Chapter 3: Denial
Amelia!
Amelia wake up!
"AMELIA!"
Amelia woke up with a jolt. A strand of her blonde hair was sticking to her cheek. The day was scorching hot so she and her group of friends decided to take a seat below the cooling shadow of a tree next to the college football field.
"Sorry, sorry." She noticed that she was laying on the legs of a woman with green eyes and red hair. "OH MY GOD! I am sorry! I didn't notice!" She stood up immediately for she did not recognized this woman.
"Do not worry; I was going to ask you for the notes of the notes of the Robotics Class" She replied. Both her voice and stare gave this weird sense of security.
"Do I know you?" She took a step back, trying to spot the rest of her friends but the campus was empty.
"Of course you do! We studied together!"
"I don't remember you at all! You are being a little creepy right now." Suddenly, an explosion made the entire world shake behind her. The campus was on fire and something seemed to be moving in the distance.
"Amelia, do you have the notes?"
The woman asked again but she chose to ignore her. A red light was approaching to her, with it, a bunch of metal tentacles. People could be heard in the distance as a black curtain of smog rose, covering the sky in a thick black cloud. The smell of burnt rubber and death permeated her nostrils.
She started hyperventilating. Her body couldn't move at all. The only thing she could do was stare at the red eye slowly inching forward, like a predator playing with its prey.
"Amelia, the notes please!"
"CAN YOU SHUT..." Amelia turned around just to see a skeleton laying on the ground. The tree was gone, leaving ashes in its place. The red light grew closer and closer until it was right upon her.
In a bout of courage, she put up her arms in an attempt to stop the machine. However, her arms were gone, and instead just her bones remained. The machine was slowly consuming her body, causing excruciating pain.
"Stop!"
"STOP!"
She woke up trying to get away as possible from her current position. However, something stopped her abruptly. Tentacles, that is what she thought was wrapping around her. She was not going to be turned into a human smoothie. She continued to fight but the weakened state of her body could barely sustain such strain.
She braved to look at whatever was holding her back until she slowly noticed the human voices trying to stop her. The fact that the offender wasn't a machine lifted a heavy weight from her shoulders. Just to realize that she was back with these bunch of… weirdos.
"That's it. Breathe. Nothing is going to happen to you in here."
Amelia instantly recognized the voice. She turned to her left to see the same redhead she dreamt before. The uncanny feeling that she had met this same woman struck again but she couldn't recall it. She looked different, besides the clothes of course. Where in the actual hell was she?
"My name is Aloy." She blushed a little at the sudden attention being paid to her. "I am the one who found you in the Far Zenith facility."
To this, Amelia slowly calmed down. Choosing to sit in a more comfortable situation, she was about to start talking again but was stopped yet again.
"I know that you have many questions." Aloy took a step back to give time to her. She was wearing a completely different outfit than the other two women before her. She was covered if various layers of curated leather. A quiver and various pouches hung around her hips and various beads of stones pulled from a river hung from her neck. Accompanied by a light blue scarf and a rather impressive amount of hair tangled in several braids. Most likely, without such braids, her hair could definitely reach all the way to her knees.
"NO SHIT!"
Aloy turned to Amelia with stern eyes, boring into her. Letting her know that she also had a limit.
"Sorry. I just…" Amelia turned to hug herself, staring into the roof to calm herself down. "Where am I? Who are you? How long have I been here? Why are you dressed so funny? Where is a Doctor going to check on me? I need to contact my family to let them know where I am…" Now it was Amelia's turn to stare into Aloy.
The Huntress gulped as she grabbed some of the chairs from the old facility. Mostly to instill some sense of normalcy before she dropped such a bomb on an already compromised individual.
"Well, I guess we can start with the easy part. However, before we begin, you will also need your focus. This will be both easier to explain but difficult to digest." Aloy looked at Amelia for confirmation to begin.
The poor woman in front of her simply nodded, giving her the green light to proceed. With a sigh, Aloy pinged Beta. "Beta, could you bring Amelia's bag please? It is time."
"Understood."
"As I said before, my name is Aloy. You have been here for a little over a month. For a moment we thought we had lost you since you were not waking up, until you started talking on your sleep." Aloy leaned forward to continue. "Where are you? This was a place originally created by the Old Ones to help monitor climate changes across this area. As for this?" Aloy pointed to her clothes. "This is my armor… err, clothes that keep me warm."
