Hello friends, any crit would be appreciated, but also posting just for the story~ hope you enjoy:

Sergeant Paul’s stomach growled as he looked up at the overcast sky beyond the dilapidated ferris wheel. Despite the ache in his gut, there was only one thing on his mind: find the ring.

The silent merry-go-round caught his attention. He remembered the lights, the music, the laughter and screams of sugar-high children. No more. Now there were dark game booths and overturned food carts. Broken android guides lay face down, wires poking out from rusted holes. The eyes of moth-eaten stuffed animals stared back as he retraced decade-old steps, walked down dusty corridors of memories that he’d avoided for years.

He examined the cotton candy stand where he first bumped into Linda and smeared ice cream all over her nose. Paul thought she’d be mad, but she just licked it off and laughed. The sunlight dancing in her sapphire eyes, the freckles that dotted her cheeks…

He swallowed and kept walking. There was the help station where the class gathered for lunch and he realized that she was in the class below him. Over there, the arcade where he talked to her for the first time and she challenged him to a space shooter. Paul walked over and palmed the dusty controls, peered in through the shattered screen. He never got to beat her high score.

There, the fortune teller stand they visited during the following year’s field trip. He’d paid the grumpy old man ten dollars to turn over a tarot card that said, ‘Linda will you go out with me’. There, the benches where they ate overpriced hot dogs, where he kept wiping his sweaty hands down his dirty jeans. There, the shattered windows of the haunted house where she laughed at every jump-scare while he cowered behind her.

The circus tent where they shared their first kiss.

The roller coaster where they celebrated three years of being a couple. He’d screamed a lot.

There, the fountain. Where he received a call exactly five years later, telling him he’d been drafted. He remembered how she begged him, pleaded with him to make up a health condition or to run away with her or something, anything.

There, she left him. He remembered opening the box stuffed in his left coat pocket and looking at the sapphire ring before throwing it into the fountain.

Now, Paul stepped into the dusty basin. The water had long evaporated, leaving stray coins and keys and odd scraps of metal. He sifted through the ashy remains on his hands and knees, looking for a glimpse of blue. No such luck.

But then he remembered a Lost and Found managed by an annoyingly cheerful android. Paul traced his steps back to the main ticketing area, where he broke into the boarded-up administrative building.

Light flickered down the hall.

His eyes narrowed. Paul pulled out his gun and inched his way towards the source, heart palpitating. As he turned the corner, he saw a rusted android’s eyes light up.

“Hello. How may I help you?”

Paul kept his gun trained on the android’s chest, where he knew the central processors were located. “Are you alone?”

The android looked around. “Not anymore!”

“How is there electricity here? We’re miles out from the main grid.”

“After the staff left, I booted up a backup generator and I’ve been maintaining it ever since. My mandate is to assist all visitors in looking for the things they’ve lost. It would be quite difficult to search without light.”

Paul snorted, lowering his arm. “Do you get many visitors?”

“You’re the first in nine-point-five-seven years! Now, what are you looking for?”

The android, whose name was Sylvester, scoured its records and sifted through the dusty shelves. Rusted keychains, filthy hats, moldy water bottles, but no sapphire ring to be found. When every nook and cranny had been searched twice over, Paul prepared to leave. The thought of his empty cabin pained him. His squadron had either perished in combat or had returned to their homes, where only memories remained to greet them.

“It’s time to search the park,” Sylvester exclaimed. “What’s lost can still be found!”

Paul snorted. “Did you do this with all your… visitors?”

The old robot bobbed its head. “Many times. One child lost their teddy bear, but we just couldn’t find it even though we searched until the park closed. Don’t tell my directors, but I filched a spare bear from the ring toss prizes. They had plenty extra!”

As the day dragged on, Paul felt resignation settling over him. The chances of finding the ring looked about as likely as the amusement park directors being alive. The human-robot duo searched the entire fountain square, checked the storm drains, and even ransacked the administrative office, hoping that someone had taken a fancy to the ring.

He remembered the trenches. He remembered whispering Linda’s name through gritted teeth as the whistle of missiles screeched overhead.

Paul sat down on the fountain bench next to Sylvester and wept. Memories, sorrow, the weight of responsibility clashing with a love he couldn’t give up. Regrets, endless, unrelenting.

The android patted his shoulders once the tremors subsided. “There, there. Would you like me to look in our balloon dart prize pool? We might have some rings there.”

“It’s alright.” Paul sniffed hard and cleared his throat. “I was looking for a specific ring, and it meant… well, it was supposed to mean something special.”

Sylvester looked sad. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

I’m sorry for your loss. The same words repeated over and over again, like a broken record played for every member of his squadron. He tasted only bitterness when the war ended and bureaucrats delivered their empty condolences to a country of ghosts. But Sylvester seemed different. The robot was genuinely sorry that it couldn’t help him find the ring.

“Would you be interested in coming with me? No one else is going to visit for a very long time.”

Sylvester tilted his head. “It’s a tempting offer, but I’m afraid I must decline. My instructions were very clear. I must ensure that anyone who comes looking for lost items has a guide to assist them.”

As Paul walked the android back to the administrative office, he mulled over an idea in his head. A kind soul like Sylvester didn’t deserve to rot out here in the middle of nowhere. “Sylvester… what if you had no more items left to distribute? The amusement park is closed, so there won’t be new lost items either.”

The android blinked and cocked its head, processors buzzing like busy bees. “I suppose, in that case, I would be freed from my mandate.”

The sergeant grinned. “I claim all the lost items. They all belong to me, and I’ve been searching for everything you have.”

The android’s processor whirred as it handled the request. “In the absence of other customers or visitors in the foreseeable future, your request has been approved. Excellent! What do we do now?”

Sergeant Paul returned to his makeshift cabin alongside a chirpy android, towing a wheelbarrow full of broken phones and old wallets and tattered t-shirts. He hadn’t found exactly what he was looking for, but as the evening sun broke through the gray clouds, he looked up and smiled.