14

Countdown: 153 Days Remaining.

When Makoto finally peeled himself off Rui’s shoulder, he’d soaked through the fabric of Rui’s shirt. The boy held him tight a moment longer, then he let Makoto pull away.

Makoto mopped his face on his sleeve and replaced his respirator, taking a deep breath to warm it up. He couldn’t afford to lose more energy.

Rui smoothed out the wrinkles in his clothes and readjusted them to make sure every inch of his skin was still covered, then he wiped away a few stray tears from his cheeks. He tried to give Makoto a comforting pat on the shoulder, but Makoto was just out of reach, and Rui didn’t dare move forward. His hand hovered awkwardly in the air for a moment, then dropped to his side.

“I’m sorry,” Makoto said, but he wasn’t sure who he was speaking to. He couldn’t look down, knowing that Sumire would still be seated by his feet, motionless forevermore.

“I shouldn’t be like this,” Makoto said, mostly to himself. He forced his body to straighten, wiping at his face again even though there was nothing there. “We’ll all be dead by winter anyways.”

Although the words sounded harsh, it calmed him. It reminded him not to stay attached to anyone he met, because everyone -- himself included -- was living on borrowed time.

“And most of us already are,” Rui said softly, finishing the thought. Discomfort twisted in his features. He shifted on his feet and looked around the area.

Makoto saw the instant his body tensed, every muscle on high alert. His hands balled into fists at his side, and his face tightened into a scowl, mechanical eye shining a bright red once again.

Despite following his gaze, Makoto saw nothing out of the ordinary on the crumbling station wall. Performing a heat scan then and energy scan revealed no sign of human presence nearby.

“I have to go,” Rui said. His voice had dropped an octave, and it dripped with pure, unadulterated hatred.

He had only moved a few steps when Makoto lunged out, reaching for Rui’s arm. He clung to his partner desperately despite Rui’s attempts to pull away. “Where are you going? What are you going to do?”

“One of them is still close enough for me to track,” Rui growled, trying again to pull free. He was stronger than Makoto, and Makoto struggled to hang on.

“Please don’t go,” Makoto begged, readjusting his grip even as Rui twisted his arm.

The red-haired boy turned back with anger contorting his features. “I can’t force you to fight, and you can’t force me to be a pacifist.” When Makoto opened his mouth to protest again, a hopeless attempt to keep Rui with him, Rui interjected, “They killed everyone you know! They showed your family no mercy; why are you protecting them?” His voice echoed in the empty space around them, bouncing off what remained of the walls.

Finally he managed to pull away and head towards the exit, almost running out of the station. Taking one last look at Sumire, and despite his reluctance to leave her, he chased after Rui.

“I’m not trying to protect them,” he called. Rui stayed well ahead of him, putting more distance between them with each leap of his long legs. “I’m trying to protect you!” Makoto yelled as loud as he could, but he was out of breath, and his body was exhausted from all the energy he’d already expended. He wasn’t sure Rui would hear him, even though he could still clearly hear Rui’s staggered breathing a few feet ahead.

Rui slowed, giving Makoto a chance to catch up. He stopped and turned around to say, “The men from before, whose organs you fixed, did any of them have altered lungs?”

Makoto paused, taken aback by the sudden change. It took his sluggish brain a moment to catch up, and he asked, “Was it them? Are you sure?”

Rui nodded, and asked again, “So did they?” When Makoto shook his head, he asked, “And you routed mine back to use solely the mechanical one, right?” His voice was still rough, edged with anger alongside the urgency. He looked back down the path he’d been following.

“Yes, but-”

“Then I’ll be fine,” Rui said. “Go back to camp. Granny was still alive, remember? Maybe you can help her.” The confliction on Rui’s face told Makoto that the boy knew what he was saying -- what he was doing -- was cruel, but there was nothing that could stop him. Determination burned in both of his eyes, outweighing the anger. Makoto didn’t try to stop Rui as he took off running again, disappearing down a side street.

Instead he stood alone, surrounded by the cold harshness of reality crashing down around him. He’d never been one to need companionship, but in this moment, he’d never felt more lonely. The abandonment, this moment of pure isolation, made Makoto realize just how much he had grown used to Rui’s near constant presence in his life, and how desperately he wanted to keep the boy close, if only to save himself from the haunting silence of his ruined hometown.

