[attr="class","giada"]

[attr="class","giada b"]

[attr="class","giada i"]as she follows him down, the path begins to open up...

and it's mossy beneath her, soft and easy to maneuver. a cushion, she realizes, to ease her descent after him.

a small, barely there smile begins to rise.

it disappears after a moment, after she catches up to him and he answers her question.

"most people pry."

perhaps he is not most people.

either that, or he simply doesn't care to know.

regardless, the decision of which direction to take is up to her now... and she takes too long to consider.

right or left might lead into walls. she glances one way and then the other before deciding on:

"forward."

hopefully it doesn't end horribly.

Isaac Merlo

[attr="class","giada"]

[attr="class","giada b"]

[attr="class","giada i"]"they do, actually."

she's never been a fan of the way people act, of how they seem to float through life without a care in the world. it stems from jealousy, she has come to learn, but it doesn't ever quite go away even after being broken down on an analytical level.

and as he motions for her to follow, she trudges along behind him. the walk is quiet, almost pensive. her eyes wander to the walls of the tunnel, to the ceiling and the scaffolding and the way spots have begun to cave in. it fills her with a small sense of trepidation, as if one wrong move down here will spell disaster.

is that the goal?

she picks up the pace a little as the walls begin to open up into a room.

one look around and she's certain: this was not just some rich hideaway from the apocalypse.

the trinkets are personal, small and not much but still bits and pieces of home. her eyes linger on each one, tracing their edges and shapes until she could see them even when she closes her eyes.

and while they tug at her newfound heart, nothing lands a blow quite like the pictures of a girl and her family. she stares at them, at the happy expressions and what seems to be a genuine familial bond.

"more like survive to make it back home."

for a moment, she doesn't even recognize her voice. it sounds so far away, distant and full of a primordial longing. the feeling claws at her insides, trying and trying to get out of the cage she has tried to lock it away in.

"wonder if she made it out..."

Isaac Merlo

[attr="class","giada"]

[attr="class","giada b"]

[attr="class","giada i"]she wants to tell him to not pocket anything, to leave the trinkets and knick-knacks as they are, to keep this safe place as it is...

yet, she stands idly as he strips the room down to a cold bareness. she doesn't move, doesn't speak, even as the picture is taken out of her line of sight.

"if you could consider this normal, yeah."

she doesn't. not quite.

things have yet to feel the same since the meteor. although, she supposes they don't feel much different either.

only she feels different and does that really matter in the grand scheme of things?

she's still on this mission, still faking allegiance to rocket, still pretending and pretending until she doesn't know who she is when she makes it home.

"is that all we have to do?"

Isaac Merlo

[attr="class","giada"]

[attr="class","giada b"]

[attr="class","giada i"]they don't get normal.

they'll never get normal...

and that's exactly why she plans on getting out. she calls it her last heist, the greatest of them all, and it inches closer and closer as she idles around this increasingly empty room.

would he stop her if she tried to leave now? would he help her?

she isn't certain and it leaves her with a sense of anxiety curled up in her stomach.

"normal doesn't have to be this, though."

it's quiet, soft, tentative.

"it could be different, better."

he leads them into another room. this time, it's a makeshift kitchen. and as she allows her eyes to wander once more, he ignores the cans of food and supplies to pick up a little garden plant.

odd...

"nothing? there's still food on the shelves."

what's he up to? is this a trick?

Isaac Merlo

[attr="class","giada"]

[attr="class","giada b"]

[attr="class","giada i"]her mouth forms a little o shape of surprise, eyes blinking his comments fully into the mind.

there, they sit, fester, grow.

"oh."

it's soft, yet it still feels like it bounces off these dirt walls.

"if you think that, then why are you here?"

not here here, per se, but rocket here.

he doesn't seem like a bad guy. then again, neither did she.

a bag is extended toward her and she takes it. her hands, however, shy away from grabbing cans off the shelves as he speaks of essentials. she makes a mental list of what he has already grabbed, of what has already been carefully tucked away in that bag of his.

should she follow his lead and do the same?

in the end, she doesn't grab the cans. she merely grips the bag a little tighter and follows him into the next room...

Isaac Merlo

[attr="class","giada"]

[attr="class","giada b"]

[attr="class","giada i"]ah, there it is: the tether.

she wonders, a little too suddenly, what it's like to have people to care about. does it make the decision to stay easier? does it make it harder?

truthfully, she wouldn't know. not now, not ever.

people like that don't exist for the person she is, for the person she had always been. they had all left her behind, from childhood until now. she doesn't know any different. perhaps that's why her decision had been so easy: there is nothing holding her here just as there is nothing guiding her out.

"i see."

she doesn't cast any judgement. not necessarily, anyway, for she cannot speak on what she doesn't understand.

"just... be careful, i guess?"

light always has a funny way of getting snuffed out beneath the boots of those at the top. whether it's intentional or not, the flames always dwindle until they die all the same.

the final room opens up and for a moment, she only sees clutter. disarray. lots of dirt.

and as isaac sifts through piles and piles of dirt and items, he stumbles upon a nest. her eyes widen as he snatches it up immediately. her heart lurches into her throat suddenly, painfully, and for a moment, she thinks the worst...

only for him to heave out a sigh of relief. her body releases the tension it had gathered up in those few seconds of silence.

"okay."

her path takes her a few feet away from him where she finds two more eggs covered in a similar fashion. both are hoisted up and checked for pulses, her breathing anxiously hitching until the telltale beat of life thrums against the palms of her hands.

"two more, both alive."

Isaac Merlo

[attr="class","giada"]

[attr="class","giada b"]

[attr="class","giada i"]she cradles the eggs in her arms, grip almost a little too tight against fragile shells.

and as isaac moves about the remainder of the bunker, her eyes follow his path. the way he touches the walls, dirt crumbling beneath his fingers and wood groaning with barely clinging life.

he speaks of what rocket's goals are, of what they mean to utilize this bunker for...

and each word falls heavy into a pit in her stomach.

"you don't mean..."

surely they wouldn't, right? it's a foolish thought to have of a terrorist organization. a stupid thought for a stupid girl, having been part of the problem from the start.

she has no right to balk over their decisions now. her hands are still stained red like the forgotten catsuit hanging idly in her closet.

you can hang up the mantle but it will never erase what you've done.

he releases pokemon, then. a gabite and vibrava, both of which seem to gravitate toward the floor.

and as the vibrava's wings begin to beat rapidly against the ground, it becomes very apparent what's happening.

he fills in blanks as he speaks, as he assesses their surroundings fully. she has been slow to understand, slow to realize.

once she does, a gasp escapes. she tries to scramble toward him, steps sluggish and stumbling as she balances the weight of the eggs against her chest. they are kept snug, afraid to jostle them in her panic.

"what the hell? what's going on? why are you doing this? are you going to destroy this place? wait, are you trying to kill us? hello? what the fuck?"

it's a string of jumbled words, shrill and anxiety ridden questions all tied together in a single rush of breath.

"isn't this against the mission? what do you think you're doing? you can't be serious... you're actually doing this? holy shit."

Isaac Merlo