// To human eyes it would be difficult to notice, given how dark the night was, but the Drifter’s sight was keener. Likewise: the wind blew harder, but the Drifter’s floating robot, hovering by their shoulder, seemed to be able to easily adjust.
The bot chirps once to get the stranger’s attention, and then its user asks Angela in a low and rumbling voice:
“Did you wish for those? What is it...?”
As the Drifter asks, they point with their chin toward her wings, unfamiliar with what they were.
// The otherworldly twinkle had caught his eye immediately, gleaming in the dark.
They looked at it without much surprise, thinking the star a mere vision--before their phone chirped to life. Transferring the announcement from cell phone to companion bot, the Drifter watched as an eager young girl introduced herself.
Soon enough, the screen dissipated, leaving the twinkle once more as the primary source of life within the Drifter’s hut.
No move was made as it finally formed into a silver star. Eleine had mentioned hiding it, but in the ever-present dark of underground Sector Alpha, the Drifter could easily notice it.
Her words, her instructions, these echoed in the Drifter’s mind, heart beginning to pick up pace.
(working hard... congratulations...
close your eyes, and think really hard.
a wish.)
As they began to stand up from their seat and stagger toward their dusty bicycle (behind which the star was “hidden”), the Drifter felt the hyper dark murmur:
(won’t work... doesn’t last...
i know you want the cure
how naïve.)
They closed their eyes, imagined a mirror shattering, and the dark was silent once more.
But the thought remained.
// How could they wish to be cured? What hard work had they done to deserve it? Judgement still haunted them, Justice’s complete absence was damning (you failed It, you must have), and to simply wish away their sickness, even if temporary, would be...
The Drifter clasps the wish tightly between both hands, like he had done before with the green diamond at the front of his cloak.
