Chapter 23: Gabriel dropout...

Gabriel awoke in the middle of the night.

When she came to, the sounds of coughing, groaning and whispers gradually became louder, as if her ears were also awakening from the radiation-induced slumber. For a while she laid there motionless, too fatigued to move a single muscle. But she was conscious nonetheless, her mind trapped in- for all she knew, a dying body.

She wanted to scream. She imagined herself scrambling up Mt. Fuji, standing at the very top and letting all her emotions out in the form of one long scream. Maybe she would throw a few words or sentences in there too. It had been after all, too long since she let anything meaningful out, apart from her guttural screams when she would hold down the trigger of her rifle.

She had always felt bottled up ever since she descended down from the heavens. Never bothering, or too ashamed rather, to have any sort of meaningful chats with her friends during school. The closest thing to it were the long lines of curse words she would string together to convey anger towards her teammates in the MMO she was playing. The only hypothetical situation where Gabriel would be comfortable sharing her feelings back in the day, would probably be a box with enough room for two people to sit in, with a sheet of wood in-between. Maybe then she wouldn't have to look Vignette in the eyes as she cried and complained and let everything out. The first thing would most likely be how much she loved Vignette.

"No no...," Gabriel thought. "I would have to be drunk for that."

She doubted that Vignette didn't know how she felt towards her. Even if she hadn't said it explicitly with an 'I love you'. She considered saying it far too cheesy for her tastes.

She closed her eyes and tried to piece together what might have happened.

"...okay...Vignette...Anna...medicine...," she thought. Images of the two hiking across the irradiated city flashed in her mind. "...how the hell would they ever find anything...? I hope Ansel's okay. I hope Raphiel's okay. God...I want to see them. What...time is it?"

Gabriel's mind was in a frenzy. She managed to tilt her head slightly to her right, so that she could see more her environment. It was dim, but she could see a vomit bag filled with blood, and another person sleeping on a mattress not too far from her. She stayed that way for another minute, her head tilted to the right, until the corner of her mouth served as an impromptu spout where blood slowly began to leak out.

Her chest cried in agony as she mustered up enough strength to cough, the noise sounding like she was trying to breathe underwater. A shadowy figure hurried over and helped Gabriel turn her body on its side so that she could expel the liquid out from her mouth.

"Breathe in through your nose. Cough."

Her voice sounded hoarse. Too many cigarettes, Gabriel assumed. No, too many problems. She wished she could have a cigarette right now.

The build up inside her stomach was expelled into the same vomit bag and Gabriel felt better, like someone had partly opened a bottle of soda to release the pressure. It was a surprise to both her and the nurse when she slowly sat up, although she immediately regretted her involuntary decision.

Her head began spinning from the sudden change in position. She felt the blood rush to her head even after she laid back down, and her brain began knocking on the inside of her skull like it wanted out, causing her to groan in pain.

"Easy, easy. Stay still."

Again, Gabriel desperately wanted to scream as loud as she could, but restrained herself for the sake of not waking everyone up.

She hated this. Her bones ached. Her stomach ached. The universe was using all its might to pin her body on the ground. Either that, or it made gravity ten times stronger so that every movement she made felt like she was moving lead.


It was an initial violent tremor in the subway tunnel that woke Gabriel from her sleep. It was a deep, ominous rumble, the sound of an explosion up on the surface. Wanting to return to her dream, Gabriel closed her eyes and focused on the warmth of the blankets covering her, when the tremors returned, one after another.

The sound of crying babies reverberated around the underground train station and worried voices got louder as patients began to wake up.

"...Gab...?...are you okay?"

Her eyes darted open and saw a pair of eyes looking at her. She internally sighed in relief when she saw that Ansel wasn't as badly irradiated as she was.

"They're coming...d-don't worry!," he exclaimed. "You'll be better in no time!"

Gabriel gave a weak smile, and the blonde ten year old boy beamed a smile back. He flinched when a particularly violent tremor shook the walls of the tunnels, causing dirt to trickle down from the roof.

