What Can You (Not) Do?

“The Gloom does not discriminate. It will attack, it will destroy, it will suffocate all life. It may only be the trees now, but it is not a matter of if, but when it decides to start destroying everything else.”

Dr. Subaru Yoshida

Back on the surface, first responders continued to struggle to open up the remaining train cars. The fight had lasted for over an hour at this point. The effects of the magical anomaly lingered even after all this time.

“Stop pushing!” one of the firefighters shouted through the walls of the train. “Hold it! Hold it! HOLD IT!!” At long last, they had managed to force open the train doors. One by one, everyone in the two train cars escaped, running to safety. The last person in what was left of the train was Melody, still holding onto the door that would have separated one car from another. She had not moved from that spot the entire time.

“Miss?” a firefighter tried to get her attention. “Miss, are you okay?”

Melody turned to look at the firefighter, revealing a despondent, empty stare.

“It's all my fault…” was all Melody could say.

“No, no,” the firefighter replied as he went to comfort her. “This isn't your fault. It was just a horrific accident.”

Neither of them spoke for at least two minutes after that.

“Putting him on this train was my idea…” Melody finally continued. “Now he's gone…”

“Miss, I assure you whoever you're looking for, we'll do our best to find him. I promise.”

The firefighter finally led Melody out of the train, allowing her to see the full extent of the damage. An enormous gaping maw fifty meters wide and fifty or sixty meters deep had opened up in the Earth. The black sludge continued to flow into the hole, potentially making it even deeper. It was difficult for people to survive such a fall under normal circumstances; being inside a metal box made survival much less likely.

•

Deep inside the hole, Kenta and the bodybuilder were just about to put their plan into action. One by one, the surviving passengers would be flown out of the hole by being carried out by the bodybuilder.

“Alright,” Kenta told the group, “Is everyone ready to go?”

The rest of the group nodded in agreement. Their plan prioritized the injured and the elderly, assuming (correctly) that first responders would be waiting for them at the top. The first one to be flown out was to be the old woman, the first survivor Kenta found. Several of the survivors suffered broken bones, cuts and scrapes, lesions, and severe bruises.

•

Melody stood at the edge of the abyss. What was going through her mind as she stood there, only she knew.

“I have to save him…”

Without even a second thought…

… she jumped in.

Everyone at the scene scrambled to do anything… in response to her jumping into the sinkhole. Nobody knew what to do, and many of the first responders had conflicting ideas.

“What the hell?!”

“Stop her!”

“She's already jumped, you idiot!”

“Someone get a rope!”

“Does anyone know how to fly?!”

“Don't panic! We'll take care of this!”

•

“Ready?” Kenta asked the bodybuilder as he wrapped his arms with great care around the old woman.

“Never been more ready in my life!” the bodybuilder replied with a massive smile.

“Oh, I've completely forgotten!” Kenta said. “I never asked you your name.”

“My name is Satoshi,” the bodybuilder answered.

“Nice to make your acquaintance,” Kenta told Satoshi.

Before anyone could make a move, the group heard a sudden splash nearby.

“What was that?” Satoshi asked.

“I'll take a look,” Kenta replied. “Just take care of the others.”

Satoshi did as he was asked, launching himself straight into the air with ease.

“Kenta!” the voice of a familiar catgirl called out to him. “Help!”

“Melody?” Kenta asked. “Melody! Hang on!”

Against his better judgment, Kenta leaped into the sludge. Well, leaped was a bit of a strong word. It looked more like a belly flop into a pool full of half-melted gelatin. Regardless, Kenta made his way over to the struggling Melody.

Under normal circumstances, Melody would have been a decent swimmer, despite being a catgirl. These were not normal circumstances. The sludge seemed to come alive, attacking Melody and actively trying to pull her down into the abyss. If he wanted to save her, Kenta had to fight that and resist a catgirl struggling with desperation in every breath to stay above the sludge.

Kenta had no experience in saving someone from drowning. He didn't even know why he was trying. All he knew was he had to try. Even though the sludge was just too thick to swim under, Kenta had managed to get an arm under Melody's shoulder. After several minutes of struggling, they had only made it maybe half a meter towards the train.

After a while more, Kenta noticed Melody was no longer struggling. He began to worry that she might have drowned. Freaking out in this situation, however, would have done neither of them any good. Kenta had to keep swimming.

“Need a hand?” a man asked them as he wrapped his hands around Kenta's shoulders. It was the bodybuilder, who had just jumped into the sludge himself.

“Satoshi?! What are you doing?” Kenta asked.

“Lending a hand!”

Satoshi managed to pull both Kenta and Melody out of the sludge and into the air. It took fifty-five seconds to do it, but he had flown the two of them far away from the hole and towards safety. Melody, however, had already fallen unconscious due to nearly drowning in the sludge. She was not breathing.

“Get back! Get back!” Paramedics screamed as they made their way over to Melody. “Everybody move!” They brushed aside Kenta, Satoshi, and everyone else who might have been trying to observe Melody so they could treat her more efficiently.

“Medkit! Right now!” the lead paramedic shouted. “Break the seal and hand it here!”

“Don't worry,” a nurse told the unconscious Melody, “everything is going to be alright.”

Once the medkit was opened, the lead paramedic pulled out a strange device that looked a bit like a wand, but had a giant loop at one end. He waved the device over Melody a couple of times. “Never seen a catgirl before,” he told the nurse.”

“They usually live in the south,” the nurse replied. “Much better weather for them.”

“A second heart. Jealous, honestly,” the lead paramedic observed. “Catgirls are unique among fairykind in that they can cheat death. No signs of cardiac activity.” He then grabbed a second, more regular wand and aimed it right at Melody's second heart, opposite her normal heart. “Just needs a little bit of magic to kickstart the process. Normally, her body would produce this magic itself, but the anomaly seems to be interfering with the process.”

“What do we do?” one of the other paramedics asked.

“You're going to be just fine, little catgirl,” the lead paramedic said to Melody. “Though, this might hurt a little. Or a lot. Zap It To You, Mate!!” The wand shot a bolt of electricity straight through Melody's body, jump-starting her second heart. In a matter of moments, she started gagging and coughing up sludge. She was alive, but barely. Once she coughed up some of that sludge, she started gasping for air. At last, her eyes opened back up. After a few more moments, she acted as if nothing had happened.

“All better?” the lead paramedic asked her.

“Did I just die?” Melody asked in response.

The lead paramedic nodded in reply. “Yeah…”

“Holy fluff…” Melody sighed. “I was hoping to not lose my first life so soon… I'm only twenty. So glad we have nine lives, though… Gods above, below, and all around, that was dumb of me.”

“Melody!” Kenta shouted as he tried to shove his way through medical staff. “What the hell did you do that for?!”

“I tried to save you!” Melody shouted back. “You were the one who fell sixty meters into a sinkhole!”

“Yeah, well that didn't do you any good, now did it?” Kenta snapped back.

“Nice to see you, too…” Melody replied with a tablespoon of sarcasm in her voice.

“Hey, Melody?” Kenta asked her as he finally was allowed to see her.

“What…”

“We gotta get going,” Kenta replied. “We've got company arriving.”

“Don't tell me… It's exactly who I think it is, isn't it?”

“Yeah…”

Melody sniffed the air. Something in that air caught her attention, leading her to say, “Home…”