The Living condition

2

You sat on the floor of a library, back pressed up against an old, dusty and unused bookshelf, with two other figures. Details you couldn't discern, but you weren't concerned in the least. You knew what you were here to do. Propping one leg up to rest the book in your hands on, you cracked the book open with a smile and started reading.

That friend of yours, Her family had such a large collection of books that no one ever used. Well–not No-one, but not used nearly enough to be protected from a fine layer of dust. You'd often spend time with her in the library when you were smaller, playing hide and seek behind the bookshelves and squeezing yourself into the nooks and crannies under writing desks and side-tables. It was all in good fun.

But now you were teaching. Sorta. The figure between you and the other was effectively your 'student' while you read excerpts from a psychology book, and the boy read through a fact book, pointing out things to the person between the both of you.

You'd call it fun, to teach. You were doing something good by explaining psychology terms, things that people with silly degrees and doctorates knew for sure. Things you probably wouldn't have known without having been told.

"Oh! Oh, look at this–" the boy babbled, hurriedly turning the book he was holding around to shove it in your 'student's face. "A group of pugs is called a grumble! Can you believe that? That is–" he sits back, legs propped up "That is so silly!"

"Did you know," you start, leaning your head back against the books "That Memories change each time they're recalled?" you tap your fingers against the passage, showing your student, who blinks once or twice while glancing over the passage "The brain twists the story a little every time, it's just a little different from the original story!" you hum, before propping the book back up, flipping and flitting through the pages. You know you'd seen something a little more interesting to tell your student, who holds her head in her hands with her elbows to her knees.

"Oh, how about...this one?" you leaned over, presenting your book to the girl and the boy with a beaming grin before you read "The brain is a pattern recognition machine. It'll seek out that which is familiar and repeat it, even if the familiar is painful." you blinked once, "Wait, hold on–I just saw a better one–"

Your father's voice, calling for you caught your attention, and without hesitation, you dropped the book and scrambled to your feet, ducking out from around the bookshelf to stand straight as a line as you spotted your father

"Yes,Father?"

"It's time to go."

"Yes Father."

__________

"Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuggghh."

Not the most pleasant of ways to be woken up, to the loud groaning of someone trudging through the living room as loudly as possible, hands limp at her sides. When you'd opened your eyes, it was Uzi pacing back and forth, from her room, out to the living room, back into her room to slam the door shut, only to come back out and wander aimlessly again. This wasn't the first morning where you'd been woken up to Uzi's restless pacing from what you figure is some sort of guilt. You'd never place bets on silly things like that–but it's exceedingly obvious that it had something to do with what she'd said to the taller drone.

Over the past week that you'd been allowed to stay within the Doorman's home, you'd done your best to make yourself Scarce where you can. Some things were simply unavoidable, such as having to wander around and figure out how to get yourself a proper water-source if you were going to survive (Thus far, you've made do with functional showers and jars, of which you still can't figure out who's keeping them working or why, considering that the worker drones were robots), but Food was a whole other problem. While you'd been fortunate enough to find some extremely frozen over canned goods in containment that were only a good while past expiration. No mold growth, safe to eat for most part, just cold and rather tasteless.