Unforgotten [Openish]

[obscura_prodigy]

Shortly after the mission to fight GLaDOS, Vega remembered something. A little niggling feeling that had been in the back of his mind for a while finally crept forward. People were missing. People he knew.

Chief among these were Roxie Schreiber and Yuri Otani, two of the best friends he's had on this ship. They've been missing for... he's not sure

Comments

[in_venting]

Sherry had been of two minds on this subject. One, her friends were missing, and she only now remembered them. It... was kind of boggling. What kind of a friend was she if she couldn't remember them?

And considering how spaced out her mother had been lately, and how absent her father was, she didn't think it was her place to burden them with her new memories. So, she too ended up down in the City, taking a different path than Vega had to the same location. Roxie's vetinary-clinic-turned-hideout had seen better days. And considering how much squishing of buildings had occurred in recent months, she was glad it was still standing.

"Hi, Vega," she greeted the boy glumly.

[obscura_prodigy]

"Hi, Sherry."

He seemed rather put out as well.

"Did you remember too?" he asked. That had to be it, he decided. There was no other explanation that readily came to mind for Sherry to be down here too. At least, nothing he knew bout.

[in_venting]

Sherry inclined her head barely, and toyed nervously with the charm, "Yes..."

It sucked, to put it lightly. It sucked that they had been put back, and their memories had been taken from Sherry and Vega, only to be returned now. It sucked that they had very little to remember their friends by. Suck-suck-suckity-suck-sucked. "I didn't realize my little hiding spot was so close to Roxie's place, and then I just remembered."

[obscura_prodigy]

Vega furrowed his brows and folded his arms behind his back, looking up at the empty building.

"I just knew I spent a lot of time down here for some reason. It wasn't real important, though."

He sighed and was quiet for a moment. Then, reluctantly, he admitted it.

"I miss 'em, Sherry."

[in_venting]

"I do, too." Maybe some of the things that had happened in recent months wouldn't have. Or maybe they would've been worse. There was really no telling. "Do you think anyone else remembers them? Or if it's just us?"

She glanced at Vega, "It feels silly just standing here." The little girl held out her hand for her friend's. "Let's see if maybe Roxie left something behind. We can at least have something to remember her by that way, right?"

[obscura_prodigy]

"I don't know, I guess we could ask?" he offered.

Vega took Sherry's hand, without really thinking about it. She was his friend. That's all. Besides, it was kind of a reassuring thing.

He was glad that she wasn't gone too.

"Okay, let's."

[in_venting]

Holding hands was very reassuring. At least it promised that she wouldn't be swept down a drain alone if something bad happened. Sherry led them to the front door and slowly pushed it open. She recoiled almost immediately as stale air assaulted her senses, making her eyes water. "Yuck! Roxie, what were you doing in here?"

[obscura_prodigy]

Vega winced. "I don't know, she always did like to do some weird stuff." He respected her for it. He didn't always understand and she was sometimes creepy, but for better or worse he was never really scared of her.

"It's probably nothing bad."

Probably.

Vega peered around a corner into one of the emptied rooms, suddenly remembering time spent down here with two people he'd forgotten to miss.

"We had a lot of fun down here."

[in_venting]

"Yeah..." she agreed quietly. Outside, they would've played hide and seek until it was time for them to part for their various homes. Sherry would've browbeat all three of them into doing their work (though it was never hard to convince Yuri).

The walls still bore the strange, eldritch symbols Roxie had painted on before. And maybe to someone more magically sensitive, they'd feel weaker, but as Sherry wasn't, she felt nothing. "Her little... sigil things are still up."

[obscura_prodigy]

"Yeah, I guess nobody cleared them out. I mean, it's not like they'd remember to."

[in_venting]

"True... come on, if I remember correctly, Roxie slept in one of the back rooms." And she was messy about it, too. Her hand tightened around his as they walked, and she almost expected a half-interested Roxie come out of one of the rooms murmuring, What are you doing here?

"You know... before she disappeared? We had a fight."

[obscura_prodigy]

Vega was quiet for a minute, remembering. The thing on the omnicomms finally stuck back out in his head. Jeeze, that was so long ago...

"I think I remember," he said.

"D'you think she was still mad?"

[in_venting]

"She didn't seem to be, but then, unless she was really annoyed, she wasn't much of anything." Which was probably why they got along so well, considering they could both frown while Vega and Yuri carried the smiles. "I hope she wasn't." Sherry stopped at one of the doors and pushed it open with one hand. She held her breath, still half-expecting to find their friend, but the room was empty, save for the piles of junk, and the empty couch from the precinct that had once served as their friend's bed.

[obscura_prodigy]

"Me too."

It would really stink to lose a friend on terms like those.

"But if they're back in the pods, that means they're okay I guess."

It was the best he could offer, standing here in a place where it just felt odd without them.

"They should still be here though."

[in_venting]

Sherry let go of Vega's hand and walked into the room, carefully avoiding knocking over piles of things. She picked up Roxie's blanket and folded it. "I guess you're right. It's just pretty unfair to remember this now."

She turned the face of her locket around, "We didn't take any pictures of the four of us, did we? I think I regret that the most."