(That's good! I'm glad haha)
"Don't worry about me," Roger began, grabbing a large stick and poking at the fire to encourage it, "I'll be fine. You all need to rest. It's been a long day."
Roger drops the stick and takes a few steps away from the camp area to get a further look at the city before them. The sun had disappeared, but there was still the last sliver of daylight slipping away, right after sunset. Nevertheless, the creatures were already active. Roger scanned the area to ensure there weren't any nearby before turning back to the fire, taking a heavy seat, and watching the flames.
Everything replayed in his head as he breathed shakily. Though a lot has happened between now and then, Roger can still hear the echoing gunshot in his head from just the other day. He could hear Astrid's heartbreaking cry; he could still hear the sound of his brother's weight hitting the dirt.
"Roger?"
Eddie's voice grounded Roger back to reality as he blinked, looking over at Eddie. He was laying down on the ground, but leaning on his elbows and facing Roger.
"What?" Roger responded.
"What's going to happen to us?"
Eddie has never seemed to care about his future before today. He was always focused on the here and now- and trying to get Roger in trouble. Nevertheless, the vague question confused Roger.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean," Eddie adjusts his position, clearly uncomfortable with his thoughts, "we're technically on the run now. What's going to happen when Dr. Rose wants us to come back? And what if we don't want to?"
Roger realized the actual question that Eddie was tiptoeing around, and looked him directly in the eyes.
"Eddie, I know what you want to hear right now is reassurance, but that's not going to help. You are the most reliable and most powerful soldier in that entire organization. I am an almost failed experiment. They're going to try to kill me, and brainwash you."
Juniper laid back and stared at the massive underside of the floating cities above them. The blueish glow of the Sinatanium core’s blocked out what stars they could have been able to see just beyond the edge of the massive cities.
She hoped it was a gorgeous city. She hoped there was grass. She hoped there was trees. She had only ever seen trees and grass from afar or in books or old films. She wanted to see and touch real plants.
Though her thoughts didn’t remain on the subject for too long, as she soon listened to the conversation between the two part metal beings of their small gang.
The labs were relentless.
She knew that all too well.
(Would it be too iffy to add in a new aspect I have for Juniper that just recently came about? She’s always had a past in the labs which I might have left out of the character profile to keep it interesting XD but like, would it be alright for me to throw in the fact she has a form of an artificial heart? A partial one to be exact. And reconstructed right fingers made of metal and robotics and grafted skin?? From an incident in the outside of the cities that nearly killed her?)
( Yooooooo that'd be super cool !!!!!! Go for it, I think that'd make it lots more interesting haha )
Eddie scrunched up his nose in response to Roger's question, as if the idea of working under those people again disgusted Eddie more than the stench of the bodies they surrounded themselves with.
"I'd rather die than let them control me again."
Roger wanted to feel comforted by Eddie's newfound mindset, but something irked him about the implications.
"Alright, get some sleep, Eddie. You deserve it."
With that, Eddie turned around on the ground and a bit of silence followed. Roger stared at the ground as if it could provide any answers.
"Roger?"
"What?"
"I'm sorry for how I treated you."
Roger closed his eyes, trying to hide a smile in case Eddie was looking, as he nodded. "I forgive you, man."
(Thaaannkkss. I’m going to go ahead and do what I think might be interesting in this reply. If it doesn’t work then go ahead and tell me alright, I can change it. I’m just always nervous about introducing new things for some reason. Idk what it is. Probs anxiety. But! If you have anything you’d like to throw in go ahead! I love your ideas a lot!!)
Juniper waited for a moment before she quietly moved from her place. She made sure Astrid wouldn’t wake before she made her way to Roger, sitting down next to him.
She didn’t speak for a long time, just stared at her fingers for a second before she looked back up at him.
“Can I talk with you for a second? Eddie too if he’d like to and if he’s still awake.” She murmured softly. Her voice was hushed, almost as if she was worried the others would hear.
