The one known as the Parasite is on her daily routine of scavenging for materials. (She had a different name before, but it has been too many cycles of Abba's toot-toot clock for her to remember.)
Useful, useless, useless, use, less, hah!
She needed to find a way to repair her water bottle, my sippy cup. The thirst she is feeling at the tip of her tongue is distracting. She saw a discarded piece of bright plastic at the corner of her eye, red - like a fleck of blood - in a sea of broken concrete. She approached it with care - this area of London is full off 'YOU-OHS', she had to remind herself. Boom boom ow.
Remember, remember...
It was a deflated ball, and it looked like a toy from her distant past. From the 'Old Times'. The memory came back to her - playing with the toy that never rolled away, that never went away.
Not like Amma.
She pocketed the deflated ball, and returned the way she came. Walk softly like a prowling cat, Abba said. Tiptoe. Tippy-toe tippy tippy toe. Like a cat. Alone like the wolf. Lone wolf.
Happy and distracted, she was enjoying the silence and the slight breeze. The faded toy came back to mind, and the words roly-poly rolypolyrolypoly started to fill her mind and for the first time in uncountable Abba Clock Cycles, she allowed herself to laugh.
And the sound vibrated far and created an echo that scared and surprised her.
Oh shit shitshitshitshit.
She stood still. Her eyes scanning the horizon and her ears trying to pick up any foreign noises.
I am alone.
She continued her tippy-toe tippy-toe by the swampy river.
What is a river, Abba?
Silence.
I am still alone.
Like a lone wolf-cat cat-wolf lone alone we are family we stick together but Abba you never came back too, distracted thoughts and then she felt it. The heat. At the back of her neck like the yellow-red light from Abba's gun-flame she was told never to touch (but she did, she had to). The fear rooted her to the ground. Her thirst was gone.
It had been 28 and 4 cycles of Abba's toot-toot clock since she last heard a human voice.
"Vous êtes ma petite amie, n'est-ce pas? "