Slient Night

Kneeling down at the riverbank, K4 watches intently, waiting for the perfect moment to strike, the downpour rapidly flowing past her down to where it meets its end, the clear water reflecting the sunlight beaming down its shiny liquid form, the smell of flowers and nature enveloping the entire riverside in a mixture of beautiful symphonies.

'You have to wait until you see it get stuck onto something.' From within, the young red-haired child watches using her bright yellow eyes through the yellow lens, guiding like an invisible hand for her.

"Shush already... I got this," her hands gripping a spear made of wood, waiting for the swift penetration of the fish swimming around, the clear water teasing the desire stirring within her.

With a moment of the fish stopping, K4 unleashes her inner power, the titanium hand throwing the spear forward, making it snap the wind out of its way, the fish below being pierced downwards into the rocky surface of the river, grazing its skin and bleeding out a dark red from its body.

'Pfft, you actually got it,' Pandemonium revels in the unlikely scenario unfolding exactly to K4's plan.

"Don't doubt the person who managed to scale down a wall; skills are the last thing you have to worry about." K4 goes into the water; the warmth of the sun helped the chilly river give off some comfort, but the constant rotation of fresh mountain water left it cold nonetheless. She enters, legs towards the middle of the river where the fish lies.

Grabbing the spear forcefully with the fish latched onto it, clinging for anything that could support its dead weight. "Quite the catch for a mere couple of minutes of work!" Her excitement rang all the way back towards Hino sitting on the SUV's rooftop, admiring the wild range of scenery around them.

The mountains in the distance, with the river flowing down towards oblivion downstream while the pleasant fresh air from the surrounding forest rang out, and the wild calls of animals in the area all gave a sense of calmness and majestic quality to their usual city landscape or plain grassy lands, and their journey towards the wasteland hit its two-week mark.

"Don't get ahead of yourself; it was more like thirty minutes." Hino jumps off the roof of the SUV, hitting the soft grass below, the light green colour symbolising how much things changed during this last year, where it used to be grey and depressing.

K4 looks back at Hino, who approached her. "I think it's a good catch; we're going to eat fresh food compared to those canned supplies of ours!" The nice change of food wasn't something they could afford, so K4 happiness wasn't without warrant.

'Still can't understand how you came to enjoy food... You became so human it hurts for someone like me.' The full pity tone of pandemonium gave K4 a bit of a sour expression.

"Don't let her tease you like that..." Hino immediately comforts K4. He got used to K4 and Pandemonium's conversations in these two weeks; the common occurrence of K4 being bullied or teased by Pandemonium doesn't change even over time.

K4 gives a smile back to Hino. "Yeah, noted. We should stay the night here. The next two weeks will be rather dull with the wastelands soon approaching. It's hard to believe that this place is so green here still."

"Hm, suppose it would be nice staying here for more time than entering a dead wasteland. We can stay here an extra week if you wish as well since we're on a perfect schedule to hit our resting place."

The suggestion caught K4 off guard, but it wasn't in a negative way. Staying here another week was definitely a good call since nothing seemed to ruin their journey, and entering the wasteland would just expose them to nothing but coarse dry dirt; they wouldn't have any more delays or stops at that point.

"Sure, let's stay here!" K4 gets up from the riverbank and heads to the SUV. Looking into the heated backseats, she finds a cold container where they store various supplies like water. The fish having cleaned itself in the river, it was safe to put into the container, which would prevent it from worsening over time.

At the same time, during that, she gets out of the tent from the back seat and, peeking her body out of the SUV, throws it over to Hino. "Get that tent sorted; I'm hunting more fish." Hino complies with the order, as he wasn't much of a fisher himself; he preferred killing animals like he did with Ox. This extra week would give him a chance to cash in on all that training.

For the remainder of the day, K4 was catching multiple fish, totalling around six at the end of the day. The sun, having its journey, set and cast a pleasant shadow across the tent site, which was perfectly set up with Hino's expertise. With their combined efforts, they would both enjoy a nice cooked piece of fish over the fireplace.

"Hino, do you want the first portions?" K4, looking over at Hino sitting down on a piece of wood, asks a simple question; the three fish being cooked by skewering on top of the fireplace gave out a pleasant fragrance into the air, the sun having set below gave the night an ethereal glow underneath the embrace of the stars.

"Yeah, sure!" Hino, taking a skewered fish out of K4's hands, took a small bite, testing the temperature and taste. The texture was soft and melting slightly, which gave him an urge to eat more. He started to devour the fish in front of K4, who let out a small chuckle.

"Seems it's done well, hm!" The light-hearted atmosphere left Hino to eat four of the fish, leaving two for K4 to enjoy. Pandemonium, being a part of K4 now, also got a taste of fish with their newly developed body swap feature.

Pandemonium sniffs and touches the fish using K4's body. "Human, do you really eat this stuff?"

"Yeah... Hurry up and eat it; seeing another person use K4's body like that gives me chills." Pandemonium laughs slightly and starts eating the fish while also making time to surely take in this body seep technique; her senses and feelings seemed to heighten due to this, her first experience through K4.

After switching back to the original plan, K4 and Hino, noticing how late it is, decide it's time to finally head into the tent. Hino, going in first like usual, gets comfortable while K4 admires the starry sky; the pull of the stars was something that she couldn't resist for some reason.

'You have done this every day for the past two weeks; don't you get tired of it?'

"No, definitely not. It's rather wanting more of it that's the issue; reaching the stars is something of a wish." Having goals and dreams wasn't uncommon for a human, but for a robot, it seems most failed to develop such ideals.

'You have mastered time travel! And you seek something even humans have already done; it's rather disappointing I'm stuck with someone like you.'

"Don't get all rowdy now just because time travel isn't something I like. Also, we haven't mastered it. Throughout those five rewinds, there were always anomalies, which is why ending this is better." The promise of an ever-changing timeline left the mysteries of the world in a dangerous place.

'There is something worse out there, forcing that, I mean. You haven't noticed it because ensuring your safety and my own during each rewind was crucial.'

"You sound like a guardian now of some sort." She lets out a small laugh.

'Just stating that we possess the strongest thing on this planet, and yet there is always something beyond us.'

"As in a deity?" The concept of a deity wasn't something K4 was aware of, but it wasn't anything of her concern or any other being's concern other than humans'.

'suppose that's what a human calls them, but we can't understand it even after thousands of rewinds, so it's pointless to figure out its motive.' The usual bright and mischievous pandemonium seems to be gone suddenly, like if a deep, complex thought about a deity

"It doesn't matter what that thing wants; everything can be altered. Shilo was supposed to be destroyed after all!"

'You're wrong; it's because I affected it, which isn't the natural course. We're both anomalies as well, after all.'

"You're right; maybe the only thing guaranteed is the destruction of the world then."

'Maybe you're right!' The upbeat mood seems to have returned, like some sort of magical idea coming into her head like in a movie.

K4, having grown sick of this existential talk, decides it's time without warning to shut herself off inside the tent. Entering next to Hino, she closes it from the inside and shuts herself off towards her mind space with pandemonium, constructing a bed for the both of them. They both lie down and embrace the night.