“A-are you mostly machine…?” Juniper’s hand moved to her chest, fingers rubbing against the fabric of her jacket. “Or just partially replaced? Does that make you… not human anymore? I don’t mean to be rude, I… I have my reasons for asking.”
(Babe omg don't even worry i love that you've got new ideas! I think this one will also help our characters connect! )
Roger watched Juniper closely as she approached him, taking a quiet seat and not speaking for a moment. As she spoke, Roger glanced at Eddie, who lay still, his chest rising and falling slowly.
"I think he's out, but we can talk."
Roger couldn't have guessed what Juniper's question would be, but he had no idea what he was expecting in the first place. He blinked for a few moments as he thought about the answer.
"I don't see it as that black and white." He looked at his hands. The way his machinery worked made it so that half of his face appeared human, the other exposed with machinery and metal. One hand was heavy with iron and steel, the other human flesh, soft and tender.
"I see it as a spectrum, and everyone's on this spectrum, not just Eddie and me. Not just the men still under their control. Before I was free from their control, I think I was less human than I am now. Now, I feel more emotions than just anger. Nevertheless, anger has been drilled into my brain. I'm trained to react with anger first, that's how they train all of us. They remove all of our emotions, all of our memories, but they keep anger and violence."
Roger sighed heavily, clutching his human fist as he continued. "I'm still re-learning to control my anger." He closed his eyes for a moment, then looked at Juniper.
"However, the leader of the organization, Dr. Rose, though he has no machinery in him, he is much less human than anyone I've met."
(Ahahaha thanksss. Hopefully this’ll all make sense. Still developing Juniper and the world a bit.)
Juniper listened in silence, taking in Roger’s features. For a moment she wondered if any other part of her had been replaced. She had suffered a lot of damage, though they had done a pretty good job rebuilding her. Most of her anyways. She still sported awful burns across her chest and shoulders. That was why she preferred to keep her hoodie on. It hid the scarred skin and brought her more comfort.
“That does make sense…” she replied quietly, clutching at her chest. “I’m not completely flesh either.” Juniper glanced around at the group, making sure no one was awake. She wasn’t ready to tell the others but she felt Roger - and even Eddie - would understand. Hopefully.
“I used to be a part of another group. They kept me around because I was small enough to climb into rubble and old buildings and small spaces where supplies are hardest to get. That was my only use and I think they understood that.” A shudder wracked through her small body.
“Maybe they had planned it or maybe it was all purely an accident and they deemed me replaceable but either way I was left alone. We were looking around an old city, the type thats too far gone for anyone to live in. There was this older house that was still mostly standing, just blocked by the half of it that did fall in. They sent me in through a window on the second floor to look for anything useful. I don’t know if my added weight put too much stress on the house or if it was bound to fall in anyways…” her hands idly ran across her shoulders, as if remembering a phantom weight that wasn’t there anymore. “I took something off a shelf, I don’t even remember what it was, and then suddenly I was on the ground floor. I just remember grabbing for something to stop the fall and feeling a lot of pain in my palms; a heat. I think I pulled a wire or some sort of metal pipe that sparked the fire but I don’t know exactly what happened. It’s foggy. There was a lot of heat, a lot of pain,” she gestured to her front, pointing out the main parts that burned. “I couldn’t get out but not because the fire blocked me. I was stuck on something - it had gone into my leg, a rebar or something like that. I watched the building come down on me. I remember the pressure of it on my chest. The next thing I know I’m waking up in a lab with no fingers on my right hand and a bunch of tubes and wires keeping me alive. The doctors there told me I suffered too much to live on my own but they had just the thing to save me. I didn’t have a say in it really. I was half alive, I couldn’t answer. They told me they had already repaired my heart, something about it had stopped or one side was too damaged from whatever landed on top of me but they had fixed it. I think they just wanted an excuse to try out new technology for an artificial heart. So now half of my heart is machine. My right fingers are all robotic - I lost them to the fire. My lungs are synthetic as my old ones were too damaged by smoke and internal hemorrhages to fix. They did something to fix the burns on my face, a skin graft or something, but it didn’t fix it all. I still have a lot of scarring.”
