This World

by Lee, TD

  There are such huge crowds that it’s making it really hard to move. These crowds are getting in my way. I don’t care about this victory parade. Why can’t people just move out of the way? I force my way through the crowds, finally emerging at a spot where I can finally start running again.

  It takes me a couple of minutes to arrive at the Mobile Knights facility. I get stopped by some guards a couple of times when I arrive as I try to force my way into where Hiro would be. “Authorized personnel only!” one guard yells.

  “I’m here to see Hiro!” I yell back. When I force my way this time, I get pushed back.

  “Sorry, but our pilots just got done fighting a battle, this is not a time for civilians to visit,” the guard says sternly. Just the guy’s stare shoots a bullet in me.

  “Please! He’s my best friend, you have to let me through!” I start pleading.

  The other guard chimes in, “Who are you?”

  “Ridley, Ridley Law!” I answer louder than I mean to.

  “Ridley, huh?” the guard says. He pulls out his phone to quickly look at something. “The runt is on Hiro’s exceptions list.”

  “But with Hiro’s condit-”

  “Doesn’t matter, if a pilot has someone on their exceptions list, they can go in as long as the pilot is in their room and a guard waits at the door,” the calmer guard explains. Good to know for the future. “Follow me, I’ll show you to Hiro’s room.”

  “Th-thanks!” I say.

  The guard quickly escorts me to Hiro’s room. “Knock on the door and I’ll escort you out. But make it quick, he just got done at the medical bay.”

  I nod and open the door. As soon I enter Hiro’s room, I'm greeted by a sickeningly sweet display. Hiro's lying in the bed, asleep with a bunch of medical bags hooked up to him, but Sadie is on the side resting her head next to Hiro's body while holding his hand. His head and right arm are bandaged. He looks strangely at peace. Repeated beeps ring in the room coming from a machine monitoring his vitals.

  Sadie hears me walking in and turns her head. Tears form at the edge of her eyes, eyes and cheeks puffed with redness. Anyone could clearly tell that she was just barely crying. However, a face of sadness transforms into one of annoyance. Did I interrupt something? “What do you want?” she bitterly greets me.

  “I-I’m just here to see if Hiro’s okay or not,” I say. Why is she so mean to me?

  “You should go home,” she says. There’s something about the way she’s angrily looking at me combined with the fact that she was crying that makes me want to comply.

  But I have to stand my ground. “N-no, I need to know if Hiro’s okay.”

  She angrily sighs, but it does look like she’s trying her best to compose herself. “He’s okay now. The fight with the Hag caused him a lot of damage. I’m sure you saw it, the head of his mech was sliced off. Even though it wasn’t Hiro that was beheaded, he felt the pain his mech felt and his body naturally responded as if he did get beheaded. So he went into a comatose state as his body believed he had died. It took the doctors a bit to get his body to start reacting normally again and since Hiro’s a newer pilot, his brain isn’t as well trained to fight off these death-like responses it might give off. When he wakes up, he’ll have to take a lot of intensive physical and mental exams just so they know he’ll be able to continue piloting.”

  “U-uh, thank you for explaining all of that to me,” I say. Am I finally seeing this nice Sadie that Hiro was telling me about earlier? “Do you know how long he’ll be in a coma?”

  “At most, maybe a day or two. They confirmed that his brain is functioning properly so everything else should slowly be getting back to working condition,” she continues to explain. Her gaze fixates on Hiro’s face.

  “You sure know a lot about this stuff,” I say.

  “I’m a pilot too, genius,” she retorts. Fair. “And I’ve been in a similar situation, so I know how everything works. And being the pilot of a support Mobile Knight that is solely for on the battlefield healing, I have to understand these kinds of things.”

  “I see, w-well, I guess I’ll be going,” I say. As much as I want to stay, Sadie’s in here and there’d be nothing for me to do. I got what I came here for, confirmation that Hiro is okay. So there’s no reason for me to stay.

