by TIME, S. O.
A few hours later, we have left the tall, crumbling buildings behind. The land begins to slope upward, and wooded hills come into view. Bushes and small trees spill out from the forest as nature reclaims the once-manicured parks and gardens that decorated this end of the city. Before we enter the trees, Botan waves to get our attention and points toward the mountains that rise up behind the hills, directing our gazes to a thin metal building perched near one of the peaks. The communication tower. When I squint I can see the faint, dark line of a paved road leading to it as well. I turn to Botan and point it out. He stops and shakes his head. He gets his holo and types out a message:
Frequent nymian sightings. We’ll take foot trail from west side. Longer=safer.
I nod, and we continue forward.
We walk for hours as the sun climbs to its peak in the sky, and I am soon grateful for the shade. The trees here are far more thin and pale than those of the forests around Maluii, but their spindly branches are covered in wide, fern-like leaves that block the worst of the afternoon sun. Twining vines with small yellow flowers decorate many of the trunks, and the ground is covered in mottled purple and blue moss rather than grass. On more than one occasion I catch a hint of that familiar yet unknown scent, but I don’t have time to stop and pinpoint which plant it comes from. The scenery is so beautiful, it’s easy to forget that around every tree, a nymian could lie in wait.
#
A half-day of walking later, the silence around us makes it feel like my thoughts are shouting. Awe at the beauty of the forest has given way to sore muscles and inevitable musings about the dangers of our trip. We haven’t encountered any nymians, but awareness of the threat hangs heavy over our group. My heart jumps slightly when Botan stops and raises his hand, but he is not tensed with readiness for battle. He quickly taps a message for us into his holo.
Listen - water.
A few seconds of concentration and Hitori and I pick up the steady hush of running water. Botan smiles and types out another message.
Dinner time!
He veers slightly off the path we’re on and heads toward the sound. It doesn’t take us long to reach the clear, steady stream. As Hitori and I gratefully sink to the ground, Botan takes the near-empty water bottles from our packs and refills them, adding a small pink tablet to each bottle to purify the water. After taking a moment to catch our breath, we begin to pull out the bread and dried fruit from our packs.
“It should be safe to talk for now. So long as we keep our voices low, the water will cover the sound,” Botan says.
Though his voice is quiet, my nerves spike for a moment, and I instinctively look around for a sign that we’ve been heard. I notice Hitori do the same, and we briefly catch each other’s eye, trading worried smiles.
“We’re almost halfway there. We’re actually covering ground more quickly than I thought.” Botan turns to me, “That path you pointed out earlier is a lot faster, but every mission sent on that route for repairs has failed. There are too many nymians there.”
“What if we cause some sort of distraction out here and then send a team up that way?” Hitori asks.
“That might work,” Botan responds, tapping his chin. “But we’re already out here. There’s no need to risk anyone else. Besides, we’re too far now to send them a message anyway.”
Botan looks up at the darkening sky, his expression calculating. He looks around again and then back to us. “We’ll wait out the night here. We can take turns keeping watch and use the noise of the stream to hide ourselves. I’ll take first shift,” he says.
We set our sleeping bags up in a single file line parallel to the stream. Botan sits behind a tree with his blanket around him as Hitori and I lie down. After the exhaustion of the day, it doesn’t take us long to fall asleep.
I wake up no longer in the forest. I’m surrounded by tall buildings and bustling people. I’m back in Vale. Did I fall through a Tear in my sleep? I move to stand and instantly shoot upward. I no longer feel the weight of my body as I did before. It’s back! My energy is back! I dash upward into the sky, a smile spreading across my face as I take in the familiar landscape of skyscrapers and transport tubes. I can fly again. I pulse out and sense the souls of everyone on the planet, my awareness expanding back to its usual capacity.