"...poor kid...," Gabriel thought. "...you don't deserve this..."

Gabriel guessed that it was probably daytime, but despite her wishes to get up and help, she found it still nearly impossible to move. She was in the same position she was in when she fell asleep: laid flat on her back, eyes looking up at the ceiling. Her neck was beginning to ache from the makeshift pillow under it, she could barely feel her legs and she felt like it took every fibre of her being just to rotate her head slightly to the right to get a better view of Ansel.

He had four or five layers of clothing on and the end of the sleeves looked like they were torn to allow him to use this hands. In one hand he held a travel pamphlet of some kind, and the other he rested on top of Gabriel's blanket.

Ansel noticed Gabriel's red eyes glance over at the pamphlet he was holding, to which he moved it closer for her to read.

"Germany...!," he blurted out. He sounded as if he was trying to think of anything else except what was happening outside. "Das ist Deutschland! My...my home!"

A small smile formed on her face. She enjoyed hearing Ansel speak in his native tongue. Before the nuke hit, when they were living in the apartment, she fantasized about living with Vignette and Ansel in their own quaint little home in the countryside as a picturesque family. She even imagined learning German and English so that she could make dumb jokes with them. They always did light up when they heard their mother tongue.

"I...liked it there. You would like it there Gab."

She gave the smallest of nods.

"I-I think. I-I...there was a tree-house...and...and..."

He began to trail off and his voice began to shake. Involuntary sharp breaths and sniffles slowly began to accompany his words as he mentioned his parents, and how they used to live.

He held the pamphlet tight to his chest as he rested his forehead on Gabriel's mound of blankets and quietly wept. Gabriel felt relieved that Ansel had the chance to mourn the loss of his parents. There was no doubt that he had been denying it up to this point, and Gabriel knew. But she felt a weight being lifted off her chest alongside the small child as he continued to cry, as if they were at a funeral.

Gabriel averted her gaze away from him and saw a familiar face come running towards them. Sophie's face softened after checking the blonde's neck for a pulse. After all, she did see a kid crying on top of her and she put two and two together.

"Thank God...," Sophie muttered. "Don't scare me like that."

She gently consoled Ansel before lifting him up and handing him over to a man in a lab-coat, and they walked off. Gabriel didn't have time to even utter a noise out of her mouth, and she imagined that he definitely was going to be put somewhere with kids his age, where they would play and draw and have fun. Although the pessimistic side of her said otherwise.

"How are you holding up Gabbers?," Sophie asked as she sat down next to her tiredly. The bags under her eyes indicated that she had forgone sleep for a greater cause.

Silence lingered in the air as she awkwardly fished a cigarette out of her lab-coat and placed it in her mouth. Her movements were haggard. She was getting visibly frustrated from missing the end of her cigarette with the flame two or three times before she could hold her hand steady enough so that it could catch. Carefully, she rested the back of her head on Gabriel's lower torso and began talking as if she was at a therapist's appointment.

"Yeah. Thought so. It's a wonder you're still alive." Her voice was barely audible. She was muttering to herself, although the blonde could still hear.

The scientist began mumbling disconnected numbers and short phrases to herself, her brain desperately crunching numbers together for the sake of everyone around her. She undid her ponytail and let her dirty brown hair flow past her shoulders.

"732 alive...421 acute rad syndrome...at least 340mg of metronidazole and pefloxacin each...340 times 400 is 1360..."

"You missed a zero there Soph," Gabriel laughed internally. To think that she would gladly do math right now if it meant taking her mind off the numbing pain. "You should get some rest."

"How the fuck do we get that...lets hope they bring back enough. I don't...I hope enough."

Another explosion shook the pillars of the tunnel, but Sophie didn't flinch, instead taking another long drag of the cigarette tiredly. What she wouldn't give for any kind of music right now. She was ready to break down and crumble on the floor if she heard another kid crying.

