chapter three

EXODUS

Being woken up by the intrusion alarm in this hangar is the worst way to start a day. What in the world?

“Kira!” No response. That was probably not the smartest thing I have done. If someone were to be in here, I could be in serious trouble. 

Getting out of bed and quietly rounding the corner to Kira’s room, I see her seated on the floor watching the monitors. She does not acknowledge my presence until I bump her shoulder and she jerks up from her focused trans. 

“Yo, your door is wide open, crazy,” I whisper-scream, so agitated I almost slammed the door shut. 

“Yeah. Did that on purpose. No one’s here.” She says it like she did not flip my whole world upside down at the crack of dawn. 

“A warning next time. Please.”

“Sure thing. Do you mind?” She locks her eyes on the door. 

“So, how did things go while I was gone?” I decide to ask instead. I was gone for a while, not really able to give her any updates and our dinner time was interrupted so what better time than now?

“Taro, I’m working,” she deadpans, trying not to give room for argument. Her jaw is slightly clenched and her eyes are squinting. I am sure if she wanted to give me a piece of her mind, many angry words would come out of her. 

“I’m sorry.” Hopefully that will get her to talk. A few moments of silence follow and I conclude that it did not get her to talk.

“Wanna do my hair?” At that she puts the monitor away and gets to gathering all that she needs to redo my locs. 

“There we go,” I say triumphantly under my breath. One thing about her is that she will not stay mad enough to completely ignore me or not do something she enjoys doing. 

My mind drifts off to the previous night in the bar, instead of plaguing me with the trials coming up in less than twenty-four hours. I have not done much to prepare myself mostly because I thought we would be out of here by now. The woman from the bar evoked real fear out of me. It put me in the type of shock that activates an autopilot function. I hope no one saw anything and I hope the woman got herself sorted out. A person like her would not be left alone for long given how people think former military personnel know more than what they let on and the fact that they have a lot of money on their units. The kids under hiding are easy to spot and for me and the sight tugs at already damaged heartstrings. The lifeless living the population has grown so accustomed to is slowly eating away at each individual’s sanity like a termite. 

Kira works on my locs as I allow my mind to wander into darker and darker territory. It's been weeks since we've heard from our contact, for one. It's not like we can go out and actively search for them without risking exposure, but the waiting game is getting to both of us. The tension in the air is thick and suffocating, like the humidity on a hot summer day. I can't help but wonder if we're ever going to get out of this alive. God forbid we don’t.

As Kira works on my hair, I can see the exhaustion etched into her face. This life that was thrust upon us, is not an easy one. The weight of the world seems to be on our shoulders, but we keep going, keep fighting, because we have no other choice. It is either fight or we will find ourselves in the ground next to our parents sooner than we want.

I try to push the thoughts of our uncertain future to the back of my mind as Kira finishes my hair. We have to keep moving forward, one step at a time.

With a hiss in pain I jerk to the side and shoot Kira an angry look. She is nearly done, but is starting to get a little aggressive. 

“What?” she snarls. 

“What’s with you today?” I ask, softening a little bit. 

“You act like you won’t be walking towards your death in less than twelve hours, Keitaro. I don’t get it!” She throws the comb at me without any real force, falling down on the floor and letting her hands fall heavy in her lap. 

“Well, what do you want me to do about it?” At that, she looks up at me in astonishment, flashing a bitter smile. If I say something, I will sugarcoat the situation to a point it becomes indigestible. 

“You’re unbelievable.” 

“Kira, I can’t read your mind.”

“It has been weeks ‘Taro, and you have done nothing to ensure you survive that hell-hole. I never even knew how to help you without exclusively bringing it up which drives me insane all the time. How can you be so neglective of this? How?” She drops her shoulders even lower, finishing her frustrated rant with a sob. I let her cry for a while, carefully patting her head. Watching her chest heave in tears she is trying so hard not to shedd is a pain. 

“Clear?” Kira nods at my question before taking a deep breath. 

“Clear.”“Good. First of all, this was never your burden to bear, Kira. I’m sorry, okay?” We both know I am away too much to give any real excuse for her having to think about my death on her own. 

