Never Forget

Buzzy knew he had a great day ahead of him. Leaving his dorm barracks, he sped towards the pedestrian pathways, lowering down into a tunnel, covered by an overhead bridge, and heading straight through an underground street, fully pedestrian access only... for Buzzy, it was well worth the walk, with the sight of neon lights describing which was which and where it was. Halfway down the street was the external mess hall area, packed with recruits stopping by for their allocated breakfasts. Of course, this didn't matter to him, thanks in part to his mother who fed him quite well before his commute – he still had the warm feeling from the walk, radiating through his smile, plainly visible on his face.

After the long walk through the tunnel, ending at the interior of the populous, and colossally spacious Cranium Command HQ, an unusual job for a twelve year old youth born of parents involved in the organisation. Never mind the scores of people wandering, or intentionally sprinting around to their places of work – catching the next host's brain for their scheduled shift, through to teaching the younger student recruits, and through to the monotonous desk job – Buzzy was nothing more that a child in an imagined candy store, his senses heightened into joy, but only at a limit to shake himself off and get to his place at work. He took the next corridor, and a few tiring flights of stairs until finally reaching the recreation room of the other cadets, awaiting their shift, having nothing to do than to discuss other matters, both related to their job and outside.

“...and then he asks, Billy, where are the wasps?!” Richard, lean and well kempt, really did manage to raise a raucous laugh amongst the cadets, although Buzzy was late for the joke... he didn't see the recruit before, not ever in his life. As Buzzy managed to settle in, Richard took one glance at his face and recognised him immediately. “So, they OK'd your shift?”

Buzzy could only react with an awkward silence and a little stammering present as he explained. “W-well, they did, I-I guess...” He could only tuck his arms behind his back and bow a little forward, showing a little postural submission to the others. 

“Richard, he's only being nice,” a multiple-time veteran of the cadets, Sicto, reassured the male cadet, approaching Buzzy's side by his left. Of course, Buzzy did tilt his head a little upwards to meet Sicto around eye level... well, to which he couldn't without having to shift his weight onto his toes. “Buzzy, don't worry. You haven't met him before, have you?”

“I don't really know him much, Sicto,” Buzzy replied, as confidently as he could, shifting his nervous tension out of the way, and only bolstering it with a warm smile. “Say, how are you for the next shift?”

“Probably might need a dose of Sero Latte,” she sighed, emitting just a little yawn away from his face, “things haven't slowed down as of yet, especially on my half.”

“I hope things would pull through soon,” Buzzy reassured, finding a comfy seat to finally settle on, relax and catch the odd nap or two. Until the next shift comes for the next recruit. He could as well spend his waiting time snuggling up on the fuzzy upholstery, it was going to be a long wait for Buzzy and his scheduled shift for piloting any host selected by HQ.

Buzzy would wake up to a bit of a shock, it seems.

“...this just in, cadets and students,” the voice of a news reporter echoed and spread throughout the room, its many corridors and divisions, “you are looking at what appears to be very unsettling imagery of the Lungs, for the first time in our host's lifetime, hit hard with the first smoking of a cigarette. Clearly, he's doing something treacherous here...”

The cadets, one by one, all turned their attention through to the wide glass window, overlooking the foyer, displaying the news headlines interrupting the usual advertising banter... it was the images of the internal alveoli structures, maintained by members of the Lung division, hit hard by the inhalation and exhalation of the smoking habits of the host. Gusts of nicotine and chemical warfare beat down on the structure and unlucky workers, some suffocating them, others incapacitating them by the impact. They have all seen this too often, too many times, and yet this was the first time they brought it on air.

All while Buzzy happily napped, enjoying dreams of ignorance and bliss, only broken with the direct attention of Sicto, rousing him from an enjoyable dream...

“...already? Sicto, you ruined my dream, I was only -” Buzzy yawned, shaking off his post nap effects, and already, he sensed that something was not right. His environment of bliss and joy did vaporise unexpectedly. His eyes darted towards the screen through the window, and he could already take note of the horrifying scene begin to unfold. Dozens of people struggling to get free from the accumulating tar setting foot into the lining. Alveoli structures facing destruction from the deadly smoke. And hundreds gasping for air, coughing and contemplating their deaths and feeble hopes of escape.

“Tell me what just happened?!” Buzzy whimpered, shaken in horror of the unfolding events, attracting a crowd from the lobby and elsewhere. All he could do was depend on the rumours or thoughts of the other cadets next to him.

“Buzzy, this is the first time they're broadcasting this,” Sicto regretfully explained, as frank as she would have to be in a tragic time like this. “The host was a picture of health, always exercising and eating right. And now, he started smoking...”

She could only bow down her head and lay it on Buzzy's shoulder, expressing her sorrow and anger over how the host could fail so terribly. Buzzy carried on viewing, and then broke his gaze to comfort Sicto and a few distraught cadets watching, wondering, and protesting the fact on how such a decent host would take up a destructive habit.

Buzzy's joyful day took a nosedive into sorrow. All he could do was weep.