Chapter 31

Weird nightmares were chasing one another in Sonoko's head. With time, the first pleasant feelings of rest turned into a burning fever.

She was sitting in an old sooty cauldron, which was knelled like a bell by distant, blurry figures with a hammer and sickle. They looked like Soviet soldiers in big jackets. Somewhere far she could hear the terrible rage of the storm as the wind tore the treetops, the knocking of raindrops hitting the cave, or as the thunders shook the whole surrounding. Sonoko was not sure if this was reality or just a dream, one thing was for sure: perfect background music for these horrors.

One of the Soviets took a step closer to the cauldron, so Sonoko recognized the interception-works chief, Nikolai Moskvin.

"Taste it, you might need some salt," he said, but not to Sonoko. He turned his head into somewhere else. Another silhouette stepped to the cauldron from the blurry veil.

Riki Ryusaki.

He wore his student uniform from school, but he also had the hammer and sickle on his shoulders like a badge. For Moskvin's order, Riki took out an oversized coffee spoon and smashed it into the liquid barely a few inches away from the girl, then he kept stirring it.

Sonoko felt extremely hot like she was melting away. In the worst way possible. She almost gave up hope of getting out of this hell, and when she thought she could not take it anymore, Riki helped her out of the cauldron and shook her by the shoulders.

"You have to trust me, okay?" he insisted "Sonoko, can you hear me? Sonoko? Sonoko!"

His voice was lost halfway between dream and reality. It faded away for a moment, and after that, it became clear again. By this time, Sonoko was worn-out but awake.

She noticed, that Riki, or at least the person who spoke in his voice, was shaking her by the shoulders in the same way.

"Get up fast, we're leaving!" he said.

As Sonoko's mind cleared out, the noises of the storm ensphered the cave-like sinister tentacles. Riki was in a crouching position so far, now he stood up and made his way out of the cave. He used the light of his watch to reach the entrance and the open outside dancing in the lights of the lightning.

Sonoko needed time for her eyes to adapt. She sat still in one place.

"Now? Why?" she asked back in a scratchy voice. "I think I have a fever." then she added, and to make sure, she touched the forehead with one palm. It was like touching brands.

"It has to wait." came the expressionless answer.

"Do we have to leave because of a danger zone? Or is someone coming?"

"We're just leaving," Riki answered again expressionlessly, then considered the dialogue done. He left the cave.

Sonoko sat there for a little more. First, she did not understand what was going on. Second, she saw Riki wearing his white shirt without a black uniform coat. It took some time to figure things out and find the coat on the ground under her butt. Riki gave it to her to cover herself from cold. Look at that cavalier! Yesterday I had to sign a petition for him to help me out of that big hole!

Sonoko admitted that she wasted enough time. She stood up, but barely made a move, she felt so dizzy, that she almost fell back. Fortunately, she caught a knobbed pile of rock on the wall of the cave nearby with perfect timing. She took a deep breath and tried to ignore the weight of her head or the feeling that her brain was about to explode.

Somehow, however, she reached the open and searched for Riki's shirt with her eyes, the only white thing of the great blackness. Everything merged into a dark, untouchable mist like a silky spider web that filled out every free space around.

Riki pushed so far that the girl could see less and less of his shirt. She tried to catch up with him as much as she could, but she seemed to fall more and more behind. The rain gave Sonoko some chilling, but after some time the sharp wind became quite annoying. The protection of the coat did not help any more, the tree leaves showered the water to her like a fountain. The soil turned into a sea of mud flowed away in the form of small brooks. Those who did not set out in rubbers could not stand against it for long, so Sonoko was not surprised that her feet were covered with mud up to the knees. The fog looked so deep as aerified milk and surrounded up to the treetops like in an enchanted forest.

Sonoko followed Riki with narrowed eyes. She grabbed her stomach to help to ignore the nauseous feeling and to resist the temptation to vomit behind a bush. Itching eyes, burning forehead, the heat in every part of her body. She felt a furnace inside her.

After perhaps twenty minutes of walking, Riki's and Sonoko's path was blocked by a huge electric fence. It must have been at least six meters tall. It overtopped the students, like towers with huge grill-grids between them, and amid the roaring thunderstorm, the whole line seemed threateningly grim.

"We can't go any further." Sonoko tried to outshout the rampaging elements as she caught up with Riki.

Riki remained silent. As he was standing over against the fence, Sonoko - maybe for the first time - saw some doubts on his face. Meanwhile, he started to walk along the fence and often checked something in his watch. Later, he went to Sonoko and grabbed her arm (the injured one, so the girl hissed like a snake) just to pull her closer.

Riki took a deep breath and with his free hand, he touched the electric fence.

A shiver ran through the girl. The last thing she remembered was the metallic grid which reflected the lightning as a mirror and channeled the rain like a sewer. Then nothing.

"What the..." Sonoko wondered. No electricity in the fence.

