“I Don’t Know”

The memories of that day slowly fade away as I silently stare at the exact same location where Dahlia had died. The grass that was stained in a dark velvet red from the blood that pooled from beneath her stomach was now replaced with a layer of snow so fresh and white that it was as if nothing had ever happened there.

But I remembered. I remembered all too well. It was one of the few things that managed to burn itself into my memory, despite how bad it was.

However, the thing that bothered me the most from the incident was the smile that formed on her face upon seeing me. It wasn’t because I thought that people couldn’t be happy in their last dying moments, but rather, it was because I remembered knowing why Dahlia had smiled but could no longer recall the reasoning behind it.

If only I wasn’t an Esper… I thought, then I wouldn’t have to force myself to deal with this stupid ability of mine…. and more importantly, I would’ve never been drafted into this war… none of us would’ve.

I knew that if Dahlia was here listening to my thoughts, she would’ve said, “but then we would’ve never met each other”, but to me, sometimes it was better to have never met someone than to have met them once and then spend the rest of your days missing them.

Why am I even here? I wondered, as I forgot the reason why I came to the Carolds Farm in the first place, but as I was contemplating in my sorrow and all the possibilities that never happened, I suddenly hear a pair of footsteps crunching in the snow.

“Lily?” a familiar voice says.

I turn around to see Max and Lyra standing behind me, wrapped in their winter coats and scarves with a pair of gardening tools in their hands, and before I could even get a word out, Lyra immediately runs to hug me, dropping her tools along the way.

“I’m soryyy!!!” she sobs out as she digs her face into my coat, “we shouldn’t have—I should’ve have snuck out that night… but we—”

“You didn’t know…” I quietly murmur, gently patting her back.

Max doesn’t say a word, and instead looks down at the snow with a solemn expression on his face.

That’s right… she remembered, that’s what I’m here for…

                                                                         -ˋˏ ༻❁✿❀༺ ˎˊ-

“So…” Max starts the conversation, placing a tea set on the table before sitting next to Lyra on the other side, “how have you been?”

I take a cup of tea from the tray, looking around at the rebuilt greenhouse around us.

“I’ve been… managing…” I replied, “I’ve started helping out at the Akizuki Farm since it’s getting harder to find food elsewhere with everything that’s going on.”

“That’s good to hear,” he said, “not the food supply thing, but that you managed to secure one… it’s getting pretty scary out there and I’m honestly surprised that our farms haven’t gotten raided yet.”

“Well if they want to get to our farms then they’d have to get through me first,” I joked, “but the Akizukis have been proactively preventing that from happening. Mr. Akizuki says that he’s farming because he wants to continue feeding the world, but at the same time, because the cities around this area are being supplied with food, there hasn’t been a reason to attack our farms yet.”

I knew exactly what Max was worried about. The cities further away from the mountain range were in total chaos, and while that didn’t necessarily mean that there weren’t any cities being burned near the farms, there definitely was an obvious contrast between how the cities further away tended to descend into madness while the cities closer were more inclined to fall to apathy and depression.

“The Akizukis are smart people, even if they don’t always seem that way,” Max remarks.

I nod my head, fondly remembering Dahlia’s personality with what fragments I had of her. As I look over to Lyra however, I notice her opening her mouth to say something but then closing it again as if changing her mind.

“Is there something wrong Lyra?” I asked.

“I just… wanted to know why you came to visit,” Lyra replied, her voice slightly filled with guilt, “When I saw you looking over the place where Nozomi had died, I thought that maybe you didn’t know where her grave was, but then you said you were staying over at the Akizukis so I figured you might already know… which leaves me wondering… why else would you come back here…”

“Not that you aren’t welcome,” Max adds, giving his sister a playful sneer.

“Oh right…” I said, “I came by because I saw the package that you guys sent earlier today.”

The twins froze.

“You know… Dahlia—er Nozomi as you guys know her—wouldn’t have wanted you to feel guilty over what happened,” I continued, “if she had ever regretted saving you for even a second she wouldn’t have made it in time to do so.”

“But still, we shouldn’t have—”

“BUT YOU DIDN’T KNOW!” I suddenly shouts, cutting her off and surprising even myself with the sudden outburst. “You didn’t know…” I repeated, softer this time, “what you guys were doing wasn’t wrong—you just wanted to give her a gift, and there was no way to know that the Wilted were in the area. So stop judging yourselves as if you should’ve known… it’s not fair.”

Max and Lyra stare at each other, their faces still riddled with guilt.

“...Do you remember the rest of the Espers in our squadron?” I asked.

They nodded.

