HOME | DD

Description

Broken Souls

Memories and Nightmares

Part III

”Why did the rabbit decide to lie down in the first place?”

In the middle of a kitchen there was a wooden square table surrounded by several tabletops with cooking utensils over them. Besides the table, sitting on a chair, there was a little 3 year old girl with long blonde hair and bright blue eyes. She was waving her feet up and down, due to not being able to touch the floor with them, while playing with her cereal.

”She was so confident in herself…”

A robotic voice, coming from a corner of the kitchen, replied.

”She basically overslept, and woke up until the turtle was about to finish the race!”

From said corner there was a standing silhouette of a golden robot cutting up some vegetables. The robot was composed by floating limbs and chest that lined up in a matter that resembled an anthropomorphic body, above the chest a series of triangular edges with a blue-projecting hologram in between that was showing the face of the A.I.

”But that doesn’t make sense…”

The little blonde girl responded back.

”Why did she do that when she could've just finish the race already and do anything else instead?”

”I don’t know. If I could I would ask the human that wrote the story in the first place, but I’m afraid that he died millenniums ago.”

The robot turned his head to look at a boy sitting on the lateral edge of the table from where the girl was sitting. Said boy was wearing a short black t-shirt, black shorts with red stripes on them, black leather gloves and a nice pair of sneakers, his black hair was a little bit tousled as usual, and he has been looking down at his unscathed cereal for a long time now.

”Ben… you haven’t eaten anything yet.”

The robot said to the young kid, this didn’t even move his head towards him.

”I’m not hungry”

The kid responded aggressively back, the girl was startled by this while the robot just put the knife over the table and head over to the boy.

”C’mon Ben, you need to eat something. At the very least taste it.”

The robot replied while sliding the bowl of cereal near Ben’s face. They waited there in complete silence for like 2 minutes with no respond from the kid.

”Maybe with some honey you’ll like it more.”

The robot finally said, before standing up and head towards the door.

”I’ll just have to ask for some to Urbert. You two stay here and don’t cause any mayhem while I’m gone, alright?”

”Okie”

The little girl waved her spoon at the A.I. bidding farewell before resuming her labor at eating breakfast. The A.I. reacted with a faint smile and then proceeded to get out of the kitchen. The boy was left staring down deeply into the cereal while the little girl went ahead and started to eat hers.

After a while, the boy finally decides to turn his head up just to see the little girl still enjoying her cereal with her left cheek a little messy from milk.

”How can you be so happy?”

He almost barked keeping his stoic face. The blonde girl, once again, was startled by this, but once she properly processed what he just asked she just smiled happily back, still with a stain of milk on her cheek, and in between giggles she said.

”Because I can”