Riki, who released her and started climbing by that time, was living proof for that. He stopped only on the top to check on Sonoko. Since she remained as she was left down yonder, he waved his hand as a sign 'Follow!'.

Sonoko did as ordered. She placed her foot between the grids in fear, but also excitedly. She moved upward, higher, and higher. The rain made the metal slippery, and the wind gave also rough attacks for the fence.

Riki made his way to the other side. Sonoko just rose beyond the highest of the trees, finding a breathtaking view on the top. Even under the cloak of the night, the whole area became visible for the duration of a blinding flash. Ever and again. Some lit-up military buildings could be seen in the arms of forests that seemed endless, with small mountains, hills, rivers, and meadows around, to the horizon, like a huge, overcrowded carpet.

Sonoko recognized their current and previous gaming field, and she could also observe in the celestial light-show, that a third fenced area belonged to these two. A bit on the north side. Thus, passing this fence-line they will not go into the next gaming field, they will be...

Free.

This already made her feel better. Would have been good to scream a victory shout just for that douche Moskvin and his retarded team, to the depths of their dark base. But, Riki pulled her back to reality as he kicked the fence.

"Move!"

So Sonoko kept climbing down. A strong gust of wind almost made her fall down, but she managed to claw at the grid in time. She lost Riki's uniform coat though, the piece landed on the wrong side of the fence, in the slush. As she finally arrived where Riki was waiting for her, she was afraid that the boy did not like the mistake she had just made.

Surprisingly, Riki did not comment on anything, just studied his watch while moving deeper into the woods. He took back a bit from his pace, perhaps, because they were not like caged animals anymore. Sonoko hugged herself in a freezing way, still trying to keep up with Riki or fighting the desire to throw up. She did not want to be ashamed of losing consciousness or something like that, so to avoid feeling more sick she decided to keep her mind busy. She tried to recall pleasant memories from the past including Shinji, but for some reason, she failed to imagine the handsome face she liked so much.

A bit later, she was sure that she caught a cold. Ice-cold, muddy legs, burning freeze, running nose. Best not to think of anything at all.

She thought if she empties every corner of her mind, she might feel better. So she was focusing on Riki's shirt again.

After some time, when minutes felt like hours, that white shirt seemed to have widened a little. Sonoko winked her eyes, then rubbed them. She was probably deceived by the fever. But no. That wide sport in her vision was indubitably widening. And before she could do something, the whiteness filled out her mind completely just to give way to total darkness.


Sonoko came to her senses with memories of fiery wheels, torturous heat, and a place looked like a desert. Her eyes just popped up with an urgent need to drink, then take a shower, because she was still shaking from the cold, and her body was swimming in sweat. At least her forehead was not too hot anymore.

And she realized one more thing. Although the weather and time of day had not changed, some time had passed since she lost consciousness. She found herself in a semi-dark room. The rain did not stop falling, it was still drumming on the roof of the house she was in. Sonoko laid on a raw wooden bed lined with soft patched blankets made of animal skins. She sat up and sniffed the musty smell that came from the blankets.

The house was not too big, it consisted of only this room with just a few furniture. Sonoko's bed took place opposite the doorless entrance, next to it could be found a worn closet and a dust-covered table with chairs. This wooden dwelling had once been visited regularly, probably due to the end of the Cold War (the war was here, no matter what people thought) it became abandoned.

Now that Sonoko hadn't received water openly, and thanks to the warm blankets, she felt better. After taking a look around, soon she spotted a white silhouette on the doorstep. Riki Ryusaki - who else - was staring out into the distance from a wide wooden porch, which was part of the dwelling. He probably noticed that the girl was up, but he pretended the opposite.

Sonoko began to walk towards him, her footsteps echoed on the carpetless floor.

"You should rest more, don't you think?" Riki broke the silence "You lost consciousness."

Sonoko turned crimson. She was ashamed of what happened. No one should see her that way, as a weak. She never cried in front of others. She stopped behind Riki still aflush with the blankets on the back.

"And I assume you brought me here," she answered half sharply.

"Well, you couldn't have come here by yourself."

He barely said out, Sonoko felt stinking cigarette smoke in her nose. She noticed Riki smoking only now, as he held something glowing between his fingers.

"This cigarette stinks even more than my mother's homemade stuff," said Sonoko, almost commanding Riki to stub it. She tried to let the smoke go with her hands waving. Riki turned around with an unconcerned glance. Instead of answering, he blew a small wisp of smoke into Sonoko's face. Who, of course, was not happy about that. Now she tried to get rid of the smell even more angrily.

"Thank you very much, that's what I wanted," she grunted, but to avoid an argument, she quickly changed the topic. "Now you can tell me finally, what's going on."

"Have you ever thought of looking at your watch?"

After his question Riki remained silent for a few seconds, then he told Sonoko about his suspicion of what might have happened during the storm. He thought that the lightning had might struck the building that was responsible for controlling and monitoring the game, or at least something had messed up the computers or the electric system, causing a power outage.