Yet he turned away and made his way back to what remained of his camp.

Makoto’s hands went numb as he lowered himself into the hatch, finding the ladder he’d climbed less than an hour ago. He still felt the weight of Sumire’s frail body on his back, and how her hands had wrapped around his neck. He yearned to hear her voice, to see her smile, just one last time, but he never would again. She was still slumped outside, motionless and cold, and he didn’t have the will to move her.

Upon reaching the ground, he forced himself to turn on the advanced night vision and look towards the camp. He’d gone out the hatch that was closest to the camp, and from his vantage point, he could see where Sumire had been laying when he found her.

She was still alive, just a few hours ago. She was still hanging on, still able to talk. Now she’s gone. The thoughts froze his feet, paralyzing his body until he couldn't continue. He couldn’t stand to look at the pile of blankets where she used to be, to remember all the moments she had looked up at him as he approached or smiled at the idea of being able to go outside again. In the end, she got her wish, if only for a few brief moments.

The thought brought little consolation.

Makoto forced himself to move forward, hating how loudly his footsteps echoed in the empty space. There had always been an echo, but now it felt haunting and eerie, speaking to how vacated the camp had become.

As he approached, he saw Granny, still leaning against a pillar. He didn’t dare run vitals from his distance, too scared of what he might see. Instead he looked off towards where the other two camp members, the father and son who’d come from Mitakadai, were laying, motionless. Even though Rui had warned him that the other camp members hadn’t made it through the massacre, seeing them laying so still at the outskirts of their camp made his stomach twist into a knot.

His legs struggled to walk. He felt as though he was trying to move through cooling concrete and would soon be locked in place. The air around him thickened until he could barely breathe.

A movement in his peripheral vision caught his attention. For a moment -- a brief, shattering moment -- he thought it was Sumire, as though he had forgotten she was gone. When he turned towards it, he saw Granny looking at him.

She sat leaning against her usual pillar, her head resting on her shoulder like she didn't have the strength to hold it up. She blinked at him, and her mouth opened to say something, but no sound came out.

Makoto knelt down beside her and forced himself to run a scan of her vitals. Her pulse was slower than usual, and her body temperature dropped steadily. The only statistic that remained consistent to her usual reading was her brain activity.

Her neck lit up a deep red shade, signifying that something was wrong with her enhanced throat. He saw that the maintenance port at the base of her throat was torn, being weaker than the ports one would use on the chest or abdomen. Otherwise, nothing was missing.

The blood on Granny’s hands and face didn’t seem to belong to her, as she had only a small dried trickle from her neck. Scratch marks ran up and down her arms, but little skin had been broken.

Her leg, on the other hand, was bent to an alarming angle beside her, and had gone completely dark on the scan. No blood flowed to or from it, indicating a dead limb.

Before Makoto could worry about possibly needing to amputate, Granny reached out with a shaking hand and took his wrist. Her fingers were ice-cold and had little grip strength.

She leaned closer to him, and croaked, “I’m sorry.” A gurgling sound indicated blood in her throat, explaining the dark red color on the scan.

“I’ll take care of your throat first,” Makoto said, sniffling loudly and clearing his own throat so he could be understood more easily. His voice was heavy from the weight of his sorrow.

Granny shook her head. “Don’t help me,” she said, now barely over a whisper. She had given up on using her voice and was making little sound. Makoto had to turn his hearing up to its highest level and lean close to her lips to hear her speak. “I don’t want to be helped.”

“But Granny-” Makoto started, tears of desperation welling in his eyes. She was the only surviving camp member, and the only tie to his old life in the Before. If he couldn’t help her…

“I’ve lived far too long,” she said, waving his protests away. “Everyone from my old life is gone, and now so is almost everyone from my new life. I’m not worth the effort of maintaining, with nobody left to keep company. I just wanted to say goodbye to you, and thank you for all you have done.”

Makoto shook his head, the first of a new wave of tears rolling down his cheeks. He couldn’t meet her eyes as he said, “I couldn’t do anything, not when it mattered. I left all of you, and I came back too late. I couldn’t even save her, in the end.” Everything I did amounted to nothing. I abandoned all of them when they needed me the most.

