Chapter 6:

I am a coward.

Amnesiac's ascendance


‘How about I introduce you to Hans and Yuki. The two that will help you sell water to Nurin.’ Hiro’s voice interrupted my intrusive thoughts.

‘Wh- Erm, yes that would be good.’

‘You’re very gloomy today. Or is it not just today?’

‘I think it’s because I am starting to grasp the reality of this time better, and with every step of that journey, my wish of stopping it for good rises. To put simpler, my hopefulness is being crushed by the truth of the world before me.’

‘That’s a very depressive, yet eloquent way to put it… I can’t deny, mankind is in one of a kind shithole, and even may perish soon. But in spite all of that, there is still much to cherish. Much to enjoy. Much to strive towards. Humanity has been through hell and back many times. I don’t know whether you remember any Earth’s history as you are now, but humans have lived through wars and diseases on scales so giant, it’s too difficult to process. Tens of millions have died at a time from these things. If you would pile the bodies, you would make mountains. The scale is too huge to comprehend correctly. Humanity found redemption every time. By man’s perseverance, curiosity, and the spirit to take every opportunity to progress and overcome any peril that stands on its way. Every human is but a fleeting sojourner.’

I started clapping.

‘And I am the eloquent one? Grandiosity does bear the ability to rejuvenate, and yet, if I am honest, I am so far gone that I can’t imagine anything bringing peace to my mind, but death.’ I was tearing up as I said that.

‘You know, in all my life, I have heard of only one suicide on Mars. Not a vain attempt of battling a stronger foe, truly self-inflicted death. It happened in one of the bigger settlements. It was an event that challenged my understanding of the world. I thought everyone’s was striving to survive above all. It was when I doubted that fallacy that I matured. So I understand how you feel. And because of that, the only advice that I can give is… Endure. And fulfill the purpose of a human – seek happiness until the very end.’ It was then that I realized that Hiro was profoundly intelligent. Much more than me. One vein of happiness came to mind.

‘I don’t know what to say to that, except that I’ll try. Thank you.’ I wavered for a moment, and got scared to try. ‘Could you please introduce me to the people I will be travelling with?’

‘Sure.’

I didn’t have the courage to make a move. Not in this situation. Even though I just agreed to try to seek happiness. Instead, I would continue to be seeking answers. Ah. What a coward I am. So eager to consider the easy way out. If my personality really had not changed from the amnesia, then maybe, it could be a once in a lifetime opportunity to be forced to rethink my worldview.

We went around the settlement until Hiro finally spotted Yuki, Hans was elsewhere.

‘Hey Yuki. This is Indra, the man who you will be escorting with Hans in a couple days.’

‘Hi. I was promised a face as bleak as mine, but you’re somewhat smug. Oh never mind, I guess I wasn’t lied to.’ I was already annoyed with her attitude. One could say that I was too hasty to judge, and they would be right. But annoyance is one of the harder things to control.

‘Hello. Would you care to tell something about yourself before we set out? I’d like to get to know this place and the people better.’

‘I’ve got a better idea. How about I take Hans, and we go play some games. Hiro, you can join too, if you want.’

‘I’m down to do that. Hiro?’

‘Let’s do this. But Yuki, we haven’t found Hans even though we walked around the majority of the settlement. Excluding personal rooms.’

‘That because he is in his room. At least I am confident that he is sleeping. He has told me that he would be trying to change his sleep schedule to fare better during our trip. But what I am even more confident in, is that he wouldn’t want to miss this. So let’s go wake him up.’

Following Yuki’s lead, we arrived at Hans’s door. She asked us to, so we knocked on it in unison with her. We could hear something that’s best described as muffled frustration. Or maybe that was so unintelligible for me because he was speaking in their language.

‘What did he say?’

‘Fuck knows.’ said Yuki and started talking so fast in their language, that you would think it was some kind of emergency. Hiro looked at Yuki in confusion. Shortly after, Hans opened the doors. His hair was messed up, but at least he had the time to put on his pants and shirt.

‘What th- Who’s this? Wait, why the fuck were you talking in Japanese to me?’

‘Hans doesn’t speak Japanese – our native language. But fortunately for him, and you, the majority of us speak English pretty well too. That has to do with how diverse the first settlers of Compor were. The majority was Japanese, while the others were from the English speaking countries.’ Said Hiro.

‘I’m sorry but “Japanese” says nothing to me.’

‘Why are you ignoring me?’ Hans did not get his questions answered.

‘I did that so you would get up faster. This is Indra, we will be travelling with him for a couple dozen hours, so we’re going to play some games and get to know each other. Don’t tell me you have more important things to do, because I won’t buy that shit.’

