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Grey skyscrapers cascaded into the sky, mingling with thick fog that shrouded their peaks from the dying world beneath them. When he was close enough, Charles could look upon their magnificence and swear they were tilting, verging on a catastrophic downfall over his personage, though his lifetime surrounded by these monolithic structures assured him otherwise—for this, he was thankful. It seemed he was the last sensible person left alive on this forsaken planet; his comrades, friends by force and not by choice, were lacklustre in the sensibility department and therefore not even remotely reliable when it came to the pursuit of information. If Snippy consulted zee Captain about the structural integrity of these buildings, who knows, zeer might just enact some pestiferous law proclaiming he wasn’t allowed within a mile radius of any building in case their foundations threatened his (currently) good health. Captain liked being protective like that, though it was only a randomly enforced value in zeer, from what he knew. Sometimes, it seemed as though zeer was actually out to run Snippy six feet into the ground, with the way his anointed tasks often drained him. Either by intense physical activity or sheer annoyance, or perhaps both if Captain felt like it, he was subject to a torturous existence on the daily.
Still…
On rare occasions—and they were certainly rare—Captain fostered a good-natured heart. It presented itself in the little gimmicks, the little games they played and touches upon his shoulder. Zeer always seemed to know when Snippy was truly at his limits, when he was suspended in an existential stupor that left him wondering about the whys of his continued existence and made him feel more blue than he looked. Captain, in essence, was like an all-knowing parent nurturing and raising zeer children rather than spoiling—zeer administered trials, tribulations and conflicts when zeer deemed it a necessary learning experience, and cooed and cuddled zeer kids when they got big booboos.
The metaphor makes Snippy cringe, his goggles mirroring the disgusted furrow of his brows.
As though on cue, the snow in front of him is suddenly darkened by an approaching figure. Snippy must’ve been standing stationary for some time now, if it were enough to get zee Captain’s attention away from whatever silly conversation zeer was having with an unfortunate skeleton-victim.
“AH, ARE YOU A FAN OF BRUTALIST ARCHITECTURE?” Zee questions loudly to his vacant stare towards the skyscraper, consequently thrusting Charles out from the recesses of his thoughts.
“What? No, it’s depressing,” he mumbles back.
“I AM INCLINED TO AGREE, MEIN SNIPSTER, HOWEVER YOU SHOULD BE MORE CAREFUL ABOUT YOUR WORD CHOICES! INSULTING PEOPLE IS NOT NICE!” A wagging index finger reprimands him and Captain tsk tsks with disapproval.
“It’s a building, not a person. I don’t care about its ‘feelings.’”
Silence ensues in the space between them. For a moment, Snippy thinks their conversation has ended and diverged to give way to a pleasant, mutual indulgence of quiet, which was oddly rare given the dwindling human population. He makes the mistake, however, of turning his head to look at his leader. The usual pseudo-smile zee adorned was miraculously gone, the black space between zeer mask filters void of all joy and resembling only a vague anger. Snippy instinctively takes a step back in response to this sudden development, his mind reeling to try and understand the complex emotions stirring behind the mask boring into his soul.
“YOU,” Captain begins gruffly, “ARE A VERY INSENSITIVE FELLOW, SNIPSTER. A CITIZEN OF CAPTAINIA SHOULD POSESS NO VILE QUALITIES SUCH AS YOUR TARNISHED MANNERS.”
Oh no, Snippy thinks to himself wearily. He could feel an incoming punishment and had the power to do naught but brace himself against its severity.
“I SHALL HAVE YOU COLLECT A WHOOOOLE SACK OF FOODSTUFFS BEFORE SUNDOWN—AND MAKE THEM JUICY.”
His mechanized goggles imitated the look of confusion. A bag of supplies was his usual quota, and he’d already made a decent amount of progress on today’s scavenge. Was that really his entire punishment? Nothing but the usual routine? Surely there must be some ulterior motives or fine-print terms and conditions nestled somewhere in this contract.
“Is… that it?”
Snippy could’ve sworn he saw a trail of steam exiting from either of Captain’s ears, and he distantly heard the sound of an old-fashioned kettle coming to a boil.
“IF YOU THINKS YOURSELF SO HIGH AND MIGHTY, FINE. BRING ME TEN BAGS OF TASTY MORSELS!”
“BWAH?! That’s not what I meant—!” but Captain was already walking off, hands curled into fists at zeer side. Zee was particularly sensitive to displeasure today, it would seem.
Snippy had his work cut out for him.
***
Thank G for their innovations, Snippy kept repeating to himself. Climbing up and down stairs for the past few hours had made him exhausted, and he’s sure he would’ve suffocated in the confines of his silly little mask by now were it not for the ingenious ingenuity of AI and scientists long dead. The sweat emanating from his skin should have created a stinky puddle to drown him, but it was endlessly wicked away like windshield wipers during a storm collecting raindrops as soon as they appeared. He’d impossibly managed to collect nine sacks of food that he was mostly certain to be edible, and his final sack was almost stuffed to the brim. The task would’ve been completed sooner were it not for the meddling of Pilot in his business (“What are yeouuu doing?! WhhhYyhyyy are yu hoarding all the yummiesssss?!”) but he honestly couldn’t care less about obstacles at this point. Snippy’s poor brain had reverted back to a primitive version of itself, much like the ones his ancestors carried around the clock. It periodically dimed “me hungry,” and “me want sleep,” but was relatively silent aside from that. Perhaps, the loss of all his bodily fluids had dehydrated his thinking organ and made it crimple up to a quarter of its original size. Perhaps, his stomach was so empty that it had crawled all the way up his spine to feast upon his intelligence. He didn’t currently possess the processing power to contemplate the details of his situation.
“THERE YOU ARE,” Captain beamed with a joy that had been totally absent from their previous conversation, zeer body appearing in the nearby doorway seemingly out of nowhere. “HAVE YOU FULFILLED MY REQUEST?” Behind zeer, the much shorter presence of Pilot peeked out with curiosity—of course, Pilot could give less shits about Snippy usually, it was only when the chance to degrade him in favour of appraising himself and praising zee Captain’s name did he pay mind to their conversations. No doubt, he was equally eager to learn of Snippy’s progress for this reason.
The man in question shakily stuffed a can of beans into the bag next to him, his goggles failing to conceal the dead gaze behind them while he nodded. Charles was a skeleton of himself.
“AH, GOOD WORK! NOW WE CAN HAVE THE LARGEST, MOST GRANDEST OF FEASTS. I KNOW THE PERFECT SPOT FOR A LATE-NIGHT PICNIC. FOLLOW ME, MINIONS!”
As the two descended down the stairs of this monolithic building, Charles could only slump against the side of what was formerly a kitchen counter, and sleep.
Distantly, through the thick curtains of slumber, he heard a distinctly Captain chortle, and felt two arms wrap around his sluggish body.