Shattered Time Capsule

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Monty nodded, then inspected the injury. "Hm. Well, that's not going to be a comfortable scar. What I'm about to do is going to hurt a bit later, but it'll make it numb for now. It will dissolve the burned skin, and then I'll rinse it away and treat it normally. The numbness will last a few hours, but then it's going to be sore, and touching it will hurt, but it'll make sure the muscle of your arm isn't damaged later."

He explained it simply as he pulled a small tube from the kit, uncapped it, and used the nozzle to spread the clear blue, slightly-chunky gunk around her injury. It numbed her skin quickly, and then began to make bubbles. Monty blew on it to pop the bubbles so he could see, then used a bottle with a bent nozzle to rinse and deactivate the compound. It left her arm wet, but a few tissues wiped away the liquid quickly as the bits of the gunk from earlier turned black. "When it turns black, that means it won't take away any more, because it's either too old, or it got deactivated with this stuff." He showed her the bottle, then put it and the dissolvant away. Next, a tube of triple antibiotic, this time applied with a swab. It was clear and smooth, and felt strangely cold. "This is triple antibiotic. It kills anything that's trying to get into your skin to give you an infection, and this kind is special: it pulls out any silver particles stuck in you." He capped and put away that tube, then pulled out a bandaid that looked too large and placed it over everything. "This bandage is special. It's big, so it won't rub as much, and this big red hexagon tells people not to touch you there, because you're very sore." He nodded, then closed the box and threw away the bandage papers and q-tip before he stood. "Shall we get going? The yard downstairs is further away, but it has a swing set for you and shade for me. We do have a garden on the roof, though, which is closer, but not as nice."

The old man winked, as though they were up to no good together, then offered a hand. Whether she took it or not, he led her to the elevator and held the door for her, prepared to go to the ground floor, unless she insisted on the nearer roof. They could get to either by elevator, so they had to get in anyway.

She did look increasingly antsy. His finger hovered over the ground floor button, but he glanced at her. "Actually, let's go to the roof." His gut said it was important. "I can show you where we grow our food." He pressed the roof button.
 
The girl, after a moment of hesitation, slid her small white hand into his. She was so fair and delicate, having rarely seen the sun or run about, it was clear that she was not someone who had experienced this harsh world of theirs before now. She had not been subjected to stinging winds full of sand or harsh, burning midday light. She was too unblemished. Too innocent.

When he mentioned the roof she nodded eagerly, not particularly caring where they went so long as there was dirt and fresh air and they went now.

As soon as they stepped outside, a great sigh of relief left her and she darted away from him, bright green grass springing up in her footsteps the moment her bare feet touched the ground. Small, colorful buds burst open, leaving a trail of little flower patches as she ran across the rooftop.
 
Her nod was enough. He pressed the button for the roof, and the pair rose in the small, metal box, though this ride was significantly shorter than their previous, and the door opened to blue skies above and cement below.

Arranged in rows, long boxes of black dirt held lines of plants: mostly vegetables. The soil smelled of fertilizer, and small white tubes laid against the stem of each plant supplied drip irrigation. Some dirt had, at some point, escaped from the boxes and laid in the girl's path as she darted about, and small flowers grew up from them as Monty stared, one hand on his cheek as his eyebrows rose. "Welp. That's new."

He laughed and shook his head. "Careful about the veggies, Lizzie!" He hoped she wouldn't spring flowers up around them and deprive them of nutrients and water. Certainly, this fragment suffered less than others in terms of plant growth, but the rooftop garden only barely provided enough, and now he had a Hunter to feed. It wasn't going to be enough, unless somehow the girl's flowers were edible.

The old man was no expert at flowers and edibility, though. Still, flowers, even small as these, were a welcome sight. He knelt and ran a careful finger along one tiny bloom's petals. Their soft, slightly damp texture made his smile falter: not from unhappiness, but from concern.