Gabriel found that it was difficult to concentrate in such an enclosed space. Given that it was a tunnel, any noises: coughs, whispers or cries, repeated itself at least four times as it bounced off the curved concrete walls. It made sleeping a challenge, the noises blending in with each other, creating a horrible melody similar to what one would find in a horror movie. Gabriel could've sworn she heard her name once, as if it were the voices of the dead trying to communicate with her. Though it could just be her imagination.

Her eyes widened when she heard a faint argument echo into the medical bay, and Sophie noticed.

"So...it's a rough situation right now. The JSDF have given up control of the coastal areas so we're pretty much on our own."

She turned her head to lock eyes with Gabriel.

"What do we do...even if they come back with the medicine, it'll still take weeks for everyone to heal. I doubt we can hold them back for long. No...we need vehicles. Above ground has fallout and can't use the roads anyway so we'll follow the metro tunnels," she exhaled quietly. "But where...get cars...trucks..."

Sophie trailed off in intensive thought. It was a logistical nightmare. A nuclear bomb had just gone off nearby, relatively speaking, and enemy forces were invading Japan. Most of their electronics were fried from the blast, and ammunition was dwindling. They had to escape quickly.

"...trains...? No, they need electricity. Unless there's a coal-fired locomotive nearby. Tunnels are probably collapsed anyway...ow!"

She sprung her hand away after an ember from the finished cigarette burned her index finger. It was a painful reminder to her that it was the last nicotine fix she could have, to help her get through the miserable situation she found herself in. But there was nothing more she wanted than even just an okay plan to get them out of this mess. She scolded herself for wishing that Gabriel could talk back, reminding herself not to be so selfish.

Although Gabriel was definitely paying attention, her eyes half-lidded but cloudy, and small nods accompanied Sophie's rants. That was good enough, she thought. So long as another human being could understand that she didn't want to be labelled evil for suggesting that only a couple of people at best could leave alive.

She rummaged through a small plastic bag next to the mattress, Gabriel's bag having been taken away due to it being irradiated, and fished out a small plastic bottle of water which she opened. Gabriel could only groan something resembling 'thanks' after sipping the water and having her uncomfortably chapped lips become moisturised.

"You know Gab," Sophie sighed. "I wish I could be like you. Everyone expects so much out of me. Like I'm capable of fucking magic or some shit. They think intelligence can get them anywhere. Just crunch some numbers and do some science Soph!"

Gabriel couldn't help but let out a quiet chuckle.

"I'm not a fucking magician. Even science is deeply flawed. You still depend on implicit belief systems to..."

She sighed, her thinking was clearly taking a toll on her. "But you...you just...do what's right. You shoot bad guys and get the girl. Everyone loves you for it. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure it's physically incredibly difficult. But...it's like everyone can understand what you've been through. No one understands what I do. They think learning quantum mechanics comes easy to me. It doesn't! It hurts just as much!"

There was a quiet moment between the two, Gabriel and Sophie's faces inches away from each other. The scientist's cheeks began to flush and she quickly backed away, not wanting to admit the weird feeling in her chest.

It didn't take long for her to quieten down and fall asleep resting on Gabriel's lower torso. She noticed the tension in her body begin to fade away and the colour return to her face, but she was startled awake by a loud commotion. While it was dark, Sophie could make out what was causing the ruckus at the far end of the underground train station.

The group had returned.

She saw almost all the nurses and doctors being given boxes by them, their hazmat suits and oxygen tanks having been left upstairs. One of the soldiers moved into the dim candlelight, giving Sophie a chance to realize how battered they looked. She hoped that he was simply wearing a shirt that was two sizes too big, and not one that originally fit him. It was like his body was eating him from the inside.

The medical staff scrambled around beds, taking deep breaths to steady their hands as they administered medicines and hooked patients up to blood bags, forgetting to thank the soldiers. They too scrambled, and Sophie smiled when she saw purple and blue.

Vignette and Hensky near sprinted towards Gabriel, cupping her hand around her cheek to make sure she's still alive.