Juniper exhaled as she finished, running her fingers through what hair she had left.
( That's okay! I know I've been pretty confusing at times as well but hey that's why I practice with RP's !! )
Roger listened intently to Juniper, looking closer at her skin and fingers. She did a good job at hiding them, at least according to Roger, because this is the first time he's noticed it. As he listened to Juniper's story, he could almost feel the pain she described.
"Juniper, you are an incredible person. It's those scars that make you human. It's your flaws that make you human. Just a few months ago, Eddie put all of his effort into maintaining perfection. That wasn't human. But, to be fair, that wasn't Eddie either." Roger chuckled softly, hoping to lighten the mood. "He actually used to get so mad when I called him Eddie, he used to prefer Edward. He hasn't corrected me since we reunited, so I can tell he's changed a lot. Or maybe he's returned back to the person he was before the organization took him."
Roger looked back over at Juniper.
"I've seen the way you interact with my sister. Not many people can get along with her as easily as you do."
Roger shifted in his seat.
"I still don't have all my memories, but I do know that Astrid was never comfortable with anyone. It only got worse when our parents were killed. She completely isolated herself. She didn't speak or even look at anyone for three months. She was just starting to recover when I left her and Jesse."
At the sound of his name, Roger went silent. Though it was indeed the end of his story, the silence that followed was deafening.
(You’ve been really good so far!! But amen to that! Practice makes for good habits and betterment)
“Thank you…” she murmured with a small smile, laughing softly at the mention of Eddie.
“Edward, really?” She mused, looking over at Eddie’s sleeping form. She didn’t know what it was like to be them, she had never been stripped of everything in order to be a biological weapon, but she did understand their pain. She could recognize it easily.
Juniper’s eyes drifted over to Astrid, relaxing even further as Roger spoke.
“It’s funny, she approached me first when we met. I’m surprised she stayed around me. I was - and still am - a cold person at times.” She too fell silent at the mentioning of Jesse, her eyes growing sad.
Juniper looked back up at Roger, patting his arm in a comforting gesture.
“We all miss him.” She paused for a moment, biting her lip. “I know he’s gone and that’s never going to get better. But we still have each other. You have Astrid back… it’s good to look at the positives in times like these…” Juniper tilted her head as she thought back on the last few days.
“You’ve got a good sister. She never gave up on you or Jesse, you know. She never believed you were gone and she never believed Jesse was bad. And she’s hopeful, bright, got a lot going for her. She’s voiced that she doesn’t want to live in the Upper Cities but I hope you and her can one day live up there where it’s safe. You both deserve it.”
( Hell yeah baby !! Plus it helps me develop my characters more! Astrid was a lot less of a character before this RP haha )
Roger smiled warmly at Juniper as he listened in comfortable silence. He felt much better knowing Astrid has managed to make a friend; it provided a new sense of hope that he didn't know he lacked. As Juniper finishes, Roger nods.
"I understand what Astrid means, but I do think that she deserves to live in a safe environment."
Roger gazes softly at Juniper, blinking his eyes slowly.
"You should go to sleep, though. You deserve it."
Roger knew it was a long shot, but he had a lot of heavy thinking to do tonight, and he wasn't sure if he'd be able to run an internal simulation like he used to. Back when he had most of the computer-like functions in his brain, it was still only half as well as Eddie could do at average running speed. Running a bunch of numbers, problems, and equations in his head was a bit of a shot in the dark, but Roger needed answers, and he was positive they were hidden deep in his cognitive memories.
