"Weird woman..." Peteson said, sitting on the bed and grabbing the soup that was quickly getting cold.
He needed to regain his strength and return to Sundai. Clearly, Margot didn't know what she was talking about, and Peteson didn't know where she had taken him or what witchcraft she had used to heal his shoulder completely.
Peteson didn't believe in magic, but his shoulder had a full hole, the kind you can see through from both sides, and that's not the kind of wound that heals quickly.
Or at all.
How long had he been unconscious?
Had he hallucinated what had happened before?
The wound?
Peteson didn't want to believe it or start doubting his own sanity, but it made more sense than believing in magic, right?
In a sour mood, Peteson continued eating the soup in the solitude of the moment, and even though he was starting to feel cold, he knew it was because of the fever and that he shouldn't cover himself to make it worse, so he resisted the temptation.
After eating, and with nothing else to do, Peteson got up and walked to the nearest window, debating whether to leave now or wait a bit longer, and looked around.
It seemed like he was in a forest, but the trees in the area were completely different. Not the kind found in Sundai.
Even the sun, which was already setting, was a few inches off, setting more to the left than it should.
With no answers and even more questions, Peteson decided to sit in the only chair in the room, and although he told himself he shouldn't, curiosity got the better of him, and he ended up picking up one of the papers and reading the texts.
At first, he struggled to understand the texts, as they were written in a disorganised manner, but with a little—actually, a lot—of effort, the mess wasn't a problem.
"Ther— thermal energy weapon…?" Peteson read aloud, uncertainly, and as he continued, it became clear that there were many words he couldn't understand.
The text seemed to explain how it worked, and Peteson could only conclude that this "thermal energy weapon" was the same weapon he had seen Margot use. It operated on evaporation, and Peteson couldn't relate the weapon's destructive power to the steam that comes out of hot water.
This weapon used some kind of generator, concentrating energy in a specific place while taking up little space.
The paper showed new ink brushstrokes, like question marks around certain parts, along with certain phrases underlined and added.
Apparently, there was a problem with the weapon and the heating system, causing severe burns on the hands of the user and making the power release unstable.
Frowning, Peteson shook his head as if he were looking at a maths problem with more than two digits.
Setting aside the nonsensical papers, Peteson noticed that the room was practically dark now, and there was nothing else to do, with the only person possibly in the place nowhere to be found.
Peteson lay down on the bed again, recounting everything that had happened until sleep took over, and everything went black.
Everything went black until the shadows took shape, and darkness was no longer the only colour in the place.
Peteson dreamed, but when morning came again, he couldn't remember what he had dreamed, but he was sure of one thing: he was hungry.
He hadn't even finished opening his eyes, and his stomach was already growling. Peteson noticed that he no longer had a fever and his appetite had returned. For a few minutes, he stayed in bed, staring at the ceiling, unsure of what to do, until the room was fully illuminated.
"Just go out and apologise," Peteson told himself, even though he didn't know why he needed to apologise, but it was better than staying in that room forever, starving to death.
I'll just go down, say I'm sorry, and go back home, Peteson thought as he left the room. In front of the room where he had been, there were two doors, and Peteson tried to open one, only to find it was locked, and the other was a bathroom. Feeling it was disrespectful to use it without permission, Peteson went down the stairs.
As he descended, Peteson began to hear noise, and not a friendly one.
"Can't you work for once, you piece of crap?" A female voice cursed, and there were sounds of something hitting a table. Afraid to keep going down, Peteson kept listening, "You can't keep burning me every time I use you."
More noise, and before Peteson could react, footsteps were heading toward him, and a body collided with him.
"Sorry—"
"What—"
They both said at the same time, and when Margot realised who it was, her posture straightened, alert.
"I—" Peteson began again, but he was interrupted by a hand on his forehead.
"You don't have a fever anymore," Margot said, speaking to herself, and Peteson nodded, not knowing what to say. "And about the other night, I—I'm sorry, I was—"
"No, I'm sorry. It's your house, and I was disrespectful." Peteson interrupted her and spoke without thinking, and it seemed it wasn't the right thing to do, as Margot shook her head as if the very idea was foolish.
"I was immature. I shouldn't have left you alone when you were sick, and I didn't have the courage to apologise sooner—" Once again, Margot was interrupted by Peteson, but this time, it wasn't just words.
*Gruggg*
The growl of his stomach echoed in the four walls, and the blush crept up Peteson's neck.
