RP: Rooftops Characters: Kyle, Lizzy Time/Date: Late afternoon, September 4 Location: the roof of one of the shacks Warnings/Rating: none Summary: Kyle explores outside; it's too tense inside Status: Complete
It was tense inside. No one was happy, but there was a mix of emotions underneath that, too. Everyone hoped. Hoped to go home, even as they all knew better. Emotions and logic were warring everywhere, and he didn't like how it felt. How people had tense smiles, how their eyes were too bright, how they were edgy. He couldn't read them like River could, but he didn't need to see into their minds to know that their emotions were all over the place.
It was cruel of their captors, to dangle hope like that. Kyle knew he wasn't going home. He strongly suspected that no one was. They wouldn't let their rats go free. It didn't make sense for them to make a mistake like they said they had, to take so long to notice it, and longer still to mend it. If they were concerned about the safety of the supposed mistaken people, why not relocate them to a safer place, and continue the experiments?
No, Kyle didn't believe. He didn't think anyone here really did. No one here was that stupid, but the all wanted to believe they'd go home. Go home to their loved ones. Kyle didn't know the Tragers very well, but he guessed he'd like to go back home to them. But he'd want to take River, and she couldn't leave her brother.
Maybe he would be allowed to go with her when she went home? He wondered if that was possible, and he thought he might address one of their captors in the network at some point, just to find out. If any of them were even going home, which he doubted.
Making his way outside, Kyle looked around. It was weird without the line, though he wondered how many people had crossed where it had been already, and how many stayed inside where it used to be. Rote muscle memory and patterns the body absorbed probably kept a lot of them inside of it. He had little interest in exploration, though he'd follow River if she wanted to explore. In the course of their observation, his eyes lit on the repaired shack that he knew Mal and Kaylee and some of the others had been working on. It didn't look any worse for wear from the attack, and so he started toward it.
Once he reached the building, he looked around before he grinned a little. It was better outside, and it would be better on the roof. Drawing back a few paces, he took a running start toward the shack. He jumped up and gripped the roof, using the momentum to pull himself up onto the top of it. He spread out his weight over the roof before he rolled up onto his back, grinning triumphantly.
There. This was much nicer. He trusted that River would find him eventually, but if someone else came along before that ... that was all right too.