Lovely [The Unedited Version]

Epilogue

Rose glanced over her shoulder at Lovely and Raven facing down the Robotics. They were always the heroic ones; she was a thinker and planer. Not a doer. Rose was ashamed of herself for running, she should have stayed back and helped them. But she had run and that was the end of it.

Rose had decided that she would clear her conscience by rescuing the others. She ran back to the hall with the rooms, her shoes clacking on the floor.  The ground was littered with broken and flickering Robotic parts and the others were nowhere in sight.

She walked up to a Robotic head and kicked it against the wall. Its mouth opened and closed slowly, sounds sputtering from the depths of its head. It slowly rolled to face her.

“Morpheus says: You have walked into a slaughter Rose.” Wisps of smoke emanated from its severed neck and the head made a couple more spluttering sounds before turning off completely.

“I’m walking into a slaughter?” Rose muttered.

She continued down the hallway, stopping to kick the occasional Robotic head. Rose sighed. She really should be moving faster: what if some Robotics happened to wander around the corner.

“Rose! Rose!” someone cried. For a moment Rose actually thought that it was Lovely then she saw the girl’s dark pink hair.

“Sera! Where are the others?”

“In the vans. Where are Lovely and Raven?”

“Fighting caught, dead; one of those three. Did you get everyone out?”

“Yes, but-“

“Let’s go then! Hurry up- what if more Robotics come?”

“We’ll beat them like we did before. It was so easy.”

“That easy?”

“Yeah! It was amazing- we just kicked their heads off and they died!”

“That doesn’t sound anything like what we had to fight.”

“Ah well, we must have gotten lucky. C’mon let’s go.”

How was it that easy? We practically had to dismember them before they stopped. Rose followed Seraphim to the vans, head in hands. There were no more guards at the doors, which we blown wide open.

“What did you guys do?” Rose wondered out loud.

“The doors were locked so we used some grenades and blew them open.”

“Huh.”

“It was so cool! The explosion I mean.”

“Where are the vans?”

They had parked the vans on in the employee parking lot, but they had passed that long ago. “We moved them to the back of the building so we could get out through the delivery area.”

“Why?”

Seraphim shrugged. “That’s the direction you guys were running so we though you might come out from back there. We’ve been waiting for ages- that’s why I went in.”

They lapsed into an uncomfortable silence, neither of them talking about what was on their minds. Neither knew what would happen to Lovely and Raven. Nor did they know if they were even alive.

Night had fallen on Philadelphia and the air was filled with the contented chirping of crickets. The outside of the Institute looked plain and unimposing if you didn’t know what went on inside. Rose hated that everything looked so serene when, just inches away behind the white brick walls, two people were fighting for their lives.

Sera pushed the open doors button on the keys. “Hey Sera?”

“Hm?”

“Who drove the cars back here? You can’t drive nor can anyone else.”

“Oh contraire. We might be too young by human standards, but we can drive. Demon and I drove them.”

“You let a ten-year-old drive a four-wheel-drive!”

“Yup! I knew it would irritate you.” she said with a smile.

Grumbling, Rose clambered into the driver’s seat. “Seraphim, give me the keys.”

“I don’t have them.”

“Yes you do. You just opened the car.” Rose looked over at Sera in the passenger seat and movement in the back caught her eye.

“Sera…what is that?” she asked, already knowing the answer.

“Robotics Rose.”

Rose looked back at Seraphim, for the first time taking in the girl’s face. Seraphim had dark brown eyes, except this thing’s eyes were an icy blue and the burns crisscrossing its face masked its true identity.

Rose wrenched her door open and bolted onto the concrete, narrowly avoiding a clumsy shot from the Robotic’s gun. Screaming, Rose launched herself into the air and flew high enough so she could see the entire Institute. She stayed there for what seemed an eternity, gliding in circles like a hawk searching for her prey.

The sun was high in the sky when four large trucks departed from the Institute’s back entrance. They were followed by a small car with blacked out windows; Rose decided to follow that car. She glided forward on silent wings never letting them out of her sight.