Chapter 7: Plan activated

At the middle of the night, me and Ai heard Hitori and Karina talking, they were eating ramen and discussing casually as though they weren’t about to kill Hinata, my blood was boiling. 

Me and Ai woke up Hinata and the others, we left the bomb on the stairs, it would explode in 1 minute, that should be the time we take to escape. 

We all crawled out of the upstairs window and quickly scaled down the brick wall. There were only 10 seconds left, without thinking, we ran as fast as possible, Miyoko and Ai knocked into each other. 

Hinata grabbed my hand and there were 5 seconds left. We kept running until we neared a cliff, the bomb then exploded. We could see the fire and smoke from it, the bomb didn’t affect us but the explosion pushed us off the cliff. 

I closed my eyes, bracing myself for the impact, I then lost consciousness. 

I then started to dream….I imagined being in a beautiful garden where cherry blossom trees surrounded me, their petals dwindling in the light as they fell off the tree. I immediately thought I was in heaven, I saw Hinata. He didn’t speak, he just smiled. I remembered this beautiful world, the world we took for granted every day, that suddenly got destroyed. 

I then opened my eyes and realized I was in a dilapidated building, my clothes were covered in ashes and Miyoko was standing next to me. “You went unconscious from the bomb but I took you here,” Miyoko said.

I was lying on a bed under beige blankets, Hinata and Wei were on beds next to me. 

“I think this is a old hospital that survived the asteroid, anyway, Ai…she didn’t make it,” Miyoko said, crying. “I was able to get away quick enough but Ai…didn’t survive,” Miyoko continued, sobbing at this point. I felt tears fall from my eyes. 

“I don’t know if Hinata or Wei will survive, they fell unconscious like you did but luckily they are still breathing,” Miyoko said. 

“Are we going to bury Ai?” I asked. “Yes, but we will wait for the others to heal first,” Miyoko said, shakily. Then I saw Hinata’s eyes start to open, “what happened and where are we?” He asked. “I took you all to a dilapidated hospital but…Ai,” she said, pointing to Ai’s limp body on the floor. 

“Oh no! Did Kiko survive?” Hinata asked. “Yes, I did survive,” I said. 

“Good, we need food though, my garden probably got all burned up by the bomb, we should have thought about this more,” Hinata said. 

Wei woke up “what is all this ruckus?” He asked, holding his nintendo switch. 

“It’s good you are alive, I was able to take us to a hospital for you all to rest,” Miyoko said. “But Ai didn’t make it, it is my fault,” Miyoko said. 

“No, it is not, there was nothing you could do, if we didn’t do this plan, we all would have gotten killed by Hitori sooner or later,” I said, trying to comfort Miyoko. Miyoko smiled weakly. 

“Let’s go back to the house and see what we can salvage,” Hinata said. We all walked to the house and it was almost unrecognizable, everything was covered in ash, we saw Hitori and Karina’s bodies in the living room. 

The only thing we found was some of Hinata’s seed packets we could use to garden. “Do you have any seed packets for food?” Miyoko asked. 

“Yes, I have some vegetable and fruit seeds,” Hinata said thoughtfully, we all went back to the hospital. “I guess this will be our home now, the other one is way too broken,” I said. 

“Wait! The babies, The ones we were meant to care for, did they survive!?” I asked, shocked we totally forgot about them. “Yes, they probably did, we keep the babies nursery in a bunker incase something like this happens again,” Miyoko said calmly. 

“But we should bring them here and care for them,” Hinata said. We went back and brought the babies, I carried two and Hinata was somehow able to carry four. 

We took them to the hospital, along with some supplies in the nursery, like diapers and bottles of milk. 

“What should we name them?” Miyoko asked. “Hmm, maybe we should call that one Ai, after our friend,” Wei said kindly, he then looked a little embarrassed after he said the idea. “Great idea, Wei!” Miyoko said, clapping her hands perkily. 

“Maybe we should call that one Kira,” I said, Kira was the name of my mom, who died in the asteroid strike. “Sure,” Hinata said. 

After we got all the babies named, we started to plant the seeds that Hinata had. “I think cucumbers would be useful, at least then we would have something to eat,” I said. “Yeah, we can plant those first,” Miyoko said. 

Hinata also planted some cherry blossom trees to “make the place look pretty”. 

This was a lot of responsibility for us and we were very tired by the end of the day but we still had to bury Ai. Hinata only had his gardening shovel but we decided to opt for that since we had no other choice. 

It took a while to dig a hole and bury her in it but when we were done we said a small prayer for Ai that she reaches the ame (heaven in shintoism). 

We then went to sleep which we definetely needed since today was tiring.