‘Well, I can’t refuse can I? Mate, lets destroy them.’

‘You want to play in teams?’ asked Hiro.

‘Might as well. Men versus women. The age-old conflict.’

‘Women versus women and men versus men are two conflicts that are just as age-old, but whatever, so be it. In the games that it is possible anyway. Let’s go.’ Hans closed the door and it stood out to me that he did not lock it as we left for the game room. My room didn’t have a lock too, so it seemed to be common.

‘What will we be playing?’ I asked because I had a hard time remembering any games at all. Hiro answered:

‘Gomoku, go, shogi, chess, maybe some computer games, the only problem with those is that there are a dozen games on the devices that still work after half a century, but 10 of those are for one player only.’

‘Also the computers are often occupied.’ Said Hans.

‘You would know you’re probably the biggest reason of that.’

‘Don’t say that Yuki, Indra will believe it.’

‘That is exactly what I want, the spreading of truth!’

‘I don’t play them that much.’

‘Oh yes you do.’

Soon we arrived to the recreation room. It had four computers, two tablets and many simple board games that I vaguely remembered. Our party started with explaining the rules for me, something which had to be done so many times that by the end even Hiro got tired of it. This quickly became very fun. Smug Yuki was constantly making fun of Hans but he didn’t seem to mind. Their chemistry was good. I felt comfortable in the group and was having a blast.

‘Why do you like bullying Hans so much?’ I said in a giggly tone.

‘Why wouldn’t I?’

‘That’s fuucked mate. You see how I am oppressed?’ said Hans.

‘Oh are you hurt?’ Yuki was thoroughly amused by this. ‘My baby boy gonna cry? You need a head pat?’ Hiro started laughing.

‘I’m gonna pay you back later.’ Hans squeezed Yuki’s hand.

‘I can’t wait.’ laughingly said Yuki and looked him dead in the eye, smiling. I started suspecting something.

‘Wait, are you…’

‘Yea, we fuck.’ said Yuki.

‘We’ll that’s a blunt way of putting it, you don’t feel any embarrassment in saying that, do you?’ I said, being surprised by how she answered.

‘Why would I? And make your move already. Mate.’

I laughed out loud and remembered to look at the game board. Even though our conversations produced the majority of my enjoyment, the games themselves served as a catalyst for banter and talking. A while later we got the four computers to ourselves and played a car race game, and a fighting game. I got “destroyed” in both of those. Mostly because of that, “the men” team lost.

Hans was a blond tall white guy, with somewhat well-kept dark facial hair, and a body as thin as mine. Yuki was of a pale complexion, surprisingly so, as she had to have been outside plenty of times, if she and Hans were tasked with babysitting me. There were some marks on her face, which could be from old sunburns. Her hair was completely black, and body somewhat petite. She had pigtails.

As much enjoyable this party was, it also made me remember many things. Such as the existence of cars, some games, and sex. Maybe because I didn’t remember that it was a thing, or how it felt, or maybe because of the horror that was unveiling around me, I hadn’t noticed any sexual drive in the past days. That could also be a product of brain damage. Or I just could have impotence. Another thing to worry about, or forget.

We have partied for many hours on end, but it had to stop at some point. It bothered me that none of them didn’t have any full time work they had to do. Some fighting training lined up next though. They told me that I had to join them. It was explained to me, they lax schedule was like that only because they were the volunteers to run errands outside. Even with an abundance of free time, their job had huge health hazards, required fighting prowess, not to mention that not everyone was ready to walk in darkness for hours on end.

We entered the training room and right off the bat I was thrown a pair of gloves that were very similar to those that were used in the suits. Yuki pointed to a weird machine with a flattened tube sticking out.

‘You pump them up a bit with that thing. That recreates the feel of a weapon in your hand, outside the walls of a settlement, almost perfectly.’

‘Ideally you’d want to be training in your suit, but it is not rare that people ignore that. But the day before the setting out, even the most lax people know to put the damn thing on for once. We shall do the same. You should too.’ said Hans.

‘The weapons here are blunt, but sparring is done only in suits. Because they are metal after all. You’ll have to show us how good you are with a spear, a poleaxe and with javelins. If you’re equally horrible with all of those, we’ll try to make a crash course in throwables for you. Mastering spear wielding in a few days is impossible, but getting decent after a few days of training with javelins is conceivable. Let’s pump up the dummy for him.’ said Hiro.

They pumped the dummy up, which was comprised of an entire space suit, albeit with some patches, on a mobile stand, to the pressure that puffed the sack-helmet to the familiar level. Then my gloves. I was handed a spear, which was barely different from a long metal stick.