Just swallow me, Peteson implored to any being, kill me right now!
"Are you hungry?" Margot seemed genuinely curious, but Peteson had his pride, and he couldn't just admit it.
"No, I—" But apparently, his stomach wasn't happy with what he was planning to do, and it growled again, silencing him once more.
Silence.
Peteson looked away, scratching his neck, "If you have bread, that would be more than fine."
Margot said nothing but headed to what appeared to be a kitchen, and Peteson followed, sitting at the table.
"I don't have bread, but I do have tomatoes. Do you like eggs with tomatoes? I'm sure it's good with toast." Peteson didn't know what toast was, probably something rich people ate, but he nodded. "Sorry about the mess, I was working on my—"
" —Thermal energy weapon?" Peteson added, remembering the papers he had read, but as soon as he finished speaking, he covered his mouth with his hands.
No!
Now Margot would know that Peteson had been snooping through her things!
Closing his eyes with a new level of embarrassment, Peteson tried to reason. She left the stuff on the table, so they probably weren't that important, right?
"Did you… read the texts?"
Mortified, Peteson said, "I—Yes."
Absent to Peteson mental doubts, Margot asked, "What do you think about TEW? Any suggestions?"
"TEW?"
"Yes, an acronym." Peteson didn't know what an acro-something was, but he didn't voice his doubts. "As you may have seen, I'm stuck on the overheating issue, but I can't find a way to improve the system without making the machine bigger than it is."
"..."
"Any suggestions?" Margot looked over at him, and Peteson just nodded, then shook his head.
"You lost me at acronyms."
"Oh." Margot went back to the kitchen, and Peteson cursed his past self internally for not learning that.
Is that something everyone knows?
Soon, the smell of food filled the place, and a plate was placed in front of Peteson. What looked like bread but more burnt and hard was the first thing to catch his eye, with a strong smell of cereal.
The tomato wasn't far behind, with its sour touch, combined with the slight greasiness of the egg. Not wasting time, Peteson went to wash his hands and thanked her, focusing on the food in front of him.
With the first bite, the crispness of the food stood out. Firm but not hard. Beneath that layer, with the softness of the egg combined with the juiciness of the tomato, each flavour became more solid with every bite, and soon, there was nothing left on the plate, with the nutty taste from the toast, the seasonings of the egg, and the sweet-and-at-the-same-time-sour tomato a lingering memory.
"Did you like it?" Margot asked, with some doubt in her voice. "I don't know a lot of cooking, as I don't usually cook, and the toast got a little overdone, so I'm sorry in advance."
Shaking his head quickly, Peteson tried to speak with his mouth full, "No!"
"No, as it's not okay, or no, it is okay?" Margot asked, but the sparkle in her eyes showed that she found the situation amusing.
A way to fish for compliments on her cooking skills.
"It's okay! More than okay!" Peteson said, and to prove his point, he closed his eyes, savouring the taste. "The best food I've had in a long time."
Which isn't saying much, since Peteson spent most of his life in the army, but Margot didn't need to know that.
"I'll take your word for it, then." Margot smiled, handing him a cup of coffee, and Peteson noticed she didn't have a plate of food.
"Aren't you going to eat?" Peteson asked as he took a sip of his coffee, bitter but good for his empty stomach.
"I'm not hungry."
Peteson nodded, "How long have I been sleeping, by the way?"
Margot grabbed the plates and took them to the kitchen sink, and Peteson got up to follow her, "I don't know, a few hours? Days?"
The answer wasn't very reassuring.
"Where are we?"
"I already told you, my—"
"Yes, your house, but where?" Peteson handed his empty coffee cup to Margot.
"Just outside of Lombron." Margot, drying her hands with her shirt, leaned against the counter, staring at him until she gave a crooked smile. "Come to think of it, I think you've been asleep for two weeks."
"You kidding, right?"
Margot just kept smiling.
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I swear, this "new globe" shit is gonna end in like..two chapters? It is taking longer than I expected.
This is like an introduction, but a very long one, as you may be seeing. You probably logged to this story expecting an mc—is that even the correct way to spell it? An? — who travels around the globe, and this aint that shit, but please, wait!
I kind of know what I'm doing, so you're gonna have to believe in me.
P.S. I write this just as I finish the chapter, and I write the chapters, like, a week before—as I don't work properly in pressure—so I may not remember half the shit I wrote when uploading, but I will try to answer all the doubts you have!