Simon's Memories

[Simon Rated K+, friendship/drama]

Simon still remembered when he got his first drill. It was right after his parents died. The Chief put him on tunneling duty just a couple days after that.

"Everyone's got to pull their own weight around here!" he blustered. And now that Simon's parents weren't around to take care of him, that went for Simon as well. As instructed, he turned up the next day to the newest tunneling site.

"We'll start you off easy, kid," the Chief said, and he handed Simon a drill and a pair of goggles. Simon reached out to take it, and the weight of it nearly pulled him down. The metal of the hand-crank felt rough against his palms and the drill itself was bigger than his entire head. The goggles went over his eyes as the Chief led him to the digging site.

He hated that drill at first. He looked down at it in his hands and it reminded him of everything he'd lost. "Well? Go on, get going," the Chief barked. "You won't earn your way standing around like that!"

"Y-yes, sir," Simon murmured meekly. He edged his way nervously through the other diggers, lifted the drill and set its tip against the blank expanse of rock wall before him. The hand-crank groaned and squeaked as he started to turn it. The drill-bit scraped against the stone, but it didn't do anything. Then it slipped, hitting the ground with a thud. The stubbly-faced digger next to him turned and frowned at him.

"Careful with it," he chided. "You're going to get hurt doing it like that." Simon frowned down at the drill, too embarrassed to meet the older man's eyes and too knotted up inside to reply. "Don't put so much force on it. Try turning it more lightly," the older digger told him, his gruff tone a little softer.

Simon lifted the drill again and set the tip of the drill-bit against the rock. He turned the crank gently and the sharp tip bit into the rock with a grinding crunch. Simon heaved a sigh of relief at that tiny success. Now that he was working, he knew he'd get the same penalties as anyone else if he failed to do a good day's work; seeing even a little bit of progress made him less worried.

"T-thank you," he murmured to the man.

The digger shrugged. "Hey, it's as much for my safety as yours," he said. "Just do your best, kid."

Simon nodded and set to work. His arms started to ache soon, but he didn't dare stop. Instead he tried to ignore it and kept going. Eventually he had a deep hole drilled into the rock; he made it wider, drilling around the edges so that it grew.

Finally, after what felt like days, the Chief told them it was time to quit for the night. The drill fell from Simon's exhausted, aching hands; he leaned on the hand-crank, using it like a crutch as he followed the other diggers away.

That night, the Chief gave them pigmole steaks as a reward for their hard work. Simon barely tasted his, though. The juicy meat tasted like dirt in his mouth. He chewed stiffly, not really paying attention to anyone. Once dinner was over and he'd been excused, he wandered away from the dining cave, letting his aimless feet carry him wherever they wanted. He ended up in a little cave set a ways off from the central cavern. There he sat, sinking down on the floor and dropping his head back against the stone wall. Simon squeezed his eyes shut, trying not to cry again, but it happened anyway.

"Hey, kid!" came a loud voice from his left. He jumped, startled, and looked up. Another boy stepped out of the shadows, frowning at Simon. The boy looked like he was a couple years older than Simon, with messy, spiky, light blue hair and red eyes. "Whatcha cryin' about, huh?" he asked, squatting down next to Simon and cocking his head to the side.

Simon sat up quickly and wiped his eyes. "I-I'm not!" he protested hastily, but it sounded fake even in his own ears.

"Sure ya are! Look at those tears all over yer face. Why're ya so upset?" the boy asked. Then his eyes widened a little. "Oh, yeah, you're that kid… your parents died, didn't they? In that earthquake a few days ago."

"H-how did you know that?" Simon asked.

"Pfft, I know everything that happens in this crummy village!" the boy proclaimed. "The name's Kamina!" And now it was Simon whose eyes widened. He knew that name; the Chief was always going on about how Kamina was a "good-for-nothing miscreant"—those were the words he used. Simon suddenly felt a little nervous about talking to this boy. He didn't want to get in trouble.

"I-I'm Simon," he said, edging away a little bit. But Kamina didn't seem to notice, plopping down next to Simon and resting his chin on his hands.

"So that's why you're sad, right?" he asked, his voice a bit softer than before. "I bet you miss yer parents a whole lot." Simon just nodded, unable to choke any words out. "I know how ya feel, Simon! My mom died when I was born, and my dad's not here anymore. He went to the surface, ya know! And someday, I'm gonna go there and see him again," he said, brimming with sudden confidence.

"O-oh," Simon said weakly, not really sure what to think of all this.

"That's right!" Kamina said. Then he grew serious, looking Simon right in the eye. "Listen, Simon, I gotta tell ya something: sittin' here cryin' in the dark won't do any good! I figured that out for myself a looong time ago, when I was little!"

"Huh? What do you mean?" Simon asked, bewildered.

"I mean what I just said, of course! Sure, you're gonna miss yer parents, but they wouldn't want ya to be here like this, would they?"

"W-well, no, I guess not," Simon agreed.

"Exactly! Ya gotta keep yer eyes forward! That's probably what they'd tell ya," he said, patting Simon heartily on the shoulder. "I gotta go now, I got stuff to do around here! You just remember what I said, Simon!"

"O-okay," Simon said, nodding shakily and wiping his eyes. Kamina flashed him a cheeky grin and darted off into the shadows again. Simon sat there for another minute, staring off into the dark tunnel, and then he stood up, brushed himself off (not that it did much good, with all the dirt from digging on him), and headed off towards his sleeping quarters.

The days at the digging site passed slowly, just like the first day, and every time he was left with aching hands and a sore back and even more dirt all over his body and clothes. He'd never had a ton of friends, but the ones he did have didn't really want to spend much time with him anymore, dirty and smelly as he was. And as for the girls, they all avoided him too. So he spent his days just digging, and at night, he usually went wandering through the caves. He ran into Kamina every so often, and the strange older boy was always nice to him. He was sort of fun to be around, despite his weirdness and his loud voice.

