DISCLAIMER: I don't own any of the characters of this fic, except for Altena. Altena is an OC of mine. With that being said, enjoy the story!
Chapter 3: Vodka
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[In the middle of a snowstorm.]
[PLAY MUSIC: Metro Exodus - Teardrops]
Sam, Chito, and Yuuri are travelling in the middle of a vast, empty road, where a snowstorm is constantly battering the trio. Not to mention, the added darkness that surrounds them make things infinitesimally worse. Thankfully, however, the weather situation hasn't gotten worse into its peaking nadir yet. For Sam, however, this kind of phenomena has become a regular occurrence for him. Radiations, mutants, bandits, whatever he names it, are never an inconvenience for the ex-Order member.
The eeriest part of their trip to oblivion, however, is that they have endlessly been going in a straight line in the middle of such an empty, snowy road, with some abandoned structures looming around them, including transmission towers.
As for Chito and Yuuri, however, the latter is seen enjoyably creating a snowman, despite the obvious bleakness that surrounds them for hours. For Sam, inside of his van, he can hope he can get out of this place and settle in before the snowstorms become even worse to the point that zero visibility is much more commonplace.
Inside of Sam's van...
Sam is seen smoking a cigarette, as he continues driving through his van, with Chito and Yuuri and their Kettenkrad next to his own vehicle. Glancing through the icy windscreen, he begins pondering how this situation is no different from his own world.
"There is nothing different about this snowstorm." Sam comments, as he uses the windscreen wiper to clean up some of the snow. "This is pretty much like my old world, but the only difference was that my world compounded with radiation."
Sam then proceeds to dispose of his cigarette, as he slightly opens the car window next to him, before he calls the survivors in.
"Are you okay there, Chito and Yuuri?" Sam calls out.
"I'm creating a snowman here, Taylor-san!" Yuuri replies back. "Don't worry about us!" She continues confidently.
"I hope we can get out of this damn road." Sam curses, as he is hearing the familiar annoying sound of his car on the verge of breaking down. "Ah, Goddamnit! At a time like this?!" He laments to himself in annoyance.
With Chito and Yuuri...
Much to the noirnette's annoyance, she has seen her blondette friend continuously piling up two snowballs above her friend's helmet, as it now forms into a snowman, complete with a bullet as a nose.
"And will you just stop making all those snowballs?" Chito questions with annoyance.
"Huh? I was just starting to have fun back here." Yuuri responds casually.
"My head feels heavy... And then really cold now." Chito comments, as she now feels the permeating cold around her.
"Hey, did you know that the Afterlife is supposed to be really warm?"
"If that's true then it doesn't look like we're dead yet, now doesn't."
On cue with that, Yuuri shivers in utter coldness.
"Do you think Taylor-san had experience with this before, Chii-chan?" Yuuri asks Chito.
"Based on what he told us, so far, he said that his own Order were known to be trained in a rigorous manner, as means to prepare themselves for situations like this." Chito responds.
"It sure is cold."
40 minutes later...
Sam, Chito, and Yuuri later leave reach the end of the barren road they have been travelling through, as they now reach a slope, where the road is now accompanied with transmission towers and buildings. Regardless, they Along the way, however, both the girls are getting colder as some snow has been slowly falling into them and their own Kettenkrad, as well. Sam's car, on the other hand, now has ice caking around his vehicle. To make matters worse, the snowstorms have intensified, making zero visibility conditions a nightmarish reality.
Earlier, Sam had faced a verging engine flooding that could have caused him to end up getting stranded in the middle of nowhere, with Chito and Yuuri leaving him. Thankfully, however, luck has been on his side, for once.
"We... We gotta find place somewhere out of the cold, so we can rest, soon." Chito answers as she shivers.
"Yeah..." Yuuri answers tiredly. "Speaking of which, is Taylor-san okay?" She inquires furthermore, before falling asleep.
However, Chito does not answer to Yuuri's inquiry, as she is also seen asleep, as well.
A few minutes later, she suddenly wakes up at the moment, before shaking herself twice to recompose herself, as she revs up her Kettenkrad, as they are about to reach yet another desolate road in the middle of a violent snowstorm.
Sam, on the other hand, has been continuously driving his vehicle, while his own van is on the verge of breaking down.
As the group continue driving, all they can see are consonant derelict power stations between the left and right sides of the road that they currently take in with a pitch-black skyline in front of them, which make the experience altogether much eerier than ever before, much like they have crossed the previous road from before.