The dropship’s main engine is being heard across the small room. While everyone was standing silently gripping to some part of the ship for them to not fall off, Ben was holding in his other hand a silver rosary with a gem embedded on its crux. In a sour atmosphere everybody was trying to avoid looking at him, Boss being the only exception by looking at the rosary he was holding.
   ”Hey, General, what do you think about instant noodles?”
One of the soldiers finally spoke out to shake the tension.
   ”What?”
Ben asked back in a mixture of a sour and confused voice.
   ”Instant noodles…”
The soldier cleared up while casually lying back on one of the doors of the dropship.
   ”A week ago I happened to watch this weird random documentary-“
   ”Carl no.”
A different soldier suddenly interrupted the first one, but he didn’t care.
   ”-about how instant noodles affected human’s culture during the 21st century, and how until this day those still exist.”
   ”Carl, I swear to god.”
The female soldier said stroking her forehead in disappointment. It was obvious that Carl was smiling a bit under his helmet.
   ”So I was wondering what do you think about them, General.”
   ”What do I think?”
Ben asked back rhetorically.
   ”They don’t deserve their name”
   ”I KNOW RIGHT?!!”
A third younger male soldier responded excitedly, everyone turned to him in attention.
   ”Uum… I mean…”
He said while going back to a cooler position and clearing his throat.
   ”I know I just wait for like 5 minutes for it to be ready, but I swear those are the longest 5 minutes I’ve waited in my life.”
   ”And it just, doesn’t even taste good at the end”
A fourth female soldier replied somberly.
   ”Especially if it’s Rachel who makes it.”
A fifth one, just besides the fourth one followed
   ”Hey!”
The second soldier reacted.
   ”What’s so wrong about my instant noodles?”
   ”You don’t wait long enough to serve them Rae, it doesn’t taste good when you do it right, and you mess it up even more.”
Carl responded with cockiness.
   ”Yeah, Rae, you should wait for a bit longer.”
   ”Yeah, Rae, you should add the flavor powder.”
The pair of female soldiers, apparently twins, said almost at the same time.
   ”Well, I can’t help it, I was hungry and they’re supposed to be instantaneous.”
   ”One would think, with how much we have advanced tecnologically since those were created, that someone would’ve upgraded them already”
A sixth soldier, standing on the back side of the dropship, suddenly said, taking everyone by surprise.
   ”Max, your comment has filled me with determination.”
Carl responded while tapping Max’s shoulder.
   ”When I finish my service at the army, I’m going to create REAL instant noodles, what do you all say about that?”
He finally said, and then everybody started to laugh out.
   ”Truth is, you are all babies”
Boss finally said when he stopped laughing.
   ”At the very least you only have to eat something to get your energy back. Me? I have to plug myself to a wall like a goddamn puppet”
Everyone else started laughing out again, even Ben was trying to keep it together mostly because he knew it was true.
   ”I already asked if the medic engineers could make my body recharge itself automatically, but no. ‘The actual parts of your body that are still working won’t be able to resist the effort it takes to emulate the magnetic waves of the energy expanders, and your brain might ‘overheat’ itself by this. No, you’re going to plug yourself to the wall and that’s it’.”
By now, even Ben was laughing out loud along with everyone else and Boss was showing off a neglecting pose. When everybody finally calmed down, Ben looked up to everybody with a faint smile on his face.
   ”We always have these weird conversations when we’re inside dropships, don’t we?”
   ”It’s Carl who brings up these random themes, sir.”
One of the twins declared.
   ”Yeah, sir, it’s Carl.”
The other one followed.
   ”Either way, all of you follow along, and I appreciate that.”
Ben said.
   ”Oddly enough, it helps keeping me focused.”
He then turned around to look at the younger male
   ”Timothy, right? ”
   ”Y-Yeah, sir, just Tim is alright.”
The young soldier answered somehow nervous.
   ”I’m sorry, it seems you have been with us for 8 months and I still can’t get your name”
   ”Not a problem, General”
   ”How old are you, Tim?”
Ben asked while leaning his back on the wall and crossing his arms.
   ”20 sir, 20 years old.”
   ”So you’ve been in the army for two years now, huh?”
