Lost and Found (OPEN)

[girlintheducts]

Sept 18, 2012  - 1:26 pm

Newt had spent the last weeks in the ducts.  Leaving only to go to the bathroom and eat when she got hungry enough.  She had avoided any contact with anyone so far.  Maybe they thought she was gone too.  Maybe it was better that way.

When Brisco disappeared she'd lay in the bed of his empty room and cried.  She was there for days.  Everything of him had been stripped away.  Including his scent.  If she didn't have stills on her communicator it would be as if he never was. 

Everybody left.

She'd retreated to the ducts and didn't come out.  It was safer there.  No one could sneak up on you.  No one to see you.  No one to care about.  If she cared they would be taken. 

She had visited her room only to collect Molly, her doll.  The white stuffed rabbit Nuada had given her was guarding her bed.  It was too bulky to take.  She didn't feel like trying to keep clean.  Maybe being grimy and smelly would keep people away.  She had taken to sleeping most of the time.  Dreams were better when they came, then reality.  The nightmares only woke her for a little while.  Then she'd sleep some more.

Most of the time she didn't feel like eating.  Her overalls and tee had become too big on her.  It didn't matter.  Only Kasumi came and went.  Occasionally trying to draw her out.

Then Kasumi stopped coming.

Her room was empty.  Her closet as well.

Newt stopped her lessons and didn't even send back the math problems Mr. Baltar sent.  He'd be next if she didn't stay away.

Unable to stand the hungry anymore Newt scouted the unoccupied kitchen.  She knew there was a replicator there.  And considering the few natural foodstuff's around it was unlikely anyone would visit.  Even if there were carrots and green onions in the fridge.

She stood before the replicator and asked for a cupcake.

Comments

[girlintheducts]

"I lost everybody," Newt's voice was soft, almost whispered before she shoved some more lintils in her mouth. She chewed for a bit, considering well before swallowing. "Everyone I let myself like dies or is taken away. By the fourth time, you tend to catch on to a pattern. It is lonely. But it's better lonely than hurt," Her voice faded once more at the last sentence.

Newt looked over to the replicator. "Cola, please?"

A glass full of vegitable juice materialized. "I think it's out to get us."

[acalltoarms]

Looking at her, Kate's heart ached. She was angry, furious, at the injustice of the universe that this girl has had to lose so much and be so worn down. But mostly she was just so, so sad.

"I get why you would feel that way," she reached out to Newt's hand, just a quick, grounding touch before pulling back. "It's safer, because you might be saving yourself some hurt." Kate took the vegetable juice and set it in front of her. It was a particularly vibrant green. "I would drink veggie juice and eat live squid every day if it meant not losing people. Even the gross tentacle bits."

[girlintheducts]

Newt nodded. She could agree to that. She really hated being alone. At least she had the reassurance of people being right outside the vents.

"I sometimes think I'm here as a distraction. All these people who are powerful, important, strong, and then there's me. Whatever the kidnappers want, I think they're testing us, or you. Seeing what it takes to make you snap. I think I'm here so some might get attached and then they either get taken away, or eventually kill me to push the important one's further. So staying apart might be best for everyone else as well."

Newt may be nine, but she'd had a month to curl up and think of scenarios. All bad, of course. Science was her favorite subject, so it promoted logical thinking.

[acalltoarms]

"Or," Kate started and held out a segment of orange to her. "The people who seem important are really just distractions. Maybe our captors're emotion eating monsters who took us away from home and trapped us here. They want to fatten us up by making us as sad as possible, so they make people disappear. Maybe our only way to fight back is to be happy anyway, since happiness gives them indigestion."

She offered her a little wry smile, so Newt knew she was aware of just how ridiculous an idea that was. "It's my theory, anyway. I'm not very good at being a resistance fighter, though. For now just getting by is all I can do."

[girlintheducts]

Of course Kate's idea was silly. But she most likely intended it that way.

"I had hoped the 'getting by' part was over," Newt admitted. Isn't that what she had been doing for so long until she arrived here? "But I'm good at it." Getting by, that was.

Newt felt the tightness in her belly go away as the cupcake shut up the hungry sounds.

"Either way it seems we're all stuck. People from all realities? That means we aren't likely to be in our own right now. And how do we get back against that?"

She was much too young to be so fatalistic. However, experiance had shaped her by now.