Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Seed. (I should keep all my disclaimers this simple from now on… not that they've been very creative haha… Anyways, to the story!)
Orga opened his eyes. An image of colorful blurry shapes and bright white lights entered his sight. 'I'm alive?' he thought. 'It can't be. I already died. There's no more pain.' Evidently, at the moment he felt no spasms of the usual unbearable torture. "That's right, I'm definitely dead," he confirmed out loud to himself.
He heard soft laughter coming from one of the shapes. It was kind and did not hurt his ears, but such laughter was so unusual to him that he felt as if he was from another world. "I'm sorry to disappoint you, but you're not dead. However, it was quite a miracle that you survived," a female voice said. It occurred to Orga that the laughter and voice belonged to the same person. The world snapped back into place as he fully regained consciousness.
The room looked like a lab in a hospital; the lights were blinding. He was dressed in white hospital clothes. Fragmented memories began forcing their way in when he tried to figure out what all the equipment was for, so he stopped wondering about them. Instead, he guided his gaze to the only other person in the room, the owner of the pleasing laughter.
She looked very young; Orga guessed that she was about his age. The girl wore a lab coat so he concluded that since she's capable of doing lab work at her age, she must be a Coordinator, the enemies of the organization that he was forced to work for. When he tried to remember the name of the ones that wanted to exterminate all Coordinators, his head began pounding with pain and he stopped thinking about that also. Her hair glistened lavender in the light and was tied back in a medium-lengthed ponytail with neatly trimmed bangs. However, her eyes were the things that caught his attention. They were a soft aqua green and full of gentleness. A voice echoed in his mind, "You know, Orga, green is the color of life. That's why I love green so much. It's my favorite color."
'Mother…' he suddenly thought. His chest began hurting, not from physical problems but from the vague memories pouring in. He clutched at it, gasping and shaking uncontrollably.
-Flashback-
A young Orga was running across a grass-covered field back home. "Mom! I'm home!" he yelled. She stood on the porch, waiting. He finally arrived, panting and sweating.
"Orga, you're late again," his mother tried to act strict by putting her hands on her hips, but ended up laughing. She put her hands on Orga's shoulders and hugged him. "You worry me when you come home late."
"Sorry Mom," Orga apologized. "I'll try harder next time."
She laughed, "Let's eat dinner now, I bet you're starving."
"Yup!" Orga said happily as he followed inside the house.
-End of Flashback-
"Is something wrong?" she asked, hesitating, but then put a comforting hand on his shoulder. Orga came back into reality and the image of the grassy field faded into fog.
He gradually stopped trembling and caught his breath. "No… it's nothing." Her eyes were still filled with worry. 'I haven't thought of Mom since… I don't even remember since when…'
"If there's anything worrying you, you can ask me," she said, sitting down on a chair by his bed.
'Strange,' he thought. 'I was never allowed to ask questions.' Orga pondered deeply, searching for a question. "Okay, where am I, and how did I get here?" He added another question in a murmur, but the girl caught the words, "Why am I even alive?"
"The first question I can answer easily. You're in the PLANT Aprilius 3." She then fell silent and appeared to be deep in thought.
"I'm sorry," Orga apologized, "I'm just not used to asking questions."
She laughed, and this time he wanted to listen to the melody of her laughter. He wanted the feeling of calmness it brought him to last forever. "I'm sorry." He found himself surprised by her apology. "I was just thinking of where to start. There are so many details." When he didn't comment, she continued, "We found you shortly after the battle against Blue Cosmos. I was in one of the rescue teams that were sweeping the battlefield for any possible survivors…"
-Flashback-
"Man, what a disaster," one of the people in the ship said as he peered out the window. Pieces of machine debris floated everywhere and they flew slowly so they wouldn't collide with anything. Now and then they would see red patches drifting aimlessly among the metal.
"This is pointless. It's not like we're going to find any survivors," another guy said.
"It's like a silent graveyard in space," whispered a girl, her aqua green eyes wide with surprise and mournfulness. She scanned the debris for any signs of life.
"We've found no half-damaged mobile suits, no floating live pilots, and no Natural rescue ships. Let's just leave," the second guy spoke. The others nodded in agreement. The girl was just about to protest when she spotted a figure floating near some blue and orange metal pieces.
"Look…" she pointed. There others guided their sight towards the direction of her finger.
"So… who's going to check it out?" the second guy asked nervously. Everyone else looked away. No one else wanted to be near the red patches of human blood belonging to people whose last thoughts were the total annihilation of their enemies.
"I'll go," the girl said.
"Are you sure? I mean, you're the only girl that volunteered for this mission. You don't have to force yourself to go through something like that. He's probably past saving anyway."
"I'm going," she spoke, determined. They backed off and allowed her to pass. A few minutes later, she found herself floating towards the body. The others had told her to pull on the string if she wanted to go back. She floated up to it and caught the person. He was dressed in a black space suit that was obviously not from ZAFT. A fog kept on appearing and disappearing slowly against the glass of the helmet, which signified that he was breathing, but barely. She pulled on the string and was pulled back to the ship, holding a half-dead enemy soldier.
