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Post by Michael Hobbar on Feb 16, 2013 19:21:37 GMT -5
Stephanie Amberson and Michael HobbarWalking down the hall to the simulation room, Hobbar continued to watch Stephanie. She looked.....almost like a little girl. Not the sense that she looked physically like one, but she seemed to be humble or frightned at the moment. He couldn't tell which one was worse, being humbled by her or her actually being frightned of something. It's not like he did not want her back in the platoon, he did but he would have to prove to the head shrink that she was fit for combat. Physically yes she was. But mentally she was still unstable. Maybe whatever was creating that anger inside her was bubbling up and she had to tell him or anyone about it. Michael didn't know what he would find out. Stopping in front of the simulation room he looked at her again. "After you." he said as she went into the room. He followed her and he then closed and locked the simulation room. Inside it was dark. "Lights" he said and the lights came on. They were inside of the control room for the simulation room. To his left and her left were two sets of doors one for the restroom, the other was a room to grab the special equipment to handle the simulations. To their right was the simulation room, it was enormus. There was also a large panel of buttons, screens. But the largest screen was for the main computer to turn on the simulation room. Putting his hand on her shoulder as he passed her he sat into the chair and turned on the program. "Ok Amberson....what do you want to see? It can be anything. A town, river, jungle, a planet, asteroid."
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Post by Stephanie Amberson on Feb 16, 2013 20:51:01 GMT -5
Stephanie froze, she knew how the work the control panels. Maybe, she could show him what was going on rather than explaining it. The woman gave him a look before punching in a few things into the control panel. The date in the corner was important, but more so the place. They were on earth. The area was desolate, and she did not appear to be looking at the screen, she didn't want to look at the screen."If I ever see this place again, I better be dead" Her words were so hollow and so straight forward. She took her hands off the controls and just let the area that was so war-torn spin around them as if it were free floating.
"Not a day goes by that I do not see the images, or remember the look on faces." She held her right shoulder in a manner than indicated there was physical trauma involved with the images. After a moment she could no longer take the images and she shut them down, putting up the image of rolling beach. The beach was actually something that Stephanie enjoyed but she never really admitted to liking anything really. But really Stephanie did like things; she enjoyed the beach, tea was always better than coffee, and writing eased her mind most of the time. Turning towards Hobbar she just stood there closing her eyes and taking in a deep breathe.
Her parents had died when she was 3, she never had a home and then she hit the army and it emotionally destroyed her life. What else was there to explain? Hell, her life was a living horrid turn of events. She had never had a single person in her life care for her. No one would ever be able to understand that. "I had 16 different guardians in 15 years of my childhood. The only place I have ever belonged is the military.." she sounded like she wanted to say more, but she stopped there and let the words linger there for a moment. |
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Post by Michael Hobbar on Feb 16, 2013 21:14:23 GMT -5
Michael watched Stephanie as she showed him images. Images of what looked like a battlefield of some kind. If this was Earth the only explination was that very short live Yugoslavia war that occured for 5 months before a reformed NATO comprising of the various european state militas took Yugoslavia down for good. He only read about the fighting and knew it was horrific. If this is what she went through and why she always was pushing people away then it made sense. She had been through something just god awful. He sighed before the screen changed to a beach and she explained what had happened to her. She went through 15 different families? He didn't know what to say. Well he did but he was having a hard time of actually trying to say it nicely.
He slowly shook his head before he started to speak. "You don't just belong in the military. Your a person that has had to go through something so tragic that most people wouldn't be able to go on in the military for another year. But look at you. You went down into combat with us last week and overcame those feelings. You pushed them back and you can do it again. When everyone sees you all they see is a real hard ass but the truth is that your just shielding yourself from everyone because you don't want to connect to them. Your afraid that if you loose them you might go through the same expierence again. As for family, I never had to go through anything like that. Not at all. And I probably can't imagine going through it, I can't. But, even though you never really had a family.....in a sense the platoon is your family. We don't care what your like, if someone has a problem with you, we'll all stand up for you, and vice versa. Because that's what a family does: Help one another. We all help each other in some way. I may be the lieutenant but.....sometimes I also need help. I need help writing those after action reports about the ones that we had to loose down there on that god forsaken planet. But dammit I did it. I did it and it's something that I'm proud of because people helped me along the way."