(It helped me develop mine too!! Like Junipers relationship to Stephan and Atlas and a lot of that stuffs. There’s a bit of a lot of characters but it’ll smooth out eventually riiight? XD)
She smiled softly, stretching out her fingers and nodding. Astrid did deserve it. They all did.
Well.
Juniper wasn’t fully convinced she did but she wouldn’t fight it. There were certain things gaslighted into her head she couldn’t deny were false. And yet she believed them. It was a complicated thing.
“Sleep…? I’ll try. Thank you for the talk.” Sleep was starting to sound very attractive at the moment. Her eyes and body felt heavy with stress and exhaustion. Her mind felt like it had gone through seven traumas five times over again. A good rest would do her some good.
So Juniper slid back over to Astrid, curling up in the dirt and gravel with a soft yawn. “Wake me up if you need to rest, Roger. I’ll gladly be lookout.”
( Exactly ! :'))) )
The man led me into a small room, set up like a waiting room, with a desk and a few chairs, and one sickly green light. A hallway stretched out the opposite end, with maybe four doors taking up as much wall as possible.
"Take a seat, Dr. Rose will be with you shortly." He declared before entering one of the doors.
I scan the room, noticing a somewhat lanky boy sitting in one of the chairs. He had curly brown hair and what appeared to be a nervous expression on his face. I take a seat next to him and rest my elbows on my knees.
"You're here for the survey too, I'm guessing?" He breaks the silence as I look over at him. His blue eyes held such friendliness to them, I couldn't help but feel comfortable.
"Y-yeah. In all honesty, I'm just doing it for the few bucks they're giving me. It's not much, but desperate times call for desperate measures, you know?"
The boy chuckles, nodding his head as he runs a hand through his hair.
"Yeah, my uncle thinks I got a job last week, but I've actually just been scourging this place for these kinds of things. This is my fifth one. They're all pretty shady, but don't worry, I mean I'm still here, right?"
Weirdly enough, his words did comfort me. I got a weird feeling from this place until he talked to me. I let out a grin and offer him my hand.
"I'm Roger."
He looks at me for a moment, returns the smile, and shakes my hand.
"My name's-"
"Edward Kalor?"
He whips around to face a sturdy elderly man with a dark gray beard and brimless glasses. Giving who appeared to be Dr. Rose an affirmative gesture, the boy turns back to me and shrugs.
"Just Eddie is fine. I'll see ya around, Roger."
Roger opened his eyes, still sitting upward as he exhaled slowly. He knew the old Eddie is still a different person to the new Eddie, but he's still trying to escape the Edward he was conditioned to become. A few hours had passed, it was still super early morning, but Roger could feel eyes on him, so he looked around the camp.
By the time Roger came back to the present, Juniper had slept until the dull pain of old scar tissue and her arm wound woke her. She was sitting next to a disgruntled and sleepy Stephan, who was currently examining both of her arms. Her left arm was the injured one, though the injury looked to be starting the healing process.
It was her right arm that was a sight. Even with only the sleeve of her hoodie pulled up just above her elbow it was apparent there was heavy scarring. Not all of it looked to be from the fire. Some of it was from failed skin grafts and the wear and tear of living in a post-apocalyptic world.
Juniper looked around the camp sight with a paranoid air, only catching Roger’s return to the present after she caught him looking around.
Atlas was leaning against Stephan, his eyebrows furrowed in concern as his eyes traveled up and down Juniper’s scarred skin. The only reason he was up was because Stephan was up. He had always been super sensitive to his surroundings and it only increased when he moved in with Stephan. The danger went up so his instincts trusted Stephan’s natural ability to sense danger. So his body reacted easily to small signals the shorter male gave off. (If that makes any sense)
“Fuck did you do?!” Atlas grumbled, reaching out to run his fingers along the shape of a particularly bad scar. Juniper yelped as if she had been scaled by his touch and yanked her arm back into her chest. Stephan glared at Atlas.
