Chapter 0:
Radiant Remnants
“One was a warning.
Two was a threat.
After three is history.
There's nothing left.”
In the year 2247, this nursery rhyme is all that the average person remembers of the nation of Japan. How can you blame them? The attempted (and over time successful) Japanese genocide was swept under the rug after it prolonged an already drawn out war by several years. Those that survived the bombings fled to wherever they could, though the amount of people that lived a long and healthy life were tragically little, and if their children were healthy, they were still to be integrated into their new home, causing the Japanese ethnicity to have gone effectively extinct by the turn of the century.
Historians, or those who know how to work a search engine, that are familiar with the subject agree that it was one of the vilest actions in North American history. Yearly memorials commemorate the end of the war that caused the restrictions on nuclear weapons, yet most don't even know the events or the largest victim that caused these restrictions in the first place.
Most people couldn't even find the nation on the map, if the map even still has the islands on it, anyway. Most maps simply warn you of the radiative zone that encompasses the entire region, discouraging you from going there for your own safety. As of recently some people have tried going, attempting to get a better view than the satellite images could provide, but they never return. Drones malfunction and are lost. Every attempt to record what is left of the nation from up close fails. How is such a thing even possible?
Rumors often go around in the circles of those that know. What can only be described as human activity can still be detected on the islands. Heat maps indicate levels of activity that simply cannot be caused naturally! Are they indications of population centers? There is still carbon dioxide production in some areas! What is using up the oxygen?
People often joke about mutated monsters inhabiting the island. Animals couldn't be evacuated of course, and only birds and fish could leave on their own terms. Squirrels with four eyes and six tails, two jawed foxes that can spit acid, deers with laser eyes and glowing antlers, the monkeys from the zoo's becoming sapient and starting their own society, using whatever was still standing of humanity's buildings.
Probably the most boring answer though is that maybe there are still people living there, whatever form they may take. After all, they couldn't literally flatten the entirety of Japan, and even if the radiation spread far, it couldn't have spread everywhere. There were several years between Hiroshima and the full assault. Something must've been done, right? Maybe there's just people living in the little abandoned, isolated corners of the nation, who've long since forgotten about their own country.
It's not like anyone will know until they reach out themselves.
~For being called the city of death, Shini city was terribly boring. Despite the name, Yuko was fairly confident this wasn't the afterlife. Sure, there was once a plague over two-hundred years ago that nearly wiped it out that justified the name, but right at this moment? It was too normal, and really, why would people be born as babies into the afterlife? If Yuko remembered correctly then your spiritual essence would just move on to the afterlife, not become an entirely new person.
People still needed to eat, too. Rice was grown in the outskirts of the city in large plantations, and there were multiple insect farms. Grub was the most common, as the easiest to farm and most filling option, but crickets were also common. There were more, but those were expensive and rare. Yuko couldn't remember the last time she had honey or fruit, grown in the rich gardens of the West District.
Like the plague also made clear, people still died, too. If this was the afterlife, then people definitely wouldn't die when they well… died. They wouldn't have bodies that could get sick by a plague or get the Bloat or crushed in a cave and die.
Yuko wondered often if maybe Shini wasn't meant to be the city of death at all. She remembered a story her great grandfather would tell sometimes of his own great grandmother, which was once again passed down, and whenever he told the story like she told him, Yuko remembered that she would use shi, rather than yon, as a way to refer to the number four. Great grandfather never thought much of it, but it was something that always stuck with her.
So if Yuko was right, then Shini city was actually forty-two city. It made even less sense than death at first glance. Forty-two what? People? Maybe if you multiply it by hundred, at least when the city was founded. Buildings? That would be arbitrary. Years? Since or until when?
The only way that number would make sense would be if this was the forty-second city. Yuko hoped that was the case. That somewhere in the kegare oozing tunnels there were other cities out there. Other people that maybe didn't suck as much as the people here. That the world was so much bigger than this boring, miserable city.
It's not like people could just leave to find them. Thanks to the kegare, leaving the city was forbidden. You'd only get lost and never return, starving as you wallowed in the kegare, at least if you're lucky enough to not just get the Bloat and find your way back just to be put out of your misery.
If it wasn't for how horrific the Bloat was, Yuko would've snuck out ages ago. The possibility of seeing something new, or even of dying by the hands of some mysterious monster was more intriguing than the continued fight for survival she was in every day. City would probably be better off too, with one less delinquent eating precious food and using up water and air. Her seat in class would just be free for someone else to take rather than being empty but “reserved” most of the time, and the bandages and alcohol she needed for her injuries could go to some other sod who needed it.
Yuko sighed and let go of the rag she was pressing into her arm. At least the worst of the bleeding had stopped. The cut wasn't pretty, though; she was going to feel that for a while. Rummaging through her patchwork backpack, she retrieved one of her spare bandages.
Damn bastard had pulled out a knife in a fist fight. She was lucky he'd only nicked her arm before she'd managed to kick him in the groin and flee. All that effort for a few extra credits, wasted. She'd just wanted some salt and pepper too, to make the grub less bland. The thought of the same flavorless meals made her gag as she wiped the blood off. Then she wrapped it up tightly and tried not to think about it for the time being. The throbbing in her arm made it difficult, however.
Satisfied with her work regardless, Yuko started packing her things to go home and clean up. Ready to leave, she carefully poked her head out of her little alcove high up in the outer wall. It provided a nifty view of the East District of Shini, able to count every bulb in the ceiling and nearly every building, glued together in an almost brick-like layout, on the ground. When her feet hit the ground, the lights flickered.
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