I felt my foot hit nothing but air, and soon, I was falling.
Falling.
Falling into darkness.
It swallowed me up like the way death swallows up life, how it silences muffled screams and woeful cries of agony.
I didn't know how long I fell for before I hit the slushy ground with a thud.
Stars.
My vision exploded into stars, incapacitating my ability to see. My head pulsed like an earthquake, and it hurt to move.
When I was little, Momma had told me a story about the spirits, and how they guided and protected us through our lives.
She said they had saved her life.
She was two years old, and she was looking at the fish in the Republic City Park pond. Suddenly, she fell in. My mother was a small child due to her growth issues, thus, she couldn't swim. Her parents weren't there to save her, since she had wandered off away from them.
She claimed that, as her vision went black and she felt a desire to give in to death, she was pulled out of the water by some unknown force; her savior didn't show themselves. And so, she believed it was the spirits.
I wanted to believe in spirits, especially to honor Momma and her incorrigible, unflinching ideals.
And I did, to some extent.
But with all that had happened to me, uncertainty clouded my judgment.
Groaning and holding my aching back, I somehow found the energy to pull myself off the ground. The rancid odor of feces and another horrendous scent I couldn't quite put my nose on assaulted my nostrils. I held back a gag and pinched my nose, my head swiveling upward to look at the stars that seemed to be mocking me. I reached up on tip toes, my hands outstretched, wistfully expecting the moonlight to pull me out of that sewer into its cool embrace. But my efforts faltered, as my head was spinning too much for me to remain standing like that.
I staggered back and tripped over something. Dazed, I got up and examined the object.
Immediately, bile rose in my throat, and before long, I was retching my guts out in the murky sewer.
The corpse stared back at me with empty sockets. It was horrifying, terrifying, disgusting.
It was then that I recognized the mystery scent; it was the stale smell of death.
Looking at that corpse, with its empty sockets and its hollowed cheeks, and its thin, pale skin that would have broken if I touched it, memories long buried for two years after my mother's death slowly revealed themselves once more, like the way the night creeps in slowly, steadily, after a beautiful day of sunshine.
My mother's screams, the final cry of agony I heard before I, the weakling I was, blacked out, her face, her beautiful face, contorted into the expressions of emotions I never wanted to see; fear, hate, rage, agony, pain, death, the way I did nothing, absolutely nothing, to protect her, and no matter how much I could blame Seiji, or the hospital, or even Fa, in the end, it was my fault.
Everything was my fault.
The way my life turned out to be, it was my fault.
I examined the rest of the sewer, and began to weep.
Hundreds of corpses, all pale, with hollowed out cheeks, and empty sockets, picked apart by the spider rats, littered the feces-infested water.
"MOMMA!" I screamed, shuddering from the sobs that animated my body in such horrific ways. I slunk to the ground, cradling my knees to my chest, my lungs on fire and my stomach twisted into all different sorts of shapes from vomiting so much.
"I…I…t-t-t-thought f-fate w-w-w-would find a w-w-way…" I stuttered to myself.
All I wanted to do was to get out, and run again.
Run, run, run, faster than I ever ran before.
Run to the ends of the earth and never ever stop.
Run away from everything, from these corpses, from Zhixu, from Republic City, from the world, from my life.
But I knew it wasn't going to happen. I was never going to escape. This sewer would become my prison, and I would live until I became one of them, one of the corpses, whose names I would never know, one of the corpses whom no one shed tears over, one of the corpses, whom, no one knew existed.
I couldn't look at them anymore. I closed my eyes, blocking their atrocious images from my mind. But the images plagued my psyche until I could no longer take it.
I couldn't become one of them. I had to get out, I had to survive.
It was my destiny.
I was meant to be something.
The voice of the mysterious masked figure echoed in my head.
"It is time to create a new era."
I had survived Seiji's attack for a reason, and though I didn't know what, I wasn't about to give up.
"DEAR SPIRITS, SOMEONE GET ME OUT OF HERE!" I screeched, praying someone would hear me, praying someone would save me.
Praying fate would find a way.
I yelled and screamed and shrieked and cried for spirits' know how long. The stench, however, continued to attack my nostrils, and I found myself spewing my innards out more than I could ever even imagine. The presence of the bodies became my motivation to keep howling until help came.
Suddenly, out of the blue, a voice called to me.
"Who's in there?"
The voice sounded like a chorus of angelic spirits serenading me, its sweet sound waves lifting me away from the depths of the underworld. Tears of agony transformed into weeps of gratefulness.
Fate had found a way.
"AKIRA!" I managed to croak.
"Spirits, how'd you end up in there, kid? Hold on, we'll have you out in no time!" shouted a man.
