Another Day and Carnival

She sat in her wheelchair, playing the violin, a really melodramatic tune that really resonated with me emotionally, it gave background music to my life, I sat there thinking

About how to proceed with treating her.

[Would you like to record the music?]

"If you can do that yes please"

[Recording...]

It continued, then the music suddenly stopped.

She put down the violin and bow and asked

"What are you going to do after this?"

"Treat your wound then end our pact and then I will go home"

"Where is your home?"

She rested her face on her hands and listened attentively.

I told her where my home was.

"Ain't it really far from here? How are you gonna go there?"

Turning my head to look outside.

"I Don't know"

Using both her arms to push the wheels she moved by herself and came really close across me and leaned towards me to take a closer look at my face. Her eyes glared with curiosity.

"Tell me more about your family."

"Do you have siblings?"

"One, a younger brother, two years younger than me."

"How are your parents like?"

Laughing

"Well, where do I even began" haha awkward laugh

"Do you really wanna know, it will bore you out. Some other time maybe?"

"All I have is time" she looked at me and said

"well"

The laughter between us suddenly turned into a serious atmosphere.

"If you don't want to say it. That's fine"

I had a lighter in my hand and I was playing with it, closing it.

"No, it's fine, I want to say it."

"My parents were one of those narcissists who cared about what others perceive of them a lot, to them their image, what others saw of them, how they dressed, how they looked all mattered a lot."

"They believed they had to maintain certain standards in our household, etiquette, how we acted, how we behaved, everything. We had to be perfect, Outward appearance of our house was of utmost priority."

"Especially to my mom, Who did philanthropic work, not from the goodwill of her heart, but to create a benevolent image of hers."

"To her, what people thought of her mattered a lot, she lived on the praises of people, any criticism of her and she would lash out instantly."

"She was someone who couldn't handle the truth about herself, when it was about hers she would refuse to believe it. but the thought of herself as a person of truth who pointed out lies to others pointed people to the truth."

"But, I guess I don't have the right to judge if she was right or she was wrong, I can't say I know what truth is or what lies are myself."

"But if you say she is alone in the world who is like that, isn't it wrong? She questioned.

"if you say that she was alone who did philanthropic work for that kinda reason, won't you be wrong, it's almost always the same reason as her, some people want to change what others perceive themselves as, some are doing that cause they feel guilty for something they have done is not it like that? Of course, there are the exceptions to this, those who are really doing it cause they are genuinely interested" she said further

"But, does the reason behind their actions really matter? if at the end it all leads to the same thing."

She maybe had a point on what she said, but I did not know, nor did I have an answer.

I continued

"My entire childhood I spent learning their ways and their manners with my brother but unlike my brother, I wanted to excel in their eyes, Since I wanted to be their ideal son."

"So, I tried my best and pushed myself to create a good image for myself. I won't say it did not pay off at times, but at most, it might have just been a facade of mine and it was troubling most of the time. People thought of me as perfect and people expected things from me which I could not do, after all, I was a human too.

"In the end, I never could really grow out of that good image of mine I created of myself cause it was too perfect. So, I thought of running away, and after years of planning and disappointing my parents and I ran away from home for a normal life, where I could express myself with the excuse of moving out for a job"

[;_;]

Floated in front of me.

<<System is Sad>>

"I remember one particular incident from my time in kindergarten, when I was taught how to introduce myself with others and what to tell others if they asked anything about us, like a script, it was listed with all the questions that could be possible asked and the person who was in charge of my day to daycare sat with me making me practice them"

She leaned over and held me in her arms.

"I'm so sorry. You have a really terrible life"

She said I didn't know I should laugh or cry at what she said.

After that, she went back to playing the violin again.

I began cooking us dinner, she again turned my mundane daily chore cinematic with some background music.

That's how another day went by in the superstore trying to figure out how to treat her.

After dinner, we sat cleaning the guns, the batteries were running out and we had to find a generator and gas soon to run it.

"Hey, can I come home with you?" she asked

"What?"

[Warning: Movement Detected]

<<Map>> expanded showing 8 small dots moving outside slowly approaching the place.

I cut out the lights, she prepped a gun and handed it over to me, and took one for herself.

We hid far away from the tents, using them as decoys.

[Emergency Mission: Carnival]

<<Eliminate all the intruders, failure would lead to death>>

They spotted us with a drone they had and started firing at us.

I pushed her through the aisle and she fired at them as we ran to take cover

"This won't work, we have to do something else," she said as she kept firing at them.

One, two, three, one after another guns ran out of ammo she switched from one gun she was carrying in her lap to another, soon the ammo ran out. Somehow we had managed to cross the aisles of the open giant hall to a corridor that led to a service room. We ran through it, closing the door behind us.

As they tried to breach it, by kicking we ran trying to cross the corridor to the service room, we heard the sounds of an explosion behind us as we entered the service room and locked ourselves inside it.

We were pretty much-trapped chicken waiting to be hunted at this point. With no place to escape to we quickly looked for a place to hide before we found one,

We hid in a closet that contained the boiler, we hid behind the boiler.

[System detects immediate danger...] it started to glitch

[Warning...Warning..warning self-protection incited, take cover]

[executing...last resort..going online...connecting..]

[connected]

[Last Restoration point found]

[Restoring...]

She suddenly fell to the ground as her wound started to disappear.

Banging on the door, loud voices, gun firing, Sound of something.

Explosion.

The door was breached by that explosion. As they entered through the door, they threw a smoke grenade. I could not see anything but I could hear them move around.

She was still on the floor.

[Skill <<Executioner>> <<Speed>> <<Body Of steel>> are activated by your companion]

Before I turned around and could look at her, the door was open to the closet and she was already in front of one of the guys with her hand through his neck

Before she threw another to the wall with just one of her hands, as the fire at her

[2/8 Eliminated]

They fired at her but to no effect, I was still hiding behind the boiler only peaking out just enough to stay out of their sight.

[<<Ultimate Reflection>> Activated]

Bullets flew towards them, some were hit by them, even though ultimate reflection was activated everyone did not get hit by those bullets, the skill only returned the bullet to where it came from, thus was the skill <<ultimate reflection> which returned the damage to its sender.

Then one of them who was shot screamed

"She is using some sort of skill don't shoot at her"

They stopped shooting and started fighting hand to hand with all of them against her, they threw punches at her kicks but with the <<Body of Steel>> and <<ultimate reflection>> it only went back at them.

[Special Skill <<Hand Of Destruction>> Activated]

After that, all that was left behind was dust and debris, with a single punch of hers all of them were blown in an explosion. Then she collapsed to the ground when she woke up

Again she asked me "Can I come home with you?"

To which I said "Yes"

It was not safe anymore to stay at the superstore now that the system had gone online once, and she did not have any injuries and she could move freely, so it was best to not stay anymore at the superstore and continue on the way home.