by TIME, S. O.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
“My head’s spinning a little, but I’ll be fine,” she winces. “How did we get here?” For a moment her energy dips, icy and cold. “Kou’s still in trouble,” she says, but quickly shakes her head, banishing the moment of panic. “We should figure out where we are, first.”
“I’m sure Kou will be alright,” I respond.
Hitori nods. “He’d better be,” she says, walking over to a pile of rubble. The gigantic mound of debris leads up to a rusted railway system above us. All I hear as I stare up at the old railway is the breeze weaving through the deserted buildings. The void in human energy here unsettles me. Despite all of the buildings and greenery, it feels eerily empty.
Hitori is already halfway up the rubble by the time I start the ascent. She’s moving up without any issues, but I have to carefully maneuver between the sharp edges of the glass and metal. Once on the platform, we get a clearer view of the city. It is massive compared to Maluii. The collapsed buildings around us are similar to the ones I saw in my dream of the wasteland, but there’s a calmness here that was never present in the dreams. The vegetation doesn’t appear insidious and diseased—seems more like life is returning. It’s a desolate, yet beautiful sight. Birds fly in and out of the trees that have begun to grow out of the split panels on the ground. There are significantly taller trees growing at the very heart of the city. Untamed by bots or gardeners, they’re plainly visible from our vantage point, adding soft waves of branches and foliage to the jagged skyline of decaying buildings. It’s at this point that Hitori gasps and her energy spikes briefly.
“What is it? Are you okay?” I ask.
She ignores me and continues to analyze the city. After a few moments she begins moving forward in the direction of the city center. I follow, trying not to feel stung by her deliberate lack of acknowledgement.
The going is slow as we have to clamber over twisted metal struts and avoid crumbled sections of the railway. At first all my focus is taken up by trying to keep up with Hitori’s determined pace, but as we push further into the city I feel my skin tingle with the faintest hint of energy. The more I pay attention to the feeling, the more I suspect we are not alone. I pulse for energy and nearly jump at what I find. The echo of thousands of souls reverberates through me. They aren’t truly here, but they left so much emotion behind that I shiver with the weight of it. I feel the darkness of their pain and sorrow all around me, cloying and inescapable like the humidity of the sulphur swamps south of Vale. It’s as though I feel remnants of what used to be, reaching out to me, warning me about something. I try to focus on it and reach further with my senses, I can fee—
“Watch out!” Hitori yells, pushing me away from a hole in the platform. I fall hard onto the cracked concrete, inches from slipping off the side. I sit up immediately and see Hitori hanging from the hole she pushed me away from. I rush to her and pull her up.
“Are you stupid!?” Hitori demands the moment she’s back on solid ground.
“Sorry, I was just—”
“What, getting us killed?” she cuts me off. The hostility that I thought was fading is back in full force, and her renewed distrust cuts like broken glass.
Her words bring about an uncomfortable swirling within my stomach and a grating frustration that chafes at my heart. My temperature rises and I stand up. I shout, “You know what, I haven’t done anything to you. I haven’t done anything to Kou, why do you hate me?”
Hitori’s glare intensifies. “How am I supposed to know I can trust you? You show up out of nowhere and Kou gets viciously attacked. You don’t have a condenser, and when you get one, you have no crystal. Then Hana, who stakes her reputation on being honest and reliable, decides to help you lie about having a blue crystal. You could be anyone, and you could be dangerous to Kou and his family! Nothing’s made sense since you got here!”
I scoff. “If I was here to hurt Kou, I would have done it, don’t you think? I’ve been here long enough, and I sleep under the same roof as him.”
“Ugh!” Hitori clenches her fists in frustration. “Why do I have to be stuck here with you of all people? Open a portal and take me back.”
It only then occurs to me that I might be able to—but no. A quick assessment of my energy reveals that whatever small trickle of power I took from closing the lab Tear has been used up—presumably getting us here. “I would if I could,” I mumble after a tense pause.
“Oh, what was that? You can’t? Of course you can’t.” She slaps her hands on her thighs dramatically and starts walking again.