   ”Actually sir…”
Tim started to say shyly.
   ”It’s been 4 years since I joined.”
   ”Well look at that…”
Carl suddenly interrupted.
   ”Someone volunteered as a baby”
   ”Be careful with what you say lieutenant.”
Ben responded.
   ”I, too, joined the army way too young, at 16 coincidentally.”
   ”So you’ve been in the army for eight years, sir?”
Timothy asked back to the General.
   ”Yep, I definitely know how it is to have instant noodles for lunch every day.”
Ben answered back.
   ”But, putting that aside, it’s pretty impressive for a 20 year old teenager to be part of the elite forces with just 4 years of experience.”
   ”Oh, please Ben…”
Boss interrupted.
   ”You’re at your 24s and you are already a General.”
   ”That’s why I’m saying it’s pretty impressive.”
Ben responded to Boss’ argument.
   ”He might get to be General before his 22s”
   ”You really think so? General.”
Timothy asked.
   ”I hope for it, Tim. I really hope for it.”
   ”General Knight…”
While the rest of the soldiers were starting to harass Timothy, Ben heard the mothership AI’s voice coming from his auricular; he split himself from the conversation.
   ”The aerial and space counterattack against the enemy has been initiated, counting from now both sides have 100% of their forces available. From this point on out it won’t be possible to provide you with any reinforcement coming from air (99%). According to the location of your current dropship you’re at 5 minutes from the drop out.”
   ”Understood.”
   ”It’s also worth mentioning that additional enemy forces were detected heading to Duboria from Cuadrant 65 (97%), their arrival is expected to be at least 3 days from now. I suggest you to finish the mission by then.”
   ”Thank you Sally”
   ”Good luck, General”
   ”Alright boys and girls…”
He said while turning around to look at the group.
   ”We’re at 5 minutes from the drop out point, reload your weapons and check your equipment.”
Everyone, including Boss, started to grab their respective weaponry and flipping their respective pockets.
   ”Remember. We won’t be able to ask any help from above, so it will be more efficient to move around quietly. Lucky for us inside the cities there are certain teleporters that could take us to certain places in the planet, but out in the wilderness we’ll have to walk.”
   ”Great…”
One of the twins whined.
   ”I hate mosquitoes”
   ”Quit whining, we have our whole body covered”
The other twin replied.
   ”This is a rescue mission, so have a lookout for any civilians within the city and the wild. If we do this right, we might have no casualties. Is everybody checked?”
He finally asked.
   ”Checked”
Carl replied.
   ”Checked”
Rachel followed.
   ”Checked up”
The twins said in unison.
   ”Ready to go”
Max followed.
   ”Checked, sir”
Tim declared.
   ”Everyone is ready”
Boss finally ended.
   ”Alright, I’ll also mention that in three days enemy reinforcements will come to help their comrades in space. So we better be gone before that happens.”
   ”Don’t worry, sir…”
Carl said.
   ”With all of us here, we’ll probably finish the mission at two nights max.”
The other soldiers nodded at the argument, moments later there were green lights throughout the small room while Ben was looking down at the rosary one last time before finally keeping it in his pocket.
The sound of the ship finally landing on the ground was followed by the sound of its doors opening at a gray sight of a city in flames. As soon as the eight jumped out of the ship, this one levitated back up and into the distance. Once the sound of the engine of the ship slowly faded away, they were left with a somber silence in the middle of a city that just 2 days ago was filled with life. Carl suddenly lifted his right arm in surprise and walked towards the General.
   ”Sir, the Athena is sending me an SOS signal coming from the southeast, from within the mountains.”
   ”Huh, what a welcome.”
Boss commented at the new.
   ”Should we start looking there?”
   ”If it’s coming from the mountains, it’s very probable that an ambush is waiting for us there…”
Ben answered.
   ”But it’s also as probable that it’s a bunch of civilians taking refuge at one of the caves. At least until we have radio contact with any survivors we should go that way and check it out.”
   ”Let’s go already then.”
Boss replied and Ben nodded in response, soon enough they were all heading through a street leading to the outsides of the city.