Sonoko raised her watch to eye level and watched more carefully what was on the green display. Next to the digital numbers of the timer, she saw a tiny circle divided into three parts. This was in the place of the network signal. The circle was constantly spinning as computers used to show an hourglass for ongoing activities, and a small text explained the reason for the anomaly.

LOST CONTACT, TRYING TO RECONNECT

So the built-in sensors have lost contact with the base and attempting to set up a connection. Now it explains everything why we could escape without the Soviets noticing. But what if everything is going back to normal? It takes only to press a button, and we'll toast.

"How did you know there was a power outage and not only the bad weather that f*cked up the connection of our watches?" Sonoko asked after some time.

"Brainless girls..." said Riki with an eye-roll "All you have to do is to check the status lights on the electric fence posts. No lights, no electricity."

Sonoko raised her palm as someone who wanted to hit another person.

"Don't you dare," answered Riki without looking at her.

"Douchebag." then she lowered the arm and decided not to ask the boy, why did he save her.

She got sore at Riki and would have preferred to leave the dwelling to spend some time alone. Unfortunately, she did not feel strong enough for the task. So she returned to bed and continued sulking while she turned her face toward the wall. She was at the edge of dream and reality when Riki's voice pulled her back to wake.

"Why are you mad? It was nothing new when I said girls aren't too smart."

Maybe it was the tiredness that made Sonoko furious again in no time. She had such an incident twice in her life so far, when she lost her temper so bad, that she acted like a stranger. A beast. The first time she argued with her cousin at the age of twelve. The cousin made fun of Sonoko by giving her ugly nicknames, without Sonoko doing any harm to him. So in her helplessness, she spat on him. The other case was a couple of years ago. Her mom did not want to do something her daughter wanted, so Sonoko became so angry that she kicked her mother on the leg in front of so many people on the bus. She regretted it immediately, but it was too late.

Such temper of the uncontrollable monster took her again. She jumped out of bed and did not stop until she reached Riki. Who, hearing the noise that someone was coming as noisy as a rhino, turned around, so he caught Sonoko just in time as she raised her leg to kick him. His hand holding the cigarette trembled, not from fear, but because he had not touched the piece for a long time, so it almost burned out completely and some embers fell on Riki's hands.

Long minutes passed, or just Sonoko felt that way. She lowered her leg back, red as a boiled lobster, and in her confusion, she began to study the wooden wall of the house. Riki shrugged his shoulders, turned back to the original direction, and lighted up another cigarette after he put a can out of his pocket.

Sonoko saw the white letters on the dark blue background of the box: White Moon.

"Isn't that a Japanese brand?" she asked in surprise "What's this one doing here, so far away from the Empire?"

As no answer came, she returned to her - in such circumstances royal - bed. But before she laid down, she picked up an empty can from the table and threw at Riki. He caught the can before it can hit him.

"You're back to normal, at least. Good," he said almost with some cheer in his voice.

Sonoko did not answer on purpose. She almost fell asleep for the second time when she heard another unexpected question.

"Who's that Shinji?"

Hearing Shinji's name Sonoko's heart beat double as before. She would have expected anything from Riki, just not that. She forgot her anger by the time her classmate explained what he meant by that.

"I'm just wondering who is the guy who doesn't give a damn about you. Cause it's not a surprise."

"Yeah, yeah, nobody wants me, I get it," said Sonoko, a bit sadly. It was true, that she has been told she's a cute girl, and she did not consider herself ugly anyway. But somehow, boys always avoided her, when it was about to find a boyfriend.

"I think" Riki began slowly, the ending she expected to get, like 'You're not ugly' or something has not arrived. Instead of that, the twin ended like that:

"You're way more like a brimstone. Like you want to dominate over everything and everyone."

Sonoko should have rewarded the honesty he said out without batting an eyelid, still, she felt horrible hearing it. Because he knew Riki was right. Sonoko's younger brother said the same sometimes.

"And how do you know about Shinji? You were eavesdropping!" since her mood dropped down below zero, she could not strike back otherwise just to recall the time they spent in the mansion. Rumiko and she thought Riki was sleeping when they had their conversation about Shinji. He was not mentioned at some other time. And... uh-oh... Rumiko said I and Riki find quarrels in straw like a couple. Riki did not skip that obviously.

"And you called us filthy low-folk!"

That was the last word she said, a sharp pain coming from her head made her retire into her thoughts. She felt alone, she needed someone to share her thoughts with, someone, who can take the burden off of her a bit.

Why did you send Riki to help me, Lyx? she said in herself to her guardian angel, with blame in her voice. After that, she regretted it and apologized. I know you want the best for me. For the moment it is Riki, so I accept it.

Suddenly, she was overwhelmed with the feeling that whatever she had to go through later, she will survive. No matter, that she felt hungry, or as she had to work in the GULAG for two weeks in a row, she called Lyx's golden image to mind, smiling.

Finally, she could fall asleep.

[Number of students: 14]