Chapter 415.

Chapter 415.

Chapter 415. We Encounter a Strange Spaced-out Girl Stranded on the Highway. (8/10)

“Do you work with cars a lot?” Dawn asked curiously.

“No, hardly ever. But batteries and electrical systems are another story altogether.”

“So you’re good with electronics?”

“Yeah.”

“I wish I understood electronics, but they’re completely beyond me.”

“A lot of people in the city also don’t understand how most of their electrical devices really work so you’re not alone. Electronic devices become more and more complex with time, rather than knowing how they work, as long as you know how to use them, that’s typically enough to get by in the city.”

“Doesn’t everyone in the city know how they work?”

“No. Not even close.”

“I never knew that... I always thought people from the city were all super-geniuses who knew everything.”

“You’re really idealizing people from the city too much. There isn’t anything particularly special about people from the city. If anything, the only special thing about people from the city is how psychotic they are.”

“You’re saying people in the city are crazy?”

“Yeah. They’ve completely lost their minds.”

“Why do yuh say that?”

“Just forget I said that.”

“You’re the one who brought it up an’ made me curious. Now I want to know. Why do yuh say they’re all crazy?”

“Because nobody thinks for themselves anymore. People have become so complacent in the city they just want everyone else to do the thinking for them. They’ve given up on freedom of thought and mindlessly go along blindly believing whatever they’re told like a hive mind. If you don’t think the same way as them, you’re ostracized. They’ll come for you like they’re some sort of cult if you refuse to go along with their insanity.”

“Rosa, he’s exaggerating, right?”

Rosa took a seat and balanced on my motorcycle with her left foot pushing on the front tire of Dawn’s pickup truck and said, “I wouldn’t say he’s necessarily exaggerating.”

“How?”

She swung her right leg back and forth above the ground as she explained, “Well, I can see what he means. When it comes to school in the city, we’re typically taught to think the same way. We’re expected to do as we’re told and follow a standard pre-established path to success in life which is considered the norm. They pretend to encourage us to question things, but they only do so so they can lead us to the conclusion they want us to reach. There’s no neutrality in it, there’s a certain agenda and narrative they try to push and they don’t even try to hide it. It’s basically a clockwork factory pumping out a bunch of robots who’ve been methodically programmed to obey their superiors.”

“Is it really something to be so happy about?”

“It is. It’s the first time I was the one who took the initiative to make contact and it end in us becoming friends. It usually doesn’t go well when I try to make a friend myself. It only worked with Alicia because she was so pushy in trying to become friends. As for Izora, it wasn’t because I made the attempt to befriend her myself either, it just happened because we got to know each other through Alicia before inadvertently getting closer to her through you. So right now I’m actually over the moon and want to zip myself up inside a sleeping bag and roll around on the ground in the tent after I set it up.”

“That was probably the most embarrassing confession I’ve ever heard in my life.”

“Yeah, it was pretty embarrassing. But... I don’t mind if you know my embarrassing secrets since... I love you.”

“And if you didn’t love me?”

She pushed my helmet’s visor up, tapped on my lips with her right index finger, and teased, “I’d have to kill you before killing myself.”

“What a scary thing to say to the person you supposedly love.”

“What are you doing?” She pouted, seemingly dissatisfied about something.

“What do you mean?”

“You know...”

I was genuinely confused. What did I do?

“I really don’t know.”

“You aren’t going to... say it back?”

“Say what back? ‘I’d have to kill you before killing myself?’”

“No, dummy. What I said right before that.”

“Right before that?” Oh, that’s what she meant.

“Yeah.” She nodded cutely.

I decided to continue playing dumb despite knowing what she wanted me to say. “You mean you want me to say, ‘I don’t mind if you know my embarrassing secrets?’”

“No! After that.”

“Huh, before ‘I’d have to kill you before killing myself’ and after ‘I don’t mind if you know my embarrassing secrets?’”

“Yeah, yeah. That’s right. Between those two things.”

“Hmm... I’m drawing a blank. I don’t remember what it was at all. I think I was too traumatized by your scary response.”