  “Yeah, you should.”

  “Right.” I turn around, slowly stepping my way to the door. “Stay strong there Hiro,” I whisper before I knock on the door.

  Chapter 8

  Hiro doesn’t make it to school for the next couple of days. Whenever I could and wasn’t absolutely terrified to, I would ask Sadie how he’s doing. She kept her answers short and brief which mostly consisted of her say that Hiro’s getting better. She told me that he did wake up from his coma, but the higher ups at the facility are advising against him moving around too much. I believe her, she wouldn’t lie about something like this. I don’t visit at all though, solely because of the one time I did Sadie just glared at me the whole time.

  The following days after the Hag’s attack were pretty normal though. Got saved by some heroes, as usual. There’s a huge rise in the Magical Melange Musical Maids because they defeated the Hag in that Omega threat fight. Tons of merch have been released of them, they’ve been in a lot of ads on TV and stuff too. This happens all the time after an Omega threat. Whatever hero or heroes that defeat the threat are usually the hot topic for the next few months or so. Like when the mechanical Kamizilla was a thing, not only was the mechanical Kamizilla and its friends made into plushes, but the heroes that defeated the monster were all the rage. Everywhere, right now, is capitalizing off of the Musical Maids. Although, most of their merch, I’ve noticed, usually displayed seven of them, but I remember there only being six during the fight. Weird.

  As soon as class ends, and the freedom of the weekend has arrived once again, I get a phone call. It’s a call from Hiro. I answer while I start making my way back home from school, “Hello?”

  “Hey! You wanna go to the Festival of Fireflies with me and Sadie tonight?” Hiro immediately asks with a bunch of enthusiasm in his voice.

  After what happened to Hiro because of the Hag, I do want to spend some time with him. But I don’t want to be there with Sadie there, she scares me. Plus, I’m not big into these festivals. “And be third wheel? Pass,” I reply.

  “Aw, c’mon! You won’t be third wheel!” he says.

  “It’s fine Hiro, you have fun with Sadie. Get me something pretty though,” I joke.

  There’s an audible sad sigh that comes from Hiro. “Fine, fine. If you don’t wanna go to the Festival of Fireflies, then at least go to Hero Con this weekend.”

  “Hero Con? What, is it a convention all about you?” I ask jokingly.

  He chuckles quietly. “Definitely all about me. But no, seriously, it’s a superhero convention! I’m a guest this year and they gave me a free pass for all three days.”

  “Shouldn’t you bring Sadie with you?”

  “She’s a guest too, so she’ll be there anyway. It’s free man!”

  “Well, thanks, but you know I’m not into the superhero stuff, right?”

  “Sure, but well Kirika’s going to be there too.”

  Damn this guy really knows how to pique my interests. Why do I feel like he implanted this seed about Kirika in my head that’s just continuously sprouting? “Kirika huh?” Maybe Hiro can pull some strings and get me to meet her or at least an autograph.

  “Yeah! She’s a guest too, so she’ll be there. There’s a couple of rumors that she’ll be performing a song during the concert,” he says.

  “Well, maybe I’ll go.”

  “C’mon, I know you want to,” he teases me.

  Dammit, he defeated me. “Fine, fine, I’ll go. Only because I don’t want your pass to go to waste.”

  “Awesome!”

  There’s a brief pause of silence before I ask, “You sure you should be going to these conventions and festivals though considering what happened to you
a couple days ago?”

  “I’ll be okay, the doctors all say that I’m in tip top shape again. Their only criticism is that I gotta work on my mental strength, so if something like that happens again I can recover faster,” he answers.

  “About that, what was that like? Feeling as if your head got chopped off and all,” I question. Call it curiosity, but something like that doesn’t really happen to that many people.