In the midst of the darkness there can be seen a large window that lets some, not much, light into the room. Thanks to said light, a lonely sofa can be seen some meters besides the window. Sitting on said sofa there can be depicted a dark humanoid form with abnormally large claws on its fingers, it was laying down like it was some kind of puppet.
   ”Mella”
A gloomy and sleepy voice, which throat seemed to be rigged, called out. Some minutes later, a female silhouette came out from a door placed at the other side of the window. The silhouette stopped at the middle of the room, where her face couldn’t be seen, and looked up at the figure on the sofa.
   ”What is it? Daddy.”
The teenager asked. The dark figure slowly turned towards the girl, thanks to the faint light coming from the window a large smile could be seen on the face of the figure.
   ”Don’t you feel like playing a little game?”

Description

Broken Souls

Memories and Nightmares

Part III

”Why did the rabbit decide to lie down in the first place?”

In the middle of a kitchen there was a wooden square table surrounded by several tabletops with cooking utensils over them. Besides the table, sitting on a chair, there was a little 3 year old girl with long blonde hair and bright blue eyes. She was waving her feet up and down, due to not being able to touch the floor with them, while playing with her cereal.

”She was so confident in herself…”

A robotic voice, coming from a corner of the kitchen, replied.

”She basically overslept, and woke up until the turtle was about to finish the race!”

From said corner there was a standing silhouette of a golden robot cutting up some vegetables. The robot was composed by floating limbs and chest that lined up in a matter that resembled an anthropomorphic body, above the chest a series of triangular edges with a blue-projecting hologram in between that was showing the face of the A.I.

”But that doesn’t make sense…”

The little blonde girl responded back.

”Why did she do that when she could've just finish the race already and do anything else instead?”

”I don’t know. If I could I would ask the human that wrote the story in the first place, but I’m afraid that he died millenniums ago.”

The robot turned his head to look at a boy sitting on the lateral edge of the table from where the girl was sitting. Said boy was wearing a short black t-shirt, black shorts with red stripes on them, black leather gloves and a nice pair of sneakers, his black hair was a little bit tousled as usual, and he has been looking down at his unscathed cereal for a long time now.

”Ben… you haven’t eaten anything yet.”

The robot said to the young kid, this didn’t even move his head towards him.

”I’m not hungry”

The kid responded aggressively back, the girl was startled by this while the robot just put the knife over the table and head over to the boy.

”C’mon Ben, you need to eat something. At the very least taste it.”

The robot replied while sliding the bowl of cereal near Ben’s face. They waited there in complete silence for like 2 minutes with no respond from the kid.

”Maybe with some honey you’ll like it more.”

The robot finally said, before standing up and head towards the door.

”I’ll just have to ask for some to Urbert. You two stay here and don’t cause any mayhem while I’m gone, alright?”

”Okie”

The little girl waved her spoon at the A.I. bidding farewell before resuming her labor at eating breakfast. The A.I. reacted with a faint smile and then proceeded to get out of the kitchen. The boy was left staring down deeply into the cereal while the little girl went ahead and started to eat hers.

After a while, the boy finally decides to turn his head up just to see the little girl still enjoying her cereal with her left cheek a little messy from milk.

”How can you be so happy?”

He almost barked keeping his stoic face. The blonde girl, once again, was startled by this, but once she properly processed what he just asked she just smiled happily back, still with a stain of milk on her cheek, and in between giggles she said.

”Because I can”

