Champion of the Bots ✔️

Chapter 8 ~ RENA

It was her first time on the Savior. She had her eyes closed as she clung to Sid. She refused to open her eyes, refused to see the blood, the bodies, the monster walking towards her—

"Shh, shh, it's okay now." A young, gravelly voice spoke, easing the rock band inside Rena's heart.

"You're safe now," the voice lulled. "You're home now."

Rena remembered gripping onto a soft but muscular hand and opened her eyes.

But as she opened her eyes now, Rena could only see the wreckage. She could still remember the golden curtains, the purple foyer, the brown floors. The Savior was a gigantic train contraption soaring in the sky, and survivors could choose to have their own room or shared with their only remaining families.

Rena now threaded carefully through the wreckage, through her home. Litters of teddy bears, picture frames, pillows, and lost memories scattered the ground. Survivors trudged through the ruin, bending once in a while to retrieve their only possessions left in this world, stifling their tears.

As her fellow family passed by, they pinpointedly glanced at the ground or looked at their hands. She didn't let that affect her because she knew that what she did was right.
Instinctively, she put her hands around her sore neck.

She remembered looking at her enemy's angular face, marveling at its metallic eyelashes fluttering against its soft tan skin, at its steep nose, at its soft, purplish lips, at its humanness—

Then she was lying on the ground, the robot once again clamping its large hands around her red neck. She struggled and pushed and clawed; but when she peered into her enemy's eyes again, all she could see was despair and horror and humanness.

Its lips formed to say something before five people smashed into it like in a football field and held it under them. It writhed, eyes glowing laser red.

Rena almost couldn't stop the rest of the survivors from smashing its metal skull into the ground after that. She pleaded with them—"He could just be like one of us inside! Give him a chance!"

They wouldn't listen. They simply glared and walked away, walked around the destruction caused by the mechanic monster.

She knew she shouldn't protect it, him. She knew she should just kill him, let him pay for all the blood, all the chaos, all the people.

But she couldn't.

So, she squared her shoulders and continued walking through her wrecked home caused by the very thing she protected.

"Hey, Bot-lover," someone called out.

Rena glanced at a young boy who stood a few feet away, the same boy who didn't like her story today. Was that today? She wondered, that distant, normal memory before hell broke loose.

"Hey, you!" The boy continued to shout. "Bot-lover! Why don't you just marry the Bot?"

Rena gritted her teeth. Was this was people thought of her now? A Bot-Lover? Did they forget that she, too, had suffered from nearly being trampled underneath their feet?

"You shouldn't even be on the Savior! Just go to Eden!"

"Shut it, boy!"

The boy shut his mouth, and other Survivors nearby started to whisper.

"You're just a kid, what do you know?" She shouted back. "Were you even listening to my story this morning?" She drew in more breath. "I almost died from a Bot. I was alone on the streets—I lost everyone. That night scars my memories so much that I don't even remember my life before the Savior." Her chest huffed, and more people crowded to listen; but she wasn't done. "The Savior is my home, the only home for me and for all of us; so don't you dare say that I will go to Eden!"

She spat out the last words through her cracked lips and continued walking, away from the boy and the group of Survivors whom she had once called family.

Hello there!
So, whatcha think? Am I writing too slow? Is the organization confusing? Do you like the story so far?
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