Chito then suddenly snaps back to her senses, as she immediately turns her attention to Yuuri.
"Wake up, Yuu!" Chito says in exclamation, which causes Yuuri to wake up.
Back with Sam's car...
Sam immediately wakes up, as he notices that his car is slowly breaking down, much to his disappointment that he now has to fix it once they find a place to settle in away from the violent snowstorm.
"Goddamnit... I hope we can find our way out of this mess already." Sam comments.
To Sam's utter annoyance, he is hearing the familiar sound of his car, which is an instance of a flooded engine. He attempts to turn the ignition switch on, but all he hears is his engine breaking down.
"Ugh... Right now?!" Sam then goes down to his car, as he opens the hood of his van.
As expected, Sam's car's engine has been burnt out and it is in desperate need of repairs. He then glances at Chito and Yuuri, who have found what seems to be an abandoned power plant.
"What happened, Taylor-san?!" Chito exclaims from a distance.
"My shit got stuck!" Sam replies. "I need your little Kettenkrad for a minute!"
"What? But you can't!" Yuuri responds at Sam's suggestion. "The Kettenkrad will break at a moment!"
"Help me out here, then! I need to put this car inside, so I have to spend my night fixing it!"
Both Chito and Yuuri use whatever energy they have left as they run to Sam, who is nearing the power plant, but his car has unfortunately broken down before he has even reached the entrance of the abandoned building itself. With that, through valiant efforts, they begin to push the vehicle from the back.
"AND HEAVE!" Sam, Chito, and Yuuri grunt, as they exert their force.
Slowly, Sam's car is moving as the trio put in their efforts to make it move until to the inside of the power plant, and they have finally done so.
"Spasibo, Chito and Yuuri." Sam thanks them. "Now let's go before we will be buried by the snow itself."
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[Abandoned power plant]
Several minutes later, with Sam, Chito, and Yuuri now inside of the power plant, the trio are looking for ways to get warm, after they have endured extreme cold during their trip into nowhere with snowstorms and freezing temperatures to exacerbate. Sam later takes his time to begin his repairs for his car. Not far from him, he sees Chito and Yuuri standing in front of a pipe.
"Finally. It's about time." Sam says.
Sam proceeds to take out a toolbox under the driver's seat, as he begins to open the hood of his car to fix whatever damage it has been caused by the engine flooding. Before that, however, he takes out the bottle of 45% vodka he has found in the military transport aircraft from the passenger seat, once he has done with the necessary repairs.
"The damage isn't this bad, but I need to fix this damn thing before it breaks down from out of nowhere on the next trip."
Sam then takes a variety of tools from the toolbox as he begins to fix the engine of his car.
As expected, the engine on Sam's van has been slightly damaged, but he takes no hesitation to fix it as soon as possible, before the next trip tomorrow. In the middle of his repairs, however, he is suddenly interrupted by a gunshot hitting through metal. Glancing through the source of the noise, he sees Yuuri aiming her rifle into the pipe, before he has heard sounds of water coming from the said pipe itself.
"What are you trying to do there, Yuuri?" Sam asks.
"Chii-chan and I have found hot water!" Yuuri says. "This is perfect for a hot bath!" She adds.
Afterwards, Sam also sees a dripping water within a pipe, just a few metres away from where he currently stands. He then proceeds to touch a single drop of it, where he then deduces that it's hot water, much like what Chito and Yuuri has discovered.
Proceeding to shoot the dripping pipe, Sam takes out his Sammy rifle and fires a single, accurate shot into it, before voluminous amounts of hot water begin pouring down from the hole that Sam has shot at. Immediately, he then proceeds to take a lone metal crate, just a few metres away from him, to store most of it.
"Perfect." Sam commented, as he watches the water pouring down lazily.
After minutes of waiting, Sam has managed to fill up some hot water for himself inside the crate. He then proceeds to create a campfire of his own by proceeding to rip apart some of the upholstery inside his car.
With enough of it to initiate a campfire, Sam then lights up the upholstery fragments and douse it with some fuel, before he lights it up with his lighter. He then goes back to his repairs.
Back with Chito and Yuuri...
A few minutes after sending a pipe with an opening at the top, both Chito and Yuuri have decided to fill it up with the hot water they obtained from the pipe that the latter has shot into, thus turning it into a makeshift hot bath.