Lizzie could spontaneously create plant life, no seeds required, and just from hard, dry dirt. There were some fragments where such an ability would earn the girl a life of enslavement, forced to learn and master her skill under a whip. If the Unifiers took her, they'd study her, try to make more. They might harvest her ovum and seek to create more of her in some half-cocked effort to win the trust of those still alive by forcing plant growth, and perhaps trying to find a way to make people who could bring life to the stagnant semen and spoiled eggs in those people that remained.

Did Michael know about this?

Monty scooped up the flower and some of its dirt carefully in one hand to look at it more closely.

It didn't matter. She was there now, and if she was to retain her freedom, they had to protect her. The remaining land would eventually crumble into nothing, anyway; all anyone could do for anyone was try to bring them joy and comfort during these final times, and hope that if they fell into the void beneath the fragments, their death didn't cause them pain.

He'd find out soon enough, he was sure. This fragment decayed more slowly than the rest, according to Unifiers, likely because of one of his patients. That didn't stop a frown from forming or the worry from eating at his gut.

The man looked up towards Lizzy. The girl seemed so happy, so carefree. The worry and fear faded from his face as he placed the flower back on the ground, careful not to disturb its delicate roots, and then he stood and walked to a bench under an overhang and sat, movements slow as his hips and back ached from being on the ground for even a short time.
 
The girl obediently stayed away from the vegetables, not wanting to bother them. Still, every plant that she passed seemed to bend towards her, as though attempting to brush their leaves against that ivory skin."Monty." Lizzy turned to look at the man, rocking back and forth a bit on her heels as she paused for breath after running around for a bit. "Why is there no green out there?" She seemed genuinely puzzled as she pointed out over the desert. She had wondered this before too, but had been more concerned with Michael and their escape from the men shooting at them to really think about it.

Inside the lab, thanks to her growing things as she ran about, there had always been vines and flowers everywhere. She had never been let outside save for in the inner courtyard, protected by high metal walls. So she wasn't used to not being surrounded by greenery.
 
Monty looked up, looked toward where she pointed, then stood and walked closer. She was pointing at the fragment in the direction she and Michael had arrived from. He frowned and absently scratched his head. The fragment on which they stood still had trees, bushes, even undergrowth, but for someone as small as her, it might have been hard to see over the wall around the rooftop. "I don't know the whole history, but that fragment is from a world that died a long time ago, before all of the worlds shattered into fragments." He shifted, then lifted the girl so she sat on one of his arms and could see over the wall and see below more easily. "See the gap between the desert? With the broken bridge? That's where this fragment meets the other one. Each fragment is a different world, and-"

He cut off as he noticed how the desert fragment had sunk since last time he looked out at it. Even from this distance, he could see chunks of the ground crumbling away, leaving more distance between his fragment and the desert than he'd seen since the Shattering. "Oh..." His voice fell, and so did his expression. "It's... dying." He swallowed. "You don't have to watch., Lizzy."

Monty's eyes remained glued on the scene in the distance. Larger chunks began to fall away, but instead of turn away himself, Monty shifted Lizzy to his left hand, and used his right to salute as pain entered his gaze as he tried to keep his tears inside. Why that world had kept itself afloat so long, he couldn't tell, but now, even over this distance, he could feel a sense of relief coming from some impossibly vast, impossibly tormented source, and then the source faded, and with it, the last pieces of land fell and dissolved before they could leave his sight.

After a few moments longer, Monty ended his salute, then sniffed. "Sorry. I..." He shook his head, then forced a smile that didn't meet his eyes. "You go ahead and play. We can talk about it later. I need to sit." The old man gently patted her head as he began to move back towards the bench, shoulders slumped before he spun and slammed himself onto the bench. He closed his eyes and let his head fall back. His hands rested palm-up on his lap, clenching and releasing as he sat quietly, shaken.
 
Lizzy watched the land fall apart, a small crease of confusion above her emerald eyes. She didn't understand exactly what was happening... but she could feel the sadness of the man next to her, and looked up at him worriedly. After watching him sit down in such a strangely violent way she was still for a moment, and then hurried off to the corner of the rooftop garden, where she crouched down and focused intensely.

