Alone

The Fall

You can tell it's gonna be a bad day when you wake up in mid-air. Cold wind was rushing past her face, and she could barely keep her eyes open. She struggled to turn over, and tried to relax as she searched her brain for something, anything that could explain what was happening to her. She came up empty, so she tried to focus on something around her. She could see smooth dirt walls on all of her sides, and can sense a fading light above her. She must be in some kind of shaft, falling down. What was her name? She couldn't remember. She couldn't remember anything. The air going past was different now, more metallic and smelled of rust. She must have fallen 200 feet since she had woken up. Suddenly, a sharp breeze turned her over, and she could see the ground speeding towards her. The air is filled with shrapnel and she has to toss and turn to dodge them and make sure that she doesn't get cut. A blinding light comes into her vision and she covers her eyes momentarily. Then she lowers her hand as the light gets softer and tries to figure out what it's coming from, since they're obviously underground, when a piece of sheet metal flies into her eye, slicing right through the iris and staying there. She shrieks in pain, tries to blink it out, but it just hurts more, so she stops trying and keep screaming. Warm liquid fills her mouth and flies by her ears as she falls. She blacks out for a second or two from the agony, and then she slams into the ground, arousing with a shout of discomfort. She blinks the dots out of her vision, then manages to stand and get a good look at her surroundings. Her head is still throbbing, but she can see that she is in an underground cavern filled to the brim with leaning metal buildings and structures built into the walls. She puts her hand to her cheek, and it comes off covered in dark red blood. Well, that's not ideal, she tells herself as she spits blood out of her mouth. But it's not terrible. I need to find a mirror, see how bad this is. She sees a sign for a bathroom across the street and stumbles towards it. The sensation of being watched starts to creep up her back, but she shrugs it off. She pushes open the surprisingly creaky door and stands in front of the row of mirrors. The person staring back both surprised and terrorized her at the same time. After staring for a second or two, she finally decided that she was pretty. Her figure was slim, almost too skinny, she was basically flat-chested, and her clothes were all ravaged from the fall, but she still looked pretty. She soaked in every detail of her strange reflection, for she could swear that she had never looked like this before. She was wearing gray cargo pants, a long-sleeved shirt made of beautiful red silky fabric, no shoes (she was pretty sure that she had lost them in the fall), and a red, gold, and green bandana that covered her midnight-black hair, which was wavy to no end. Her sleeves were rolled up high enough that you could see the muscles in her arms, so she could assume that she was a pretty able-bodied individual. Her face was different, with wide green eyes, a pretty normal-sized nose, and cute lips. She had a few freckles running around her face, and her skin was a lovely, silky light shade of brown. She leaned in closer to the mirror to look at the injury in her eye, which looked pretty bad. She could faintly see the shrapnel embedded in her eye, and she could definitely see the damage- her whole left eye had gone from green to silvery-gray, and was bleeding out through the middle and down the entire left side of her face. She touched her eye, but a wave of pain wracked her body, so she decided against it. "I need to pull it out somehow..." she thought out loud, surprised at how smooth her voice was. She hears the creak of the door opening and she turns towards it, hoping that person could help her. When the new people come around the corner, she shrieked and jumped back at least a foot, for these people were NOT what she had expected. They were definitely not human, must've been some weird version of a robot. Their whole bodies were made from a mix of melted and solid materials- mostly steel or metals but there was also some plastic mixed in, and the one on the left of them had a wooden arm, while his counterpart had a glass eye. Their design was kind of familiar to her, like out of a movie. She struggled to remember... "Robots*," she murmured, not sure where she got the name. Her new friends stared straight at her, their mouths slightly open, as if they were surprised about something. She regained her composure and reached out to shake their hands. "Hi, I'm..." she paused, her hand still in the air. "Actually, I can't remember my name. What's yours?" she asked half-cheerfully. The robots looked at each other nervously. Glass-Eye hesitantly shook first and introduced himself as Chrome, then Wooden stiffly stuck out his wooden arm and called himself Ram. Interesting names, she thought, but it was an interesting town. The bots then backed up and continued to stare at her. She opened her mouth to ask Chrome where he got the eye when they said at the same time, "Are you an actual human?". A rather unsettling question, but she answered, since not doing so would be rude and might upset her hosts. "Yes... Why?" she asked. "Are there others around?" Their expressions turned a bit more to stone and they shook their heads firmly. "Haven't been any for-" Chrome began. "About 200 years." Ram finished. "Oh, wow." she said, stunned. 200 years?! How old would that make me, then??? How am I alive right now? she screamed at herself. Just then, the door opened again and another bot walked in, female this time, but the whole top of her head is made of wood. She sees our girl, stares for a second, then notices Chrome and Ram and seemed to snap back to reality. "What is she doing here?!" the new arrival shrieks at the boys. "You know the rules! Any new arrivals, especially humans," she emphasizes, pointing a metallic thumb in the direction of the only human around. "go straight to the Mayor! I thought you knew better than this, boys!" Out of the corner of her eye that doesn't have shrapnel imbedded in it, Rita (Sorry, but imma just call our human Rita right now while there's another woman around, otherwise I might go crazy. Her name's not Rita, though, we still don't know it.) saw the boys literally deflate- they shrunk down a few inches as Ram half-whispered, "Yes, ma'am. Sorry, Lexi." "What was that??" Lexi shouted. "We're sorry, Lexi." Ram says, speaking a little louder this time. "I CAN'T HEAR YOU, SOLDIER!!" Lexi screams at them. "WHAT DID YOU SAY?!" The bot may have been shorter than Rita, but she sure had lungs! Hopefully not actual lungs though, that would be disgusting, Rita thought, shivering. "WON'T HAPPEN AGAIN, LEXIBOOK, SIR!!" both boys shout. Rita had to cover her ears because of how loud this conversation was turning out to be. Still, nothing could stop her from snickering a little at the thought of Lexi's full name. "GO TAKE THAT GIRL TO THE MAYOR ASAP, BOYS!" Lexibook yelled. The other bots looked at each other as if they were thinking otherwise, but seeing as none of the teenagers wanted to get yelled at by Lexibook again, they both grabbed Rita by the arms and guided her out of the rusty bathroom.

*Robots is the name of the movie that the bots were based off of. The movie was released in 2005 and stars Ewan McGregor, Halle Berry, Mel Brooks, Amanda Bynes, and Robin Williams.

Also, if anyone is confused, every robot in this book is named after a computer, car, or other electric thing. Chrome is a Chromebook, Ram is the car brand, and Lexibook is an old game console from the 80's or 90's. Sturdy and functional, but crude. Just like our bot Lexi.