"I'm glad we found a pipe in such good condition." Yuuri commented.
"Yeah." Was all Chito could say.
"There we go. A bath."
"Let's get in."
Both Chito and Yuuri later strip themselves before heading into the makeshift hot bath.
35 minutes later...
Sam is later seen finishing the last of his repairs for his car, before proceeding to wash his grimy hands with the hot water he has obtained. Putting the toolbox back to where it was, he then proceeds to move to where Chito and Yuuri are now currently in his own van, as he exits down before sitting in front of the campfire the blondette has created.
Sam then proceeds to take out the cold bottle of vodka, as he puts it on the floor, before opening it.
"Are you really going to drink all of that thing, Taylor-san?" Chito inquires.
"Fat chance." Sam answers straightly. "This thing is too painful for anyone's mouth and throat to drink even in small shots." He adds, as he pours a shot glass length of the alcoholic drink into his own canteen. "Luckily, this thing's cold, so I won't have some problem burning my throat over a single shot." He adds.
Sam then lights a cigarette, as he takes a shot of his vodka. While not as noticeably potent as the alcoholic drink, comprising of a mixture of moonshine and fish oil, he had during his stay with Eduard Baranov in Vladivostok, it is certainly enough to push him into a state of inebriation.
"About that..." Yuuri said. "Can you tell us more about your past, Taylor-san? About the trip you guys did from that moving vehicle! The train, you know?" She adds, wanting Sam to reveal more about his past in his old world.
"You mean the Aurora?" Sam answers. "Well, it's like this." He adds, before pouring down another shot of vodka in his canteen.
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[The Aurora locomotive, two years ago.]
After a tense train heist was perpetrated by erstwhile Hanza train engineer Yermak, Artyom, and Anna in the Hanza train yard, which came after the existence of signal jammers, the rest of the Order escaped Moscow after an intense battle with the Hanza.
One hundred klicks later, they were later travelling, pondering for themselves what they had just gotten into, which led into an argument between Anna and Miller, before Idiot defused it. After listening to a radio frequency coming from the "Ark" in Yamantau within Urals, the rest of the Aurora Crew were later given hope of a new life beyond Moscow's walls: a life in a bunker.
"So... Is this what you have in mind?" Anna inquired.
"Yes! This is it! The 'Ark' project is a whole city underground! Enormous stores, machines, the best experts! It is the Commander General's HQ! All of the country's leaders are there! They have already started the restoration work! We will tell them that Moscow is alive! It wasn't all for nothing! Everything will change! Everything! Do you get it? A new life is starting, for all the survivors of the war!" Miller exclaimed with confidence, which caused the rest to cheer.
"Now there's a thought!" Idiot added.
"Hooray! Oh, by the way - are there any single women in that place?" Alyosha asked in a Casanova manner.
"Great reaction!" Miller replied to Alyosha's response. "So, I think the moment calls for... Bring it out, Damir!" He added, as he ordered Damir.
"Bring what out, Colonel, Sir?" Damir questioned.
"The thing that's been sloshing about in your canteen! Do you think I'm deaf or what?" Miller answered.
"Ah, that..." Damir pondered. "Just a moment, I thought my ears were deceiving me..."
"Hahahaha!" Sam laughed.
After that, Miller gave the cups of tea to Sam and to Anna.
"It's not a short trip to the Urals... So, we should make ourselves comfortable, I guess..." Miller responded. "Let's name this bucket of bolts at the very least! Ah?" He then inquired, as he was describing the Aurora.
"It's about time!" Anna exclaimed.
"Let's call her Anna and be done with it!" Alyosha answered, which only made Sam and the rest laughed.
"Go to hell!" Anna replied.
"Beelzebub! Ho ho ho!" Duke comically answered.
"Even better! Oh, come on!"
"How about Aurora? The Roman goddess of dawn and a cruiser of, uh, you know what..." Idiot spoke, before trailing.
"Not bad! I like it!" Alyosha commented.
"A beautiful name..." Yermak complimented.
"Sounds OK..." Sam trailed. "But a cruiser of what?" He questioned.
"I'll tell you later..." Alyosha sarcastically answered.
"Looks like it's decided..." Miller declared. "Let's drink to Aurora!" He said, as he took out his cup of tea.
"To the Aurora!" The rest sans Artyom spoke, before they drank their tea altogether.