  “I don’t know how to describe it. Hurt like a bitch, that’s for sure. My body kinda just lost all of its nerves and feelings from the neck down, so I was pretty much temporarily paralyzed. Soon after, I passed out. I had a long dream, but next thing I knew I was in my room in the Mobile Knight facility. Most of my body was in a lot of pain when I woke up though, specifically my neck was killer. Even right now it’s a little hard to move my head without having my neck scream out in pain,” he explains the best he can. It has to be hard to describe something that basically caused you to go into a coma.

  “Sounds painful,” I respond, “I’m just glad you’re not dead.”

  Hiro lightly chuckles, “Well, good to know you don’t want me dead. But I’m not going down that easily. It’s gonna take a lot for me to go down.” I can imagine the triumphant smile that Hiro probably has on his face right now.

  Through the phone I can hear some footsteps and a voice say, “Hiro, it’s time for your exams.”

  “Oh, alright,” he mutters. “Gotta go Ridley, I’ll talk to you later!”

  “Be safe now,” I say before hanging up. Hopefully he does well on his exams. He hasn’t quite told me what they do for those exams, but I would at least assume the physical exam has him doing some sort of extraneous exercises.

  When I finally get home, I’m greeted by my dad. He bellows, “Hey Ridley, welcome home!” He must have gotten off work early today.

  “Hey dad. Disaster Relief let you go home early for once?” I respond. My dad works for the Disaster Relief Unit as one of the guys who immediately goes into rebuilding structures. Despite how many times I encounter the Disaster Relief, I never really seem to encounter my dad.

  “After an Omega level threat, things calm down for a little bit. Maybe it’s just the triumph of heroes that causes villains to not do anything bad, but it’s nice to not have to worry about fixing stuff up for a while. Now I can kick back and be lazy like you!” he smiles widely as he jokes.

  “Yeah, yeah,” I say dismissively.

  Before I walk up the stairs to get to me room, my dad asks, “I heard Hiro is a pilot for the Mobile Knights now.”

  “Yeah, it’s been a pretty big topic recently.”

  “How great! Hasn’t he been wanting to be a hero for a long time now? Now he finally is! Being a pilot is hard work, there’s a lot of testing and things they have to do just to be able to continue piloting. It gets pretty intensive. But Hiro is piloting a Mobile Knight so he doesn’t have to do the synergy test like some other mechs require. Have you heard about those mechs? They’re larger and more powerful than the Mobile Knights, but require at least two people to pilot them and those pilots have to do a synergy test to make sure they can work together. That’s a lot of testing and work just to pilot a giant robot don’t you think? Which reminds me…”

  Oh no, dad’s on one of his rambles again. He gets like this almost all the time. It seems like the guy can just talk about anything for an infinite amount of time. I swear, he can write a whole entire story about how a piece of paper can be white and mean something philosophically. He’s just that ridiculous.

  When my dad finally starts talking about mechs and robots, I finally get to go up to my room and change into more comfortable clothes. Maybe I can finally finish the game I’ve been meaning to today. I have nothing better to do, and who really does homework not last minute anyway right? Yes, today will be the day I finally finish this game!

  The hours fly by. When did it get dark outside? When was the last time I got a drink of water? Well, I at least finally finished the game I had to put off for so long. The ending could’ve been better, but it is what it is. I take a quick peek outside my window. There are a bunch of floating colorful lights dancing in the night sky. Huh, I wonder if those are from the Festival of Fireflies. It sure looks really nice and pretty. Each light flutters about gently, as if they’re dancing with the wind that carries them. Slowly rising are a sea of lanterns. How beautiful.

  What is it about these floating lights that makes everything seem so soothing and calm? There’s a second wave of lanterns that get released. They drift slowly in the air. Even with how far away I am, I think these lanterns have some sort of tags attached to them. I’m not familiar with the Festival of Fireflies, so I don’t really know anything. What I do know is just how calming and soothing it is to watch these lights. To end the night, colorful fireworks explode under the stars. Some blow up into elaborate portraits of creatures or superhero logos. Eventually, I somehow drift off to sleep just by watching the lights and fireworks.

