Chapter Text
London, England, 21st October 2045.
'ATTENTION! ALL STUDENTS MUST REPORT TO THE BASEMENT SHELTER FOR A MANDATORY NUCLEAR DRILL,' Came the voice over the tannoy.
'God damnit!' Ethel seethed through gritted teeth. 'Can't the world just get its shit together for five minutes?!'
'Miss Williams, this type of language is unacceptable,' Came the monotone voice of her English teacher, Drone no. 0815.
Ethel rolled her eyes, but decided it was futile to argue with the thing.
She and her class had been partaking in some silent reading, although most of them saw it as pretty pointless, as they were all made to read the exact same series of books over and over: the 'Android Maintenance' series, generated by Droid no. 0035, so that in the future, they could all help keep the AI overlords running.
However, Ethel had discovered a loophole: she found out that, no matter how intelligent her droid teachers were, they were shockingly unobservant, and therefore never noticed when she took the cover off her drone repair books and stuck them onto her many, many copies of the One Piece manga. The perfect disguise.
In fact, some other students even supported her in doing this by secretly donating their own book covers, as a little act of defiance.
Ethel found One Piece around three years ago, and fell in love with it immediately; when she first saw Monkey D. Luffy burst out of that barrel, her life was changed forever. These days, it doesn't matter whether it's the manga, the anime, or even the live action remake; if It's One Piece related, she's sat.
Because it brought her comfort in a world where original art created by humans was becoming increasingly hard to come by.
Now, One Piece was coming to an end, and Ethel was devastated buy determined; she was on the last few pages of the final volume, and she really wanted to read it during this silent reading session.
But, of course, just as she had reached the last couple of pages, they had to have a nuclear drill. Just her luck.
But Ethel had made her decision: I'm going to finish those last two pages if it kills me. So, when she was absolutely certain Droid no. 0815 wasn't looking, she stuffed her copy of the manga inside her jumper and walked out with the rest of her peers, clutching her stomach tightly so that it wouldn't fall out.
She headed out of the classroom and down the stairs, quickly so as to keep up with her peers, but carefully so as to keep her manga copy concealed.
As she hurried down the corridor, she fell in line with a boy who couldn't have been older than, what, 11? They walked in silence for a while, until two older, giggling boys barged into them both, knocking the two of them over before continuing to run towards the shelter without any kind of apology.
Panic set in as Ethel frantically gripped her shirt to check that the manga hadn't fallen out: miraculously, it was still in there.
She picked herself up, but realised she had another problem: her pink headband was no longer resting on her head.
oh no, she thought. I can't lose that.
'Hey, is this yours?' Came a voice from behind her: it was the boy who had also been knocked over, and he was holding the pink headband out towards her.
'Oh, yes!' She replied, taking the headband and placing it on her head. 'Thank y-' Ethel cut herself off, having just noticed his glasses, which were all lop-sided, presumably getting broken after he had been pushed to the floor.
Ethel suddenly felt very ashamed of herself. 'I'm sorry. I should have helped you up-'
'No, it's ok!' The boy said quickly. 'Those guys have it out for me. It's not your fault.'
Jesus. How sad do you have to be to pick on someone so much younger than you? 'Well, ignore them,' Ethel said confidently. 'I don't know why they were so excited to get to the bomb shelter, anyways.'
They both chuckled slightly, before continuing to walk. 'I'm Ethan, by the way.' The boy told her.
'Nice to meet you, Ethan!' Ethel replied, giving him a reassuring smile. 'My name's kind of similar. It's Ethel.'
Eventually, they made it to the school's bomb shelter. It was a very high-tech place, full of food and beds in case they had to stay the night (or longer), but it had horrifically bright fluorescent lighting that always gave Ethel a headache.
Ethel rested on a bed in the corner, sitting with her knees up so that she could rest her book on them without looking too conspicuous. Not only was she not allowed to read anything other than the droid maintenance book, but you were also supposed to leave all your belongings behind during these emergency bomb drills. Ethel had to be very careful.
When she was satisfied, she turned the pages and began to read. Finally, she had made it to the bitter end. She was so excited. What would the One Piece even look like? What will- wait, what?
'NOOOO!' Ethel suddenly screamed, making everyone around her jump and causing Droid 0815 to whip around and face her.
'What?! WHAT?!' Yelled Ethan, who had been sitting near her. 'ARE YOU IN DANGER?!'
Ethel let out a groan of despair.
'IT ENDED ON A CLIFFHANGER!'