“...All of them are dead now…” I continued as they let out an audible gasp, “so… I know how you guys feel, I really do… I blamed myself over and over again after each of their deaths, and it took me a really long time to accept that none of them were my fault. That’s why… I’m not asking you to stop sending the packages, and I’m not asking you to forgive yourselves right now. All I’m asking is for you to promise me that one day you’ll stop blaming yourselves—at least before the world comes to an end.”

Because that’s what Dahlia would’ve wanted.

The twins silently looked at me for a moment before running over to give me a hug.

“We will,” Max promised, “and… I’m sorry about the rest of your squadron… I didn’t know them for long, but they seemed like good people.”

They were, I silently thought.

“Thanks,” I replied.

As the two of them affirmed their promises, I felt a part of my old self return to me—a part of me that had laid dormant after everyone’s deaths. It was too faint for me to recognize what exactly it was at the moment, and the feeling had disappeared as quick as it came—but it was there.

“...You know, what you did just now reminded me of how Nozomi used to come comfort us when we were sad,” Lyra said, “I’m sure that… I’m sure that if she was still here, she would be the one comforting us about something like this…”

I pat her head and lightly ruffling it a bit just like what Dahlia used to do, as Max stands up and tries to lighten the mood.

“So,” he said pointing around at the greenhouse, “Lyra and I have been busy on other things as you can see.”

Seeing her favorite topic of flowers being brought up, Lyra’s eyes begin to light up.

“Oh right…” she says, enthusiasm building in her voice, “we’re taking a page out of Nozomi’s book and trying to stay a little more optimistic about how things are going, so… we’ve embarked on a mission that we’ve always wanted to do; which is growing one of every single type of flower in the world!”

I looked around the greenhouse, noticing the improved assortment of flowers they had.

“Once we successfully grow a flower we keep them in these little capsules that preserve them for up to 2 years,” Max says, pulling out a box from a cabinet in their mini workshop and opening it up to reveal an array of large capsules about the size of a person’s hand.

“Which is more than enough time given that we only have a year left,” Lyra says, a bit less enthusiastically than before, “but we’ll hopefully get everything before that happens. What about you Lily? What’s been keeping you going other than working on the farm?”

Well? I thought, what is it Lily? What’s your answer?

But as I sat there pondering the question for a while, I realized that at this point I still didn’t have one.

“I… I’m thinking about it,” I replied.

                                                                          -ˋˏ ༻❁✿❀༺ ˎˊ-

“What’s been keeping you going?”

I don’t know.

I quietly trudged through the path towards my house.

What do you want to do during your last year on Flos?

I don’t know.

I reach the front porch and open the door.

Then why are you still living if you don’t know what you’re going to do?

…I don’t know.

Upon entering my house for the first time in weeks, I paused for a moment upon seeing the photo wall. I had strategically covered up parts of it using random objects around the house such as a tall vase and a lamp, not having the heart to tear the whole thing down, however, even without directly seeing what was behind it, I knew exactly what kind of photos they hid—and the indirect reminder of them causes a chilling question to appear in my mind.

What was the point of surviving everything then?

“I… I don’t know…” I replied, this time, out loud, my voice cracking just a bit, as I let my body slump to the ground.

I had been using the farm work to bottle up my emotions until now, but the earlier conversation with Max and Lyra had triggered them once more, causing me to unconsciously walk back to her home like a moth to a flame.

It was just supposed to be a visit to cheer them up so… why? Why did it end up like this? Why does everything I do always make me end up like this?! I didn’t used to be like this so why?!

Everybody else around me seemed to have one last they wanted to accomplish during their last year, but me? Every day seemed to only exist to stall my inevitable death.

As I look around the house, one by one, I start seeing and noticing the things that I had been purposely keeping out of my sight by staying at Dahlia’s farm—my bag of photos, my camera bulging out from its side… and my gun that was tucked away in its holster placed right next to it on the ground.

“Promise me you won’t do anything rash,” my words to the commander echo back at me.

“But why…? Why must I continue on like this? What was the point in surviving everything if I’m going to die in a year anyway!?” I yell out as I grab my bag and toss it across the house, causing the photos and my camera to fall out.

Closing my eyes so as to not look at them, I began kicking and throwing around any nearby object I could grab, exerting my anger and frustration into a fit of violence on other things in order to prevent me from exerting it onto myself.

“WHY WHY WHY WHY!?” I continue to scream, tears streaming from my eyes.

I was sick of the dark thoughts haunting my mind, but was unable to rid myself of them as my rage suddenly caused me to knock over the vase on the table causing it to smash into pieces on the floor.

Shocked back into reality by the loud sound, I looked over where the vase used to be and caught a glimpse of the photo it was covering up—a beautiful photo of me and my team standing on top of a hill overlooking an ocean under the twilight sky.

Then, as the memories associated with the photo begin to flood into my mind, the first to come to me was something that Dahlia said as if in response to my previous questions:

“Because you’ll remember us.”