As I stood with my fingers brushing the back of my beloved adventurer's neck, I thought of how silly my last words to him were. How silly...

​

A common misconception about cockroaches is that they can survive a nuclear bomb. I always thought it was silly how the can of Raid in my garage could be stronger than an atomic force. I was told that when the bomb hit, almost everything was eradicated. Everything but the few hundred people working in the mines, the Raid, and the cockroaches.

"Never question anything", screamed our hometown slogan on electronic billboards above the palace, the hum of the electricity so strong I could feel the hairs on his neck softly grasping at my fingers. The brakes of vehicles screeching in my ears, the snapping of the surveillance cameras coming off the billboards, the chatter of the bots whisking in and out of view, yet all of that was drowned out by the guilt echoing through my head. When we signed our life contracts, his swearing him to a life of conquesting adventure for the Empire, and mine to become a workerbot sworn to protect him against the cockroaches, I never thought this was how it would end.

At some point in time, the Empire decided that safety was in pairs, not numbers. They implemented a buddy system for life, with one partner carrying out deeds to advance the rebuilding of society, and the other remaining to labor and defend their assigned buddy from the cockroaches. It had only been 5 years since Gideon and I signed our contracts. The Wardens warned us not to pair up with someone you knew, especially someone you cared about, but we had promised each other since we were just kids quizzing each other on cockroach anatomy and the Beliefs of the Empire that we would always be best friends. To us, that meant that we were each other's safety in this world, and so of course it only made sense to pair.

But we were just kids then, and the pact we made all those years ago seems so silly now. Back then, "protecting" Gideon meant standing up to the kids who made fun of him for caring so much about the problems of our society, or letting him sleepover and cry in my bunker when he had dreams about his real parents coming to find him. We were just kids back then.

​

The cockroach soldier was gracious enough to give me this time to stand by him before he took his body to his leader to eat, although we both know he was long gone from this world by the time I arrived from his summons. "It isn't the cockroach's fault, this is just a war that the grunts of both sides were forced into fighting", I tell myself. But that reasoning pales in comparison to the anger I feel. I should have been here sooner. Maybe if I had been here sooner, Gideon would still be alive, and I would be the one on my knees thanking the heavens that he is okay, and we could both unsheath our swords and take on the world together again.

"How silly..." I remember telling him as we signed those fated contracts, and were subsequently separated into our designated job assignments. The contract that we are by law forced to remain on our persons at all times as to never forget who our lives really belong to. The contract that remains in my jacket pocket now.

I let my fingers graze across Gideon's neck once last time and, looking into the cameras of the electronic billboards above us, then I tear my contract apart.