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[Present day, at the abandoned power plant]
While now bordering to sluggishness, Sam is still seen drinking some vodka, as it was now half a bottle left, before he stopped.
"Th-those were the memories I had as to how... AS TO HOW AURORA WAS BIRTHED! IT WAS THANKS TO OUR COLONEL!" Sam said with obvious signs of inebriation coming from his tone, before he fell asleep from drunkenness.
"Wow, that drink surely was strong." Yuuri commented.
After that conversation, Yuuri then took a book from Chito's bag, where she suddenly threw it on fire for warmth. That was later immediately taken notice by the noirnette, as she immediately took it out from the fire. The noirnette is angered, before she takes out two books from her bag and squished it right to Yuuri's face.
"I'm sorry!" Yuuri said with no tinge of seriousness.
After that, Chito's annoyance grew over Yuuri's personality. Sam, on the other hand, is too drunk to think of what was going on between the two girls.
"You're such a moronic IDIOT!" Chito exclaimed.
"Okay." Yuuri casually answered.
"Don't 'Okay' me!" Chito exclaimed.
Yuuri only looks at her angered friend.
"Whatever, Yuu!" Chito retorted. "I'm going to bed..." She then leaves Yuuri alone, before falling asleep, leaving her all by herself.
"Chii-chan.." Yuuri called her friend's name, but no response was given.
With Yuuri the only person awake, she felt some guilt over burning one of Chito's books. She attempted to talk to Sam, but the ex-Order soldier was too drunk to even utter a single word. She the proceeds to look at the bottle of vodka that Sam had, but she turned her head away from it, before looking at Chito's bag of books. She then takes the noirnette's journal out, as she sat in front of the campfire.
Outside, the snowstorm continues to persist throughout midnight.
The next day...
With the snowstorm petered out, Sam, Chito, and Yuuri later wake up, as they see their way out being blocked off by a layer of snow. The ex-Order member, on the other hand, wakes up with a painful hangover, as he grunts in utter pain coming from his head, in the form of a migraine.
"What the heck just happened?" Sam commented, as he attempts to recompose himself. "The last thing I remembered was me falling asleep after drinking nearly half of that vodka." He pointed at the bottle of vodka he had just drunk from yesterday. "Talk about drowning my sorrows."
Sam, attempting to counter the hangover, later stands up, as he then looks at the snowy entrance in front of him.
"It looks like the only way to leave this place again is through a shovel." Sam comments. "This snow is too thick for us to go out, even for me." He adds, before he takes out his own shovel. Chito and Yuuri also have brought in their own shovels, as well.
"AND GO!" Chito and Yuuri both utter.
"Here's to the Order!" Sam then proceeds to push the shovel into the ice, creating a giant hole.
After pushing the ice out of the way, Sam, Chito, and Yuuri later see the view of the layered city and the buildings in front of them, with the ground in front of them covered in snow, as they leave the abandoned power plant.
"Oh, it cleared up!" Yuuri exclaims.
"The snow has piled up." Chito simply says, as she goes back to her own Kettenkrad, before Yuuri begins pushing it. Sam, on the other hand, later does the same thing. The trio then proceed to leave the site before proceeding to the city proper.
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[The megacity ruins]
Sam, Chito, and Yuuri have arrived into the abandoned city. For Sam, he has seen what humans in this world were capable of making in the past. Buildings, buildings, and more buildings that all follow a uniform architecture. Parking their own vehicles, they later step down and reach a hand rail, where the view of the artificial river can be seen below them.
"Your world really has such a strange architecture to begin with." Sam commented. "Everywhere we go around this city, we see uniformed buildings that looked exactly the same." He derides the state of this world's architecture.
"I don't even have the slightest idea how humans would achieve like this." Chito comments.
Afterwards, the trio later watch at the artificial below them, which is made of concrete. In front of them within the river are numerous abandoned structures in front of them, including the remains of transmission towers, a giant pulley, and strangely-patterned iron bars that go on a vertical line.
"I think it's around here." Chito says, as she looks at the river.
"Sure it's nice outside, despite all that." Yuuri added.
"It's been nice out here for a while now." Chito responds. "That's why I figured that it would be coming here pretty soon." She adds.
Sam only takes a cigarette, as he watches the scenery below. For him, he could not believe that not even natural rivers exist in this world anymore, but they are instead replaced by artificial rivers, which exactly matches the uniformity of the cities he has seen in this world for over a few weeks from now.
"What do you mean something's coming?" Yuuri inquires.
