"Get the fuck out of my way!"
"AHAHA! IT'S USELESS! THERE'S NOTHING WE CAN DO!"
"ArchitectOfTheEmptyPleaseGrantYourMercyToYourNewestBeliever--"
Chaos.
That was the only way to describe it as everyone showed their madness and despair in a variety of ways.
And for good reason at that.
He let out a vapid laugh as his eyes stared at the open sky devoid of clouds swallowing up the starlight.
Usually, such an absentminded fool would've had dozens of eyes from all sorts looking to make a quick buck from his pockets.
Usually.
Now, they were all staring up at the sky like everyone else that hadn't ended things in despair and madness.
Ester clicked off his respirator and took in a deep breath of the foul torturous air, his lungs prickling with pain he felt only a few times before.
'So this is what the world smells like? It's bad.'
Picking up a bottle filled to the brim with a murky liquid, the starlight refracted from its edges as it flowed out of its mouth and into his own.
Feeling the burning sensation of alcohol mixed in with the metallic and prickly taste of the air, the bottle of alcohol slowly disappeared into his body, numbing the sensations he felt on his skin.
"You might've made a killing selling alcohol Eva."
The stars blinked as something EMPTY swallowed the sky.
---
"Hah!"
Jolting up from his bedroll and slamming his head onto the ceiling, Ester writhed in pain for a brief few moments before finally realizing that he wasn't stuck in a horrible coffin he couldn't escape.
'Ouchie.'
Rubbing his forehead where a sizeable bump formed thanks to his abrupt awakening, he let out a quiet groan. 'Just what the Void is this weird dream?'
It could be likened to a nightmare due to how it always activated his fight or flight symptoms which in turn left him soaked through in cold sweat, but he honestly doubted it.
Nightmares dealt with trauma and fears you carried along with you all your life, and despite how hard Ester tried to think about it, he didn't have that many traumas or fears about the stars disappearing.
Void below, it plagued him some years ago when the old man bit the not so metaphorical bullet.
He couldn't recall the exact time frame, but it was definitely after he died so he had quite a bit of time to ponder about the nature of this weird ass dream.
Now as to why he called it a weird ass dream instead of your generic run of the mill dream? Well it be due to the fact that every time he dreamt about it, it played out the exact same way.
Every single thing in his dream was the exact same.
The. Exact. Same.
A Splicer with green skin and sharp tusks cursing loudly as he stumbled and shoved his way between the gathered crowd
A Psychic woman with heavy scars crying with madness as her mind crumbled from the foundations up.
A Modder so heavily modded that they looked more golem than human praying to the Architect of the Empty.
Then in a body that he couldn't control, Ester looked up at the rarely seen stars and took in deep breaths of the deadly air, drinking alcohol seemingly made by Eva.
And when the stars blinked? He just... knew that it had something to do with Emptiness.
There was no other label for this than the words weird.
Recalling the sight of the stars blinking, whatever caused the stars themselves to blink also seemed to have the ability to give Ester a killer headache.
'Ack.'
Or that might've been his bruised forehead speaking to him.
Shuffling off the mattress with a pounding head due to a bruise and possibly a weird dream, he briefly noted the emptiness where Eva usually slept.
And if the shaking around them was any indicator, then it would be because she had decided to start piloting the Driller.
Twisting his body round in the cramped vents, Ester crawled towards a 1 by 1 square meter vent opening, the cover long gone and repurposed as a cooking grill.
Shuffling forwards, Ester's eyes briefly glanced over the metal covering hiding a little present five years coming.
'Probably should finish that thing before I forget about it for a year again.'
Poking his head out of the block sized vent opening, Ester grimaced as the flickering lights messed with his eyesight.
It was a very confusing mix of blurry pain he had to blink away.
[Good morning sunshine.]
"...Morning?" Despite how blurry everything still seemed thanks to the number of flickering lights placed right next to his head, he looked towards the front of the Driller where she should've been.
And despite how bad his eyesight was currently, he could still make out a head of grey hair in front of screens that should've been on.
"Where are you?"
[Up here in the vents idiot, already forgot about what I told you last time?]
"Oh yeah, you hotwired the Driller to work even up here." Pushing up with both of his arms, now that he was paying attention, he could see the distinct light of computer screens up ahead the bend.