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Post by Stephanie Amberson on Feb 16, 2013 22:06:59 GMT -5
Stephanie just nodded listening to him speak. He was right, she had lost everyone she had remotely gotten close to. She bit at her lip and turned to face the image on the screen. "There was only one survivor" the truth hit her like a brick wall and she turned around and got angry but it wasn't at him it was just years and years of pent up anger. "I failed them, lieutenant. Dammit, I should have been there protecting their asses. I couldn't even do that"she was pointing her finger sideways from her body as she spoke. Anger was evident in her eyes. She made a fist and lowered her eyes to the ground. She had lower her vision back to the ground as she realized who she was talking to and she spologized, which was something out of her nature.
The woman looked back up to hobbar and tried to hold her head up, she had to hold her head up. There was no other alternative but Stephanie had broken down. She sat down on the edge of the wall and just closed her eyes listening. She was listening to the waves crash against the beach. It was calming. She was dead tired, but it would be a while before she went back to sleep. There was a small sigh. |
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Post by Michael Hobbar on Feb 16, 2013 22:22:09 GMT -5
Hobbar watched her, this time she completly broke down over what had happened in Yugoslavia. She fell down slowly aganist the wall and closing her eyes taking deep breaths. Listening to the ocean waves along that simulated beach. Not really knowing what to do at the moment, his feelings came over him. 'Probably going to get punched for this but fuck it.' he thought in his head. Someone was extremly sad in front of him, he was confounded. He knew in the military that they might say something but at that very moment all he saw was a person in need. Nothing romantic about it, just that someone needed someone else.
Slowly he walked over towards her. And slowly wraped his arms around her shoulders before he completly embraced her. He started to slowly shush her. "Hey....hey...it's not your fault. Everything's ok. It's not your fault, it's not your fault." he said to her in a soft voice. He was expecting any second for her to punch him in the face. "Shhh, calm down."
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Post by Stephanie Amberson on Feb 16, 2013 22:43:10 GMT -5
Normally Stephanie would have turned to punch him in the face for so much as touching or breaking her little bubble. However, there was a sense of calmness that overcame her. It wasn't something she was to. Her head turned in his direction. "It was my fault, they are dead because of me" she didn't elaborate further but she just stared at the empty space on the wall. Just because she was talking, it didn't change who she was. If someone talked to her she was still most likely going to bite their head off so they kept their distance. There was not a one of them she would not protect, but Stephanie never understood what it meant to have someone actually bother to talk to her. Well that and she bothered to let said person know things.
She looked towards him blankly. She didn't get attached to people, because being attached as a sniper was a bad idea. You started to have feelings for people and Stephanie did not need that right now. Her mind being cut off from people is what made it easier to pull a trigger and end a life. Stephanie wasn't sure if she felt trapped or safe right now being hugged. She felt confused now but didn't show it. She could keep whatever emotion out of her face she wanted. "I won't let anything happen to this unit"she said things so matter of factly, that she would make sure her life went down before theirs. She had already told herself that they were more important than she was , quite a long time ago. |
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Post by Michael Hobbar on Feb 17, 2013 17:04:44 GMT -5
"I know you won't." he replied to her. He hugged her just a little while longer before slowly letting go and backing up to give her some personal space. "I know you won't." he said to her again. He looked back towards the large room that currently depicted the beach. He wanted to go on that beach, he hadn't seen a beautiful sun in so long. But he knew that it was only a simulation and not real. The computer was transmitting those pictures to the room, electonically. You could go into the ocean and pick up the sand, it would feel real. The wind and heat from the outside could blow on a person's skin, making the person feel as if they were on a real beach.
"Come on, let me take you somewhere." Hobbar said and walked over to the computer before typing in commands to change the setting. Almost immediatly the reality changed from the beach to a beautiful valley with grasslands as far as the eye could see. The tall grass slowly moved as the wind blew, hills were off in the distance and the sky was sparse with clouds. He opened the door to the simulation and went inside before waving her over to him.
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