MURDER DRONES: RELAPSE [read desc!]

Crash Landed

L's POV

All I could remember was the uncomfortable sounds of the ship taking off.

All I could remember was the intense rumbling of the spaceship.

All I could remember...

~

"N...V...J...are you guys still there?"

I could barely hear their voices amidst the noise around us. But yet, the voices were...very reassuring.

Unfortunately, despite hearing their voices, I was unable to see their faces.

In fact, I couldn't even see anything.

Disassembly drones typically have 5 eyes, but zero of them were working for me.

I had begun to panic, curling up on the floor into a little ball, trying to reset my optic sensors. I could hear the rest of my squad (save for N) yelling at me, the most prominent voice being J. I pretended my audio input sensors were broken as well.

But that was a lie I had just told myself to make me feel better.

The beeping of the spaceship was getting too loud.

The metal of the ground I was sitting on got too cold for comfort.

The air suddenly felt very, very stuffy.

The rumbling of the ship was just too much for me to handle.

I was most definitely hyperventilating at that moment. I could hear myself screaming over the overpowering noises, but then I quickly shut up when I could practically feel J's stern glare at me.

Being quiet was my best bet if I wanted to calm down.

Especially if I accidentally let anything slip that I shouldn't.

I fell asleep for the rest of the trip.

A downtime notification on my visor said "49 minutes, 34 seconds, 39 milliseconds. welcome back, idiot."

Looks like I woke up again.

I looked around. The landing pod was in shambles, each screen shattered and all the lights inside out. There were exposed wires everywhere on the control panels. The buttons still looked fine. I reached out to press one, which did nothing. It made a satisfying click, so I kept pushing buttons.

I was too busy distracted by the sound of the clicking that I never noticed that N, V, and J weren't even in the landing pod.

They must have gone out to start their massacres.

I (reluctantly) stopped clicking buttons and focused on the sounds outside. There was a symphony of gunshots, swords, metal scraping (my least favorite), chainsaws, and V's maniacal laughter. I knew I should have gone with them...but I didn't know what J would do with me. She was probably upset at me. V and N, too. I was supposed to be there to help N land the pod, but...I blacked out in the middle of the flight...

My thoughts were cut off by a knock on the wall.
"Everything alright?" A therapeutic, familiar voice snapped me out of my trance.

"N..." I felt like I was about to cry. "I'm sorry..."

"H-hey, don't...do whatever the drone equivalent of crying is!" He came over, knelt down next to me, and gave me a comforting pat on the shoulder. "Why are you even apologizing to me? As far as I can remember, I don't think you did anything wrong-"

"I wasn't there to help you out." I cut him off abruptly. "The landing pod is destroyed. The only thing that works are the clicky buttons." I proved my point by pressing the buttons, which once again made that nice click sound and made me smile softly.

"It's not your fault, L." He got my attention again with that sweet voice of his. "If anything, it's mine. I should be able to do it myself, but..." He laughed uneasily. "J's mad at both of us, so don't worry. We'll get through this together, lil' bro."

"..." I hugged my knees and rocked back and forth on the ground. It calmed me a little bit, but not by much as I was still panicky.

N met me with silence. We sat there for a while. Around half a minute passed before I found myself clinging to N tightly. He smiled, playfully tousling my hair.

"C'mon buddy, let's go back out before-" N glanced outside. "Before J yells at both of us. Again." He stood up and held out a hand. I grabbed it and N helped me stand up. He led me outside before giving me a small nod and flying off to kill workers and avoid J.

I carefully poured the contents of a worker drone head into my mouth, letting that warm, sweet oil cool down my systems. I crushed the head, now empty, and let the metal scrap fall into the snow.

I felt the need to press one of the landing pod buttons again. When I did it the first time, it made me feel better. It distracted me from all of the sounds everywhere, overriding my systems...

I started trying to find my way back to the landing pod.

What was the path again?

Was it a left here? Or keep going straight?

"...N? Are you there...?" I called out with no reply. "...J? V?" 

I started to think they intentionally left me out here.

Or I just...get into trouble too much. Because at this point, I was lost. Lost on a planet I barely know. 

word count: 854