"You can hear it." Chito said.
The trio hear a rumbling sound below them.
"Quiet! I hear something." Sam orders.
"That must be it." Chito added.
Suddenly, they felt a slight tremor underneath Sam, Chito, and Yuuri, as they later see the drainage pipe flowing voluminous amounts of water below into the artificial river. One pipe to the other, the trio see the other pipes also flowing the same amount of water in synchronicity.
"There it is." Chito points out. "See? It's melted snow." She adds.
"So that's what you meant by something's coming." Yuuri says. "That sure is a lot."
"It's been warm for a few days now." Chito adds.
"Maybe we should go down and see it for ourselves." Sam responds.
"Okay, then." Chito adds.
"Besides, we should need some drinking water." Sam continues, as she carry a small empty barrel.
Chito and Yuuri head back to the Kettenkrad, as they pick up their own backpacks, with Sam taking his own in his own van, as they proceed to head down into the river.
Walking through the spiralling stairway, the trio later stop, when they encounter water in front of them. forcing themselves to take off their shoes, before proceeding to step into the cold water. Both Chito and Yuuri shiver in cold, while Sam slightly does so.
"Ohmygod, Chii-chan!" Yuuri utters while shivering. "So freaking cold!"
"Be lucky that there is no radiation in here." Sam commented. "This place is nothing like what I endured in Moscow."
A few minutes later...
Sam, Chito, and Yuuri are later seen walking through the river in barefoot, as they endure the coldness of the water itself. The latter, on the other hand, is glancing at the colour of the river.
"Look at it... It's so blue, Chii-chan." Yuuri answers.
"Watch where you're stepping." Chito demands.
"Speaking of which... Taylor-san, are the waters coloured blue like this in your own world?" Yuuri asks.
"It depends on where you are." Sam replies, as he glanced at the water below him. "The world's oceans are mostly blue, but not all lakes and oceans from around the world are blue like this one." He continues, as he looks below. "Especially after the War that nearly killed all of humanity, 22 years ago, I highly doubt there would be some traces of blue waters to be seen, whatsoever."
"So it's not even blue at all?" Yuuri asks.
"Not technically." Sam continues.
"And Yuu, didn't you hear me to please watch where you're going?" Chito ordered.
"Don't be silly, Chii-chan." Yuuri casually responds, as she is looking above the sky. "That would be a total waste when the sky's all blue."
Despite Chito's attempt to tell Yuuri to watch where she is going, the noirnette instead gives in.
"When the sky's clear and blue like that..." Chito says, as she looks above the clear skies. "It means it's a good weather for a laundry day." She adds.
The trio later arrive at a rock, as they sit down to rest themselves from all the tireless walking earlier. While Chito is doing hand-washing, and with Yuuri in her usual playful state that often annoys the noirnette to no end, Sam is later seen walking until to the edge of the artificial river, as he stands there carefully, hoping for him to not fall into his demise, before he sees the vastness of the megacity by himself. He sees the chasm below him, as he has glanced around it, seeing even more layered cities below the one he currently stands.
Taking in on the wonders the megacity has, Sam takes out a cigarette before basking in on the scenery that is vastly different from his old world.
"How much humans have accomplished by creating these layered cities in the past?" Sam questions to himself. "Even D6 isn't as vast as this entire place I currently step in." He commented.
"Is that so, Sam?"A familiar female voice has been heard, until Sam sees Altena beside him.
"You again, of all people..." Sam sighed tiredly. "I'm just here basking what this city and this world has become." He continues, as he puffs another smoke from his cigarette.
"I'm not here for any malicious intentions." Altena responded. "The truth is... This world was once living, but an unknown cataclysmic war in the past led to this..."
"I can see it. But tell me, how was this world different from World War III in my old world?" Sam inquired.
[PLAY MUSIC: Metro Exodus - Teardrops]
Sam then looks above the dreary skyline, where he proceeds to see more layered cities and shadows of even more layered cities from afar.
"That I could not answer, but I knew your world was devastated by a nuclear war." Altena answered in defeat. "I only came here 25 years ago in this world, and I largely never knew the fate of such destruction that caused it, hence why I said it was an unknown cataclysmic war." She revealed.
"If that was the case..." Sam pondered. "Then whatever happened here wasn't as different as my own world."
