Chapter 36

Sonoko did not notice the moment she fell asleep, her thoughts somehow faded into a dream. It was a bad dream, a nightmare, so the sleep was restless.

She was fighting a stranger and neither of them could defeat the other. The enemy's face was covered by a hood, and what was visible from it was also overshadowed. Whenever he began to speak, he sounded exactly like Riki.

Sonoko realized that she had kicked someone.

It seemed quite real, not like the seemingly never-ending fight. She sat up in bed with a sleepy face as the animal skin blanket slid into her lap. She looked around in the small room, which had not changed too much since the time she was previously awake. It slowly faded in.

Soon Sonoko also found out, what, or rather, who she had kicked into. Riki slept with the head on his arms at the end of the bed, giving no sign of being hurt. Sonoko bent closer to take a look at the otherwise so gloomy and grumpy face, which as Riki was sleeping, seemed young and innocent.

"Looks way better than with that poker face," Sonoko said silently. She almost felt some sympathy towards the boy, if it was not for those memories of what happened a few hours ago.

Thinking about the quarrel put Sonoko back into depression. Her mysterious dream proved to be another spark to the barely gloving ember as anger and hatred in her heart, making a disaster in the girl's head by squeezing her head.

If I don't count the headache, I feel better.

As if this feverish condition were the result of a nightmarish pressure of the night. Her body might have taken a similar view of the matter, as it soon signaled with a stomach ache for hunger and with a dry throat of being thirsty.

Sonoko licked her dry lips, then kicked the blanket off with a firm move. Time to look for something to snack and drink. She was still sitting on the edge of the bed when her gaze fell onto the sleeping boy again. She could not explain why she did that, but she found herself throwing the blanket at him like he would become invisible. It did not scare Riki up from his peaceful sleep. It seemed that nothing could achieve that.

Sonoko aimed at the doorless entrance, shambling quietly in the dusk. However, passing by the small bedside closet next to the bed, she stumbled upon something. That thing knocked hard on the wooden floor, rolled loudly a few meters away, where it stopped and started to rock in one place.

A water bottle.

Sonoko quivered. The noise at this time of the night was worse than the screaming of sufferers.

Riki made a move. His rhythmic breathing continued, so the girl waited a bit. Then she reached the bottle and drank until the plastic bottle became empty. It satisfied her thirst, gave a little fullness to her stomach so she felt hungry no longer.

As she gained some energy, she decided to leave the dwelling.

She could not stay in one place, she was too angry at Riki to stay near him.

Exploring the area, good idea, she thought, and find a new hiding place until she can figure out something. Around daybreak, who would be that insane to walk in the middle of nowhere if they were not on the run?

On the wooden porch, she stretched out her limbs.

The rain took back from its pace, its pouring nature tamed down into a sad sprinkle.

It was much later than Sonoko had guessed though. The bright, dawn horizon was bathing in dense mist, giving the impression that it was still dark outside.

A real boring fall weather in late spring.

She looked at her watch. The text saying "Lost contact, trying to reconnect" was still on the green display near the current time.

5:18 AM.

Somehow Rumiko came to Sonoko's mind as if she had gone for good.

"No way." she shook her head and imagined slapping herself in the face for feeling like that. Rumiko is the apple of Iku's eye, as she, Sonoko of Lyx's. That was the only reason they were alive because their guardian angels were with them. Sonoko knew, they will survive no matter what, as long as they keep that in mind and believe with all their souls.

Lyx takes care of me ...

Sonoko iterated like she was praying, as she set forth into the unknown, alone, without a human companion. She felt it was the right thing to do.

A narrow runway belonged to the dwelling, she followed that for a while. Soon it turned into a wide dirt road, full of animal footprints and vehicle tracks.

No bootprints, which means people don't use this path too often.

As she kept going and examined the surroundings carefully, she became more and more clear about how irresponsible she was. She let herself put into a false sense of security.

They use these roads without getting out of their vehicles.

Yet she did not turn back. She strengthened her mind and soul and let her legs stubbornly carry her after her fate.

Minutes had passed, however, they seemed as long as hours, Sonoko convinced herself at least not to walk in the open. She already left footprints behind her on the muddy road, she could be easily followed by Moskvin's people.

So she left the road and continued her journey along a parallel shore of a shallow ditch. Later the ditch became one with a grassless hill, so the girl had to climb down. By the time she reached the bottom, the mud gathered on her sneakers, the girl felt like she was having skyscrapers under her feet.

Guess it's kinda like walking on those extremely high heels. Not for me.

Now she had to work on getting rid of the extra weight of mud.

She also tried to watch for signs of not being alone anymore, but the process of cleaning proved to be more of a pain in the butt than she thought and needed a lot of focus.

In one moment she heard nothing but the noises of nature, just to come back to reality for threatening dog barking in the next. Sonoko froze, she could not see any dogs at that moment.

She started to walk slowly - No turning around, no turning around - doing as her motto dictated, but the barking became louder, which made her run as fast as possible.

Thanks to the surrounding woods she had no idea from which direction should she expect the dogs to appear.

She took a look back over her shoulder by instinct, that was the moment she saw a medium-size animal jumping out of the bushes.