Soon, a rescue team was sent down, and I felt myself being heaved up into the light.
The sweet, warming, precious light that seemed to purify me as it enveloped my body like a soft blanket of sun.
I knew I smelt of feces, death, and bile, but I still gave my savior a huge platypus-bear hug when he came over to me, my teardrops soaking into his coat.
Surprisingly, he didn't shudder at my touch, but rather melted into my embrace.
"Th-th-th-there w-were s-s-s-so many…." I sputtered in between sobs, holding onto the man as if he was the only thing left in the world that I had.
Spirits knew how long I cried into that poor man's coat, or how hard my fingers dug into his back as I held him close to me.
But I needed to feel safe again, to burn those horrific corpses out of my memory. And something about the man felt comforting and warm.
After what seemed like a lifetime, my wails were reduced to mere sniffles. But I still held onto the man ever so tightly, burying my face into his ruined coat.
And the fact that he remained there, locked in an embrace with a strange little girl whom he had saved, patiently listening, was all I could have ever hoped for.
It felt like an eternity before I detached myself from my savior.
"I ca-can't thank y-you enough…" I whispered, tears still streaming down my face.
The stranger crouched down so that he was at my level.
The man was handsome, and although he looked young, his face had traces of age on it, as if he was overworked. A bright smile graced his lips, and he wore a bowler hat. The man also had on a grey suit, grey knickerbockers, and stylish black shoes. I assumed his hair was short, since his bowler hat covered it all. What really touched me were the tears that glimmered in his crystal blue eyes.
"There is absolutely no need for thanks, young lady. I was only doing my duty as an officer for this unyielding city," he assured. The man choked on his words a bit, indicating his compassionate and empathetic nature. He turned around so that his back was to me. I saw him lift a hand to his face.
"So do you know your way home from here, or…?" he asked, still turned away from me.
"No…" I squeaked. He turned toward me and crouched down again. He really was very tall.
"Alright, where do you live? Maybe I should escort you home," he smiled.
"Butakha's orphanage," I answered back robotically. The experience in the sewer had really shaken me to my core and impaired my ability to hold normal conversations. The man's warm smile turned sad.
"Oh…I'm sorry," he apologized. I shrugged.
We began walking in silence. He placed a protective arm around my shoulder. I stayed as close to him as possible.
Finally, after ten minutes of walking, he spoke.
"By the way, the name's Mr. Nakano. You should be more careful next time, you know. Getting yourself stuck in there was very dangerous and could have cost you your life," Mr. Nakano explained. His tone was very fatherly, tones which I had never really experienced before, mainly because I had never had a true father figure in my life. I could still only remember Sho's scent and eyes, Seiji had turned out to be a madman, and Mr. Fa had always felt more like an old friend than a father. The new interaction felt surprisingly refreshing, and for just a moment, I began longing for a father just as I had when I was a little girl. But as quickly as the feeling surfaced, it passed.
We continued on to have an interesting conversation about our lives. He told me about his work as a detective under Chief Lin Beifong. I told him about my brother, Isi, and all the other children at the orphanage and how they desperately need homes. He stroked his chin.
"Hm…I will definitely try and see if they could be adopted! There are many people in Republic City who would love children, but could never conceive. I'll see what I can do," he promised, reaching out his hand for a handshake as we arrived in front of the orphanage.
"Thanks again sir!" I said, my heart swelling with sheer adoration for such a gentlemanly, compassionate man, a specimen really very rare in Republic City. In fact, Mr. Nakano reminded me a bit of Mr. Fa. I blinked away the tears that spawned at the thought of Mr. Fa.
I gripped Mr. Nakano's hand. His hold was firm, and his hands were dry and calloused, which was not expected from a man who looked, talked, and dressed like he did.
"Please, don't mention it. It was my honor," he replied humbly. Before he turned around to leave, he asked me one more question.
"What was your name again, young lady?" he inquired.
"Akira!" I smiled.
His faced turned white at the sound of my name.
"Well, um, I'd best get going! It was really very nice talking to you, A-A-Akira," he stammered, perspiration glazing over his features. I cocked my head at his sudden change in demeanor, but before I could even question his odd behavior, he was gone.
I walked into the orphanage to find Zhixu smoking a cigar behind the desk, her legs piled on top of its wooden surface.
"I thought I had rid of you," she snarled, the smoke curling upward and outward like a wave.
Ignoring her, I walked into the dormitory, which was empty. I was the only child who hadn't been adopted yet.
As I lied down on the cot, I struggled to hold myself together. I had secretly hoped that my savior, Mr. Nakano, would have whisked me away into his life and his family.
But I was never that lucky.
"Momma, what's going to happen to me?" I whimpered into the darkness. But unable to keep my eyes open, sleep overcame me.