Waiting for my death | Horizon zero dawn fanfiction

Chapter 6: I Walk Alone

Dear Ivy,
I'm now on my way to San Francisco. Do you remember our little trips there every now and then? Your dad used to work there. We used to hang out at the beach as little kids while my grandma kept an eye on us. We were playing, pretending that hole in the cliff was a portal to another dimension. Oh god, how I miss being a kid so full of wonders...

My writing is quickly interrupted as I see a humanoid robot figure drive through the train with its small wheels. People are sending over data of their ticket stored on their focuses, making the robot scan it. When it drives past me I do the same. Wondering what would happen if the robot detected that the ticket was a scam.

Apparently back in the days, humans used to walk through trains checking tickets. That sort of society feels foreign to me, considering I've grown up in a more technically advanced society. Sometimes I wonder how people navigated the old world, without having to depend on machines making their dirty work. Perhaps it was a better world, since no machines would ever turn on them.

The old world has always fascinated me. History was always my best subject, I could name every little useless facts about Ancient Greek or Mesopotamia in my sleep if I wanted to. I wish I could say the same for the rest of the school subjects. It's as if my whole family went through high school and college like a dance without any obstacles in their way. I must have some sort of defect.

But somehow history just stuck with me. I don't know what it is about it, but the old world feels so distant from our own. That's what I find intriguing. Even just a few decades back and society didn't look remotely the same as it does now.

I realize I need to pass time somehow, considering I'll be sitting on this train for hours. I tap my focus without any other intentions in mind. Mindlessly scrolling through apps, I find the hologram storage. Me and Ivy used to mess around a lot with it. I never bothered to look back on them out of utter embarrassment, but right now it's as if I can't resist the urge.

All holograms have silly little names. "Hanging instead of banging", is one of them. Two little kids thinking they were hilarious, and now it's sort of an inside joke between us. Or I mean, used to be an inside joke. Those words from our youth used to make me shiver of the utter embarrassment, but right now I can't hinder the inevitable emotional response it brings to my chest.

Another name immediately catches my eyes,"Road trip to San Francisco" it's called. A rather simpler name in the vast jungle of weirdness stored in the hologram storage. Probably because Ivy's dad, Jonathan, shared it with us. We used to go to San Francisco pretty consistently, eventually it was like our second home. This was because Jonathan had occasional job errands to attend to in San Francisco. We lived at my grandma's apartment, so paying for a hotel was never a necessity.

After a few hesitant thoughts about my well-being prior til after inspecting a piece of our happiest memories, I click the play button like that's the way I was programmed. Since there isn't enough room on the train, I transcript the program outside, watching it outside the train window. Making the car recorded look as if it's driving in an abnormal speed.

I recognize it the moment I lay my eyes on it. Jonathan is carelessly holding the car wheel. Me and Ivy are sitting in the backseat. I'm pretty sure Ivy was just about to show my a magic trick with our set of cars before suddenly being interrupted by Jonathan. He swiftly turns up the volume on the radio as one of his favorite songs blesses his ears.

"Now this is music!" He exclaims happily.

"Not this again!" Ivy quickly protests. But Jonathan can't hear our complains as he mildly headbangs to the heavy guitar deafening our ears while trying to keep his eyes on the road at the same time.

"This one's called 'dear diary' by bring me the horizon. They were pretty big back in the early 2000s."

"People used to like this?" I ask, not in a humiliating tone. Rather out of curiosity, and I can't help but find it fascinating how subjective different forms of arts can be to different people.

"Dad! There was this band you played once that I actually liked. I think they came even before the 2000s, but I can't remember what you said they were called. I remember one of the lyrics though... I walk alone?"

"Oh, you're talking about Green Day? Yeah, of course we can play them!"

The rest of the hologram consists of us being absolutely stunned by the catchiness of their songs. It's like the songs were made for laughing while screaming the lyrics out loud on a road trip, being unaware of their inner meanings. I don't even realize that my cheeks were getting a silent, cold embrace by tears. Like waterfall against a cliff, reflecting the absence of a lost loved one in the form of a hologram.

Jonathan passed away shortly after Ivy had taken her life. His injuries has made people theorize that he had met the same fate as Ivy, and no one has mentioned them ever since. Like someone is trying to completely erase them to the public. Jonathan was an active worker as well as investor for Faro Automated Solutions. He also had many errands in San Francisco, hence why he and my grandma unexpectedly had many things in common. His work was, however, unknown to the public. We never even heard a word of his whereabouts regarding the 'top secret project'. All we know is that it was an FAS research facility called " The Greenhouse".

A spark of curiosity appears within me. I lightly tap my focus located at the tip of my ear and start scrolling through the purple web. I open the music database, where I have saved my personal favorite songs, but also where I have access to all forms of music. My heart is thirsty for the warmth of nostalgia, melting the ice cold iceberg tragically forming as time goes by.

I search for the band called Green Day. Despite them being quite old, they still have twenty million monthly listeners. Godamn conservatives. I can't recollect what the songs we listened to were called, so I decide to listen through the most popular song. One of the songs especially catches my eyes.

Good Riddance (Time of Your Life) - Green Day

I don't know how many times I've listened to it throughout the train ride. I've lost count at this point. For some reason the violins helps calm my nerves about spontaneously moving to San Francisco. I didn't understand the meaning of it back at the road trip. Or no, scratch that, I didn't understand the feeling of the song's message.

It's something unpredictable
But in the end it's right
I hope you had the time of your life

Oh Ivy, I miss you.

I close my notebook and admire the dancing lights shimmering out the window.