The last

Two.

Still Sunday, September 30th, 3010

I am awake and it's seven minutes past two. I should be asleep because of the physical activity I'll be doing tomorrow, but I can't help but feel like there's a reason I am up.

I stretch out my limbs and enter the main area of our apartment. The television is playing an archaic film - Grease. It's odd to think that it was filmed on a entirely different planet - just after mankind first made it to the Earth's moon. It is still being remade nowadays but with only girls. Eventually, they'll stop playing this version and stop letting us keep it.

We shouldn't know what men look like but they sort of figured that you can't really see- and you can't see, so they're correct. They kind of just look... The same. For my children, it'll just be another illegal film.

Linda is sprawled across our sofa - which makes sense: Grease is her favourite film. It's not mine - it's way too old for me to appreciate it. A clattering noise makes me whip my head around, my body turning after it.

In the darkness, the sheen of light on an intruder's goggles is visible. I whip out my metal wand (no, I'm not a wizard and I have read those books) immediately - how I have been trained. My eyes adjust extremely quickly to the darker side of the room and I can see the shape of the person and the speed of their graceful movements.

When the figure lurches forward, I do too. I shift the entirety of my body weight and sprint towards the uninvited person with my arms held rigidly behind my back. As I pass, I lash the back of their knee with my wand and watch them grip their knee and descend to the floor slowly.

"Ouch." They say in a gruff voice. I kick the switch for the light and the kitchen (that's pretty much just an empty room) illuminates, the colour of this- the light, to be clear - being bright blue.

The person, clad in black, is hunched over next to the next room's archway, clutching their knee, still. I kneel down next to them and move their hands to access the damage. They try and cover it again, but I withdraw my wand and they stay put. I carefully press against their knee with two fingers and they grunt, in pain.

"Your kneecap is in fragments." I tell them in a fairly casual manner.

"Why are you playing doctor? You caused the injury." They whine.

"You almost gave me a heart attack. What was I meant to do? Stay put and let you clobber me?" I grab a scalpel, a bandage, a bone-laser, an iodine based antiseptic, tranexamic acid and a needle with nylon thread - so basically, my somebody-has-broken-something first aid kit - from beneath a loose panel in the kitchen.

"Listen, I was only joking. It-it's not that bad! S-see I can walk." They stand on one leg and hop away.

"Come back! I can't just leave you like that." I guide the limping stranger onto the fold-out medical counter in our kitchen. When I said it was 'pretty much empty' I was more referring to the fact that it looks that way.

"Just... Do you have any pain killers?" They sigh.

"Well, we have a pipe that has nitrous oxide and oxygen pumped through it... Is that good enough?"  I state.

"What's nitrous oxide?"  They frown beneath their balaclava. "And, why are you helping me?"

"Um... It's sometimes referred to as laughing gas. Also, I'm helping you because I have a conscience." I cut through the Lycra bodysuit around their ankle and push the leg up to their thigh. I inject some tranexamic acid into a visible vein in their thigh. After covering the area in antiseptic, I slice through the skin and flesh around their shattered kneecap.

"Ow! You didn't give me that laughing stuff!" They cringe. "Plus, you didn't have a conscience when you obliterated my fricken knee!"

"Fight or flight response." I shrug and pull out a tube connected to the pipe that pumps the nitrous oxide. I connect it to the nasal mask and hand it to the unknown person. They strip off their balaclava and goggles after obvious deliberation in their mind.

Her face is small and pale- her skin being almost translucent- with a small and pointy chin which suggests she's from Rubidus, like me. Her eyes are large and barely blue and her hair is white. She quickly puts the nasal mask on, giving me a thumbs up. And I twist the valve; allowing the gas to be inhaled. I wait approximately three minutes before starting to work again on her knee. The patella is in three segments and, luckily for me, they've barely moved. I hold two of the pieces together and solder them together using the the bone-laser. I do the same with the last two pieces before covering the patella with the not-entirely-sliced-off layer of skin and flesh. I sew around it carefully, securely and neatly before cleaning the surrounding skin and wrapping her knee in bandages. 

"As long as you don't apply too much weight, that'll be okay to walk on in about a week." I say as I twist the valve in the opposite direction and cut off the flow of gas.

"Sleepy!" Is all she says in response.

"Do you have to go home?" I question her.

"I haven't got a home yet. Soon, though." She grins goofily.

"What's your name?" I ask out of curiosity.

"Shhh! Don't tell that Azura girl, but I'm called Tukiko." She whisper-shouts.

"I won't... How old are you?"  I continue my interrogation.

"Twenty." She giggles.

"Have you recently been tortured?" I peer at her oddly pale skin and white hair.

"H-how did you know?" She whispers, tears welling in her eyes as she stares at me.

I have no tact.

I sigh and gesture to her to say 'follow me' - forgetting about her knee. She understands, so I rush over to aid her to our spare room that we do nothing with. I pull out a yoga mat and a pillow and put them on the floor. I say nothing before leaving.

Goodnight, Tukiko.

_-_-_-_

A/N

I'm redoing the entirety of what I've done so far. It was irritating me because there were too many plot holes. Even little things didn't make sense, so yeah - it was one hundred percent needed!

I don't know why I added so much to the knee bit. I wanted it to be more... Futuristic, I guess.

INCLUDE ALL OF THE ELEMENTS!

Rubī Red Rose <3