We press forward in silence for a while until a muted explosion rings out from somewhere below the tracks. We both freeze as a pained shriek roars through the sky, and a short distance in front of us the platform breaks off from the rest of the system and drops like a ramp. The separated piece hits the ground hard, shaking the entire railway and sending dust everywhere. Hitori and I cover our watering eyes as dust fills our lungs, forcing us to drop to our knees and cough for a few moments until the air clears.
After we recover, we begin our descent down the makeshift ramp, wary that the structure could collapse beneath our feet at any moment. When we reach the bottom, I see how it fell—the pillar holding up that section of the railway was damaged by the small explosion we heard. I can still feel heat radiating from the remains.
The bottom of the rail system is lined with flowers and unlit candles in front of picture frames. The images are faded, but we can still make out a variety of faces in the candlelight. I can sense the remnant energies of others around me again, as if returning to warn me once more. I consider talking to Hitori about it, but she intentionally looks away from me, trying to outpace me with her arms crossed. As we move farther from the collapsed area, we begin to notice that some of the candles are lit. A pathway becomes more defined, marked by debris that was clearly moved, and even footprints in the dust. The flowers and candles on the floor seem to guide us toward something, though I’m not sure what. I pulse for energy, but I can’t tell if people are in front of us, or if it’s more of that remnant energy. Hitori eventually stops at one of the frames. It’s of a woman. Five lit candles flicker around the image, casting it in a warm glow. I stop beside her as she kneels to look more closely.
I pulse once more as she studies the flower in front of the frame. Instead of sensing the energies all around me, I feel them scatter. I tighten my brows in confusion.
“Hey look, it’s a kid!” Hitori whispers. I look to the street, farther up ahead, where a girl lies on the floor. She looks maybe ten or eleven, with long brown hair. She looks a lot like…
“Sahra!” I shout unexpectedly. Hitori turns to me.
“You know her?”
“I-I don’t know…that’s impossible.”
Hitori stands up and looks at me quizzically. She opens her mouth to speak, but at that moment, I finally realize what the energies were warning me of. Out in the distance, we hear the cry of a nymian.
Chapter Nineteen
T he nymian’s shriek echoes through the buildings as a large gust of wind hits us, blowing out the candles. Hitori and I trade only a brief look before we both run to the child.
Hitori kneels down beside her and activates her crystal to check the girl’s vitals. As Hitori closes her eyes, a dazzling white aura envelops her body, quiet and calm. The girl is sweating profusely and has burn marks on her shirt and pants. I turn to the damaged pillar behind us. Was she caught in some kind of blast? After a few moments, Hitori deactivates her condenser and her glow subsides. The little girl doesn’t awaken, but her breathing is even and color has returned to her pale cheeks. Could this really be Sahra? I wonder as I study her familiar features. The thought stretches through every avenue of my mind, but I can’t find a way to explain how that would even be possible.
“She should be okay now,” Hitori says as she gets back up. We hear another nymian cry—louder than the previous one. It’s coming our way.
“We n
eed to get out of here,” I say as I pick the girl up and hoist her over one shoulder.
“Where are we supposed to go?” Hitori asks.
I look around, and spot an open path leading farther into the city.
“This way,” I say, turning in that direction.
The nymian cries out again, louder. A chilling second and third cry reply from different directions. We maneuver through broken buildings and collapsed rubble, moving just slowly enough to spare our legs the jagged shards of glass and metal that jut out from the debris. As we draw closer to the trees encompassing the central part of the city, the scarcer sunlight becomes.
A flowery scent floats on the breeze—it’s the one from my dreams. I want to stop and breathe it in more deeply, but the nymians are gaining. The ground becomes even more treacherous as we approach the copse of trees in the center of the ruins. Massive roots rise from the cracked ground, claw marks maring their natural patterns. I look to the buildings around us and I recognize claw marks on their walls as well.
“Where are we going?” Hitori asks with a noticeable change in pitch.