I turn to fly to the Mirai Condenser Works building where this all started, when I feel a convulsion in the energy around me. Dread rushes through me as the air fills with a thrumming, familiar buzz. The pressure of it fills my mind with a crushing migraine, and I feel myself begin to fall out of the sky. In a sudden, deafening moment, all of the souls around me vanish except for one. The buzzing ends and I regain control of my body, but I feel hollow and weak. I pulse for souls again and again, but only sense the one. And it’s fading. I race over to it, out in a park in the outskirts of the city, and see fire around one little girl. Sahra. I fly to her as quickly as I can, passing through the inferno around her. She’s bloodied and barely hanging on to consciousness.
“Sahra, Sahra, what happened?” I shout as I drop to my knees beside her. I try to wrap my arms around her to carry her out of the flames, but my arms simply pass through her body. I can’t move her.
“It’s alright,” she says. “Now I can be with them.”
As the fire closes in, I feel her pain and anguish and fear. It clashes with the horrific void, the deafening silence of everyone who is lost. She is all that’s left, and all that remains for her is suffering. I can’t control myself, I can’t even find the strength to stand. I close my eyes and rest my hand over her forehead.
“I’m sorry,” is all I can manage.
“Eiji?” I hear in a hushed voice. “Eiji?”
I snap awake in a cold sweat, back in the forest with Hitori and Botan. I struggle to keep my breathing quiet even as my lungs strain to drink in air, as if I’d just finished a race.
“Are you alright, what’s wrong?” Hitori asks, keeping her head close to mine so that her voice doesn’t have to carry too far.
I take a moment to gather myself and shake my head. “I-I’m fine. Just a bad dream.”
“Are you up for keeping watch? It’s your turn,” she says.
I look to see Botan in his sleeping bag. It’s just us right now.
“I’ll be fine,” I say, getting up. “I’ll take it from here.”
Hitori nods hesitantly and gets into her sleeping bag. I can feel the fatigue in her energy.
I lean on the tree and let gravity pull me down as I take a seat against it.
“Eiji?” I hear from Hitori.
I look at Botan to see if he hears us, but he’s fast asleep.
“Yes?”
“Do you really not remember where you’re from?”
“I can’t remember anything about myself.” I curl up into a ball as I sit. “Eiji is all I have. And even that’s made up.”
“You really didn’t try to kill Kou, did you?” she asks after a brief silence.
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you!” I whisper in an attempt at humor. She giggles softly.
“It’s alright if you don’t remember. You have us now,” she yawns. “Good night, Eiji.” She turns over and says nothing more.
“Good night,” I respond.
I look at the water flowing beside us, dappled with moonlight, and imagine it carrying all my worries away. I’m stuck on Hitori’s words: “You have us now.” I think back to the woman whose hand I reached out for in Vale.
Family.
Chapter Twenty-Two
I have no problems staying awake. All I can do while Botan and Hitori sleep is think about the dream. I can’t get the image of Sahra out of my head. The fire. It’s not until I feel the rays of the sun hit me that I realize it’s morning. I crawl quietly over to the stream to get a drink when I notice a thin line of purple liquid flowing through it. It’s faint, but noticeable in the clearness of the water. I rise and follow it upstream.
Farther up the creek, the underbrush grow
s thicker and taller, blocking my way forward. After a few moments of study, I identify a place to wriggle through. I begin to wind through the bushes, but as I near a thinning of the growth, I trip on a vine. I don’t fall, but I rustle a few leaves as I gather my balance. As I look forward through the bushes I freeze. In front of me, about forty meters away, is a wounded nymian drinking from the stream. The animal looks up in my direction. My heart nearly stops, and I have to bite back a gasp as the memory of my first encounter with a nymian comes rushing back. Rooted in place by fear I stare unblinking toward the creature, unsure if I am still far enough into the bush to remain hidden.
After a few moments the nymian returns to drink. Purplish blood trickles from a shallow wound on its neck into the water, making the strange violet thread that drew me here. This nymian doesn’t look sick like the one that attacked me and Kou.
