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Charlie practically bolted awake, the memory and sensation of her being gruesomely stabbed through her chest being the last thing she felt. She sat up on a work table, her hand grasping hard at her purple shirt. She felt her heartbeat pounding rapidly in her ears as she tried to steady her breathing. How is she here? What happened? What's going on?
She looked down at her body, expecting to see blood and a ripped shirt, but... She was perfectly fine. Charlie was immensely confused and terrified, beginning to wonder if all of those previous events were some messed up dream. But, if that were the case, how did she get here then?
Charlie looked around the room, it was a standard repair shop. Full of tools, gadgets, parts for machines, and stuff she didn't even know the name of. This felt unreal, she couldn't even tell if her mind was somehow playing tricks on her. Maybe this was Heaven? Or Hell? Just a regular repair shop? Definitely not what was preached by priests. Kind of a let down.
Charlie turned her body so her legs were now dangling off the edge of the table rather than laid across it. It felt odd to move right now, there was definitely something off with her body she couldn't decipher. There was a throbbing pain that made itself abundantly clear out of nowhere and she winced, holding her head and closing her eyes.
The sounds of footsteps approaching the door became more and more clear. She opened her eyes and was immediately put on alert, looking around the room for a place to hide. An instinct she's gathered ever since the incidents with those robots and that Dave guy. However, she was too weak to move efficiently and the door swung open before she could even begin to stand.
“Charlie…?” A voice called out to her and Charlie's eyes widened upon seeing them, her voice not finding itself just yet.
It was Jessica standing in that doorway, John and the others just behind her. Jessica and Charlie’s eyes met, just like they had a million times before, but something about it was different this time. Jessica’s pupils dilated and she teared up which caused Charlie to stand, her concern managing to overtake her physical weakness. She still physically faltered, almost toppling over on herself.
Jessica ran into Charlie and hugged her tightly, squeezing her harder than she ever had before, “Charlie!”
The sudden harsh hug winded Charlie and she felt lightheaded, “J-Jessica…?” Her voice came out hoarse and glitchy.
Charlie’s arms hesitantly hugged her back, still trying to make sense of all of this. When Charlie reciprocated the hug, Jessica only squeezed tighter as she dug her face into Charlie’s neck. All of the others watched in silence, awestruck. Charlie looked at them with a bashful expression, using her wrist to wave one of her hands rather than her full arm to not break the hug.
“I was so scared for you, Charlie一”
“We all were!” Carlton cut her off, but Jessica continued like he had said nothing, “I seriously don’t know what I would have done if my best friend died on me.”
Both girls pulled back from the hug far enough to look each other in the eye, but their arms still held onto each other, “W-What… What happened?”
Jessica looked back to the others, feeling her nerves building up all over again. They all kept quiet for an extended period of time, each finding their words in the awkward tension. So much had happened just within these past few days, so much that they couldn’t process, nobody really knew what to say knowing that she was… perfectly fine now. Mostly.
John was the first to speak up in the silence, “You died, but we fixed you.”
“Fixed me?” Charlie was rightfully confused, her eyebrows knitting together.
“Yeah,” John rubbed the back of his neck and looked off to the side, “You died, remember? Impaled on a sword. We all thought you were a goner, but your… robot stuff… gave us the idea to take you here to the mechanics.”
Charlie could barely believe what she was hearing and looked at nothing as she registered this. So, none of that was a dream after all. She wasn’t dead nor was she going crazy, she was just… lucky.
“Which… Can we talk about that?”
Jessica let go of Charlie and placed a hand on John’s shoulder, her tone gentle but stern, “Come on, she just woke up after almost dying.”
“You mean after dying. ” John corrected snarkily and shoved his hands into the pockets of his pants, “This robot thing is a huge reveal. For all of us.”
“I get that, but can’t we just not talk about all these horrible things happening right now and just be glad she’s alive?” Jessica crossed her arms and her nose wrinkled with disdain.
Charlie perked up at her words and felt immediate guilt. She looked down to the floor and kept quiet, her hands fiddling with themselves. Her brain began to wander into negative territory, thinking she was the reason for every horrible thing that had happened recently. It had all been revolved around her recently, if it wasn’t for her existence none of them would have to be dealing with this trauma.