I glance back to see her eyes darting between the claw marks around us as we delve deeper into nowhere. The screeches pound over our eardrums, growing closer with each cry. We come across an intersection blocked by a massive branch fallen from the tree above. It’s too big for us to climb over, and there doesn’t seem to be any other way around it without heading back the way we came. Back toward the nymians.
“Now what!?” Hitori digs her fingers into the branch to see if it’s scalable, but the bark is too tough.
“Eiji!” she snaps after I don’t reply.
“I’m thinking!” I finally yell back to her, shifting Sahra—or whoever she is—to my other shoulder as my back begins to ache from the unfamiliar burden. I look around as anxiety speeds my heart. My head starts pounding, but a hint of that familiar scent turns me toward the broken building to our left. Under the rubble of its collapsed facade, a dark hole leads into the ground. It’s large enough for a grown human—but far too small for a nymian.
“Follow me!” I shout, already running toward it. Hitori replies, but it’s drowned out by a fresh round of nymian cries. The air practically shudders with the threat of it, and I force myself into a full sprint. I drop down and scoot into the hole with the girl in my arms. A few feet in, the hole tilts down and we slide in darkness.
After a few moments sliding through the pitch-black tunnel, we land on a pile of old couch cushions. As we stop, lights start to turn on around us, revealing an underground facility. It’s a massive, high-ceilinged room lined with glass partitions that remind me of Hana’s lab. Come to think of it, the desks, chairs, and floor tiling look similar as well. Despite the destruction above, this underground area appears to be in stable condition. The white walls have faded to a pale yellow, and a number of machines and devices have clearly fallen into disrepair, but the building feels secure. I stand up, still cradling the girl, as I shiver from the sterile chill of the room. I turn around as I hear Hitori screaming down the ramp I came through, and she rolls off the cushions after failing to stop herself with her feet.
“You just left me there!” she snaps as she stands, dusting herself off in the process.
“I knew it’d be easier to get you to follow that way,” I reply as I pulse for energy. This room is empty, but there are other areas beyond harboring small groups of people—real, live people.
“You can’t be serious,” she says.
I turn to answer, but her question wasn’t directed at me. Emblazoned on the wall we entered through are both the Kurosawa and Matsuo emblems. Blocky letters under the emblems declare this to be ‘Facility 10-47C.’
Looking toward that wall I notice a couple of inactive sleeping pods placed a few meters from the tunnel entrance. I wander over to them and lay the child inside one. She looks exactly like Sahra. I shake my head to clear the confusion. I won’t be getting any answers until she awakens.
Hitori reaches up to trace the designs on the wall with her finger as I stretch my aching arms. Suddenly, loud noises ring out from the tunnel we slid through. I activate my shield over myself and the sleeping girl as Hitori grabs a long piece of metal dangling from one of the old devices. She darts inside my shield and holds up the metal like a bat as we brace ourselves for combat.
I pulse to see how many nymians there are, but it’s a person that comes through instead. Panting and sweating profusely, a man emerges from the hole with a knife clutched in his hand. His face is lined with wrinkles of time and stress, and his short hair is greying. His energy flares as he sees us, and he moves the knife into a guard position.
“What’s going on here? Who are you?” he demands as he assesses us.
I see his frown deepen slightly in suspicion as he takes in my mask. When he sees that the sleeping pod beside us is occupied, he takes a few short, coordinated steps forward, prompting Hitori to raise her makeshift bat. I look at the arm he’s holding the knife with and see scars from his shoulder to his wrist—nymian claws.
“We’re not here to cause trouble. We were just looking for a place to hide, so the girl could be safe,” I say as I put up my hands to show we’re not hostile. Hitori gives me a dubious look, but then lowers her weapon and steps out from behind me. The man’s expression changes as soon as he sees her. His energy calms and he sheaths the knife.
“H-How is this possible?” he asks, directing his words at Hitori. “How did you get here?” He walks toward her and I increase the intensity of my shield around us. The man notices and raises his hands too.