It takes me at least another five minutes before I’m willing to move. Every movement I make as I retrace my steps is so painstakingly slow and tense that I feel fatigue run through all of my muscles. Once I’m finally out of the bush I take my shoes off so that I can move at a quicker pace without making more noise.
As soon as I make it back to our campsite, I get to Hitori and gently shake her shoulder until she comes to.
“Eiji? What’s going on?” she asks.
I put my finger up to my mouth and I pull out my holo. I type out and show her a message:
Nymian ahead. Quiet.
Hitori looks at me and nods. I feel her energy jumpstart, and she slowly gets out of her sleeping bag. She searches through her rucksack while I move on to Botan, who wakes up as soon as I walk up to him. Instinctively he jolts up but doesn’t say a word. I show him the message I showed Hitori and he moves cautiously to his feet. Rucksacks in hand, we move slowly away from the stream and head back to the path we came from.
I pulse out to find that there are several nymians scattered about, though none directly within our path. The sun rises to our right as we continue our trek to the comm tower.
#
We reach the hilly part of the forest shortly after we begin walking. My body already aches from the extended walk yesterday. The added stress of the level changes makes me long for the freedom of weightlessness even more than usual. After half a day of up and down through the hills, we fall into the shadow of the mountains and the path stops descending. As we continue uphill, the path narrows, with a ledge forming to our left and the rest of the mountain standing tall to our right. One wrong step and we fall. The trees thin out as we get higher, the steepness and increasing rockiness of the slope limiting what can grow. Despite our weariness, no one motions to stop. Tempted as I am to collapse, the occasional, distant cry of a nymian convinces me to continue the journey. We snack on the move and try to keep track of how much we drink—the stream is far behind us, and dehydration this far from the city would mean death.
The sun is right above us, but I can barely feel its warmth. The winds seem to be getting stronger as we climb, bringing much colder air with them.
Late into the afternoon, we reach a section of path that has partially fallen away from the cliff, forcing us to cling to the edge as we make our way around a sharp bend. Botan goes around first and shows us the best way to hold onto the edge without. When he’s through, he sends us a message.
The ground here flattens out—there’s a wider path
Perfect. Just a little longer and we’re back on flat ground. I go next, trying not to look down over the edge. I never felt afraid of heights in my previous form, but I sense the danger far too keenly now. I concentrate on my breathing and move as slowly as possible around the bend.
I’m almost halfway through when a rock on the edge snaps off under my left foot. My body swings to the right, pulling my left hand free of its grip. The sudden change is too much for my remaining hand—I fall, fingernails scraping against rock as my weight carries me down.
It takes everything I have not to yell. I reach for rocks, brush, anything that can stop my fall. Stinging from dozens of new cuts, I finally get ahold of a gnarled old root sticking from the cliffside. The abrupt stop sends pain shooting through my shoulder, but I manage to keep my grip.
I look up the mountainside as I catch my breath and can barely see Hitori and Botan, at least fifteen meters above me. Great. I vaguely note that my rucksack is gone. It must have come loose during my fall. I feel a vibration on my arm and see a message from Botan. At least my holo is still intact. I gingerly test the cliff with my feet until I find a slight ledge that I can put some weight on. Once steady, I check the message.
Stay still. I’ll drop you a rope
I close my eyes as I wait, keenly aware of my weakening fingers.
A few moments later the rope is to my left. It looks like this is as close as he can get it from the flat section above. The rope hangs a bit more than an arms length away. As I reach for it, I feel a sharp pain in my stomach. I cry out and slap my hand over my mouth to keep quiet, nearly losing my precarious foothold in the process. I look down at my stomach and see a broken branch sticking out of my left midriff. I didn’t even feel it until now.
You okay? What’s wrong?
