R. A. T. H

Four

A desert burned under a blue sky and a piercing sun. The winds rolled, moving masses of brown sand from moment to moment. Under the glare of the heat, a dune-buggy bumped along a rocky terrain. It was scrapped here and there, in terrible shape, but it scattered dust with a dilapidated elegance.

A young man rode in that transporter. A head of dirty-blonde hair covered his head, a soft grin spanned his face, and a pair of brown goggles were strapped upon his eyes. He relaxed into the chair of his vehicle as a building came about the horizon of the desert, tapping a floating screen at his front a minute amount of time.

Soon, the motor bumped up to a domed structure that had once been at a distance. The thing, constructed entirely of metal, released smoke from a hole atop its form and the heat of the furnace it surely had prickled the skin of the man even while he sat outside. His vehicle pulled to the place and he parked among other scattered cars and vans that looked like garbage trucks or motors scrapped in the same state as his own. Then, there was a beep.

Hopping down from his dune-buggy, the young man took off his pair of goggles, angled them above his eyes, and dusted himself and his blue jacket, then wore the black, leather, gloves strapped to his waist.

"Alright!" He psyched himself up. "Hopefully my luck is good this time. God let there be a Shattered Core at least."

His stash of those things was nonexistent. He needed them, badly, to fix her. He wasn't wishing for a jackpot, but a handful of shards would be nice at least.

He made his way to the building with hope in his steps.

"Fee, please." A guard stretched a hand while he stood by a large, open, door of iron.

The young man's eyebrows twitched. "Can't let a loyal customer get a peek or two before paying?"

The guard laughed.

"Even I have to make a living."

The man tsked, 'Everything is trash anyway. Would it kill you if we didn't pay?' This was the result of living in the slums and that of his failure. In the end, he could only blame himself and tapped on his bracelet, bringing up his pad. He linked his with the guard and, a few taps later, transferred a hundred lixels to the man.

'I'll bleed dry at this rate,' He thought, pursing his lips.

Still, the thought of the possibility of fully fixing his lover remained in his head. Shedding any amount was worthwhile to him.

The blue-dressed protector of a garbage dump allowed him inside with a grin. "Nice doing business with ya, Lux."

"Yeah yeah." He mindlessly mumbled.

The first thing he noticed when he stepped inside the compound was the crowds of people piled to a corner or two, rummaging through the trash that came from the city. They were all dressed shabbily and focused on their 'work.'

At the center of the place, a giant hole filtered smoke of gray and black into the air and he could see the burning, orange hue of flames. To the right of that, he saw a space littered with corpses. The bodies of homunculi were strewn about and he only had maybe an hour or two to rummage through them before they would be cremated, so he moved fast.

Yet, not a second after he walked closer did his eyes drift upon a doll in which most seemed to ignore.

It was a female creation dressed in a charred, black, clothing that had all but burned off—which he assumed had once been a perfectly fine dress. Unlike the rest of her kind that laid bare upon the cold stone of the floor, however, this one held no missing limbs, no shattered skulls, and above all. . .it was a beautiful doll even whilst dead.