Arkdays [Pre-load]

Prologue 4

"Doctor?" Shia whispers after quietly opening the door to the upstairs. After seeing him standing against the same corner he was before, she walks into the room slowly and closes the door behind her.

"We're not going outside the city, Shia," The Doctor states with a harsh tone.

"No, Doctor. I thought of a good way to get back to transport, we just have to leav-"

"Absolutely not. It's far too dangerous."

"But we can just-"

"My word is final, Shia."

"Let me finish Doctor!"

The room grows silent for a second, both of them feeling a bit on edge.

"You're a very smart man Doctor, but you're too narrow-minded for something like this. We agreed that I'd help you if something went wrong on this mission, and I plan to do just that. You're not alone, Doctor."

The Doctor stays silent, folding his arms while looking Shia directly in the eye.

"Go on."

"Our transportation team does not have any radio devices, yes. But the vehicle they're driving in has a specially programmed interface for various tasks. One of which is to automatically ping your location should you leave a certain area. The area right now is our current city, Legunda. Should we leave the city..."

"When did this get implemented?" The Doctor asks, slightly caught off guard.

"Just recently. You hadn't left Augustia for a long time, so everyone was reluctant to let you go again. It was a safety precaution."

"How are they tracking me?" The Doctor asks, patting his body in every pocket location on him.

"I cannot tell you that Doctor. Not in your current state, at least," Shia states definitively, crossing her arms with a slight scowl.

Again, the two grow silent. On the contrary to their silence however, Shia's mind is racing. She'd never been so stern with the Doctor before, and it was an incredibly strange experience to her. She wanted to both apologize and push more at the same time, and in the end she couldn't decide on a plan of action. What cut off her thinking was instead the loud sound of beeping, followed by a scream from the floor below.

"Morgan!" Both of them shout at the same time, The Doctor suddenly lurching off the wall.

The two of them quickly run down the stairs to see Morgan visibly shaking with a small hammer clenched tightly between her fists. She stares intensely at the coffee maker in front of her.

She then turns her attention to Shia and the Doctor, then back to the coffee maker.

"I... tried making you coffee. You guys were yelling, so I wanted to make you happy," she starts, breathing rapidly while slowly setting the hammer down on the counter-top. "It didn't make coffee. It tried hurting my ears, so I hurt it back. Now we wait for coffee."

The Doctor and Shia look at each other, confused.

Morgan walks back to the couch, patiently waiting for the machine to whir back to life. She spins the hammer in her hand.

The Doctor lets out a small chuckle, and gives a relieving smile to Shia. She smiles back. The Doctor then looks around the apartment, first at the kitchen and then the strange paper on the wall behind him.

"You and Shia," Morgan begins with a slightly flushed face again. "Both look at the same things. Please stop reading that."

"O-oh, my apologies," The Doctor replies, sticking his hands in his pockets. "Tough subject?"

"No, it just makes me feel... dumb," She eventually says after looking down. "I am not like you. I only can take and eat."

"Don't feel that way Morgan," The Doctor begins, looking over at Shia for help. "In fact, I'm sure you have many more skills than we have."

"That's right," Shia cuts in, walking over to Morgan. "There's many things you have learned that I'm sure me and the Doctor don't know. For instance, you know your way around the city far better than we do."

Shia stands over Morgan and pats her head gently, running her hand through her rough brown hair.

"You treat me like a puppy," Morgan huffs, though moving her head to guide Shia's fingers through her hair.

The Doctor chokes back a small laugh before turning his attention to the kitchen.

"It's incredibly clean here," he remarks, admiring the shininess of the countertops.

"Everyone has left now. There is no one to use it. I do sometimes wrap things, but I clean up when I am done," Morgan replies, looking over to the kitchen as well.

"Everyone has left?" Shia asks, her hand now frozen. "There's other people?"

Morgan mumbles something under her breath then goes quiet. She looks between the two, unsure if she should say anything.

"There was other people," she admits, looking over at the table with the packages on them. "They left one day. Said they would come back soon. Rei said that two weeks ago."

"Are they the one that wrote the labels for the packages?" The Doctor asks, noticing the difference between the handwriting on the packages and on the sheet of paper.

"Yes. She said she would give them to my parents when she came back. She was only going to be gone for three days. I do not know where she went."

Shia and the Doctor look at each other quizzically before turning back to Morgan.

"Please pet me again," Morgan mumbles quietly to Shia. "Rei used to do it for me."

Shia returns her hand back to Morgan's hair and runs through it softly, whispering comforting words to Morgan. Meanwhile, the Doctor seems to be deep in thought.

"Anyways, you can't stay for any longer," Morgan says sorrowfully while backing away from Shia. "I will take you out of the city."

"You can come with Morgan," The Doctor starts, a somber look strewn upon his face. He scratches his chin, something on his mind as he speaks. "We'd even take you back with us-"

"I can not do that," Morgan replies with a straight face, trying hard not to show emotion. "I will wait for Rei. I like you, and thank you for helping me. But Rei is family."

Shia opens her mouth to say something, but no words seem to come out. The Doctor shakes his head at her.

"Please, lead us there."