T/W: Just a note, if you are especially sensitive to graphic macabre descriptions, please skip the paragraph separated by horizontal lines. (I only say this because I felt sick writing it. OTL) Thank you.
I never chose to cast off everything, but I had already entered an evil bargain in which we bartered the lives of our dearest, thereafter amassing near absolute freedom from fear. Only death's unspoken edict held us back.
Those ersatz emotions I piled up deep inside eventually became the past, though it was defiled beyond recognition by grief and sorrow. I instilled myself with a loveless deception that stoppered my ability to see into the world. Through blighted eyes I carved this path through a vale of tears.
Saline water dampened the linoleum flooring. Lance leaned down so as to more carefully peruse my face, but I did everything I could to hide it from him. I ran a sleeve over any remaining wetness and thought about how his bodysuit glowed light blue in the dark, forcing a smile out of me.
"Don't worry, Lance. I'm fine, just… hungry. I want to find food."
Lies. All lies. They poured out in droves.
Lance's gaze shadowed me whilst I navigated the unlit hallway of a once hermetically sealed apartment. My hand found a wall, on contact causing its paint to crack and flake. It would appear that this entire complex had been abandoned for months, perhaps during peacetime.
We rounded a corner and came upon a cramped living area, sparsely furnished with a boxy television and a two-seater sofa upholstered in chintz. Something smelled of garlic, rotten eggs and putrefied meat, so I surmised we were nearing the kitchen. I heard a low rumble come from Lance's throat, and then I saw why.
A pair of corpses sat slumped on the couch. The way their bodies were swollen and mottled, decomposing flesh hung from exposed bone made them appear to be melting. Fluid oozing from the nose and mouth soaked the loveseat cushions and the frayed clothing they wore when had perished. From what I discerned, one was a man and the other a woman. Even in death, their shriveled hands overlapped one another, nails detached, skin blistered and greenish. Strands of hair heaped up around them. They grinned with ghastly leers, like a rictus of crying without tears, the tongues lolling out like some bizarre, pink corn husk. No one ever said death was pretty, and I was quite unpleasantly reminded of that fact.
An unnaturally cold stone dropped into my stomach, and I ripped myself away from the room, unable to stand the sight. I ran outside and collapsed in a heap, tasting fresh air and feeling the sun's touch. I hated this. Everyone in Fuyuki was either dead or undead save for six Masters, maybe less. No one here granted any of us clemency. We only wrought that upon ourselves.
To make matters worse, Rin just happened to stumble upon me in yet again my weakest state.
"Ato… saki?" she murmured, leaning down and placing a hand on one of my quivering shoulders. "Are you okay? Where's Lancer?"
"N-no," I managed to say, hiding from her like an ostrich burying its head in the sand.
"You're so pale. Did something happen to him?"
Right on cue Lance exited the apartment, a plastic shopping bag in hand, and noticed me on the ground. He came closer, waving something near my face. I looked up and he gave me a rectangular box, red in color, on the front a depiction of long biscuit sticks covered with chocolate.
I wanted to cry. This had been my favorite snack before the end of the world. I remembered that not long ago my father used to buy a pack for me every Friday when we went shopping. He'd smile with those creased wrinkles around his dark brown eyes; mom would come over with a reproach about how unhealthy I ate. Her hair was always done up with hairspray that, when applied, stank up our whole house.
And I had become a nineteen-year-old orphan, if I even qualified to be called that at all. I lost them. It was just like the saying: "You don't know what you've got until it's gone."
I sobbed into the sweet-smelling package. I hated how I wasn't strong like Rin and Lance. I never saw them as anything but staid, and here I was bawling like a spoiled child who couldn't have her way. At least they hid their secrets deep down, ten, twenty feet under until their cries went silent. It was an assumption, but it seemed better to be numb inside than to feel the deep ache every waking moment. There may as well have been a knife in my heart, bleeding it out slowly, which no one was able to see.
A strange scratching noise interrupted my outburst. Rin hauled me up by an arm and turned frantically to the only stairwell leading from the second floor to the lower. Already those infected bodies were crawling inexorably toward us, tooth and nail grating the steps.
Rin nearly screamed, launching a ball of energy into their sunken, rotting faces, knocking some back, a new horde replacing them as soon as they fell.
"There's too many of them!" she panted, clearly slowed by exhaustion and starvation.
"I don't know what else to do," was all I could say. At first I thought to throw the bodies from the apartment at them, which probably drew them here, but now they seemed to be more interested in living flesh than dead. Lance stepped in front of me, hands full with the bag of food and his spear.
"Please," I said to him, "protect us."
With those words, burdened with meaning but so weightless, Lance's madder red weapon returned to the ether and he swept me up bridal-style, one arm under my legs and the other supporting my back. He mounted the balcony railing, staring down at the long fall from here to the ground. I knew what he intended to do and, despite my qualms, did not try to stop him.
"Rin, get on," I called out.
"W-what? Are you serious?"
"Yes, so hurry!"
"Fine, fine!" She took a running start and threw herself onto Lance's back, in the process giving a tug at his long cerulean hair. I heard him grumble, but he understood the gravity of the situation well enough to make no further complaint.
Then he jumped. I tried not to scream as the ground rushed toward us. Limber like a cat he landed on both feet, from there breaking into a brisk sprint.
Rin tugged on his ponytail. "Hey, dog boy, keep running straight 'til you hit a four-way intersection, then turn left."
He snapped at her with teeth bared, and she clonked him on the head. I realized a bit too late it was a bad idea having them in close proximity.
"Stop it, you two!" I said, exasperated. Lance and Rin glared at each other once more before looking away. At least they shared an understanding that fighting would only get them upbraided.
"I was only trying to help," said Rin, eyeing the packet of stick biscuits I had opened.
"Right." I stuck one in my mouth and handed her a second. "Now, where are we going?"
"To school."
Maybe she had gone insane.
"No, really, you'll see." But surely she read my thoughts.
I nibbled on my snack's chocolate coating with not another word, in the silence suddenly and painfully aware of Lance's warm, strong arms around me. A blush ascended to my cheeks in a fitful tide of progression, growing redder the harder I endeavored to spurn its advances.
"L-Lance, you can… put me down…"
Rin gave me the most infuriatingly impish grin over his shoulder. "Hey, he's faster than both of us. Just enjoy the ride, and try not to turn into a tomato."
"Rin!"
"Kidding."
With the biscuit stick hanging out of my mouth I acted in the most nonchalant way possible, only completely losing my cool when Lance lifted me closer to his face and bit the other end. My fist nearly hit him across the face.
"I'm not playing that game with you!" I grabbed a handful of the sticks and shoved them into his mouth.
"He doesn't need to eat that," remarked Rin offhandedly.
"So what?"
I gave a little laugh of vexation, which soon turned into true mirth. When the pain resurfaced I would summon happy memories like these, strange as they were, to counterbalance those dark, lonely thoughts that occupied far too much space in my head. Their words gave me strength, and for now Lance and Rin were like family.
I tried not to think too hard about the War's end.
Lance gagged slightly on biscuit crumbs as he turned where Rin had directed him. On one side of the road rose a complex of stately, geometric buildings with white walls that glistened in the steadily rising heat. We stopped at the front gates.
At the same time I clambered out of Lance's arms, Rin began to speak. "Welcome to Tsukumihara Academy, your final destination."
Welp, slight mood whiplash and some Fate/EXTRA themes going on at the end. This totally doesn't foreshadow something important. Anyhoo, many thanks to The Fox Knight for your comment! It made me laugh~
And thank you all so much for 250 views and 100+ visitors! It makes me really, really happy to know at least someone is reading my story!