My first fic. What happens after the 'bad ending' of Cave Story. There are only spoilers to the bad ending, which is one of the worst conclusions of any game (but you can't say that you've gotten all three endings unless you've seen the bad one too, so yeah). I took some nice 'creative liberties' at the end of it, what with the cliff and all. Read and enjoy!
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Soldier from the Surface
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Ever so slowly, the lonely, reddish morning sun crept over the far mountains. Its dying light echoed the thoughts of the teenage boy, seated dejectedly on a boulder kicking at the scraggly grass.
With a grunt, he jerked himself out of his reverie and stared emptily at the roughly-chiseled stone slab that rested in his lap. Half a century ago he would have been proud of his achievement; would have turned a shyly grinning face upwards to anybody who cared to look, and would have basked in whatever kind word or amused smile somebody turned to him.
But 'would have' meant the past, and one by one the people who would have bothered to smile at him had faded, just like the half-hearted, silly expression he wore now behind his tightly-wrapped green scarf. A stray gusty breeze caught the fluttering tail of the garment and strung it out behind him, where it flapped noisily. The sound reminded him of a quickened, sickly version of a Sky Dragon's wings, but he quickly blocked out the memory.
Damn memories. They were the last thing he needed now, when the last person who had called him 'friend' had passed and faded, just like all the others. He shivered slightly and looked down, past the scruffy trees and their drooping branches sprouting from the cliff side to the slowly spiraling blanket of chilly ice-bearing mist which obscured anything else. Damn everything.
For a moment, he was tempted to scream, to make any noise to break the terrible stillness; to throw the objects in his hands so that they cut through that horrible dead mass of silent mist, make it bleed. But he did not.
He had used to love the silence from before. Even when the air hung thick and taught with unspoken worry, and the racing thrill of adrenaline, the fear mixed constantly, firmly, with the feeling of comradeship; the unity that binds like-minded people and creatures together in times of strife.
And now all of them were gone, one by one, victims to the Doctor's madness and lust for power.
The boy stood abruptly and strode away from the edge. But not so far as out of view. He could still see it. It was always there, taunting him, whispering that once again he was trapped.
Fifty-some years ago, he had escaped, escaped from the Floating Island on the back of that Sky Dragon behind his friend, watching as the only 'home' he could remember vanished behind him. The Island was a prison, to be true, but the Island was the place where he had woken up, and been taken in, and met the beings who were family to him.
His friend, the one he had escaped with, was now dead, and the boy stood holding a gravestone, with scorch marks about it to indicate how it was formed. The dusky-red machine gun he leaned heavily on gave note to this.
Bending over, he planted the small stone at the head of the newly dug grave.
As he straightened up, he let his fingers brush over the letters.
"Kazuma Sakamoto"
Silly, this. He was soldier from the Surface, the most powerful reconnaissance robot ever built. Able to eat, breath, sleep, and drink, he could rightly be categorized as being alive. And now he was grieving so hard that he could not walk, could not think.
Only remember.
Kazuma had aged and died like all humans were apt, and the Sky Dragon had died with him. The robot boy buried both of them together, in one massive tomb chiseled from the mountain with the machine gun he had owned for so many years, and which held so many cruel memories. True, it had fought for justice through the entire futile war against the Doctor, but it was its previous owner, another robot like himself, who caused looking at it to stab to the boy's heart.
He was a soldier from the Surface, yet he was troubled by these petty ideas, these idiotic rememberings of the past.
He dragged his eyes away from the weapon, for if he thought about it too hard, visions of darkening, thrashing, rising waters blotted out all reality, leaving him to curl in a scared, tight ball until the memories passed.
If only he could forget it all again, the way that he had so very long ago, when he had awoken in a nameless, empty cave and found his way to the Village. How had he forgotten? He shook his head and kicked frustratedly at nothing, for he did not know. He could not remember how to forget.
The irony of the statement brought a hoarse barking laugh out of his mouth, where it clashed against the sweet, mellow chirpy of a nearby bird.
Angrily, he snatched up his gun and fired blindly at the source of the bird's twittering, his aim careless. The little animal squawked, annoyed, and flapped up in a shower of dew.
He did not care to look, for the water of his dreams was back, and the turmoil of it in his mind left him to scrunch himself into the hollow of a fallen tree and shiver until he finally was free from the churning waves. He remembered again, the triumphant shout that rang out from his throat as his enemy was vanquished, and then the horrible realization that the water was still rising, and the shutters to the room were still closed.
Pounding on the door.
Yelling.
Waves rippling before his eyes.
Darkness blotting out his vision as his internal air supply exhausted itself and his system began taking in water.
And then, the crushing, brief and desperate embrace—that left him able to breath.
When he had opened his eyes, he was still in the flooded room, but now there was a bubble encircling him, giving him the air he needed to live. And then he was overcome by the vomit-like terror stemming from the dawning comprehension that his comrade had just died; given up her air tank, to save him.
The robot awoke, in the crack between wood and stone. He weakly stood once more, eyes open, staring at the bluish, sun-tinged mountaintops, whose beauty he could no longer see.
He was a soldier from the Surface, but he had not tried again to go up against the Doctor again. Perhaps it was because the only other being he had trusted to stay by his side and watch his back was dead, drifting aimlessly, lifelessly through the unlit underground waterways of the floating island. She was gone, and after weeks, months, year after dragging year of denial, he finally had to believe that she was gone, everything was gone, and there was nothing left to fight for.
This was an odd emotion, a sort of pained longing for a friendship that was linked by something more that the occasional smile or kind word. Perhaps a friendship linked by an unbreakable iron bond, a bond which vainly sought for what it was to link to, only to find her gone, and gone forever. Gone just so he could live.
Live to do what? Continue the brave battle?
No. Live to board a Dragon and flee with a spineless, pathetic human when all luck seemed to have run out.
He took a step towards the edge.
He was a soldier from the surface, yet he was too much of a coward to stay and fight until the bitter end.
If only he had.
Bracing himself for a moment on the very edge of nothingness, he allowed all of the memories to come rushing to the surface in a bittersweet tide, carrying on a wave of damp cave air. As he had a thousand times, he jumped, an ultimate leap which replayed over, and over; that final willing and brutal launch over the point of no return….
Memories would be erased, at some point, the point when there was no hope, and when, overcome, the darkness swims over vision and the world fades to black.
fin
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It took me ages to get around to finally doing some more editing on this. But now I can say that I like it a lot more.
Oh, and this isn't a completely unrelated story which I wrote for the heck of it. It can be regarded as a sort of 'prequel' to my other Cave Story fanfiction, A Second Chance for Redemption. So in case any readers of ASCfR are wondering, yes, it will start to sound like a fanfiction at some point.
Thanks for reading Soldier from the Surface.
I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it (and I liked that a lot. Hooray for the joys of angst!).