Hopeless Days

Stage One

Peony recoiled as Cinder through a huge piece of trash to the ground, sending dust everywhere. Who knew what it had once been?
Why had she agreed to come again? This place was so gross. "Here," Iko's voice broke into her thoughts. The android lifted her pronged hand to bang on a hunk of metal. The sound resounded in the otherwise quite junkyard.
"Good eye," Cinder replied. The two of them sifted through the junk until the front of something could be seen. "I've never seen one like this," Cinder said. She ran her hand over the thing. Even through the gloves Peony could hear the faint clang of metal on metal.
"It's hideous," Peony sneered. "What an awful color. " Peony shivered a little and yawned. Suddenly, she was more tired than she had realized.
"It must be really old. "Cinder yanked open the hood of what Peony now realized was an ancient hover. Cinder backed away at the mess that greeted her. "Really old. "
Peony's stomachache turned a little. She was surprised that some wires would do that to her.
"Huh. Point the light over there, would you? "Cinder asked, lowering herself to the dirt.
Peony gazed at the car. She stepped forward and pulled a piece of trash off with pinched fingers.
Cinder had squirmed under the hover now. "Stars this thing is ancient."
"It is in a junkyard." Peony wished she were at home. Pearl would be settling in to watch her favorite show on her port, and sometimes she let Peony join her. Peony didn't really like the show- there was almost no romance- but she hardly ever got to do anything with Pearl anymore. Why couldn't Cinder hurry up?
"I'm serious. I've never seen anything like it. " Cinder's voice came from the hover.
"Any useful parts? " Iko asked.
Peony sighed and wandered away. She loved Cinder, but sometimes she couldn't help thinking that all the wires had messed with her social radar.
Peony turned back toward the hover as her stomach turned again. Funny, she had been feeling fine earlier.
"This is cool."
"I'm bored." Peony tried to inflect as much meaning as possible into those words.
After a pause Cinder said, "It's not a hover. It's a car. A gasoline car."
"Seriously?" She asked, more for Cinder's sake than interest. "I thought real cars were supposed to be... I don't know. Classy."
Iko said something that Peony didn't catch- her head had a shooting pain in it now- but Cinder piped up, "It's from the second era."
"Fascinating. Not." Just then, Peony glimpsed a huge furry beast slither out of the car. She screamed and jumped away from the car.
"Peony, what?" Cinder asked.
"A rat just came out of the window! A big fat hairy one. Oh, gross."
Cinder only groaned, and lay back down. Peony sighed and crossed her arms over her chest.

A while later Cinder decided to suggest that they push the car home. Peony couldn't imagine doing that. Her stomach was hurting had she felt kinda dizzy.
"Ew."
" All right, I get it. I won't make you guys push it home."
"Whew, you had me worried," Peony replied. She gave a smile and brushed a lock of hair off her shoulder. Cinder paused and looked at her funny.
"Hold still," she said, and leaned forward.
"What?" She said. She darted her eyes around. "What is it? A bug? A spider?"
"I said hold still!" Cinder tease he'd forward and grabbed Peony's wrist. The gloves were ruff on her skin.
"What? What is it?" She finally caught sight of what Cinder was swiping at. It was red. And looked like a bruise. Oh no. No. "A... a rash? From the car?" She knew she couldn't hope.
Cinder pulled down her shirt collar down. Now Peony could see the spot in full.
She did the only thing she could think to do.

She screamed.