She felt horrible for it, she never wanted to cause any problems. She just wanted to be a normal girl with normal friends and a normal life. She just wanted to be Charlie, but now she doesn’t even know if that’s who she is. After discovering there’s apparently multiple versions of her, what is there for her to know about herself anymore? Is she one of the horrible things Jessica is referring to? Is her existence a horrible thing?
Jessica and John continued to go back and forth, gradually getting more and more heated as they were both too stubborn to know when to stop. Eventually, Marla came between the two and firmly hit them both on the arms.
“Will you two quit it? There’s enough stress on all our backs right now, let’s just be happy Charlie’s okay.” Marla glared them both down, like a disapproving mother to her children.
Both John and Jessica lowered into themselves, muttering partially sincere apologies under their breaths. Marla made her way through the two to go over to Charlie and pulled her into a gentle hug. Much different compared to the hug Jessica had previously given her.
“You did good, Charlie.” Marla smiled.
“Thanks…” Charlie wanted to believe her, but there was something about all of this that didn’t let her.
Marla pulled away from the hug to crack her back, then started heading towards the door, “I’ll go let the mechanics know their services weren’t for nothing.”
Marla soon left the room, off to find the mechanics as she said. Everybody else just stood in silence once more, it was beginning to become uncharacteristic how quiet they all were being. Everything was a lot to take in, what do you say to somebody who you’ve known all your life that randomly is discovered to be a robot after having weeks of nothing but terrific encounters with robots? Robots that were all made by the same psychotic people?
Maybe there wasn’t anything to be said. Maybe the best thing to say was nothing. Maybe to sit in silence as they all avoided looking at each other because what else was there to do.
“Hey man,” Carlton spoke up in Charlie’s direction, “If you need time to be alone to get used to being like... alive again, we can leave no problem.”
Charlie rubbed her mouth as she decided on her options. Keep friends in her technically hospital room and continue to say nothing to each other OR kick friends out of her technically hospital room and overthink every single event that’s happened recently. That’s hard. She could feel the weight of this situation and could tell that her relationship with every single one of them was going to be different. John didn’t even hug her, he barely even seems to want to look at her.
It stung like hell seeing him refuse to meet her eyes. They’ve gone through so much together, shouldn’t he have been more happy to see her alive and well? What could have happened between this wait time to make him come off so cold and distant?
“I’d like to be alone… For a little while.” Charlie sat back down on the table, looking down in her lap as her hand rubbed at her sleeve.
Carlton nodded and snapped his fingers, “Right-o, let’s go guys.”
It didn’t take long at all for them to accept Charlie’s wishes. Carlton made his way out of the room relatively quickly in comparison to the other two. Jessica took a few steps closer to Charlie and held her hand for a second, giving her a reassuring smile.
“I’m glad you’re okay, Charlie.” Jessica’s thumb rubbed her hand, “Let’s talk when you feel better.”
Charlie nodded subtly, refusing to vocally reply or return the gesture. Jessica seemed to have taken no offense to this as she let go of her hand and left the room right after. There was something within Charlie telling her to ask Jessica to stay, but it was too late to do that. She didn’t want to be alone, but she didn’t want to sit here knowing she’s reminding all of her friends of every bad thing that’s ever happened to every single one of them.
She sighed and recoiled into herself further, letting her guilt pile up until her body began to feel heavy. So much so she had forgotten John was still in the room. He was looking at her like he had something to say, but when their faces met one another, he averted his gaze. He picked himself up off the wall and started to walk towards the door.
“John, wait,” Charlie spoke quickly with desperation.
John’s body paused with an audible kick of his shoes against the floor. He didn’t turn his head to meet her eyes again, but he nodded to signify he was listening. His hand ran down the casing of the door, waiting for what she had to say.
“Can I…” Her voice faltered, she raised her hand up to him, “Can we talk?”
John finally turned to meet her, his eyebrows furrowed and his mouth curved into a frown. Charlie was surprised to see such an expression adorned on his face, he usually treats her with such a delicate kindness.
“Later, Charlie.” John’s voice sounded dejected, “I have some stuff I need to do.”
“Oh…” Charlie’s hand fell down to her lap and she slowly began to nod in understanding, “T-That’s uh… That’s alright, John. See you later.”
John shrugged his shoulders then left the room. His footsteps down the hall got quieter and quieter until Charlie couldn’t hear them at all. She was left alone with herself now, it was time for her to think about everything. It was time for her to remember every detail down to the bone of what went down. It was time for her to think about herself. To just think. To just try to relax, just this once.