#tragedienes

"You're awake."

Soap heard her cryobed beeping from where he stood in the control room about 15 feet away. When there was beeping, that typically indicated movement within. And when there was movement wtihin, that meant whoever was inside was finally waking up.

Not everyone in their quadrant on the ship had that luxury. Most, if not all, of the cryobeds he'd found when he first woke up a few days ago were emptied. Not empty—but emptied, as if something had dragged each occupant out and elsewhere. Signs of struggle ranged from scratch marks on glass, traces of blood.

Hers was the last cryobed he found that still had someone inside, sleeping. Besides his own. Why they were left alive, Soap had no clue why. Hell, he wasn't even sure she was ever going to wake up. Maybe she'd died in there, all the oxygen stripped when their ship went stagnant.

He remembered the name on the side of her cryobed: INGRID SERGEANT. She was the one he was supposed to guard once the ship got to its destination during her affairs; he wasn't sure what. Well, this was one helluva wrench in their plans.

Soap tossed a nutrition bar her way. The waking-up process, especially when unnatural and not prompted by a button on someone's control panel, was a rough one. He could tell her.

"You're gonna wanna eat something. Or else you'll vomit nothing but your guts."

↪     ᵗʰᵉ 𝑫𝑼𝑺𝑻𝒀 𝑻𝑶𝒀𝑩𝑶𝑿 .   

"It's not a problem," Ford reassured the other, looking at them from out the driver window of his truck. He gave them a simple nod, directing them to enter his truck through the passenger side door. Luckily, that side was empty. Soleil usually begged and pleaded for a ride to the "library" or so she called it. She was really just sneaking off, thinking she'd pulled the wool over her brother's eyes. Obviously, she hadn't.

"I drive up to town every day. Deliveries to make and mail to hand off." Their side of the po-dunk community, if one could believe it, was more isolated than the town itself, which was just a glorified strip of a few humble small businesses and necessities. Making the other walk all the way—or, perhaps even wait a few minutes longer in this summer heat—would be close to cruel. "You headed anywhere specific?" // @tragedienes

↪     ᵗʰᵉ 𝑫𝑼𝑺𝑻𝒀 𝑻𝑶𝒀𝑩𝑶𝑿 .   

Soleil didn't like the way the other was looking at her. Maybe their expression was gentler than this, but she couldn't help but sense nothing but contempt under their gaze. And that made the girl feel equal parts guilty and wrathful, with maybe a dash or two of sadness, like she wanted to cry. Eyeball it. With her arms folded over her chest, she stared at the other right in the eyes, feigning courage (but given the lie she told, she likely looked more like a sheep in wolf's clothing).

"And so what if I did?" she asked. "It ain't like—I just. People do it all the time, don't they?" Of course they did, but two wrongs don't make a right, and it was her choice to lie to the other. "If I was honest about it all... Told you that I lived in some old ratty apartment in the redneck side'a town, then you wouldn't 'ave liked me as much. Would you 've? Admit it. It was fun thinkin' that I lived in some penthouse suite, went to all those different events, knew all those famous people."