None of them said anything until Juniper calmed herself enough to change the subject.
“Roger! Are you alright? I woke up and you seemed zoned out so I didn’t disturb you…” she offered a small, completely false smile to him, tugging down the sleeve of her right arm to hide the mess.
Roger blinked silently, somehow barely reacting to Juniper as his distant expression hardens.
"Don't worry about me, I was just thinking."
Eddie may have short hair, but as he lifted his head groggily, it managed to develop into a total mess. Even his eyes showed evident sleepiness.
"Good morning, princess," Roger chuckled at Eddie, earning a tired glare and a friendly kick from the messy-haired boy, "Hope you slept well, we're not done moving."
Even still, Roger looked quietly over at Astrid, who appeared to still be asleep. He didn't want to wake her just yet, he knew she deserved to sleep the most. Nevertheless, he stood up slowly after a few moments and placed a gentle hand on her shoulder, stirring her as she sits up.
Juniper nodded gently, glancing at her cousin once. He didn't meet her gaze, working his hands smoothly across her injury to bandage it carefully.
It was almost worse when Stephan was silent. He wasn’t a quiet man unless he was bothered by his thoughts. Or perhaps bothered by an injury that could very well kill the only family he really had left.
“I’m alright.” Juniper muttered, looking away to watch Roger. Stephan bit his lip, though the action was lost to his patient.
“You won’t be if you get an infection. I don’t even think this will heal without proper treatment…” he huffed, looking up to watch Astrid wake. He offered her a quick smile before looking back at Juniper and flicking her forehead.
Roger raised an eyebrow at Juniper's wounds, studying them closely. As he listens to Stephan, Roger got an idea that he didn't like. After exchanging a quick glance with Eddie, he knew he was thinking the same thing when Eddie shook his head.
"Proper treatment?" Roger began, leaning in the direction of the two, earning a sigh from Eddie. "What would that look like?"
Astrid sat slumped over slightly with her eyes in a daze as she gradually gains consciousness, still trying to separate whatever she dreamt about from the current reality.
“Obviously I’m not in a facility where u could do everything I’ve been trained to do. Proper care would be, in this situation, something to cover the bone, a way to fill in the missing muscle and skin… you have nerves that aren’t there anymore. Your best bet is to get to the high tech facilities they usually keep on the upper cities. I’m sure they have some new technology that could do wonders. It’s been a bit since I’ve been in practice, since I worked for the government.” Stephan explained, sounding more scattered than the rest of them.
Juniper looked unbothered, shrugging.
“It doesn’t hurt too bad. It’s not bad enough we need to risk finding a government-aided facility for it. I’m not risking Roger and Eddie because I was dumb enough to travel at night.”
Roger contemplated Stephan's response for a few moments before continuing, though he still sounded a bit hesitant about it.
"Dr. Rose has the stuff to treat it in his labs. He's patched me up several times."
Eddie huffed and leaned toward Roger, still a little scruffy from his sleep, but awake enough to scold Roger.
"We are not going back there. I mean you said it yourself, they want your head, and they're gonna brainwash me again, and God knows what they'll do to everyone else."
Roger raises a mischievous eyebrow and finishes Eddie's already completed sentence, "…If we get caught, that is."
Stephan never got the chance to reply as Juniper shook her head violently.
“No! No! We’re not risking that! We’re trying to get away from those people! I’m sure we could find… something out here! Maybe a used one?! You know, there’s bodies everywhere right here-“
“It’s not sanitary.” Stephan interrupted. He looked to Atlas, who looked a little more than disgruntled. Juniper looked to Astrid.
“It’s not worth it! Right Astrid?! We’re trying to keep your brother safe. Which means away from the bad guys who want to wipe his mind! Same with Eddie! I don’t need an arm anyways, I hardly use this one! I’ll be fine!” Juniper cracked a nervous smile, it was obvious she was a little panicked about the whole situation. She usually didn’t show so much emotion but it was rioting across her eyes and expression like a flash flood. In her defense, it had been a long, rough few days. She had been injured by a creature, made two new friends, lost one of them right away, returned to her cousin and his flirty not boyfriend, gained two new acquaintances she hoped would be friends, and was now being told she could heal if they went to a government facility when they were practically wanted criminals already.
