-⋆｡˚୨ 𝒑𝒓𝒐𝒍𝒐𝒈𝒖𝒆: 𝒂𝒍𝒍 𝒂𝒍𝒐𝒏𝒆 ୧˚｡⋆-
0:42 ⸻ ♡ ⸻ 3:08 now playing : sin city *
𝕯𝖊𝖘𝖎𝖗𝖊 builds me a ɍøŧŧɇn church to 𝖑𝖆𝖞 𝖉𝖔𝖜𝖓 in.
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Yuna blinked. At first, her expression remained impassive.
"... Say that again?"
"Exactly 365 days, 8.760 hours, 525.600 minutes and 31.536.000 seconds have passed since the first day we met, Miss Vega."
Silence. She allowed those words to sink in.
On Earth, a year had felt as fleeting as the flap of a butterfly's wing.
But on here? Here, it felt like a horrifying and neverending nightmare.
From the moment she'd woken up to nearly over one and a half years later, Yuna felt like she was trapped within the passage of time. It had been consuming her, bit by bit—now, not much of her was left anymore.
"Fuck you."
Eerily similar to the likeness of a broken doll, her gaze was hollow. So when her head tilted and her lips parted, the violence within those two words seemed completely out of place.
"Pardon?"
Sully, the bartender, looked unfazed in the face of getting insulted. On the contrary, he was sporting the same polite smile as he always did. As all the damned AI's did.
"I said— Fuck you."
Every word that squeezed past the incipient tightening of her throat felt like a sharp blade. Suddenly, speaking felt like cutting herself up from the inside out.
Sully tilted his head. "I'm afraid I don't understand."
That did it.
"Pffft."
After a few heavy moments of silence, laughter errupted within the bar, transforming from something dull and bitter to something decidedly more wretched and shrill. Then, her breath came in heavy and labored puffs—another panic attack was beginning to tug at the few fragile seams of her sanity. Or whatever was left of it.
"Of course you don't," she scoffed. Then she pointed towards the empty soju bottle in front of her. One of so many. So, so many. "You wouldn't mind even if I smashed this bottle into that stupid silicone face of yours."
Sully's eyebrows raised. His design was clean and simple—short, slicked-back blonde hair, blue eyes and he wore a neat, golden vest above a white satin shirt.
"You know what you need, Miss Vega? You look like you are in need of some good company right now. Why not mingle with some of the other passengers?"
Yuna wanted to laugh again. She really did. But god, was she tired. She wanted to leave. For good, this time. It was preferable to another fucking day on what was supposed to be a mere stop along the way.
"Great idea! Why didn't I think of that? I'm the only passanger who is awake, remember?"
"Oh! Right, right. Your cryogenic pod malfunctioned, which is why you're here now."
Sully paused, the motion almost mechanical, too unnatural. Then, he continued to polish a random glass.
"You know what? I admire your willpower. Based on my data, not many humans would have lasted as long as you did before considering something as silly as, I don't know, waking up another passenger forcefully—"
"... What?"
"I said—"
Yuna shot up from her seat. Her gaze, which had been hollow and dead for the longest, began to flicker with a glimmer of something twisted.
Something like hope.
"I KNOW WHAT YOU SAID! Fuck, what I mean is—... is it possible?" Her lips trembled, her voice fading into nothing but a whisper. "Waking somebody up? How would I do that?"
Sully stared at her for a moment, still polishing his glass, before he smiled at her again, completely oblivious to the fact of what he had just done.
"I suppose Jenna, our mechanical engineer AI, could give you an answer to that question."
◦ ∘ —————————————————— ∘ ◦
BA-BUMP, BA-BUMP, BA-BUMP, BA-BUMP.
After that pivotal night at the bar and seeking out Jenna just as Sully had suggested, it had taken Yuna a long time to get to where she was standing now, in front of a pod—one that wasn't her own.
It wasn't that she lacked the intelligence to pull off such a stunt, but it had been a matter of conscience.
Despite her desperation, despite her awfully strong desire to not be alone anymore to the point she'd considered unaliving herself on multiple occasions, she had hesitated. She'd wavered.
Why?
For most of her life, she had been an ambitious woman, greedy even, but she'd never been a bad person, much less a monster. Damning another soul's fate to one of living out their days on this aircraft was EXACTLY what a monster would do, though.
Whoever she ended up choosing, like her, would be denied a new life—turning over a new leaf, starting a new chapter. They would be robbed of a new chance at happiness and the chance to be one of the first humans to live on another habitable planet. FREEDOM. She'd take away their freedom.
Hailing from a small, impoverished town with dreams of making it big as a starlet in the largest city on Earth, she'd packed up her bags and left behind her old life without a single notice. Her road to stardom was bumpy, but not without success. From landing a job in a small ad campaign, to a random music video, to a role in a renowned TV show, to ending up in a movie with A-class actors—she'd done it all. And for a long while, she was ecstatic, she was happy; until she wasn't. Reality caught up to her fast. Unfortunately for her, popularity alone did not equal financial stability, and keeping herself afloat had been difficult. Her hardships didn't end there either. Standing in the limelight came with all sorts of unpleasant side effects: Stalkers, paparazzi, no privacy, body dysmorphia, misogyny, dozens and dozens of inappropiate AI videos of her and more.
Eventually, Yuna had found herself simply existing rather than living. She'd numbed herself to the world and the hubbub around her, doubting herself, doubting her purpose. That is—until she met him. Eric, her fiancé. Her saving grace.
When it was decided that she would board the Odyssey, she hadn't been alone in making that decision. Eric had been a part of it, too.
And yet, it wasn't Eric's pod that she was standing in front of. Oh no.
On the whirring blue display, it wasn't Eric's name that glared back at her, but another's. A man she had long forgotten. A man she hadn't been able to get to know as a man per se, but as a boy. Someone dear to her, but also someone she left behind when she'd moved to Toria.
The same question persisted.
Why?
Why was HE here? And why was every fiber of her being screaming at her to not wake him up?
Guilt, perhaps. Shame and remorse, too.
Eric's family was influential and rich as fuck. His father was the govenor of Toria, which is why his son's pod on the Odyssey was safely tucked away in a separate area for distinguished VIPs only. It was where her own pod should have been. With no access or means to get to where he was however, Yuna was left but with one option; to wake somebody up that wasn't him.
At first, it didn't matter who. She was willing to wake up the next best person—until she saw him among the list of passengers.
Eric and her were supposed to live out their happily ever after. She was supposed to find meaning on Homestead II again, for her life had lost it.
Her hands shook as terror racked her to her core; it was as if her body was moving on its own.
Warmth. Feeling. Closeness. A real confidant.
She wanted it. She wanted it all. She needed it.
So she did it.
She woke him up.
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