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"Nova, did you get your arm checked?" Floyd asked, staring at Nova wincing for the seventh time in fifteen minutes.
She shifted on the hard metal bench of the canteen, "It isn't any bother. Must have pulled a muscle or something in the copter crash." and took a bite out of the dry sandwich.
Floyd blew into his cup, the steam dissipating inside the vacant grey hall. He glanced around the usually bustling area in the facility, seeming as dreary as he felt.
"Why are you here?" Nova questioned her trainer. "You were to attend the twentieth anniversary of the rebellion."
Floyd shrugged, sipping the coffee. "Why are you here?" He mimicked her question. "You should be at home."
"Here-there, it's all the same. It's lonely here and it's lonely there." Nova absently traced the scratches on the metallic table.
"How's Michael?"
"Busy—as usual." She sighed, grimacing.
Floyd placed his hand on hers, holding it comfortingly, urging her to continue.
"I know father loves me, it's just that he sees mum in me so much that it pains him."
"You are a reflection of Kat." Floyd smiled fondly. "It's you who keeps her alive."
She bit her lip, "Yet you still became a stranger to me for years." smiling sadly. "I miss her." She inhaled to calm the chaos in her heart, before she continued bitterly. "The wilds should've shared their blood immunity to save us, instead of rebelling."
Floyd shook his head. "It's not their fault."
"Why do you defend them? They stole her life and many more. She was your sister, do you not miss her, uncle?" She questioned irately.
"I miss her more than I can tell... Many of us died, but many of them died too at our hands before they rebelled." Floyd replied, gazing decades into a past unknown to her. "They still die today, now because we bleed them dry."
Nova argued. "But it's for the cure ... only they can cure us, so we have a right—"
"To slaughter them!?" Floyd completed the sentence, with his eyebrows raised high into his greying hair. "I didn't go to the rebellion's anniversary because we could've averted the deaths we are honouring today. The blood of Kat and everyone is not on the wilds' hands, Nova, it's on ours."
"What do you mean, floyd?" Nova asked in bewilderment.
Floyd raked a hand through his hair, slouching back and frowning, staring at Nova in thought, before shaking his head. "Nothing—You should go home, it's getting late."
Floyd made to stand, but she gripped his wrist. "No—what did you mean? We only want the cure, then how is it our fault?"
He squeezed his eyes tiredly. "There is no cure, Nova." He whispered, divulging truth to unravel the narrative spun of lies in the city. "It's a sham to inject the wilds, making them obey the mayor's rule like us; we robbed their joy, we drove them to a mass suicide..."