This was not going well.
Roger held up two defensive hands, tilting his head forwards and slightly to the left.
"We don't all have to go inside. Juniper, Astrid, and Atlas can stay behind where it's safe while the rest of us go in. Eddie and I can be the distractions and defense while Stephan gathers what he needs."
Eddie stands up to begin pacing, his breathing growing heavy as he tries to find a way to argue with Roger.
Astrid herself was struggling to make sense of the situation. She knew that the people in that wretched building were violent and killed without question, but she didn't want Juniper to suffer from the wound. She wanted to remind herself that Roger appears plenty capable of getting through the building unscathed, but Roger also was kidnapped, brainwashed, and experimented on, so he actually hasn't gone through the building unscathed.
She shook her head in protest of her own internal debate.
Atlas’s eyes narrowed in thought. He stared at Eddie for a moment before he tilted his head and sighed.
“There’s got to be some sort of rebel group or what not that’s collected some of the items we need, right?” He glanced over the wall of rotting flesh and chewed on his lip. He was obviously thinking over something very hard.
Juniper looked grieved. She shook her head again and puffed out her cheeks in frustration.
“We can find some other way. I won’t let you guys risk your freedom and lives for me. It’s not right…” Juniper shook her head, pointing out towards the practical wastelands. “We should just keep going. Maybe we’ll find some supplies or something?! We could try getting past the radioactive pits. I’ve heard there might be plant life. How does that sound instead? I don’t need anything really.”
Stephan ignored her words, looking at Roger in curiosity. “I wonder, did they ever find the technology to regenerate tissue cells in the place they held you and Eddie at? Does Dr Rose have that kind of technology? I haven’t seen it but I’ve heard so much about it. Does it even exist?”
Roger's eyes reached the dusty ground at his feet as he shrugs his shoulders. He wasn't given nearly as many permissions as anyone else, and never got access to any potentially important information.
"I'm not sure, I-"
"They did."
Roger's eyes perked up as he turns in the direction of the voice, Eddie, who looked more than disconcerted as his face tensed up, avoiding any eye contact.
"It's true that Dr. Rose valued me the most. Because I was a subject to more experiments than one."
Roger furrowed a brow, realizing how little he actually knew about Eddie's personal experiences. Eddie stood up, leaning down to grab a piece of scrap metal from the ground, rolling up his sleeve.
"Now I know that if I hadn't withstood the kinds of things he tested on me, he would have easily found someone else to experiment on, and it probably would have been Roger."
Astrid lifted a hand to her mouth as she watches Eddie tear into the skin of his arm with the metal scrap, blood and other liquids dripping out, and mechanical parts revealing themselves as the skin rips away.
"I wasn't doing it to protect Roger, don't try thinking of me as some sort of hero. I didn't want Dr. Rose to favor Roger, so I let him use me to maintain my status."
Just as the flesh began to rip and tear, within seconds, his arm was back to normal as if Eddie hadn't even touched it in the first place.
"I wasn't allowed to say anything because Dr. Rose knew his intentions would be questioned by the general public if he started breeding bulletproof armies, so he did it in secret."
Juniper’s eyes widened at the wound. Would she get something like that? Or would her’s be a one time only thing?
While the rest of the group seemed horrified by the new information, Stephan looked absolutely enchanted.
He made his way over to Eddie to inspect the site; though he didn’t touch Eddie. He didn’t want the other to feel uncomfortable after all.
