44 Usagi Days / Ruby-Colored Days, Pt 5

- 44.1 -

Dumb of her. She should've gone to Violet and Ivy's directly, after she got turned away at the top of the funicular. But she just couldn't bear to face them again, so soon after that tearful good-bye.

Too late now. Well, maybe it was better that Ruby didn't look for them—she wouldn't want to involve them in … whatever was going on now.

She sat on the bed, and waited.

… For what?

- 44.2 -

She took stock of her inventory. No access to food, except for a box of protein bars, and two packs of instant noodles she never ate, because she didn't like the flavor. She still had running water, from her kitchen sink. No way to contact anyone.

She banged on the walls, but if her neighbors heard anything—she doubted they did, in the first place—nobody came to investigate.

She tore open the blinds of her window, the real one, that looked into the atrium, and banged on the glass. She tried to signal to anyone who would pass by, but nobody ever did. … Where was everyone? Even at night, you could expect at least one or two people passing by, on their way to the R.A.B.B.I.T.-Mart, or the vending machines. They (…who?) must have sealed off the surrounding corridor or something.

She banged on the walls, on the window, until her fists hurt. She screamed until her throat was sore.

But still, nobody came.

- 44.3 -

With Anemone's rifle, she smashed in the screen of her fake window, the monitor that displayed a constant feed of an artificial outside world, leaving a jagged, black void at the center.

The fake moon still flickered, now partially obscured by the spiderweb of cracked glass and the erratic glitches distoring the rest of the image. Jagged blocks of dark purple and bright green glitched across the screen randomly, making Ruby's otherwise dark room pulse with an eerie glow.

She didn't know why she did it.

- 44.4 -

She was too paranoid to fall asleep.

At some point the daytime lights outside came on. The smashed-in monitor tried its best to switch to a daytime view, but seemed to be having trouble, glitching between the moon and the sun.

She had made it to morning.

She sat on the bed, Anemone's rifle in her lap. Determined not to pass out. No matter what it took.

But they (once again, the same question … who!?) were watching her. And she knew they were watching her. And they must have known she was trying her best to stay awake.

And so they made it just that much easier for her to give in to the siren song of sleep.

A green-tinted gas began to seep in through the central cooling vents, quickly flooding the room.

Ruby shot up, immediately grabbed a towel and held it up against her mouth and nose. She looked around, desperate. Could she cover the vents with something? No tape. She tried to block the vents with some of her clothes, to no avail. She looked around some more. The toilet … If she had some kind of hose, she could try and breathe the air trapped in the pipes. As lovely as the idea sounded, she didn't have any sort of hose anyway—so the idea was out.

She was dizzy now. Her head pounding. The gas was making it hard to see, hard to focus. She found herself backed up against the corner.

Her eyelids were getting heavy. So heavy …

And then the world around her went blank.

- 44.5 -

Lights, above her. Bright. Fluorescent.

An unfamiliar ceiling.

Voices, several of them.

"… She's coming to. Better give her another sedative."

A sharp, stinging sensation in her arm.

The lights faded. Darkness, again.

- 44.6 -

Ruby Hanasaki found herself in a black void that stretched to infinity in all directions.

At first, she was alone.

And then she wasn't.

Her parents, her neighbors, her childhood friends in Hanasaki Village. They were all there, with her, in the void. She didn't even have time to call out to them, before they were all … dead. Again. Just like in real life. Brutally slaughtered by—… Orcs? She wasn't sure. She couldn't see the attackers this time. But before Ruby could process what had happened, the black void reset, once more.

Now the Usagi appeared in front of her. The pink kei-car. She approached it. She ran her hands over the body. That familiar, cool metal. Was it somehow … different?

The windows were tinted—which was weird, because they weren't in real life. Ruby brought her face in close. Was there … someone behind the wheel?

A big, hulking mass. Its skin … green?

She couldn't see its face very clearly. But from where she stood, behind that darkened window glass, she could tell it was grinning.

A horrible, wicked grin.

Those crooked, sharp yellow teeth.

Its eyes began to glow.

And then—

- 44.7 -

—and then she woke up, screaming.

Ruby Hanasaki sat up in a hospital bed, drenched in cold sweat.

She looked around. The steady beep of a pulse monitor. A bunch of wires and needles sticking into her left forearm.

She didn't know where she was. Somewhere in Ithaca, presumably.

There was no one else around.

Her head was spinning. It was hard to see and think clearly. Ruby figured she was still pretty drugged up, with whatever they'd put her on.

She clumsily ripped out the IVs and wires off her. It took her almost half an hour to do. Her hands were weak, numb. There was a disconnect, a kind of lag, between her thoughts, and the rest of her body.

With the wires out, she sat on the edge of the bed, her feet on the floor. She stayed like that for a very long time.

… How long had it been since the gas at her apartment?

Maybe she didn't want to know.

She felt like throwing up.

She tried to stand. Every movement seemed to send the room spinning. She staggered, knocking over a nearby table. With tremendous effort, she managed to steady herself again.

If took her an entire ten minutes just to make it to the door, holding on to the wall for balance every step of the way.

The automatic door slid open, and she stumbled into a cold, bright, sterile-looking hallway. It was so quiet.

She tried to call out (Now, are you sure that's the best idea right now, Ruby?), but no sound came out her mouth.

There were so many doors in the hallway. She didn't know where they lead to. She didn't know what she was even looking for.

Whatever drugs she was on, they were still in full effect. She saw shapes moving in her peripheral vision, that disappeared as soon as she turned her head to look at them. She didn't know what was real. Maybe this hallway was just a dream, too.

The hallway went on and on. She didn't think it would ever end.

Exhausted, she leaned against the wall. The door in front of her. Same as all the other doors. Nothing special about it.

Might as well see where it lead.

… Right?

She pressed the button beside it, and the door slid open with a hiss.

- 44.8 -

The inside of the room was dark. She couldn't see anything.

She shuffled further in.

"H-hello?" Her voice was still weak, but at least it was working now.

The door hissed shut behind her, startling her.

Pitch black now.

Was she hearing things, or was something … breathing? Low, deep. Menacing.

It wasn't too late. She could still turn back.

But before she could, a single light flickered on. Right by her feet, a white light coming up from the floor.

Another came on, just down the line. And another. And another. Each new light revealing more of the room. They were forming a path, leading straight to the center of the room. When the lights reached their destination, then the entire room lit up.

Ruby blinked, shielding her eyes from the sudden harshness. When her eyes finally adjusted, she lowered her hand, to reveal, in the middle of the room, a gigantic, see-through circular cage. An observation tank of some kind.

… And the Orc inside it.

It knelt on the floor of its cage, facing away from Ruby. The hulking muscles of its green back. Even kneeling, it towered over her.

Without looking back, he spoke, in a deep, booming, terrible voice.

"Welcome in!" he cried. "Welcome in …"

He turned his head back, just barely. Enough for Ruby to see the hint of a yellow grin. "… Hanasaki Ruby."