A few minutes later...

"Monty." Lizzy stood in front of him with an almost amusingly serious look on her face, her hands cupped and holding out a small patch of dirt, in which grew a miniature tree. Small white flowers bloomed on the delicate branches. She smiled softly, almost hopefully. She didn't know how to do much, but she hoped that she could make him smile. It was a naive, but earnest feeling.
 
The girl's voice pulled Monty from his depressing reflections, and he looked up to see the girl's serious expression as she held a small tree in a similarly small patch of dirt. When he looked, the girl smiled, expression lightening.

His own expression joined hers as she successfully cracked through the sadness of watching a world die. "Sweet girl." He murmured as he used one hand to pull her head closer. He kissed her forehead, then patted her back. "Let's find a place to plant that, and we can put it in a sunny window in your room. The weather's warm, so we can even open the window wide and it can feel the breeze."

Lizzie offered a pleasant distraction, but it didn't pull the pain from his heart: that had been there long before her arrival, and would last until he fell in the void, as that other fragment had. Still, she eased the pain, and a good doctor knew dwelling on sadness did nothing kind to his patients. "I think we have one with enough soil so it can spread its roots out a little bit. Do you know if it likes to put its roots really deep, or does it like to keep them in a ball, or maybe spread them out wide?" He gestured on each one: first he mimed one hand burrowing. Second was two hands cupped together, and third, he spread his hands and fingers, inching them apart from each other to help illustrate the point.

"I don't know a lot about plants like you seem to, but roots keep them alive." He offered a wink, his playful smile back in place.
 
Lizzy giggled a bit, leaning her head down towards the little tree in her hands. "Well?" She tilted her head thoughtfully, as though listening, and then looked up at him with a smile. "Ball," she informed him decidedly, seeming proud of herself. She was glad that he seemed to have cheered up. The girl was very sensitive to the emotions of others, and her own were always so clear on her face. It was easy for her to become overwhelmed, which was why her creators had always been careful to stay as calm as they could around her and not give her the panic of having people who were angry at her.

Once the tree was planted, Lizzy held the pot close to her with one arm, and tugged at Monty's sleeve with the other. "Is Michael done?" she questioned. She had been quite successfully distracted until now, but now that they were settled down again, she wanted to know where her friend had gone.
 
"She talks to them, too." Monty chuckled quietly and shook his head. "I half-wonder if you're a reincarnation of an old friend." With those words, he fetched a ceramic pot, about nine inches tall and eight wide, with a matching bowl underneath to catch liquid from over-watering, and added soil and a handful of fertilizer. He mixed it by hand, knowing full well he'd have to wash up anyways, but he wasn't on a limited time schedule.

The old man helped her to plant the little tree, and the pot seemed to have enough space that its roots could grow. "When it's big enough, we can plant it outside, in a nice, sunny spot in the yard, or maybe we can make a trough and plant it up here, so we have nicer shade." He chuckled at the fairly ridiculous idea of trying to house a tree on the roof. She picked up the pot and the bowl that came with it, and Monty wagged a finger at her. "Two hands, young lady. Can't have you dropping the little friend, can we?"

As she asked after Michael, he pondered a few moments, then shifted his arm to look at his watch. "Mm, yeah. He should be done with his shower by now, maybe even have his jacket clean. Wanna go show off?" He jerked his head toward the elevator.
 
"Two hands," Lizzy repeated obediently, seeming quite concerned by the idea of dropping the tree. She let go of Monty's sleeve and hugged the pot close with both hands before smiling brightly up at him. There was a strangeness about her innocence: a mixture of impossible knowledge and childish naivete. She knew so little, but understood so much, emerald eyes shining in her pale face as though looking through everything.

"Yes, I want to show him!" she exclaimed. Again, it was not that she could not speak more fluently and at greater length, she simply saw no need to. The little tree seemed to sway a bit in its pot as though agreeing with her. She was excited to show Michael what she had done, and hoped that it would make him smile as well.
 