I glance at Botan’s message but don’t reply. I take a deep breath and put a hand on the branch protruding from my side. I close my eyes and grit my teeth before yanking it out. For one terrifying fraction of a second I nearly black out from the pain before adrenaline snaps me back to hyper-awareness. I remain still for several moments, trying to calm my breathing as the blood that spills from me becomes cold with the wind. The bleeding doesn’t slow, and I begin to suspect I have made an error. I take one last deep breath before reaching for the rope once more. The pain makes me shiver with nausea, but I force myself to stretch my arm even further. Somehow I manage to grab the rope and Botan pulls me up as I hang on for life.
Botan curses under his breath as he pulls me over the edge. My vision wavers as he turns me onto my back.
“What happened?” Hitori asks shakily, activating her crystal.
“Branch,” I gasp. “Pulled it out,” I manage.
“Pulled it out? Are you stupid! Do you want to die?”
She places her hands over my wound and begins to work. The sudden disappearance of pain is so soothing that I nearly cry with relief.
“You have to keep the blood in! Did you never take a basic biology class? Of all the morons—”
Elated with my rapid recovery, I find myself shaking with laughter, struggling to keep quiet. Hitori halts her whispered rant, and suddenly we are hugging. I’m not sure who started it, but it feels right.
“Idiot,” she mutters, but I can hear the smile in her voice.
She lets go, and I trade an amused look with Botan as Hitori directs her attention to the wound once more. She looks about to say something when we hear the snap of a twig, far too close.
We all freeze, as still as if I’d stopped time. I pulse out, and a sick dread wriggles in my stomach as I register multiple nymians nearby. I look to the others and type out a message.
We’re surrounded
Don’t move
They don’t ask how I know. We look around cautiously, almost afraid to move our heads. We can’t see any of them, but we can hear them moving around us. My wound is still not fully healed and it stings slightly, but at least the bleeding has mostly stopped. After a few moments the rustling stops. There’s an opening to our right that leads straight to the tower. If we can make it past these nymians, we should be about a few hours away at most.
Minutes pass and still the silence persists. I feel another buzzing on my arm and another message from Botan appears.
We should move
I pulse out again and can still feel several nymians around us.
Wait
I reply, but Botan has already started heading into the clearing. I reach out to hold him back—right as the first screech rings out. The mountainside around us erupts in motion and noise as the nymians rush toward us.<
br />
“RUN!” Botan yells as the first nymian leaps onto the trail a few meters behind us. I immediately activate my shield as Hitori and Botan release the straps on their packs, dropping them as we race toward the tower. Barely a second later, my shield shudders as the nymian behind us strikes at my back. By now, more have joined the first, and soon my shield is fragmenting under their blows. I knew this thing wouldn’t last long against real nymians. Botan activates his green crystal and we become surrounded by a second layer of energy above my shield. Once activated, the number of strikes to my shield diminish. Though they keep attacking us, they miss most of their strikes.
“What’s happening?” I yell at Botan as we sprint through trees and shrubbery.
“Camouflage. I don’t know how much longer I can hold it,” he pants heavily. “It’s harder to do while we move.”
“Cover!” Hitori shouts, pointing to a concave section of the mountain. It looks like it leads to a small opening in the stone.
The opening seems to meet up with the path I pointed out to Botan when we started our hike up the mountain. We turn to it and rush onwards, adrenaline maintaining our speed. We make it halfway when Botan’s energy dips and his camouflage shatters above my shield. He lets out a pained yell and slows down.
“Botan!” I yell as Hitori grabs his arm, frantically dragging him back to a run.
The nymians swarm us once more, their massive claws chipping away my shield with each blow. We’re almost there. We’re almost there. A claw whistles by my ear as shards of the shield flutter to the ground. I glance up and see that my shield is almost gone, little more than the spider web frame of an umbrella against the hail of strikes. We’re not going to make it. I make eye contact with Hitori as nymians close in one more time. One strike completely destroys the remains of my shield and I wrap my arms around Botan and Hitori and put them in front of me. We’re about three meters from the opening.