The dropship’s main engine is being heard across the small room. While everyone was standing silently gripping to some part of the ship for them to not fall off, Ben was holding in his other hand a silver rosary with a gem embedded on its crux. In a sour atmosphere everybody was trying to avoid looking at him, Boss being the only exception by looking at the rosary he was holding.
   ”Hey, General, what do you think about instant noodles?”
One of the soldiers finally spoke out to shake the tension.
   ”What?”
Ben asked back in a mixture of a sour and confused voice.
   ”Instant noodles…”
The soldier cleared up while casually lying back on one of the doors of the dropship.
   ”A week ago I happened to watch this weird random documentary-“
   ”Carl no.”
A different soldier suddenly interrupted the first one, but he didn’t care.
   ”-about how instant noodles affected human’s culture during the 21st century, and how until this day those still exist.”
   ”Carl, I swear to god.”
The female soldier said stroking her forehead in disappointment. It was obvious that Carl was smiling a bit under his helmet.
   ”So I was wondering what do you think about them, General.”
   ”What do I think?”
Ben asked back rhetorically.
   ”They don’t deserve their name”
   ”I KNOW RIGHT?!!”
A third younger male soldier responded excitedly, everyone turned to him in attention.
   ”Uum… I mean…”
He said while going back to a cooler position and clearing his throat.
   ”I know I just wait for like 5 minutes for it to be ready, but I swear those are the longest 5 minutes I’ve waited in my life.”
   ”And it just, doesn’t even taste good at the end”
A fourth female soldier replied somberly.
   ”Especially if it’s Rachel who makes it.”
A fifth one, just besides the fourth one followed
   ”Hey!”
The second soldier reacted.
   ”What’s so wrong about my instant noodles?”
   ”You don’t wait long enough to serve them Rae, it doesn’t taste good when you do it right, and you mess it up even more.”
Carl responded with cockiness.
   ”Yeah, Rae, you should wait for a bit longer.”
   ”Yeah, Rae, you should add the flavor powder.”
The pair of female soldiers, apparently twins, said almost at the same time.
   ”Well, I can’t help it, I was hungry and they’re supposed to be instantaneous.”
   ”One would think, with how much we have advanced tecnologically since those were created, that someone would’ve upgraded them already”
A sixth soldier, standing on the back side of the dropship, suddenly said, taking everyone by surprise.
   ”Max, your comment has filled me with determination.”
Carl responded while tapping Max’s shoulder.
   ”When I finish my service at the army, I’m going to create REAL instant noodles, what do you all say about that?”
He finally said, and then everybody started to laugh out.
   ”Truth is, you are all babies”
Boss finally said when he stopped laughing.
   ”At the very least you only have to eat something to get your energy back. Me? I have to plug myself to a wall like a goddamn puppet”
Everyone else started laughing out again, even Ben was trying to keep it together mostly because he knew it was true.
   ”I already asked if the medic engineers could make my body recharge itself automatically, but no. ‘The actual parts of your body that are still working won’t be able to resist the effort it takes to emulate the magnetic waves of the energy expanders, and your brain might ‘overheat’ itself by this. No, you’re going to plug yourself to the wall and that’s it’.”
By now, even Ben was laughing out loud along with everyone else and Boss was showing off a neglecting pose. When everybody finally calmed down, Ben looked up to everybody with a faint smile on his face.
   ”We always have these weird conversations when we’re inside dropships, don’t we?”
   ”It’s Carl who brings up these random themes, sir.”
One of the twins declared.
   ”Yeah, sir, it’s Carl.”
The other one followed.
   ”Either way, all of you follow along, and I appreciate that.”
Ben said.
   ”Oddly enough, it helps keeping me focused.”
He then turned around to look at the younger male
   ”Timothy, right? ”
   ”Y-Yeah, sir, just Tim is alright.”
The young soldier answered somehow nervous.
   ”I’m sorry, it seems you have been with us for 8 months and I still can’t get your name”
   ”Not a problem, General”
   ”How old are you, Tim?”
Ben asked while leaning his back on the wall and crossing his arms.
   ”20 sir, 20 years old.”
   ”So you’ve been in the army for two years now, huh?”
   ”Actually sir…”
Tim started to say shyly.
   ”It’s been 4 years since I joined.”
   ”Well look at that…”
Carl suddenly interrupted.
   ”Someone volunteered as a baby”
   ”Be careful with what you say lieutenant.”
Ben responded.
   ”I, too, joined the army way too young, at 16 coincidentally.”
   ”So you’ve been in the army for eight years, sir?”
Timothy asked back to the General.