Granny let go of his arm to gently lift his chin and make him look at her. “There was nothing you could have done.” Her eyes were kind, and there was not even a hint of accusation in them, only compassion. “They all came in at once. None of us saw them until it was too late. Even the men, as able-bodied as the pair of them were, couldn’t fight off more than a few. You and Rui would have been casualties too, if you’d been here.”

As much as Makoto knew what she said was true, especially since he couldn’t fight off even the weakest opponent, he shook his head anyway, unwilling to let himself off easy. He didn’t deserve to be forgiven, not when he was the sole survivor of the original camp.

“I could have taken Sumire out of here. I could have taken you out of here. Rui could have helped the other two. We could have done something, if only I hadn’t left.” If we could have saved at least one person, it would have been worthwhile. “Or,” he continued, stabbing himself with his own words. “I could have saved them, right after the fight, if I’d returned sooner. I could have saved Sumire. I could have fixed her organs before the necrosis set in and-”

Granny cut him off, covering Makoto’s mouth with a gnarled, shaking hand. “She was almost gone before they arrived, Makoto.” Tears shimmered in her lashes. “That poor girl wouldn’t have made it through the night, even if all of this hadn’t happened. You shouldn’t be forced to carry such a heavy burden when there was nothing you could have changed.”

Makoto couldn’t hold back the sob that burst from his throat. To others, it may have come as consolation to know that one couldn’t have changed the outcome -- to Makoto, it was the worst thing he could hear. Knowing he was helpless, that no matter how hard he tried, he could only stave off the inevitable for so long, made him want to throw in the towel.

What’s the point in trying so hard if we’re all going to die, no matter what we do? What’s the point in surviving summer only for winter to kill us off?

He took hold of Granny’s hand, pulling it off his face, and lamented how cold she was growing. No matter how tightly he wrapped his bare fingers around hers, he couldn’t transfer any warmth to the old lady.

“It shouldn’t have ended like this,” Makoto said. “How did they find us? Why did they find us? What could they possibly have wanted from our small group?” He wasn’t asking Granny so much as the world, the unjust god watching over him, who’d taken away everything he once held dear. For all he knew, Rui could be dead now, too.

Granny shook her head. “I don’t know. They took organs from the others, whatever they could salvage, but I suppose they had little use for my old throat. But I don’t know how, or why.”

Makoto couldn’t stop himself from asking, “Was it-”

“Shu wasn’t with them,” Granny said, cutting him off. Her eyes chastised him. “As much as that young man claimed to not care for us, he never would have knowingly put the camp in danger. Wherever he went, this wasn’t his doing.”

Makoto nodded, agreeing easily. Shu was reckless and loudmouthed, but he had never been cruel.

“Makoto,” Granny said, her grip on his hand weakening with each shaky breath she took. “Will you do this old woman one last favor?”

Makoto nodded. “Anything you need,” he said, already running another scan though he knew that she wouldn’t let him help her. The tight line of her lips revealed she had made her decision and would stick to it, no matter what he said. It was the same determination she had shown when defending Sumire from Shu’s onslaught of misdirected anger. How long ago those simpler days now seem…

“Will you keep me company for a little longer? It’s cruel of me to ask, but it feels so lonely down here without the other voices.”

“Of course,” Makoto said, trying to keep his voice steady. He forced himself to hold back tears, as he wanted nothing to inhibit his memory of these final moments with the last person from his life in the Before. He wanted to burn every second into his mind, and force himself to carry this burden with him as he left.

Granny relaxed into the pillar, loosening her grip on his hand as she thanked him with a gentle smile. Looking off into the distance, she said, “It’s about time I join my children and grandchildren. I’m sure they’ve been waiting for me.”

“Do you remember your life in the Before now, Granny?” he asked gently, hiding how much his voice shook. He felt his lips tremble as he uttered the question.

“It’s been coming back to me,” she said slowly, her words slurring as she closed her eyes. “Piece by piece. Happy memories, mostly. I’d like to go before the bad ones come, so I can greet my family with nothing but smiles.” After a short pause, she said, “Take care of Rui, but let him take care of you too. You need someone to lean on…” As she trailed off, Makoto knew with a heavy heart that these would be the last words Granny would ever speak.

Her hand let go of his, and she was gone, too.