"Yo, Helly," spoke a young woman aloud as she pondered the message to send. Though it was daytime, the lumbering shadows of the past blotted out all natural light. Only the screen of the device in her hand illuminated anything, as barely as it did. It cast a blue glow upon her soot-covered face, revealing only the most minor of detail.
She paced around a piece of rubble in endless circles, the scenery surrounding her covered in night-like shadow. This was good, for most everyone knew that the sight of buildings struck panic and nausea in human hearts.
The girl seemed to be troubled with thoughts, shaking her head, muttering and sighing as she completed yet another circle. The fingers on her hand tapped away incautiously, relentlessly assaulting the letters of a digital keyboard for half the time and its backspace for the other.
Occasionally, she would recite a part of the unfinished text before cussing herself out from under her breath, struggling to express her feelings. Thoughts raced around her head in entire swarms, none of them helpful.
After a while, this mess of a figure finally came to a stop. With one last sigh and a slap to the face, she sat herself down on the debris formerly serving as the center of her unending roundabout.
"I'm sorry for not hit-- erm, messaging you in so long," her coarse voice echoed and bounced off of the tall, crumbling walls surrounding her. In spite of the dangers associated, she couldn't help but to speak along with her typing.
"Something's been on my mind recently, something that I think you'll be adept at..." She paused, contemplating briefly before continuing. "Answering, I guess? After the recent developments here in the 24th century, you've probably seen it as well."
The girl's eyes instinctively looked to the wound on her right arm, still fresh and bleeding. More pressingly, however, the crimson-stained blade at her side taunted her subtly, questioned the very nature of her work up to this point.
"It's a heavy topic, that's why I can't deal with it alone," the sentences being spoken grew slightly in distress. "Say, I... No, it's a question for every ALICE, but... I just don't know. Helly, what should I do? Helping them up, cutting them down, it's all very hard. I guess it's so hard because they haven't given up."
There, the contemplative woman stopped abruptly. She grasped her wound using the free arm at her disposal, flinching at the stinging pain that erupted as a result.
It was true. If they had given up, things would've been much, much easier. There'd be nothing to deal with for someone of her profession, only another pitiful sight to blend in with the rest. Instead, what had caused her sword to be tainted by human blood for the first time was that--
"They've given in."