Monty nodded in approval at the girl, then placed a hand lightly on her shoulder as he led the way to the elevator. Back in the building and on the top floor, he led the way toward Lizzy and Michael's room. For now, it was better for them to share, and there were privacy curtains.

Plus, he doubted Michael was into little girls. Ziggy would have noticed and said something.

The old man paused as he heard voices ahead.

"No, you may not take my—Excuse you!" Michael's voice became shrill at the end, and he stumbled from the room. "No! No touching!"

A woman followed him, lunging. It wasn't Ziggy.

The young man jumped to one side as he grabbed the woman by the shirt. "Chill! Just chill! You're going to hurt yourself!"

The woman huffed as she stared at Michael, panting as he held her by the shirt at arm's length, his arm high enough she almost dangled. "I just want to look!" She pouted at him with a gaze that Monty knew well: one that had melted his resistances several times, but Michael managed to stay firm in the face of the dark-skinned woman in her pristine white clothing. Her long hair was tied in a free-hanging braid, and at one hip, a formed turban hug from a hook on her belt. "You are mean! I hear all these legends of Hunters and I only wanted to try on your coat! I could make it worth your while!" One green eye winked as she shifted on her sandal-clad toes, trying to act seductive even in her current situation.

"I'm sorry, but I promised the one who gave it to me that I wouldn't let anyone else wear it." He sighed as he watched the woman settle, her grin fading.

"Mm, yes, promises must be kept." She murmured and looked away sulkily, her lips coming together as her cheeks puffed in a pout.
 
Lizzy watched all this with a tilted head, seeming a bit confused at first. However she came to understand the situation even as she watched it. Once the two paused in their conversation she sidled over to Michael and smiled openly, holding up her pot with the little tree and its white flowers. "Michael, look. I made a tree," she said proudly, handing it to him to inspect. Then she turned to the woman who was pouting so impressively and informed her, "Michael's coat is special, don't touch," with a straight face and serious tone that was somewhat amusing to see on her delicate features. It didn't exactly suit her appearance for all that she meant it.

Once her proclamation was made she turned back to Michael and smiled again, waiting expectantly, eagerly, to see what he had to say about her tree, which she was very proud of, and still hoped would make him smile. He needed to smile, she felt, smiles were important.


(I'm very sorry, my college semester has ended up being way more overwhelming than I expected, so I simply can't keep up with writing and my schoolwork with as much consistency as I'd like. I'll be trying my best with the roleplays I have right now but won't be taking any new ones. Again, I'm very sorry for the trouble.)
 
(( No worries. I'm pretty patient, and lately slower than I'd like to be, anyway. So much to do in a day! We should keep OOC comments to our PMs, though. Helps keep the IC clean. ))

The situation appeared handled, and though Lizzy's intervention hadn't been needed, it helped lighten the air between the two. Michael looked down at the girl, then smiled, even before she lifted her pot up for him to view. "Welcome back," he greeted, and the girl looked toward the woman and scolded her.

That pouting little glare was far, far too cute. Michael wanted little else than to squish her cheeks, and had to bite both his lips to restrain himself.

The woman blinked down at the girl, then laughed. "Alright. I won't touch." She grinned broadly at the girl and placed a hand on Lizzy's head. "I'll be good." With a nod, she withdrew her hand, then rested it on one cocked hip.

Monty approached, hands stuffed into his pants pockets, and snickered. "Lizzy and Michael, meet Morella. Morella, these are Lizzy and Michael. Lizzy is Michael's caretaker." He smirked.

Michael huffed, then shook his head. "Man, no mercy." He ran a hand through his hair, then knelt in front of Lizzie. "That's a nice little tree, Liz. Smells really nice, and it's almost as cute as you."

The old man rolled his eyes. "Stop flirting, she's too young for you."

"I'm not flirting!" Michael groaned.
 