   ”Yep, I definitely know how it is to have instant noodles for lunch every day.”
Ben answered back.
   ”But, putting that aside, it’s pretty impressive for a 20 year old teenager to be part of the elite forces with just 4 years of experience.”
   ”Oh, please Ben…”
Boss interrupted.
   ”You’re at your 24s and you are already a General.”
   ”That’s why I’m saying it’s pretty impressive.”
Ben responded to Boss’ argument.
   ”He might get to be General before his 22s”
   ”You really think so? General.”
Timothy asked.
   ”I hope for it, Tim. I really hope for it.”
   ”General Knight…”
While the rest of the soldiers were starting to harass Timothy, Ben heard the mothership AI’s voice coming from his auricular; he split himself from the conversation.
   ”The aerial and space counterattack against the enemy has been initiated, counting from now both sides have 100% of their forces available. From this point on out it won’t be possible to provide you with any reinforcement coming from air (99%). According to the location of your current dropship you’re at 5 minutes from the drop out.”
   ”Understood.”
   ”It’s also worth mentioning that additional enemy forces were detected heading to Duboria from Cuadrant 65 (97%), their arrival is expected to be at least 3 days from now. I suggest you to finish the mission by then.”
   ”Thank you Sally”
   ”Good luck, General”
   ”Alright boys and girls…”
He said while turning around to look at the group.
   ”We’re at 5 minutes from the drop out point, reload your weapons and check your equipment.”
Everyone, including Boss, started to grab their respective weaponry and flipping their respective pockets.
   ”Remember. We won’t be able to ask any help from above, so it will be more efficient to move around quietly. Lucky for us inside the cities there are certain teleporters that could take us to certain places in the planet, but out in the wilderness we’ll have to walk.”
   ”Great…”
One of the twins whined.
   ”I hate mosquitoes”
   ”Quit whining, we have our whole body covered”
The other twin replied.
   ”This is a rescue mission, so have a lookout for any civilians within the city and the wild. If we do this right, we might have no casualties. Is everybody checked?”
He finally asked.
   ”Checked”
Carl replied.
   ”Checked”
Rachel followed.
   ”Checked up”
The twins said in unison.
   ”Ready to go”
Max followed.
   ”Checked, sir”
Tim declared.
   ”Everyone is ready”
Boss finally ended.
   ”Alright, I’ll also mention that in three days enemy reinforcements will come to help their comrades in space. So we better be gone before that happens.”
   ”Don’t worry, sir…”
Carl said.
   ”With all of us here, we’ll probably finish the mission at two nights max.”
The other soldiers nodded at the argument, moments later there were green lights throughout the small room while Ben was looking down at the rosary one last time before finally keeping it in his pocket.
The sound of the ship finally landing on the ground was followed by the sound of its doors opening at a gray sight of a city in flames. As soon as the eight jumped out of the ship, this one levitated back up and into the distance. Once the sound of the engine of the ship slowly faded away, they were left with a somber silence in the middle of a city that just 2 days ago was filled with life. Carl suddenly lifted his right arm in surprise and walked towards the General.
   ”Sir, the Athena is sending me an SOS signal coming from the southeast, from within the mountains.”
   ”Huh, what a welcome.”
Boss commented at the new.
   ”Should we start looking there?”
   ”If it’s coming from the mountains, it’s very probable that an ambush is waiting for us there…”
Ben answered.
   ”But it’s also as probable that it’s a bunch of civilians taking refuge at one of the caves. At least until we have radio contact with any survivors we should go that way and check it out.”
   ”Let’s go already then.”
Boss replied and Ben nodded in response, soon enough they were all heading through a street leading to the outsides of the city.

In the midst of the darkness there can be seen a large window that lets some, not much, light into the room. Thanks to said light, a lonely sofa can be seen some meters besides the window. Sitting on said sofa there can be depicted a dark humanoid form with abnormally large claws on its fingers, it was laying down like it was some kind of puppet.
   ”Mella”
A gloomy and sleepy voice, which throat seemed to be rigged, called out. Some minutes later, a female silhouette came out from a door placed at the other side of the window. The silhouette stopped at the middle of the room, where her face couldn’t be seen, and looked up at the figure on the sofa.
   ”What is it? Daddy.”
The teenager asked. The dark figure slowly turned towards the girl, thanks to the faint light coming from the window a large smile could be seen on the face of the figure.
   ”Don’t you feel like playing a little game?”