"We orphan kids gotta stick together!" he'd insist. And then he would drag Simon off to show him something or other that he'd found in the caves.

Drilling got easier for Simon as the days went by. Almost a month after he'd started, the Chief put him on the advance digging team. "You're a natural, kid!" he'd proclaimed. Today was Simon's first day on the advance team; they were the ones that expanded the tunnels, digging them deeper and deeper so that the village could grow.

Simon stared into the mouth of his assigned tunnel; it was pitch-black and gaping and totally silent. He tightly gripped the crank-shaft of his drill, trying not to be afraid. Taking a deep breath, he climbed into the tunnel and started crawling. The light from the digging site faded behind him; he glanced back and saw that it was already just a circle of yellow behind him. The Chief's huge, booming voice was growing smaller, too. Simon kept going around a corner and the light disappeared entirely. His goggles lit up, casting their bright light into the tunnel in front of him. He kept crawling.

Soon, the sounds of the village had gone away completely. He paused for a moment to listen. The silence here was different than the silence of the village in his past-curfew wanderings. It was a deeper silence, somehow, and the air was very, very still. It was just him and the earth, out in that tunnel. Fear, sharp and sudden, twisted his insides. I could be crushed, just like Mom and Dad! he thought in terror. He shrank down, huddling on the floor of the tunnel and clutching his drill to him. He abruptly felt like the tunnel was pressing in on him, waiting to collapse. He wanted to turn around, to crawl back out and run away, but he knew the Chief would just send him back in here.

But it was then that he remembered something Kamina kept saying to him each time they met: Ya gotta keep yer eyes forward! he'd say. Keep lookin' towards tomorrow, Simon! Simon squeezed his eyes shut, gripping his drill again and repeating those words to himself. Soon his breathing steadied and he opened his eyes again, looking off down the tunnel, which was bathed in the light of his goggles. He placed his hands against the rock below him, feeling how cold and solid it was. Simon kept going.

Finally he reached the end of the tunnel, where the previous digger had left it. He set the tip of the drill-bit against the stone and went at it, grinding away. Digging here was also different from inside the village; he could almost feel the grind of the drill through the rock that he sat on. That constant scrape and grind was the only sound aside from his breath and his heartbeat. Eventually, the rasp of the drill and the movement of his hand lulled him into an easy rhythm. As he dug on, he felt almost… peaceful.

The next day, the Chief sent him back out into the tunnel. This time, as he dug further and further, it got easier to tell where to dig. Out there with nothing else to distract him—no shouting Chief, no other diggers next to him—it was almost like he could feel the earth through his drill: which spot would be the easiest, which spot would be tough to break apart. The earth was almost talking to him through the drill.

As he dug even further, a few rocks fell away on his left and something gleamed in the light from his goggles.

"Huh?" Simon lifted his head, leaning over to get a look at it. Something red and pointy was sticking out of a narrow crevice. He carefully drilled around it until he could pull the shiny thing out. Simon sat back on his heels, holding his newfound prize in his hands to examine it: the thing was a kind of reddish-pink and he could see through it, like the lenses of his goggles. Some of the old people in his village had glasses to help them see, but those always had little stems that hooked over their ears. These didn't have anything like that and they had such a weird shape! He tucked the object into his belt and continued digging.

That night found him wandering restlessly again. He gripped the pointy, red object in his dirt-smudged hands, turning it over and over and trying to puzzle out its story. A few times he held them up to his face, peeking through the red glass and seeing the village through them, but they just fell off his face and back into his waiting hands.

"Hey, Simon!" Kamina popped out of the shadows, grinning as widely as ever.

"K-kamina! How do you always sneak up on me like that?" Simon yelped, jumping back.

"That's just how I roll," Kamina said gleefully. "And I don't wanna hear you call me Kamina anymore. Call me Bro, okay?"

"'Bro'?" Simon echoed. "But… we're not related…"

"Pfft, like that matters! I was thinkin' about it before and we're a lot alike, me an' you!" Kamina proclaimed.

"We are?" Simon asked, stunned. He wasn't anywhere near as brave as Kamina, or as confident. How could they be so alike?

"Yeah, that's right! We both got big things ahead of us, I know it!" Kamina slung an arm around Simon's thin shoulders and grinned widely. Then he spotted the thing in Simon's hands, cocking his head at it. "Oh? Whatcha got there?"

"I don't know. I found it in the tunnel," Simon said. He held it up and Kamina took it from his hands, examining it. The older boy held them up to his face and peered through them, just like Simon had. They balanced on his nose for a second before falling off again.

"Haha, cool!" Kamina laughed, pressing them against his face. Once he'd had his fun, he held them out to Simon. The younger boy took them for a moment and then handed them back.

"You keep them, Ka—I mean, Bro," he decided, smiling. Kamina gripped the strange object and gaped at Simon.

"Y-ya really mean that?" he asked.

"Yeah, sure!" Simon confirmed, nodding.

"Wow… no one's ever given me nothin' before," Kamina mumbled. He clutched the red object to his narrow chest, admiring his new treasure. "Thanks, Simon!"

"Hey, well, w-we're like brothers, right?" Simon replied, laughing quietly.

"Yeah, that's right! And we're gonna get outta here someday, both of us!" Kamina cheered. "C'mon, let's go see that tunnel you dug today, Simon the digger!"

"'Simon the digger'?" the younger boy echoed in confusion.

"Yep, that's who ya are," Kamina said.

"I guess so," Simon murmured. "Okay, let's go see my tunnel." The two boys walked off side-by-side, sneaking through the sleeping village.