Alive

Carlos's Mission

When I wake up, my neck is sore. My head must have been lolling to the side when I was asleep.

I try to peer through the darkness again, but with the absolute dark plus my groggy eyes, I can't make anything out. I sigh.

I don't know what time it is or what time I fell asleep last night, and I don't know when I'll get breakfast, but I'm hungry. My stomach growls loudly, and I groan. I don't necessarily want to make noises; I don't want to wake Ross or Nakya up, but right now, it's all I have.

I sit in silence for what seems like forever until finally, finally, I hear the door upstairs open and the footsteps heading down here. The noise wakes both of my friends up, but barely.

Carlos hits the floor, and I see he has three plates instead of just two. I nearly shout with relief. He hands one to each of us, and I gladly accept mine, but through my careful mouthfuls of food, I ask questions.

"Why are we here, Carlos?" 

"I need you. All of you." He responds, watching us eat. I notice this and start to eat a little slower so that I can get more questions in. Ross and Nakya do the same.

"What for? I mean, we don't know why we're a part of this, but we don't even know what this is." I point out, carefully watching him to see if he'll crack. I can't tell.

"I'm on a mission." He says. I realize then that he seems a lot less smug now than he last night.

Maybe he's just not a morning person? I think. Or maybe his 'mission' isn't going as planned. Which means we might be in more danger; there's nothing more dangerous than a psycho who has nothing to lose.

"What is this mission?" Ross asks, surprising both me and Carlos. Carlos smiles.

"I need robots to be mine. I want to be the ruler of all technological beings, and it starts with Goshi and you three." Carlos starts looking, at all of us one by one.

We all stare back.

"The way I plan to this is by taking each of you apart, piece by piece, wire by wire, and figuring out your components. If I know why each of you are made, then I can make my own robots that destroy all other life until it's just me, the king, commander of everything." 

When Carlos finishes his explanation, we all stay silent. At least, for a moment.

"What about Goshi? What does he have to do with it? And why did he agree to creating another robot?" Nakya asks.

Once again, Carlos smiles.

"I needed something to distract Goshi from all of this. At first, well, I didn't expect it to come to this; I was hoping Goshi and I could create the robot together. But we didn't, and I knew it would have to come to something different, so I used the new robot as a distraction for Goshi. This way, he wouldn't know what I was really up to. As for why he agreed to create another robot, well, that's a story for another time."

He ends with a grin that is even bigger than the last. Okay, so definitely just a morning person. It doesn't sound like there's an escape, and I am now more scared than ever before.

"Well, why us?" Ross asks quickly as Carlos begins to ascend the stairs again. Carlos turns around and looks at Ross, the ghost of a grin long gone plastered across his face.

"Because you came to me."

And with that, Carlos scales the rest of the steps and shuts the heavy door behind him.

"Is it just me, or did Carlos seem... less happy when Ross asked that last question?" I ask.

"Yeah." They answer in unison.

"It was kind of creepy." Nakya adds.

"Yep," I agree. "But, oh, I almost forgot to tell you. On the bright side of things, I figured out how to escape."

I can't see them anymore, but I know because I can feel it that, lost somewhere in the sea of darkness, there are two smiles that could illuminate anything. Except, I guess, this room.