“I mean you no harm. Our enemy is out there,” he points up from where we came, and then immediately refocuses on Hitori. “H-Hitori? Is that really you?”
Hitori flinches when the man says her name. “Do I know you?” she asks, taking a step back toward the sleeping pod. She hasn’t raised the metal rod again, but her fingers are wrapped around it in a white-knuckled grip.
The man shakes his head and squeezes his eyes shut for a moment. His eyes look a bit damp when he finally opens them.
“You wouldn’t remember me,” he says. I pulse his energy and many different emotions flurry within him. “Hitori…I’m your uncle, Botan.” When his statement is met with silence he pulls up a battered looking holo and begins flipping through its contents. He’s almost shaking. I look at Hitori, but she’s simply staring at the man, looking even paler than usual.
“That’s not possible,” she says, but the man shakes his head.
He pulls up a picture on his holo and shows it to us. The image is of himself—younger, but clearly him—at the beach with an older-looking Hitori.
“Before all this started,” he begins, “I would go to this beach every other weekend with your mother and we would ride the waves and stay out until the sun touched the water.” He brushes the image and pauses for a brief moment. “You look just like her,” he says, turning back to Hitori. His words pull at her energy like the wind would a kite. Hitori looks into the image on his holo and stares at the woman beside the man that claims to be her uncle. I’ve never seen pictures or videos of Hitori’s mother before. Based on the way she clutches the holo, neither has Hitori.
To my surprise, Hitori turns to me with a questioning gaze, as if she’s calling out to me for help. After seeing nothing but suspicion or disdain from her for so long, I’m struck silent. I instinctively move toward her, reaching out a hand, but I pause before I get closer, torn between our chilly history and the disturbingly strong need to take away her pain.
Before I’m able to interject in any way, the girl within the sleeping pod groans, seizing our attention.
Botan offers his holo to Hitori, who hesitates. “It’s okay, look through them. There are more images and videos of your mom in there.” He smiles at her and she finally takes it, her expression stricken. He walks over to the girl as I dissipate the shield. The girl is still asleep in the pod, but she shudders and twitches, making small, unhap
py sounds.
“Shh. I’m here, Alma. You’re safe,” Botan murmurs as he gently rubs her back in a circular motion. After a few moments she stops fussing. Alma, I think, as I study the young girl again. Not Sahra. But the resemblance is still uncanny.
“Where did you find her?” Botan asks, moving the girl’s hair away from her face.
“She was unconscious under the railway system with the candles and flowers.”
Botan sighs and shakes his head as a worried expression takes hold.
“Did she light the candles again?”
I pause for a moment before I answer. “The candles were lit. They were next to the picture of a woman. But she was farther away. She was hurt, but Hitori healed her.”
“Hitori’s a medic now?” he asks as he glances at her. She doesn’t notice, and I observe with relief that her expression has lightened, softening into a faint smile as she looks through the images. “Last I saw her she had a red energy crystal.”
“Red?” I ask.
“Yep. I didn’t think changing colors was possible. She was just a baby then and we’d just lost her mother to war. Once people started evacuating to the northern hemisphere, Isao took Hitori with him, and I lost them both.”
“Why didn’t you go to the new settlement with them after the war?” I ask.
“Some of the people that lived here didn’t want to go. Our entire lives were here. The graves of our loved ones are here. My wife was the reason I stayed. She lost her father and didn’t want to leave.”
“The picture by the candles—”
“Alma’s mother.” he says. His expression doesn’t change as he continues the circular motion on Alma’s back, but his energy dips so dramatically that I almost flinch. “A few years after we’d begun rebuilding, some of the portals reappeared and nymians started coming through again. There weren’t nearly as many as the initial invasion, but the military had already moved north with Isao. Those of us that stayed behind were too few and too weak, so we took to these underground structures and did what we could to survive. We’ve killed a few of those things here and there with traps and explosives, but it’s never enough to let us permanently return to the surface.” He sighs deeply. “Those flowers, those frames, those candles, we all placed them up there to remember those we lost in the second wave.”