  I’m startled awake by my phone. Who the early hell is calling me right now? When I check my phone, I notice it’s Hiro. The guy really likes to call now doesn’t he? With a groggy, tired voice, I answer the phone, “Hello?” My eyes fight to stay open.

  “Morning Ridley!” Hiro greets with a happy tone, “Hero Con starts in an hour, you should get here early so you’re guaranteed to get in!”

  “You’re already there?” The early sun is hurting my eyes.

  “Uh, yup! I wanted to walk around and see what people have going on here first,” he answers.

  Why am I not surprised that Hiro’s already there? “It’s so early, I wanna sleep in. There’s not really a rush for me to be there early is there?” I don’t know how these conventions work.

  “Er, well, no there isn’t a rush. But it’s good to be here early just to beat out the people who will be coming. There’s already a line forming so it would suck for you to wait in it for too long,” he explains before he excitedly says, “Whoa! A Lancelot plush? How much?”

  “Uh, Hiro, you’re still on the phone,” I mutter.

  “Oh, sorry Ridley, but there’s a really cute Lancelot plush that I have to get. Cute! There’s even some charms! There’s even a Guinevere one too! I should buy it for Sadie. You should really come early, all of this merch isn’t going to stay! I’ll even look for Kirika stuff for you, just come quick!” Before I could even answer, he hangs up the phone. A tired, long sigh escapes my throat. Guess I’ll get ready, but I don’t think I have to rush.

  After I do my usual morning rituals, I have a quick breakfast of cereal—God, I really miss those crepe dumplings and waffles at Gourmet Duel. I get dressed in simple, comfortable clothes since I have no idea how to dress for a convention. Ever so slowly, I make my way to the train station.

  A cold breeze wraps around me. It’s nice out today, a little chilly, but nothing too bad. As long as Hero Con is indoors, I should be just fine. The natural tree leaves are starting to change colors. Swarms of birds fly about in terrifyingly amazing synchronization, seriously how do birds fly in these formations with such precision? There’s definitely a lot of people out and about dressed in all sorts of different costumes and gear. Some are dressed as superheroes, monsters, mechs, even some villains. I’m assuming these people will be attending Hero Con. I’ve only heard from Hiro, but cosplaying at conventions is really popular. Hiro would do one of Meteor’s costumes every time he goes to Hero Con. As for me, well this is my first year, but I also have no desire to cosplay. Not my thing. I mean, how weird is it that you’re dressing up like a superhero or whatever and then basically being like them without actually being that person? It just doesn’t appeal to me, but it obviously appeals to others.

  The sea of people all dressed in cosplay is even more prevalent when I make it to the train station. No matter where I look, there are people dressed up. Some have some really elaborate costumes that have special mechanics to them, others look almost identical to the hero or whatever they’re
trying to represent. Gotta give it to these people, they’re really dedicated to the craft and they look good doing so. Of course you have some people whose costumes don’t look as good, but they put the effort in to try which is more than what I can say for myself. However, there are some people passing by that have a confused look on their faces as to why so many people are dressed up.

  I wait for the train near a guy dressed up in a fully mechanized costume that has a chest piece the glows brightly. He’s surrounded by a bunch of other costumed people as they all bombard him with questions about the creation of his costume. “Uh, I can’t answer all of you right now, but I’m a panelist so I can definitely answer your questions there!” he cries out, trying to work his way through the crowd in front of him. Despite saying that, he’s still mobbed by people that are interested in his cosplay.

  When the train arrives, every person imaginable crams onto it. I’m smooshed between a larger set guy who isn’t dressed up, but has a bunch of superheroes paraphernalia on him, and a girl dressed in a skintight costume who looks extremely uncomfortable with how crowded the train is. There’s even a strange musk in the air that can be best described as cheap deodorant and body odor. God, it smells like a middle school locker room. This train needs to move faster!