Futuristic VANA [ Atticus ]

[Lord Bradorian]

Atticus grunts and whimpers quietly to himself as he grits his teeth through the pain. Luckily enough, relief comes sooner rather than later, and he's able to at least say that he's only in extreme discomfort, not much actual pain.

When this stage of the nanobots comes, Atticus looks around to see if anyone is around; he needed water, but couldn't exactly go get it.

 

[cl0ud]

Matthew had brought you into the ship but he left shortly after. There was no one around at the moment.

 

[Lord Bradorian]

Atticus grunts, and with great effort he grabs both his pipe, X-Bud, grinder, and some water from his pack without standing up. That sucked.

Atticus packs the bowl of the pipe and smokes it down quickly, eager to get himself into a state where he could forget about his injury for a while.

Atticus packs a second smaller bowl and smokes that too before rolling over and trying to get some sleep.

 

[cl0ud]

You get a buzz, but you don't end up having a high-induced dream, just painless sleep. You wake up in the morning to a small meal prepared with a glass of water next to it, Elliot standing above you, "Mornin', sunshine."

 

[Lord Bradorian]

Atticus sits up and chuckles at Elliot, feeling a bit better today. He scratches his chest and yawns before taking the tray, looking down on it and then back up at Elliot. "Breakfast in bed, huh? Maybe I should let a lizard smack the fuck out at more often," Atticus joked, before looking down at his food to analyze what had been prepared. "Has that fucker came back, or did our little encounter get him to fuck off?"

 

[cl0ud]

On the plate you see a chunk of freshly cooked meat, a shell potato, and what looks to be grilled vegetables. "Well skipper, that's actually your little lizard friend on the plate in front of ya. We went out after he knocked you and l lodged a piece of lead into his brain, courtesy of Matthew," Elliot says, satisfied with his surprise.

 

[Lord Bradorian]

Atticus chuckles. "I won in the end, you reptilian fuckface," Atticus taunts the plate, before looking back up at Elliot. "Good work. Thanks, Elliot," he said succintly, and sincerely.

Afterward, he grabs his utensils and begins to feast upon the food brought to him.

 

[cl0ud]

Elliot nods and walks away, probably to take up watch in the foxhole as usual.

The food is good, and filling.

 

[Lord Bradorian]

Atticus, after enjoying the food, polishing off the tray, decides to put it beside him and make a loud belch. Afterward, he decides to roll over and try to get back to sleep - that was the only other way he could speed up his recovery.

 

[cl0ud]

You sleep again.

You wake up in the morning, greeted by a steaming MRE labeled "BACON & EGGS" in big, bold, black letters. Next to it is a liter of water. No one's around to say good morning this time.

 

[Lord Bradorian]

Atticus knocks back the MRE quickly, eagerly intaking the food into his stomach before letting out another belch, putting the shell of the meal beside him.

Instead of sleeping, Atticus remains awake in the hopes that Ethel will wander into the ship at some point.

 

[cl0ud]

Despite your waiting, Ethel doesn't come.

 

[Lord Bradorian]

Atticus goes back to sleep. His cycle repeats of eating, sleeping, and waiting for Ethel for the next many days until he heals.

(Timeskip)

 

[cl0ud]

Four days pass by with either Matthew or Elliot bringing you breakfast before you wake up and then going outside. On day seven of your recovery, Calliste reports that your leg is fully functional again.

 

[Lord Bradorian]

Atticus stands from his bed that he had been in so long, groaning as he stretched from lying for such a while. He was sure that his fellow compatriots were ashamed of him for being so easily accosted by the reptilian creature he had encountered on his observational duty. He hoped Ethel hadn't lost her respect of him.

After his introspection, Atticus heads outside, to observe the surroundings, see what had changed since his bonding to the bed.

 

[cl0ud]

As you walk around outside, you don't see... anyone, actually. A campfire, where the crew had been cooking food the past few days, has become completely cool. Not even warm ashes are left in the pit. No new structures have been built, either. And, peculiar enough, the gate is swung wide open. There's no sign of any struggle or blood, though.

 

[Lord Bradorian]

Atticus' eyebrow raises as he scans the campsite. That didn't make sense; he had received food just yesterday morning from one of them. They couldn't have been gone for long, could they?

Atticus continues to investigate the area, and try to piece together where his people went.

 

[cl0ud]

As you look around, you realize all of your food is gone, as well as the weapons, save for the alloy machete, which you had on you.

 

[Lord Bradorian]

Atticus' teeth grind as his anger builds. There had been no struggle, no nothing. Elliot and his thugs had robbed him fucking blind, those bastards. And they were gonna fucking pay.

Atticus searched for any kind of trail to follow. These bastards would pay.

 

[cl0ud]

There's a bunch of footprints from the bandits that sunk into the wet soil just outside the gate, but after that, there's no trail of them.

 

[Lord Bradorian]

Atticus decides to, instead of continuing to look for tracks in the perimeter of the ship, to just go in the direction that the wet soil tracks began to go in, and look for more footprints as he goes in that direction. This was his only lead, and he was determined to find those fucking assholes.

 

[cl0ud]

You begin to walk in the direction of the footprints, but then you hear a click. You look down and see an activated landmine. After a few seconds, a blinding flash erupts around you and the feel of your flesh burning off is excruciating. You black out. You wake up again moments later, your vision foggy. You bear yourself to bring your neck to look down, but everything below your waist has been blown off.

"Severe damage. Distributing nanobots, maximum focus. Warning, 99.95% chance of failure. Severe blood loss. Loss of limbs. . . Error distributing nanobots. Distributor damaged. I'm sorry, Atticus," the AI reports as the pain worsens. You can feel your internal organs and blood flow out of your body.

Persons Health Report has been updated.

 

[Lord Bradorian]

Atticus digs his fingernails into the dirt, pulling his half of a carcass forward, away from all the blood and detached limbs. In his shock and confusion, he tries to use his legs to push him in his crawl; forgetting they weren't there.

He does his best to crawl his way toward a tree to sit up against, groaning and looking at the ground, dazed.