It was mostly white, that was all she could comprehend, she needed to turn back and run faster. The beast chased her with such speed, not talking about its fiery eyes and constant barking, that she will probably be eaten alive if she let herself caught.

Is it really worth running away? To where? Why? Can Lyx protect me from these claws, and teeth?

She saw no point in escaping. As another person would have moved instead of her, she stopped running. She remained in one place, motionless, watching the white dog charging at her. She was so hopeless, that she forgot to stay afraid.

Everything happened at the very last moment.

Accompanied by a loud click, blinding eyes of a huge reflector lit up from the darkness of the woods. Sonoko stood in the center of it, she had to raise her arms to protect her eyes. With narrow eyes, she managed to see enough in the stream of light, namely that thanks to the dog she drew the attention of a whole watchtower population.

That was the moment the dog reached her. A whistle and some yelling could be heard in a foreign language, then the dog stopped being hostile. It just growled from a certain distance.

Sonoko knew it had to be an early relief.

As proof, she found herself right in the middle of a circle of soldiers. The members were talking Russian to each other, not giving a damn about the confused girl who did not understand a word (her vocabulary in Russian ran out in the basic yes, no, goodbye and such everyday words or the worldwide famous cursing about somebody's mother having some kind of a lifestyle).

After the discussion was over, they tried to ask her identity in more languages - it was a clear thing that she was Japanese, or find out if she talks any of their languages (polish, Czech, Romanian, Slovenian, Hungarian) but Sonoko just blinked apprehensively.

The soldiers eyed her distrustfully, with a bit of confusion and interest, too, most of them tried to get as close to her as possible. So the circle closed tighter, and soon the men started to have a discussion again. They nodded, some were already pointing fingers, while others were staring at her with obvious disgust, imitating with their guns that they want to shoot her immediately.

As the last straw, Sonoko told them the languages she spoke.

"English? German?"

"English! English!" the crowd repeated as a whole, and suddenly, somebody was pushed next to Sonoko from the end of the ring.

Probably the best English speaker.

The young bald boy who could hardly have been older than Sonoko experienced what was it like when all gazes were turned upon him in the center of the attention.

"Who are you? Why are you here? How could you reach this place?" he asked in an uncertain voice, putting his weight from one leg into another.

Compared to the others, he seemed to feel uncomfortable in the uniform, and the machine gun was heavy for him.

Surprisingly the soldiers were waiting in silence.

And then the strictly memorized sentences from the peaceful English lessons overwhelmed Sonoko's mind.

"My name is Sonoko, I'm from the Empire of the Rising Sun." she hove. "I... I came from the Zentsuji Junior High School..."

Somehow she felt that the Russians were not interested in this specific topic, and as long as she wondered what the English equivalent of being sentenced to death might be, the enemy ran out of patience.

One of the biggest soldiers hit her roughly under the ribs with an assault rifle.

"Answer!" he shouted.

Although it is a fact that Sonoko did not like this kind of method to encourage somebody to speak, she remained silent. The one who hit her snorted angrily, then said something to the interpreter boy, who, despite the big guy's tone, muttered expressionlessly.

"Why are you here? How could you reach us? Do you have any idea where you are?"

It should have been an order, but it sounded like a dreamy speech before he is about to faint.

Sonoko was so helpless at this point, full of regrets, fear, and panic, that she was staring a shiny pebble at her shoes without a word. She could just imagine as the soldiers took silent glances at each other, angry, arrogant, or impatient.

But she did not.

What now, Lyx? Am I going to die? She escaped into her thoughts instead. Does it mean that Rumiko's already dead, so I'm next? We agreed that neither of us escapes from here without the other, so if... if this is the sign, I must accept that my journey in this world ends here, right?

The next thing she noticed was that she had stopped looking hard at the stone on the ground. She stared straight into the big guy's unshaven face, who was about to strike her down with the arm.

Sonoko shivered only for a moment. She waited tamely to fulfill her fate.

What, however, did not end up in death or something fatal, but the man slapped her shoulder with his palm - as wide and sturdy as a shovel - so much that she fell on her knees. If it was not for the young boy who caught her, she would have ended up laying in the mud.

The soldiers laughed up as one at the amusing scene. Rising above everyone, the big man said something in his throaty voice and sent a malicious grin to Sonoko. Judging by the tone, he shared a mocking thought with the others, and Sonoko bet she heard an English word in that sentence: Desolator Trooper.

She remembered more laughing and a sharp mosquito bite from a shot she got into her arm before microscopic stars started to dance in front of her eyes.

A little familiar situation... Once upon a time, it had happened... not too long ago. On the day of a certain kidnapping.

Heavy blinks, slow breathing.

Lyx, no matter what happens, I accept it... I welcome the end of my life, because I know we'll meet soon... because we... we...

Then she surrendered to the death-smelling grin of darkness that greeted her as an old friend.

She fell into the arms of unconsciousness. It could have belonged to a Soviet as well who had just jumped there to catch her. But it could be also the sticky palm of the reaper, who once locks you between its fingers, there is no escape.

A few miles away, in the dwelling, Riki woke up to a barking dog.

[Number of students: 10]