“You think I would go into that completely blindsided? We're in this together; always have been. That trial is nothing but a small, annoying little obstacle in the way of our real plans." Kira keeps quiet, small sniffles leaving her defeated body and brows drawn into a sad frown. 

“Am I wrong?”

“No.”

“I’m here now, right? So talk to me. Please.” My heart is in my throat watching her ponder on the thought of saying something; what to say. She takes her sweet time, drying up stray tears before she flashes a broken smile. 

“Mom would have me do the dishes right now,” she laughs. 

“Yeah, and you love that.” 

“At least it stopped me from crying, because bubbles!” She flares her hands in emphasis making me laugh a little. If there’s anything Kira will do, even if she is the one feeling down, is to bring our mood up somehow. But she clearly feels very deeply about what she brought up,  and it would be wrong of me to dismiss it with yet another sarcastic remark.

“You won’t lose me.”

“Not really a promise you can make though. You know you won’t be able to do it alone.” Oh, I see. 

“Haruki will be there, and I can almost guarantee you, he won’t leave me alone, Kira.”

“Better safe than sorry. A saying you should take far more seriously, Keitaro.” 

“I know. I will.” She drops a loud sigh at that, sitting up and swatting the back of my head. 

“Hey!”

“You are dense, but thanks.” Having her get back to her usual self feels good so I let her little jab at me slide.

What refuses to leave my mind, however, is the lady at the bar. I cannot be that easy to make out. Being pinned like that has never happened before and it is slowly eating away at me. Facing the trials after that should be nearly impossible. Drunk and wobbly and still able to make a judgment even half right does not bode well for me.

“What now?” I hear Kira ask from her bed as I stand by the window, gazing out at the rain-soaked wasteland we have come to call home for so long. I simply shrug to her question, keeping my eyes out on the horizon. I do not need to plague her already tainted visions about the future any further. What I need to do is start getting my behind over to the gathering as soon as possible. 

Kira went on with her day as usual. Tended to her plane, organized the tools thrown hazardously on the floor from the day before and eventually went back to fine tuning the security system I interrupted her with this morning. All of this is strange. But then again, Kira has always been a bit unusual. She disappears into the security room and I can't help but feel a sense of unease. It's strange how she can go about her day so normally. It’s all a front. Despite her tough exterior, I can sense the turmoil beneath the surface. We've been through so much together, as twins and as partners on a mission bigger than ourselves. 

I decide to take a walk outside, to clear my head and get some fresh air. As I stroll around the hangar, I can't help but wonder what Kira is up to with that security system. Her world is slightly beyond me, so I stay at a distance mostly. I make the mistake of asking, I will be in for a long diatribe of how I keep giving her books I do not even seem to at least have some curiosity about.  

But then I remember why I'm here. I'm here to get back the safety I never felt. The safety our parents wished for us to live in. And Kira is here too, in her own way. We may be on different paths, but we're both working towards the same goal - to survive, to thrive, to be part of a new world.

I take a deep breath and steel myself for the endless thoughts about the trials ahead. To Kira’s oblivion, I have been preparing. The notebook is a jumbled mess of thoughts and ideas, but it’s my way of preparing for what is to come. 

As I flip through the pages, I can feel my heart rate increase. The stories serve as both a reminder of what I have already faced and a warning of what’s yet to come. 

One story, I recall what a drunk man had said about the first phase of the trials - a grueling endurance test through the harsh terrain of the island. Nothing I have not gotten used to. 

“The rain came down in sheets, drenching us to the bone,” he had said. “The wind howled and lightning cracked overhead, threatening to strike us down at any moment. I remember feeling the cold seep through my clothes, weighing them down, making it hard to move.” 

By the end of his story, the man had sticky tears running down his face. The story had only made sense to me at the time. Without durable protection against the hellish storms, you are as good as dead. I have seen companions drown in mud, and others drift away into treacherous waters, only to be washed back up a couple of days later with their lungs filled with water. What the man had described sounded like yet another bad day. 

Well, the trials are not going to be just “another bad day”, I know that much. Catherine, the founder of this system has made quite the name for herself. Nothing she assigns the youth is ever anything short from life threatening. It is a thrill, a main drive for her.