-End of Flashback-
"Afterwards, some of the higher-ups in the hospital were reluctant to take you in. They said that you could be a spy from Blue Cosmos put floating in a coma on purpose. We finally convinced them to at least give you a full physical checkup." She stopped and seemed reluctant to go on.
'So Blue Cosmos was the name of the organization…' Orga thought acidly. "What happened next?"
The look on his face told her that he wasn't about to give up until she told him everything. Sighing, she continued…
-Flashback-
"Here are the results from the physical checkup on the young man you found during the last rescue mission," a doctor handed a pile of papers to the girl. "You'll find them quite… disturbing."
"Disturbing?" she asked, flipping a few pages. Her eyes widened at the printed ink.
"As you can see here," the doctor pointed to a chart, "eighty percent of his cells are somehow genetically altered. However, the immune system recognizes those cells as foreign matter and…"
"His body is dying from within…" she finished for him. "Isn't there anything we can do?"
"Well, we can try that one new method for treatment we've found. Unfortunately, weapons were researched more than cures during the war."
"Then who would be in charge of the operation?"
"They've assigned you."
The girl was shocked. "Would the higher-ups allow it?"
The doctor leaned over to her ear and whispered, "They're allowing it because the genetic alteration was done by Blue Cosmos. The higher-ups can use any information obtained to further advance in their research."
"With knowledge like that, they can…"
"We can end the war between Naturals and Coordinators forever," the doctor declared firmly.
-End of Flashback-
"After about two months of the treatment, we managed to cure you completely, but then you were in a coma for another three months in this room under surveillance."
A question popped into his head. "What do you mean by curing completely?"
The girl again became reluctant to continue, but went on, "We took the altered DNA, copied it, and distributed it to the rest of your cells that weren't changed. Every single cell in your body has been altered through this process so in simpler terms, you're no longer a Natural. You're a full fledged Coordinator now." When she finished, she looked to see Orga's reaction. He stared emptily towards the end of the bed. "I'm sorry, it was the only way."
Orga got out of the bed and unsteadily made his way for the door. She did not stop him or looked at him as the door stayed open after his retreating back. Silent tears fell down her face. "I'm really sorry. I tried to stop them when I found out about the actual process. It would've been better for you if you never woke up," she said to the empty air.
…
Orga found himself sitting on a hill facing a large artificial lake just outside the hospital. He met no one on the way and was exhausted from the effort of walking for the first time in five months. He fell back and rested his back and head against the grass, watching the clouds among the metal plated "sky".
"Why?" he asked himself out loud. "Why did she save me?" He closed his eyes. "I died years ago, even before the war, during the first time I took the drug from Blue Cosmos. I don't remember anything before that day…"
-Flashback-
A doctor handed him and two others a small vial of liquid.
"And what is this supposed to be?" Orga asked impudently. One of the guards shoved the back of his rifle into his stomach and the boy fell to the flow gasping for air. The other two fell silent and refrained from saying anything.
"Don't ask questions," the doctor said. "Now I want you three to drink the formula."
"So we're guinea pigs?" Crot asked. "Okay, okay, no questions," he said when another one of the guards raised his gun threateningly. They all stared reluctantly at the vial before popping off the top and swallowing.
The pain was unbearable. Every muscle burned and they felt as if their bodies would explode starting from the brain. In a few minutes all three were on the ground, barely conscious.
"Hm… It looks like we still have a few flaws, but we'll be able to fix it," they heard the doctor's faint voice as he spoke to young man in a light blue suit, Murata Azrael.
"What's to stop them from betraying us when they take the perfected formula?" Azrael asked.
"Well you see, the substance acts in the same way an addictive drug does. Once they've taken it once, they'll become dependent on it. Without it, I assure you, they'll experience pain greater than what you've just witnessed."
"Torture eh? Good, I'm pleased. Excellent work…"
-End of Flashback-
"It's their fault." He continued lying on the grass, thinking about all that has happened. 'Why did I think about Mother? I… I don't remember…' The girl from the lab came out and sat on the grass next to him.
"I'm sorry," she said softly, "I shouldn't have told you that much. That way, your mind might have been more at ease."
"No, it's not your fault." He paused and said, "It's all their fault, the ones who did this to me." They silently gazed into the sky for a while, neither saying a word. "Hey, I never got to know your name."
She stared at him in surprise and smiled, "My name is Zoey. Zoey Kisuryu."
"I'm Orga. Orga Sabnack. Thank you, Zoey, for everything…"
Ah! I finished chapter 1! Hm… I wonder if I should continue this… The chapters might be kind of short and then long and short and long and so on. Oh well… I'll continue when I get the time. I think I put too many flashbacks in this chapter… By the way, I haven't seen a lot of fanfictions on Orga, so maybe this can be my inspiration to continue! Uh… for now, thanks for reading! Bye bye!