Sam disposes of his cigarette into the chasm, as it slowly drops into the layers of the megacity. He begins watching down the chasm, as his cigarette slowly goes into a state of free fall. He then begins comparing it to his pessimistic thoughts he had basked himself in a few weeks ago before coming to this world. The pain he had to go through to find his father, the forgotten family that he hadn't remembered in 20 years, his near-death experience with the lynch mob, and now the death of the person he dedicated to protect.
But all thanks to a chance encounter with Altena, Sam is somewhat absolved from the guilt of his past, yet he is still incomplete from the inside out.
"But I still have a mission to complete." Sam says in finality.
"If that's the case, then I'll let you go, Sam." Altena responds.
After that, Altena disappears, with Sam latter walking back to where the two girl survivors are currently from. He both sees the two, with Yuuri who have found a fish.
"Taylor-san!" Chito calls from afar.
"You're missing out on the fun here!" Yuuri exclaims. "I've just found this thing called 'fish' here!"
"I'm coming!" Sam called out.
A few minutes later, Sam has later arrived back, as he sees both of them having a fish on the ground. But for Sam, he has no idea what to explain.
"Is this what you call a 'fish', Taylor-san?" Chito asked.
"Yes." Sam responded. "But this didn't look like any other fish I have seen before."
"What is this thing called a 'fish'?" Yuuri asked.
"I think it's a living thing that moves in water." Chito added.
"It's a food humans like us also eat, as well." Sam added. "Lots of people who lived in oceans and lakes benefitted fish as their food source." He added. "But when World War III happened in my world, every single waters from around the world were contaminated with radiation, causing every fish and all maritime creatures to turn into something that was barely recognizable."
"But I thought humans mostly lived in this world, Taylor-san." Chito said. "I heard that a lot of them used to roam around the ocean in the past."
"If there's ocean to be seen." San remarked.
"Okay, let's eat it." Yuuri declares, but she interrupted by Chito.
"What? Do you think it's safe to eat it?" Chito asks with scepticism, before Yuuri puts the fish down on the floor. "I heard that people consumed fish a long ago, but is this one any good?" She inquires. "It doesn't look like it started to decompose." She adds.
"It's not necessarily decomposing." Sam remarks.
"Well, maybe if we just roast it." Chito adds.
"Roast it." Yuuri answers.
"After we hang up our clothes to dry." Chito claimed.
"Give me that fish, and I'll prepare it, while you two do your stuff." Sam said.
"Wait, you do?" Chito said.
"I was a cook once for the Aurora Crew." Sam responded.
Afterwards, Sam takes out his old combat knife, as he slices the fish into three separate parts: head, body, and tail. After dividing it into three parts, he then takes out pieces of wood and starts a roast pit, as he proceeds to place each part of the fish he sliced into it. Meanwhile, both Chito and Yuuri are watching at the clothes they hanged.
Once the fish is cooked, the trio begin to eat their own chosen parts.
"Careful, it's hot." Sam says as he carefully touches the fish.
"Hot, hot!" Yuuri exclaims in pain.
"We told you to be careful." Chito says.
Sam then lights a cigarette as he begins eating, before he puts some water inside the barrel and inside his canteen.
"It's so good!" Yuuri exclaims.
"Yummy." Chito adds, as she looks at Sam. "I guess I understand why people who lived in the ocean and lakes like eating fish a lot in the past."
A few minutes have passed... Chito and Yuuri are seen lying around, as they are waiting for their clothes to dry up, with the fish bone fragments within the middle of the girls, while they see Sam smoking a cigarette, as he is drinking some water, while watching at the water falling from the drainage pipes.
"I have a question to ask to both of you." Sam questioned.
"What is it, Taylor-san?" Chito responded.
"Have you even known what happened in this world?" Sam inquired.
"That we haven't known yet..." Chito answered, before Yuuri proceeds to change the topic.
"Hey, Chii-chan, do you know where the fish would even come from?" Yuuri inquired.
"Probably on the higher levels, or some sort. But who really knows."
"Maybe if we go higher, we might find a whole bunch of them!"
"And what if we do?"
"We eat them."
"Eat them, huh?"
"Yeah."
"Yeah."
"What about you, Taylor-san? Do you think will there be any fish or any food at the higher levels of the city?" Yuuri asks.
Sam then throws the cigarette, before responding. "Don't count on it, Yuuri. I don't know what lies between the higher levels of this city, yet."
"Awwwww..." Yuuri pouts.
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[END OF CHAPTER 3.]