The Ballad of Charles

The Sweet Escape

It was quiet. You could've heard a pin drop, had it not been for the scraping and screeching of T:K's rustic joints. It wasn't as bad now, it was just a silent scrape here and there. He walked behind us, his gaze fixated on Charlotte and I, a funnel of blue light cascading over us like a sheet of rain. If you couldn't see the dust particles before, you definitely could now. The light was bright enough to reveal to us just how unattended the lab had been, the dust around us glimmering in T:K's light. We continued walking towards the barricade that was delaying our escape, taking notice of every small detail we'd missed along the way. Testing room windows had been broken and shattered, some sliding doors were held open by file cabinets, tables, and other lab equipment. Flasks of unknown liquids had fallen over and smashed on some places, and some look like they'd been thrown. As we got closer, we began to see burn marks on the walls in sporadic patterns. A laser weapon, no doubt. But what had they been shooting at in here? And most importantly, who was firing? We didn't think about it too much, because we didn't have time to. Before long, the door was among us, the table still firmly melted in place. I looked back at T:K, and address him. "T:K, we need you to move that table." I pointed to the barricade, making sure my request was clear. He only responded with a low beep, and began hobbling towards the door. I hadn't noticed it until now, but T:K couldn't speak. He wasn't fitted with a voice module, and was only able to communicate in beeps in a certain pattern. Like a game of Simon. Maybe one beep for yes, two for no, so on and so on. We heard the sound of metal straining, and turned to look at T:K's progress. The table was thrown off to the side, bent in half. Our gargantuan friend was now working the blast doors open, prying at it forcefully with his fingers. Charlotte and I ran up and each grabbed an end of the door, and tried to assist him. The door wasn't budging. We were about to give up, when we heard a noise coming from T:K. It sounded like a drum beat. It started slow, then began to pick up speed. Steam began pouring out of loose bolts in his shoulders, and in an instant, he tore the door open. Charlotte and I looked at eachother in sheer disbelief, then looked up at T:K. He turned around to look at us, giving a single, almost jovial sounding beep. Light had poured into the room, covering a majority of the corridor we were in. Charlotte grasped my hand firmly, and I glanced at her, giving her a look of, "It's going to be ok." She nodded in silent agreement, and we slowly walked outside. T:K let us go out first, following close behind. When we had adjusted our eyes to the light, what we saw was... Unbelievable. A vast, brown scape of trees without leaves, the ground below us not showing a hint of anything green. The sky was a midnight blue, a blanket of orange and yellow coming over the horizon. Charlotte's grip on my hand loosened to a soft grasp. The sun was rising. We stared off into the distance, watching it turn the sky a beautiful scarlet. T:K walked up behind us, placing his hands on our backs. He picked me up by my tattered jacket, and Charlotte by her shirt, and placed us on his shoulders. We stayed like that for a long time, looking at the sun rise. Once the sun had completely risen, I felt Charlotte start caressing my hand with her thumb lovingly, and I tried to hide my expression from her. Her thumb moved from my hand to my wrist, before stopping. She put both of her hands on my arm, T:K's shoulder holding her in place. She stared at my wrist for a long time, before I got concerned. "What's so interesting about my wrist, Char?" I asked in an awkward joking tone. She looked at me, and turned my wrist to face me. On it, printed into the metal... Were coordinates. I looked on in a confused state, before showing it to T:K. His one eye's pupil adjusted, trying to zoom in on my wrist. He didn't do anything for awhile, and I was beginning to get worried, before he grabbed Charlotte and I, one in each hand, and sat us up in his palms. We felt him begin to rumble, and a confirmatory beep was heard from him. A cloud of smoke exploded out of his feet, launching him forward. We were approaching the ground fast, and I was sure we'd be scrap metal. Before we could hit the ground, we stopped. The ground was zooming past us, and T:K was dangling Charlotte and I below him. I looked back, and saw fire was going for a yard behind us. Smoke and dust trailed not far behind...
T:K was flying.