"I thought you were pulling my leg when you said that you were able to drive the Driller from up here."
[...Is that a joke about my legs?]
"Maybe, maybe not." Shuffling over the hole and reaching the bend, he observed her current set up. "You seem very comfortable though."
It was simple to say the least and it was a quaint little space made up of everything that Eva could scrounge up to say the most.
With two monitor screens placed in front of her, one of them was depicting the immediate surroundings with high detail on radar. the other monitor depicting their more distant surroundings on a less detailed scan of the radar.
And resting comfortably on some of their more comfortable clothes was Eva in all of her shorts and tank top glory.
A very ugly glory but it was glory nonetheless.
[Why thank you my idiot friend, I tried to make it nice enough to sleep.]
"Are we going to bring up the idiot talk again? Because I can call you idiot as many times as you like. Idiot that I don't want sleeping on the drive."
[I'm not stupid enough to sleep and drive, so if you get closer, I'll bite you.]
"You don't exactly have a mouth to bite me with." Ester pointed out.
Eva paused as she glanced back at him, her hands holding a... weird contraption.
He didn't know exactly what it was that she was holding, but it seemed to be working well enough for her as she immediately began to threaten him again.
[I'll kick you.]
"Same problem."
[I'll punch you.]
"Now I'm not going to come near you."
[What will you do if you won't let me hurt you?] Giving Ester a look of disdain as the Driller bored through plastic soil and concrete rock, he looked at her meaningfully.
[...Why are you looking at me like that?]
"I'm hungry."
[Remember the rules Ester, no cannibalism between friends.]
"Kek" Laughing to himself as he saw her briefly make a scared look before realizing that she really shouldn't remove her hands from the metaphorical wheel, she looked back.
[Anyways, if your hungry you should cook something, it'll be a while before we reach C-Point]
"]Yep yep yep." Nodding his head, he slowly began to shuffle back. "Do you need anything to eat?"
Eva shook her head [Nope.]
*GRowwlll
"..."
[...]
Ester looked at Eva meaningfully, a face splitting smirk on his face. "Did you hear that? I think we're near some Bellowbogs"
Eva's face flushed red [I so want to kill you right now.]
"I'll get you the usual."
---
"Hup!" Dropping down from the vents, in his hands, Ester held a bundle wrapped in cloth, an injector band and a glass bottle which previously held nutrient solute.
It may have not filled the emptiness he felt in the pits of his stomach, but it was a whole lot better than nothing.
It was especially better than eating something without converting it into nutrient solute.
If this trash planet was good at anything, it was tainting meat with microplastics and carcinogens.
Dropping the bundle onto the table and marking the injector band for some deep cleaning before they reused it, Ester glanced upwards.
'It's weird that I'm doing this in the day time but I don't think she'll be coming down any time soon.'
Driving the Driller involved a whole lot more work than one would expect for people boring through the underground world, but if you included the fact that this underground world involved thousands of tons of trash dumped here by several planets including but not limited to old starships capable of withstanding reentry, they would understand.
As much as it would save time, the drill bit at the front would suffer immensely from boring through the thick metal plating.
'But quality of the drill bit aside, since Eva will be preoccupied with piloting the Driller past fields of broken down cars, starships and discontinued military trucks, that means I have the time to do my own thing.'
Feeling the vibrations around him, Ester comfortably settled in his chair and unwrapped the bundle, revealing a pair of legs.
Not legs made of flesh and bone of course, that was just silly.
Running his fingers over its metallic surface, Ester smiled.
With a majority of it already complete over the five long years, he really only needed to apply the finishing touches on the feet for it to be complete.
'I wonder what type of face she'll make when I give her these?'
Smiling as he grabbed the Hammer wrench, Ester began to dismantle pieces of equipment, fitting things onto her incomplete legs when he found a piece that matched.
It was enjoyable.
But as the saying went, time flies when you're having fun. and eventually the time to hide the legs came again.
[E-Ester.] Eva's mechanical voice came out from above him, the vibrations from the Driller carving through rock slowing down. [We reached C-Point]
+++
Tree that may desire decapitation after experiencing an embarrassing moment today
[Rewrite]