Lizzy hummed happily, glad of the smile, the praise, and seeming pleased by her new nickname. She took the tree back and held it carefully in two hands like Monty had told her to, so that she wouldn't drop the precious thing. "I had to go outside, so Monty took me," she told him, speaking a bit fast in her excitement to share with him everything he had missed. "Then the ground fell apart and it was sad, so I made the tree." She blinked her big green eyes at him innocently, silver-tipped lashes brushing her fair cheeks. The ones who had made her hadn't intended her to be so charming, her appearance was meant to be appealing to the eye, but their creation had turned out perfectly gorgeous. She would be a great beauty in a few years, turning heads without needing to try. Not that that was in her personality anyhow.
 
Michael grinned, but his grin faded as she mentioned watching the ground fall apart. He looked suddenly towards Monty, concern on his face.

The old man waved a hand. "Nevermind it, Michael. This fragment's still safe, and will be for a very long time."

With a nod, Michael returned his attention to Lizzy. "Let's put our new friend in a sunny spot on the windowsill," he suggested as he jerked his head towards their room, refusing to think about how there was a sun at all in this shattered apocalypse, let alone one that they seemed to orbit. Perhaps the fragments were actually arranged in a globe? The Unifiers probably knew since they remained high above, but... asking them would be dumb as hell.

He walked to the door and held it open for her, a smile on his face as behind him, Morella and Monty exchanged glances that held a silent conversation.
 
"Okay," Lizzy agreed easily, carrying it in the door and over to the window. She hummed under her breath, a small bounce on her step. The one who didn't know anything, such a status allowed her a joy rarely seen in these shattered days of this dying world. She had been sleeping for so long, but to her she had simply closed her eyes and then opened them to see Michael. She didn't know how long it had truly been, and she didn't know what sort of condition the universe was in. She barely knew what she was herself, only that she felt the urge, the need to spread green life across the ground whenever she touched it.
 
Michael smiled as he watched the girl, then followed after to help her lift the heavy pot into position. "What do you think? Right here?" He smiled at her, all warmth and brightness as he glanced briefly out the window. Below, he could see the garden they'd entered by jumping the wall not so very long ago, but already it felt like an age.

His stomach snarled suddenly as he caught sight of red fruits hung on a tree.

From behind, Monty's voice spoke up. "Morella, you think we should feed these two something?"

"Yes. Not fat enough." The tanned woman nodded. "You told me Hunters need to eat lots, yes? Clearly this one is starved."
 
"Starved," Lizzy echoed, poking Michael's stomach with a bright laugh. One of the researchers used to do that to her when her stomach growled. She learned by mimicking behavior, so saw nothing wrong with this action. Personal space wasn't something she really got either, as they would have already figured out by how she clung to Michael. She beamed up at him. "Michael, are you hungry? Should we eat?"

She liked Michael. He felt warm, and kind. For some reason, she was naturally drawn to him, and she trusted him. Almost as though she had known him sometime before.
 
The Hunter blinked at the touch, then looked down at Lizzy. For several moments, his expression became impossible to read, though there was a strange tension around his eyes until she spoke, and he smiled dow nat her. "Yeah. Both." He looked up towards the door. "Got any chow?" He forced a grin.

For a moment Monty thought he was looking at the boy's father. He ran a hand through his cinnamon-sugar hair, then nodded. "Yep." He looked toward Morella. "Wanna help me with that?"

"Mm." The dark-skinned woman nodded, then tilted her head as she looked at first Michael, then at Lizzy. Her eyes narrowed, though the smile didn't leave her face. She anticipated they would be fun additions to the hospital.
 
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Lizzy fiddled a bit with Michael's sleeve, and gave a small yawn. The excitement of the day was starting to catch up with her, and she felt like after they ate she would probably want to sleep. She swayed back and forth ever so slightly, looking up at Michael and smiling openly. She liked it when Michael smiled, and she wanted it to happen more. "Michael," she said suddenly, flushing a little as she remembered her manners. "Thank you." She had never thanked him for saving her earlier, that was rude. She felt silly, but better once she had said it. Lizzy really was grateful to him.
 
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