Decaying Hope

A Girl

For the third time today, I wake up. God, my head hurts. Not just from the good smack I had gotten earlier or from the helicopter collision, but it also just feels so tired and it aches and I want to go home.

Okay, I'm tired and stranded on some random-ass planet with air that makes my lungs hurt, cut me some slack if my speech is sounding weird, 'kay?

Anyway, I wake up, look around, and it seems like I'm in some kind of concrete bunker. The air here doesn't seem to be...toxic..., unlike the outside air from earlier. Perhaps this was all...a dream? I look down and...nope, not a dream, my leg's still gone. Even though this situation is far from ideal, I do exhale a breath of relief, glad that at least I'm not going insane or anything.

Not only have I woken up from an unconscious state for the third time in one day, but when I try to move I realize that I've also been chained up twice in the same day. Utterly fantastic.

Now that I've gotten my bearings, I realize that I'm alive, that my leg has actually been... bandaged up. "Wow, someone actually came...to help me, I wasn't honestly expecting that," I thought to myself.

The room I was in had no windows or doors--so I assumed this was underground--, and it had one dim lamp in the center of the room, as well as a ladder propped on the opposite wall from me which itself led to a trapdoor. The room was rather small, just about 40-ish square feet, I'd say.

I suddenly heard the trapdoor squeak, and I froze, my eyes fixed to the entrance. Slowly, the door opened, and a pair of legs stepped on the highest rung. Then they stepped down to the next. Then the next. Then the next. And pretty soon I found myself staring up at...a girl. She was dressed in a pair of white stockings--each with a few pink stripes at the top--, a white skirt, and a brown, slightly oversized hoodie. Her hair was silvery-white, and was nice, straight, and long, falling gracefully down her back to about mid-torso, which--speaking of--was relatively...flat, but there was still something noticeably under there. She was...kinda cute.

The girl cleared her throat, clearly not too happy with me checking her out. I suddenly felt extremely self-conscious and rather guilty for doing something so dirty. I recoiled back into my corner, looking down.

"Ah- I'm sorry, so sorry..! Really, I didn't mean to-" Wait a second. Aren't there bigger problems at hand here? The girl just rolled her eyes, leaning on a black-and-yellow sledgehammer.

"Jeez, not good with women, are you? Just another reason for me to throw you back out there," the girl scoffed, blowing back a strand of her smooth hair that had wandered over her face back over her shoulder.

"I- well, I suppose not--but, hey, I-I think we've got other things to worry about first. Like, first of all, who are you? Where am I? Are you going to hurt me?" I spat back at her, the girl already having gotten under my skin a bit.

"Y'know what, sure, you're right. Okay, I am...none of your business, you're in a concrete bunker that I call my home, and yeah, if you continue to give me reasons to, I might," she replied in a smug tone, her eyes narrowing with her last answer. "O-okay, then, well, one more question shouldn't hurt. Why...did you save me..?" I asked, my voice a lot softer now. This question caused the girl to lose her composure a bit, her body stiffening temporarily.

"...I just had a good day today, and it didn't feel right leaving someone so utterly hopeless to just bleed out like that. Also..." the girl carelessly tossed a green can at me, which hit me square in the stomach. "H-hey, what was that for?! I've already been in a helicopter crash today, thank you!" I glared at the girl, whose face had returned to the normal uninterested stare. "It's your dinner, and you're welcome. Eat up." The girl began to climb the latter once more, hauling up her sledge hammer with her. She quickly left the room, closing and latching the trapdoor behind her, leaving me alone with my supper.

I turn the can around so the label faces me, and my face recoils in confusion. "'R. I. Beans'? I've never heard of this brand before..." After my comment, my stomach begins to rumble. Even though I'm chained up, my restraints have enough slack so I can still properly gain ahold of the tab and open the can, which was--you guessed it--full of black beans. "Fffaan-tastic." I tried to sound annoyed and trick myself into thinking I wasn't grateful for the girl's kindness, because she was  kind of an asshole so far. But I was rather hungry, and if it wasn't for her I wouldn't be alive anymore, so I wasn't able to keep up that uncaring facade. "Damn, how does she do it so easily?," I mumbled to myself, pouting slightly.

Anyway, I quickly poured the beans into my mouth, which had a rather strange taste to them, but were nonetheless satiating. I wiped my mouth with my sleeve, placing the now empty can next to me. I started feeling very tired, and I looked around the room, which was a pointless thing to do, because if all this girl was going to give me for dinner was a can of beans there'd be no way in hell she'd give me a reasonable thing to sleep on. "Welp, cold, hard concrete it is, then," I quietly said to myself. I took off my coat and flattened it out on the ground before crawling on top of it, tucking my arms under my head. The trauma from the helicopter crash today made it very easy for me to fall asleep in these conditions. My eyelids began to feel rather heavy, and I just couldn't...quite...keep them up over my eyes, and eventually, I fell asleep.

...

"Echo playback finished."