She sat up slowly, her eyes unfocused and she shook her head as if to clear it. "Uhm.." she said, frowning. "We were on the helicopter, and we were flying over this field, and you were unconscious, and the ambassador was being hung over the side, but the field was on fire, and the helicopter was full of people, and everyone was being tossed over into the fire, and you were going to be tossed over unless I could fix what was wrong with the plane, but the gears kept changing shapes in my hands, and I couldn't get them to fit, and the flames were getting higher and higher and your turn was coming up and the god damn gears wouldn't do what they were supposed to do." As she spoke, her words got faster and faster, and she looked down at her hands, open and trembling.
He took her hands calmly, and spoke, his voice low. "It was just a bad dream, luckily. There's no fire. No helicopter. No gears. You're safe."
Her hands were small but strong, and they held his tightly, as if he was a buoy in a storm. She took a shaky breath and held it, staring down at the floor. "Thanks, Francis," she said quietly after a moment.
She folded her hands together, and looked down, almost embarrassed. "You should sleep," she said finally, her voice quiet. "It's my shift."
"Are you sure? I kinda almost slept all day today. I can stay up." He stretched his arms, turning to look back in her direction.
She hesitated, trying to find the right words. "I.. I don't think I can sleep right now," she said eventually, cracking a sheepish smile. "Which sounds pretty wimpy, I guess, but..." She trailed off, and then shrugged.
Poppy squinted at his back and then joined him outside the tent. She frowned thoughtfully and went over to the trees that the fort was balanced on. Resting her hand on the branch above her, she pulled herself up and began climbing towards the tops of the trees.
"Evan said that they put up a perimeter. I'm wondering if I could see it from here," she said, climbing higher.
She climbed until he couldn't see her anymore. She stood at the top of the tree, and gazed out onto the horizon. She couldn't see anything initially, but as she squinted, she realized that horizon line was inconsistent, and it created a giant cube over the forest and its ruins. She frowned, her eyes searching for any other camps. Although she found nothing, she hesitated to go back down to the tent. "Come on, Poppy," she chided herself. "You know better." She climbed back down and returned by the tent in the dark, adjusting to the dim light. "It looks like there's some sort of cube that covers the entire forest," she reported as she touched the ground. (Aw.)
(Did I miss something?) "Hm. Alright. I wonder how long ago it was established. Probably after the bombs."
(¯\_(ツ)_/¯) "Yeah, probably," she said, sitting down next to him, biting her lip in thought. "I really hope they can get through it. It'd be pretty anticlimactic if we got that briefcase and then we were stuck in here forever."
"I'm sure they will. Nothing is indestructible." He looked down at the ground below, his legs swinging slightly.
She joined him, sitting on the edge of the deck a few feet away, keeping her distance slightly. "Maybe," she said. "But Evan was never very good at the technological stuff. I'd say that we had a higher chance of him frying himself than us getting out of here."
"Of course," she said, nodding in agreement. "But I'm still worried about it." They sat in a strange silence for a moment, until Poppy turned to him, a question forming on her face. "They haven't come by in a while, right?" she asked. "Do you think it would be safe for me to go run and find my bag?"
"Right now? I still don't know if it's a good idea going down by yourself and without protection." He crossed his arms.
