently placing a hand on the blankets.

"Oh... you poor little thing. I think I can feel it, too," she mused, her voice a soft motherly hum. "Of course you're still here, dear."

Bellamy simply groaned, clutching their pillow tighter. In the distance, klaxons blared across the ecumenopolis. Kimiko did not need a window to look out of to know where, and when, they were.

"Matilda, we have to go now!" a voice snapped sharply from the other room. The urgency in the woman's words was palpable.

Another woman responded, her voice sad and unsteady. "O-oh, but the stew isn't ready yet! Isabelle loves her stew..."

"Matilda, stay here and die. I am not letting you sentence them to death."

"But Isabelle can't go outside, Lorna! Her asthm—"

A loud bang on the door. Lorna, apparently, had had enough.

Kimiko was quiet now. She remained, doing her best to be a comfort. A passive observer. She knew this place well, from her father's stories. Sometimes, when she passed the mass grave of a planet, she wondered if he was buried among the glass.

She looked to the door, then back to Bellamy. Then, to the window.

"Bel! Bel, we have to go!" Aunt Lorna shouted at the door. The klaxons grew nearer and the ground began to shake.

"There's—look, there's a freighter and we can get out of here and we can go be somewhere safe right now! Somewhere you can breathe the air, somewhere you'll have a future, Bel!"

"Please, go away..." Bellamy spoke muffled into their pillow.

"Listen, Bel! Please, please listen. This little cube your mother has kept you in, it's not all that there is. You're going to meet so many new and exciting people. You're going to walk through the woods, see the ocean, have your first kiss, fall in love. All of those things, they're yours, they're everyone's birthright. This place you've called a home? It isn't any more natural than the ships the Royalists have in orbit. Remember when we watched the Oubli fall together, remember how good that felt, Bel!?"

"You're not supposed to be here!" Bellamy screamed back. "You need to leave, go without me!"

"She won't."

"You are the reason she'd go through all this effort, dear," Kimiko softly whispered, though her voice thundered in the air. "You don't belong here."

Bellamy sat up in bed, wide-eyed, staring desperately at the door. "Then make her! You can make her, just like you stopped the bombs over Guadalajara!"

"I didn't stop them. Everything still happened. All I did was give us a moment to talk," she explained. "You're stuck here, with regret. With pain. Did you... ever get a chance to let yourself feel it? To let yourself hurt?"

"I... what? Why would you ask that now? I've tried, a little bit? How is this going to save her? She's supposed to live! She could have fought for the Commonwealth if she didn't have me dragging her down!"

"You were her reason to fight in the first place, B. Why do you think she's here?"

"And she's dead because of me! And I have to watch her die again because of YOU!"

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Recruitment | Task Force Prometheus | ICN FIRESTORM