Tales From The Kronos

Silva arrived in Emely's lab early in the morning. Her friend wanted to show her something that apparently couldn't wait. She wished she could sleep more but was also curious about the thing that Emely wanted to show her. The lab seemed cleaner today, allowing Silva to make her way to Emely without too much trouble.

"Hey, is everything alright?"

"Huh? Silva?" Emely looked around for a moment, speaking like she barely woke up.

"Were you... Sleeping while standing up?"

"No, I was just resting..."

Silva was convinced that she was sleeping but decided to not inquire further, still worried for her friend.

"I can come back later if you want."

"No no, I'm alright. I just need some tea and I'm right back up."

Emely took a bottle from her table and swallowed it all without stopping. She returned toward Silva and tried her best to smile.

"See? All fine!"

Her voice still sounded tired, Silva decided it would be for the best to end it quickly so she could rest.

"Alright, so what did you want to show me?"

"Follow me!"

The young engineer took her friend's hand and took her to the robot she worked on for a while. Silva quickly understood that it was finally time for her new creation to awake.

"Remiel will finally join our universe! Are you ready?"

"Yeah, I can't wait!"

Silva and Emely were excited to see it work, their smiles were bright and their eyes were full of stars. Emely pressed the button and everything went silent. The machines in her lab all stopped, indicating to Silva that something had gone wrong.

"It's alright, better luck next time."

Silva expected to hear something from her friend but didn't hear anything. When she noticed that Emely was on the ground, her head in her hand, Silva quickly sat next to her and hugged her tightly.

"Hey, it's okay. There's always next time."

"... Dark..."

"Huh?"

"It's... Dark..."

Silva realized that there was a power outage, probably because of the robot. The lights must have turned off but she didn't know about Emely's fear of the dark, it was the first time she heard of it.

"Silva... Don't leave me..."

"I'm not leaving."

Silva spoke with confidence, trying to make her friend feel better. The part of her clothes where Emely's head was started to get damped with her tears. Her friend's hands were gripping the fabric of her clothes as tightly as she could, not letting it go under any circumstances.

"It's... It's like that day. You were gone... I thought you were dead... The anomaly was here..."

"Everytime it's dark you think about it?"

Emely weakly nodded her head, holding onto Silva as tightly as she could.

"I'm here, if you feel bad again you can come to me, okay?"

Silva's words stayed without an answer, her little engineer looked like she had fallen asleep. She was already exhausted and it didn't help, she took her in her arms and stood up. She headed toward Emely's room to let her get the sleep she didn't take that night.

Once she arrived in front of the rooms, she realized that not only she didn't have the key to her room but she also didn't even know which one was her room. Silva decided to go into her own room instead and let Emely sleep there, it's not like it's the first time Emely went there after all. Silva let her friend sleep in her bed, gently caressing her hair as she did.

"Being afraid of the dark... What are you, twelve?" Silva smiled to herself, still caressing her friend "Sorry for being so mean, I guess it's just who I am."

Silva wrote a note that she glued on Emely's face, to make sure that she'd read it. She left her room and decided to go for a coffee. On the way, she bumped into Sepide, who visibly was searching for something.

"Sepide? What's the hurry?"

"I'm sorry, I didn't see you. Have you seen Emely?"

"Sadly I'm still blind." Silva laughed at her own joke before answering "She's asleep, you needed something?"

"Oh... It's just that the electricity doesn't work anymore. I kinda needed it."

"You needed it?" Silva asked while nodding her head, curious about Sepide's reason "What for?"

"It's... A bit embarrassing."

"Come on, you know the most embarrassing things about me, tell me, I won't judge."

"So... I've been searching for something I could do. I don't want to stay limited at one thing and I want to be useful."

"So far it's not really embarrassing."

"It will be soon. So I was using the internet to search what I could do and I found a platform where people shared videos. There were those people that were called V-tubers and..."

"Neige told me about it I think." Silva said, trying to remember what it was "Isn't it those people using virtual avatars to not show themselves, and then people simp over them?"

"Simp?" Sepide asked, confused "I never heard that before."

"It's the kind of person that gives their life saving to a girl so she says their name."

"Oh, so I have a lot of simps then."

"You what?" Silva wasn't sure if she heard right or if Sepide didn't understand her explanation.

"Yes, people give me money and I say their names."

"Sepide... You're a V-tuber?"

"... Yes..." Sepide's shy voice was barely audible. Silva was pretty surprised but a sudden idea traversed her mind.

"Does Neige know?"

"No, only you."

Silva had a sinister grin on her face. Sepide couldn't see it but she could feel her evil mind inside her working.

"We need to put the electricity back then, I suppose you were busy live-streaming, right?"

"Yes, I was..."

"Perfect! Come on, let's wake up Emely, she slept enough anyway."

Silva took Sepide with her hand and guided her in the dark, going to the room where Emely was sleeping.

The two friends entered Silva's room, trying to not make too much noise. Emely was visibly dreaming, mumbling some words in her sleep. Silva gently moved her, trying to wake her up.

"It's time to wake up little lamb."

Emely slowly opened her eyes. Silva took her in her arms to not scare her too much when she realized that everything was still dark.

"We need you to turn on the power, can you?"

The engineer's heart was beating fast, visibly stressed. Despite her fear, she managed to speak some words.

"Yes... Sorry but can you come with me? I don't want to be alone..."

"I will, don't worry."

"Why did you wake her up gently but yelled at Neige last time?" Sepide questioned, trying to understand.

"Do you treat me more softly than Neige?" Emely asked Silva while blushing a bit.

"I-It's because she's a crybaby."

"Alright!" Chuckled Emely at her crush's words "I need to get to my lab, that's where the control panel is."

Sepide and Silva waited next to Emely as she fixed the problem. She took a few breaks to calm down but managed to stay focused despite that. After a bit of time, the electricity went back on. Emely managed to fix everything quickly.

"I just overloaded the ship's battery with Remiel but it should be alright now. I hope it didn't fry her."

Emely looked at her robot and felt a wave of dread, Remiel wasn't here anymore.

"Remiel... She's awake..."

"She's alive! Alive!" Silva said with a spooky voice, visibly not amusing her friend.

"She could be crazy! I didn't perform any tests yet! While we speak, she could be trying to kill someone!"

"Oh, that's not good..." Silva said with a scared voice replacing her joking one.

The three hurried outside the lab, trying to find Remiel before anything wrong could happen.

"So you don't know who you are nor where you're from?" Neige summarized to the robot he just met.

"Correct."

Neige looked at the color of the robot, it looked eerily similar to the clothes that they wear. The orange lines on the black body, even the logo on her chest, everything indicated that she was indeed from here.

"Ever heard of Emely?"

"I do not have any data about such a person."

"Of course not. It would have been too easy. I can't find her anyway so I'll bring you to our leader, she'll know what to do with you."

"Understood." The robot answered with a blank voice.

"Seriously, what kind of stuff is she doing in her free time?" Neige mumbled to himself while bringing the strange robot to the leader.