"Wait a minute. What do you mean by the old ones?"
Swooosh
The door opened to reveal yet another redhead carrying a rather big duffle bag. "Fantastic, the redhead were twins!"
"We found this when we recovered you from the capsule." Aloy pointed at the bag as Beta dropped it and its contents before Amelia. "We also found your focus on the bag but no one has scanned it, if that serves as any consolation."
"You still haven't answered my question." Amelia looked at Aloy with suspicion as she pulled her bag to the top of the bed.
"I, uh…" Aloy turned to look at Beta and nodded. "I am sorry Amelia, but this is difficult to explain."
"What? We already know that the world is dying and that the machines are turning us into their own fuel. Unless you are going to tell me that we successfully managed to stop the machine and now I got cancer because I got into a cryogenic cell?" Amelia laughed at her current situation. There was no way they had something that absurd right? RIGHT?
Aloy simply stared at Amelia, clearly not expecting such commentary from someone like her. "Actually, it is much more complicated than that."
"What do you mean?"
"You have been in that cryo cell for a little over 977 years."
Silence.
"HAHAHAHAHA!" Amelia started laughing. "That was a good one Doc. There is absolutely no way I was in there for that long. Someone would eventually find me. Far Zenith was not a mom and pop ice cream parlor you know?"
"I am not lying. To prove it to you, you can use your FOCUS. It is in your bag." Aloy signaled to the bag, waiting patiently for Amelia to pick up her belongings. She simply scoffed at the nonsense discussed during this "medical session." It took a while but when she switched to one of the pouches to the side of the bag she finally located her FOCUS. The first thing she noticed was the hour and date.
12:40 PM – 3039.
The room around Amelia started to shrink as the panic attack settled in. She had found herself in a situation where she couldn't even imagine what may have happened. "There is no way! This must be a sick joke!" Amelia glared at Aloy. "IF THIS IS A JOKE, THIS IS NOT FUNNY!"
"WHERE ARE THE CAMERAS!" Amelia yelled at the top of her lungs, pushing Aloy's chair and causing her to tumble to the ground.
Seeing the Redhead on the ground gave the perfect opportunity to actually try and escape this hellish place. She rushed to the door and opened.
"Amelia wait!" Aloy's voice came from behind her.
In front of her, there was Beta and the black woman who had tended to her before. The three of them shocked as another door opened in the far distant revealing a muscular man wearing an even more outlandish armor. The crazy part now was that he was covered in paint.
"I see the Old One is up and about" The strange man stared at her. On the other hand, Amelia saw this a symbol that resembled a door. Now that she had her focus, she could see where she was heading. She sprinted towards the strange man.
"STOP HER!" Yelled the other redhead.
Fortunately, she caught the man by surprise and was able to slid past him as he tried to block the entrance. Her legs were burning; her chest was urging her to stop but the idea to be out of that building seemed much nicer. She reached the final door but the hurried steps of at least 4 people were close behind.
Cold… She had stumbled into a pile of snow. She tried to stand but was greeted by one of the weirdest sounds she had ever heard in her life. Standing right in front of her was a machine that resembled a bird. Its blue eyes had turned to look at her, expectant. Waiting.
Amelia yelled yet again as the lights of the machine turned yellow.
"Amelia!" Aloy ran up to her. "Kotallo, cover me!"
The sounds of bows and arrows filled the air but Amelia couldn't take her eyes away from the woman holding her. Once again, she was losing consciousness and the only thing she could think about was…
"Red hair."
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
Upon reviewing Horizon Zero Dawn, when Aloy reaches the Faro Facilities on the quest "Maker's End". She is told that Elizabet is 355,510 days late to her appointment with Ted Faro. This is approximately 974 years. I am assuming that, from this point forward all the way to the "Battle of the Alight" there must have been AT LEAST 2 or 3 weeks. Considering the type of transportation and geographical size (We know that the map is made smaller for conveniences of course). Then, confirmed by Guerrilla, Horizon Forbidden west takes place 6 months after.Once again, by the time you are done with the Zeniths a substantial amount of time must have passed. While I do not believe the comment made by Tilda about Aloy being 20 years old, she must be 19ish. This is all guesswork since it is mentioned on the previous game that the derangement started roughly 16 to 17 years prior as we follow Aloy through HZD. Which makes me believe that Aloy just turned 18 or was about to turn 18 at the proving.