Gigantic. Positively so. It towered over the shelves, reaching to the ceiling. The blue paint shone brightly. I reached up to the chest.
It was a masterpiece, if I say so myself. This creation of mine is a marvel of modern technology. I turned the switch, and the servos inside whirred to life.
The automaton lurched a step towards me, electricity sparking from the antennae on its head. I had programmed it with a sense of right and wrong. I had orchestrated a scenario to test its power. I looked out the window, and saw the fire spreading across the...
Backwards, triumphant, towering low over this once perfect field of brown and dusk.
held soft in the omnipresent rapture of breathing.
I was all wrong. This wasn't the spot I thought we buried her. Jason was in front of me pointing left, and the sky was darkening. My mind was all over the fucking place. He's pointing left, when I swear we buried her right by this patch of weird leaves that looked like lettuce. Still, Jason swore that we needed to head left more. Really, when you commit such a crime, and forget where you buried the body, needing to go back to get it because you "accidentally" left the weapon right by the body, possibly with your prints... going...
There's somebody standing in the corner of my room. He just stands there in diffused light - brooding and making no noise.
Oddly enough, he makes no attempt at escaping. Perhaps its because I stapled him to the dresser drawer as he had refused to have his picture taken.
He looks so much better in person anyway...
"You don't like her, do you?"
"I don't have to."
He glanced at her, although kept his eyes on the road. "You have to try."
"Really, my feelings towards her don't matter, what matters is that you like her, and she likes you." Her feathers were ruffled now as she looked out of the window, most decidedly not at him. "Besides. I am trying."
"Then maybe you should try harder."
They didn't speak, the sounds of the engine the only thing keeping them from awkward silence.
"The others all like her."
"I don't have to like everyone - "
"You...
The results were in, and despite it all, she didn't want to know.
She didn't want to be told. She didn't want anyone else to know. She'd fought for these tests, fought to receive the results, and now they were in her hands...
"You're not going to open them, are you?"
He had known all along that she wouldn't do it - she realised it now. He knew her far too well. She placed the envelope delicately onto the table, and took his hands instead.
"I'm not ready to know, not yet. I've had so long getting used to the...
Somewhere across the field, there were worlds unexplored, lives never lived. Somewhere over that field there was a dream, there was a magical land in which -
She knew she romanticising it. She knew that fairy tales were just that, she knew that living happily ever after was not a reality. She knew that across the field there was little more than...more fields.
But they were unexplored fields, they were new fields, and the unknown was better than this. This sepia-toned world, this dull, boring land that held no adventure, no prospects, no hope.
Across the field there was another...
She didn't look at him.
"So that's my answer, is it?" He stared at her, hoping, praying for - well, anything. Any kind of response. A show of emotion.
She didn't look at him.
"Fine. If - if that's how it is, if that's - fine." He wanted the weight to lift from his shoulders, now that he knew the truth, he wanted something to happen, some kind of change - he wanted to feel something.
There was nothing. He was numb. He wasn't even angry, he just felt cold.
"So I'll be going then."
Her back was to him...
She didn't look at him as she gingerly opened the sketchbook he had laid in front of her. Carefully schooling her face into it's most neutral expression, just in case she didn't like what she saw.
She needn't have worried.
For as she opened the book and began to gaze over the imagery, the concepts, the scribbled annotations that sounded like he had been talking to himself as he wrote them, she became lost in the world he was describing.
She could feel him tense next to her. She understood that, by being shown his work it was like she...
He was dancing the enchanting dance of resurrection: Resurrection of his father.
His noble father that had told him everything: how to hunt, how to dress, how to speak, how to love. He was waving his arms frantically above his head as had been told when stranded. Stranded with no food, no shelter, no companion.
He pointed towards the only thing familiar to him: a round weathered ball with the threads worn out and its surface dull. He looked pleased as he glanced towards its vicinity - almost relieved even - as if it was the only thing tying him...