My OP Minion System in the Apocalypse

It was Sunday morning.

I looked out the window of my dorm. There were some students who were already awake, frolicking on the path, youth, leaning on railings, laughing, and talking with friends. The rising sun coloured the atmosphere with an orange tint.

I was somewhat bored.

I guess I'll go to the mall.

As I made my way inside, I saw that the centre was practically empty, it was to be expected since it was so early. There were employees preparing the stores for opening, and only a scarce few cafes and retail stores were open.

Now that I'm here, I'm not really sure what I'm going to do.

I slowly made my way around the mall, inspecting the storefronts which had yet to open for the day. Suddenly, someone called out to me from behind.

"Ollie!"

It wasn't Maia, it was Trista.

It came to somewhat of a pleasant surprise to me.

"Hey,"

"So, what are you doing here?"

"I was just looking for something to do in the morning."

"Me too."

We stood there, awkwardly looking around at each other. She decided to break the silence.

"Do you want to go see a movie or something?"

"Um..."

"Not in a romantic way or anything, just as friends."

I hadn't taken the proposal in that direction anyway. The thing was, I wasn't sure if the cinema was even open in the morning, but then again, I didn't have anything better to do.

"Sure."

"Alright, let's go!"

We ambled around the mall and made our way to the escalator.

I looked down the side of the escalator as we were going down.

"So how's the mission going."

"It isn't."

She looked into my eyes and pouted teasingly.

"Come on... You have to do it!"

"I will, I will... eventually."

When I looked at her like this, she was surprisingly pretty.

Suddenly, she blushed and looked away.

"It's embarrassing when you stare at me like that."

"Oh, sorry."

"It's okay, I'm not mad or anything."

We silently made it to the bottom of the escalator.

Down here, the purple lights lit the area creating a peaceful mood. The space was rather empty, there was a single lonely vending machine beside a playfully shaped couch. The two of us made our way to the ticket counter, populated by a single employee. The worker seemed especially excited by our arrival, watching us dawdle toward him.

The two of us looked around at the several different movie posters on the walls, I couldn't recognize any of them.

"Sorry, but we only have one movie running in the next hour."

I was confused by his seemingly unfounded statement.

On the screen above, there was clearly more than one movie that was running soon. I wondered which movie he claimed was the only one running in the next hour.

"Which one is it?"

"Devils and Demons Escape."

It was a horror, romance movie. I didn't really care about which movie we watched as I didn't have any that I especially wanted to watch anyways.

"We'll watch it."

He tapped the register a few times and printed out two tickets.

"Thank you."

The two of us grabbed our tickets.

"Also, were you guys looking to purchase any food with it?"

Usually, I'm generally not all that interested in eating food but this was an exception. I enjoyed the texture of the popcorn quite a bit.

I looked at some of the deals on the screens above.

The worker pointed to one in particular.

"May I recommend the couples deal? It includes one extra-large popcorn and one large drink for only six points."

What type of 'couples' deal was this? They didn't even bother making it two drinks like this deal might as well just be for one glutton.

Then again, this deal was significantly better value than the other deals.

I could see that Trista was also considering the logistics of the offer.

"Um..."

There was no way we were going to share a drink. I had come up with a strategy.

We could've purchased two of this deal, but an extra-large popcorn was much too much for just one person, and buying the items separately was much less efficient.

"We'll take the deal,"

My words seemed to have shocked Trista, who was acting all flustered.

"and a small drink as well."

This way we didn't have to share a drink, which would have been much too intimate.

The worker seemed disappointed for some reason.

"You're total comes to 19 points."

I felt bad dragging Trista along with me just because I was bored this morning, so I paid the entire bill.

We walked to the end of the counter as the worker prepared our food.

"T-thanks for paying, next bill's on me."

"Don't worry about it."

We collected our food and entered the movie room.

We enter a fairly large movie room, there was a sea of dark red chairs, not a single one occupied. It seemed that we had the entire cinema to ourselves.

The two of us decided to take a seat right in the middle. We both put our drinks on the stands furthest away from each other, leaving the middle drink stand free. Now, we needed to figure out a way to share the popcorn. It was obvious that there was no way the huge popcorn box was going to fit in the little drink stand, I tried manoeuvring it so it balanced on the middle armrest.

After realising the position was way too unstable, Trista proposed placing the box of popcorn between her leg and the middle armrest. This seemed to be the most effective solution so we awkwardly adjusted our body positions to fit the setup. In the end, we both had a few pieces of popcorn and waited for the movie to begin.

Overall, the movie was pretty poorly made, neither of us was scared by any of the supposedly scary moments of the movie and the romance seemed awkward and contrived.

"Well, that was pretty fun!"

I dumped the rest of my drink and the popcorn into the bin on the way out.

"Let's hang out again someday!"

"Sure."

"Aw, you don't sound that enthusiastic about it."

"No, it was fun, I enjoyed today quite a bit."

"That's good!"

With that, she smiled and walked off.

***

I wonder if I'd see her again, in this harsh cold world.

The only reason I continue to push for the top... is so I can meet her again.

William, you better not get in my way.

Otherwise, I'll have to destroy you.