“That’s incredible…” he muttered, his eyes going wide. “I wasn’t a high-level doctor myself but I was smarter than they thought I was. I could piece together enough to know what they were trying to do but to see it right before my eyes… incredible.” Stephan looked up at Eddie then to Roger. “I worked for a government genetics lab before I learned of what my inventions and findings were going to be used for… so please forgive me for being so fascinated by what they have done to you. I spent my entire career trying to do just this.”
Atlas gave Stephan a warning glare, gently placing a hand on his shoulder.
“Maybe it would be best to not tell others of your past employment. Most people we’ll meet have a lot against the companies you worked for Stephan. Eddie and Roger here have all the right to hate you for working there.” Atlas explained softly, looking up to Eddie and Roger. “But Stephan means no harm. He’s naive, wanted to help the world. He quit the second he realized his research was used in models that kill and harm.”
Stephan shook his head.
“It’s better they know. Best to get it out there. It’ll be worse if I break trust. And as for quitting, it wasn’t all because of that. I did find things I wasn’t supposed to. I was only a K-Level physician and scientist. I worked hands on with the human experiments but I didn’t know what they were being trained for. My job was to doctor them and examine their genetic codes for any abnormalities. They never told me what happened to subjects that moved on from my skill level.”
Roger shook his head as he listened to Stephan and Atlas. He had no idea how many people actually went through the same thing he and his siblings went through, and somehow, it was comforting. Astrid felt the same comfort; now she knew she wasn't crazy for believing that the same people that took Roger are the ones that tore apart her family.
"You have nothing to worry about," Roger began as Eddie smirked at Stephan's amazement. He did appreciate the awe Stephan felt about this particular feature of him, even if it came from something traumatic. Roger continued, "You're in the same boat as our parents; both my mom and dad worked for the organization. They were highly respected and valued, and their contributions were greatly appreciated, but the moment they found out what Dr. Rose's plans were, they opposed the ideas and tried to discourage them from ever happening. The organization took that as a threat, so they-" Roger paused, suddenly feeling the air change as he looked over at Astrid, who was tearing up.
She couldn't help herself as her breath started to quicken, her eyes widening, fixated on nothing in particular, and a panicked expression beginning to show itself.
Roger froze, unable to figure out how he could help what Astrid was going through.
Stephan nodded gently along to the words, his eyes still fixated on the practically healed wound. It was amazing to him. And yet horrific. Such young people were losing their lives and others their sense of identity. Stephan could hardly believe his work had led to this. All the amazing and strange human-machine hybrids he worked with must have all had the same fate. At least his small group of subjects were still aware. They were only missing their memories.
His head snapped up when Roger fell quiet, looking to Astrid with a pained expression. He wasn’t good with the mental wounds…
Juniper sprung to Astrid’s side, taking her hands in her own and cooing softly at her friend. “Hey, focus on me for a moment, breath with me. It’s going to be okay. I’m right here.”
For a few moments, Astrid didn't respond. She repeated the same motions as her eyes darted everywhere. She wasn't sure why now she began getting flashbacks, but they came anyway without warning. Maybe it was the involuntary reminder of her parent's brutal murder, maybe it was the fact that the same people kidnapped and experimented on her older brother, and the same people killed her younger brother. Maybe it was the thought that she's the last person in her family to become a victim to this organization.
Astrid's eyes, though wide, somehow managed to fixate on Juniper's as she started leaning slightly back and forth, the fear still evident in her eyes, she attempted deeper breaths as she squeezed Juniper's hands. After a few moments, Astrid nodded silently, her breathing beginning to slow as she swallowed the lump in her throat.
She blinked slowly, eyes falling to her boots as she brought her knees up to her chest in an attempt to hide her face.
"I'm-I'm sorry, I'm okay now."
Roger's face appeared hardened as he gazed at Astrid with an ever-growing supply of guilt. He knew he was supposed to help, but he hasn't taken care of Astrid in the way that Jessie and his parents knew how, and now he's the only family she has left, and he can't even help her when she needs it.