‘We will be tugging on the ropes connected to the dummy, so you will have a harder time hitting it, won’t really change much, but let’s do it like this. What we want to see is what stance you will choose, and how you will do a basic thrust. Duels are often decided in a single hit, so that really matters.’ said Hiro, and then added: ‘Don’t worry, and give it all you got.’

I stood as firmly as I could, a couple metres from the dummy, and put all my strength into a blow that surely would pierce the suit were it a real spear. But, as I did that Hans let out a disappointed breath. Yuki and Hiro tugged the dummy back so much that I had to jump forwards to hit. Because the thing was moving further from me as I did that, the power of the impact was severely lessened.

‘Well… In short, we won’t give you a spear, that’s for sure. Probably no point in even trying out the halberd. If this dummy was an opponent you would have been struck right after you flubbed your attack.’ said Hiro.

‘What exactly did I do wrong?’ I asked quietly, in shame.

‘About everything really. Your grip was bad, you didn’t utilize the range of your weapon fully because of that. Your stance was too immobile, there is no tanking hits in this world. If you do, and it doesn’t pop your suit, you’re just lucky.’

‘Aren’t they tough? And what about the Earth’s space suits? Would they fare worse?’ I got curious enough to interrupt Hans.

‘The old, initial suits were tougher, but they also required some insane technologies. And even if these are made from things like Kevlar, the difference in pressure means that the slightest tear will be torn open by the air leaving the suit. But returning to what you did wrong… Your leap forwards would leave you in a defenseless position before your opponent, so they could use that to beat you even with a short weapon, which are very rare, and usually accompanied by shields. Then you telegraphed your attack too much, that is-’

‘In short, there is way too much off in how you did it. Then again, since you had a gun, you did not need to learn this…’ said Hiro.

‘He had a firearm?’ exclaimed Yuki.

‘Yes, didn’t you hear?’ said Hans.

‘I am not much for gossip. I only head how gloomy he looked. But then why won’t he just wield that?’

‘Kevin took it. Indra lied about having no weapons besides a crow’s beak at first, so Kevin didn’t trust him with it, after he had shown it to kill two Crimson Vanguards that we came across. Indra didn’t miss. But the gun had barely any bullets left anyway.’ Hiro was saying this in a slightly satiric voice. Yuki had the most surprised face.

‘If he already fought on our side and killed, what is the point in taking the thing from him? We’re heading for the same place, what if there are more Vanguards there? A gun would really help.’ said Yuki in a very irritated tone.

‘That is not something I have a say over. You can try talking the old man into giving it to him. But then again, the clowns don’t attack repeatedly. If they will try to take that place again, it is unlikely that it would happen the same time you are there. It would be like a week later. And in that case there would be a lot of them.’ said Hiro.

‘You never know with Vanguards. In case they come again it would be much better to take the damn thing with us!’

‘I’ll talk with Gareth. He is probably the one keeping it, not the old man.’ said Hans, to comfort his girlfriend.

‘Either way, we should start with javelin training, if Indra is that bad with a spear, there is no way he knows how to use those well.’ said Hiro.

‘Touché.’ I whispered.

Hiro’s assumption was not baseless in the first place, and it proved to be correct. We spent a few hours training, which consisted of Hiro coaching me, and Yuki and Hans exercising their spear strikes. Then we went to eat the second and last time of the day. There was the meat, mentioned by Kevin. Cutlets and liver pieces, even some steaks. Hans and Yuki took what they wanted, but meat was limited to two pieces per person. Which was still plenty, even if the portions were on the smaller side. I decided to try the liver and the cutlet. And despite how unwilling I was to admit, they were surprisingly good. Hiro refused to eat human meat, which was a rare stance to take, as I learned. Still, Hans and Yuki respected that. After a satisfying feast, we finally said our goodbyes for the day. Nevertheless, agreed to train in the coming couple days together, Hiro included. I went back to my room without hesitation, as by that point I was completely exhausted. That did not detract from how amazing the day was, however.

Friendship. Something that alone could be a good enough reason of living. My doubts of agreeing to the trial have been cleared now. I had a lot of training to do, tiresome, difficult practice. But that did not feel like a bad thing. I still sensed some anxiety, but at least I didn’t have anything on my mind that could channel it at the moment. Many of my questions have been answered, and I was given hope. Even in a world as barren as this one, there was enough to make me happy. Probably because I was so tired, I was in a state of satisfaction and relaxation. I was too lightheaded to delve into any intrusive thoughts. I slept soundly.