[Dream + 02]
The water was rising, but Quote didn’t care. It’d go down, just like before. So he waited. And he waited. But it wouldn’t go down. It wasn’t for him to feel that sensation called ‘desperation.’ A twang of it hit him as he realized their only exit wouldn’t open. The second one didn’t even get there as he filled up with water, and collapsed.
But then he was awake. He was awake and breathing and that shouldn’t happen when one was underwater and with the stuff gushing out of their non-existent ears. What should happen was Curly’s unmoving body lying beside him. Curly’s unmoving body. That should be him there.
He knew what to do. It had happened before, and he knew what to do. He reached into his clothing for the tow rope, but it wasn’t there. It wasn’t there. He had picked it up. He knew he had. Where was it? He dug his fingers into every single one of his pockets. It wasn’t there. He dug his hands into the mud. It wasn’t there either. He dug his fingers into the carcass of a skinless robot.
He had saved her before, and he could do it now. But he couldn’t. Because of that missing tow rope.
“Cur-lee.”
He shoved her. She wasn’t dead. But she wasn’t alive either.
“Cuuuur-ley Buh-reize.”
She was going to die and he couldn’t even pronounce her name correctly.
“Currr- ghk.”
It was with his usual blank expression that he left her behind. He gripped the gun that used to be hers tighter than in any fight he’d been in.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Quote opens his eyes wide, and blinks. He’s not quite aware of it, but he’s surrounded by all sorts of items he pulled out in his sleep. In his fists he’s holding the tow rope, twisting it and pulling on it.