"Gab!," Vignette cried, touching her forehead against hers. Hensky smiled ear to ear when Vignette started to emit noises of relief, the emotions she had been bottling up for the past few days pouring out of her. It was as if she was watching some kind of sappy romance movie, and she enjoyed every second of it.

"Geez...," Gabriel thought, feeling the dopamine release in her brain. "At least try to contain your excitement?"

"We got the medicine Gab! We got it!," she yelped as if she were a proud puppy. "We can grow old together!"

Gabriel mentally facepalmed at her girlfriend, who was also beginning to notice the jealous looks that some people were giving the two. She straightened up and cleared her throat.

"I also brought back a gift-"

"Wait, before that," Sophie interjected. "How's it looking up there? Any help? Electronics?"

"You wouldn't believe it Sophie...its all gone, everything! We had to walk at least 30km away from the city to find a hospital that's still intact," Vignette explained.

"We ran into some soldiers, the ones who went against orders and came to Spirit Base anyway," Hensky added. She showed the three a Geiger counter. "They were very nice, gave us gadgets."

Despite the good news, Sophie's face darkened and she looked down. She started peeling dry skin away from her chapped lips, as she always does when she starts thinking.

"Soph? What's wrong?," Vignette asked.

"We're running out of munitions. We can only hold them back for so long with artillery," she whispered. "They're gonna run over us before we give these civilians time to heal and escape..."

"You mean we have to get artillery shells now?," Hensky clarified in disbelief. "Sure, let me just carry them on my back."

"I...don't know. We just need more time. We need to keep them back somehow. For at least a week."

"A week?," Vignette sputtered.

Sophie shook her head and several strands of long brown hair fell out. "Sorry. Sorry. Don't worry about it. You guys must be tired," she said, displeased at herself. "Eat up and get some sleep."

They nodded at the suggestion and parted ways, Hensky and Sophie needing to catch up on their sleep, while Vignette chose to stay with Gabriel for a little longer. She laid down next to her, resting her ear on Gabriel's chest so that she could hear her heartbeat. While it was scarily slow, it was a heartbeat nonetheless, and it washed away all of Vignette's anxiety as easily as blood on skin. For what seemed to be the hundredth time, she had got another nightmare where the main content was the death of Gabriel, in a manner which Vignette would rather not remember. She didn't care if she felt clingy or dependent. It had always been the fact that being away from her did not feel good.

"Gab...?," Vignette whispered as quiet as a mouse. "Can you hear me?"

Gabriel squeezed slightly on the hand that was interlocked with hers.

"You haven't been fixed up yet so just stay still for me, okay? I'm just gonna...recharge for a little bit."

For five minutes Vignette remained motionless, her head pressed up against Gabriel's chest.

"What are we gonna do Gab...?," she whimpered, her emotions flowing out of her as natural as can be. "I'm...scared...bad people are coming this way. I don't want you to die. I don't want to die. I want to live. With you."

"...I love you."

She remained motionless.

"I should've told you before, but I'm telling you now. I love you Gabriel. So, so much. I know you don't like it when I'm sappy like this, but whatever. You almost died, and I don't want this to be unsaid."

The words stuck to her like glue. Only after Gabriel realized how cruel it was that Vignette said that while she was immobilized did her heart begin to beat twice as fast.

"Sappy...," Gabriel thought, imagining herself cringing and rolling her eyes. "If you had the guts, you would've said that after I could talk and move normal. That is such a...Vignette thing to do."

Despite her mental cringing at how cliché the purple haired girl sounded, she couldn't help but let a large, genuine smile form on her face. Vignette cupped both hands around her girlfriend's cheeks and looked her in the eyes.

"I love you I love you I love you," she repeated with a hushed voice. "And I promise we're gonna get through this."

Soon, the realization of what Vignette just said began to settle in as she remembered who she was talking to.

"You're...never gonna stop making fun of me for that, are you."

Gabriel let out a raspy laugh and nodded hard. "Oh...until the day we die miss Tsukinose. Generations will hear about this."

On the night the scavenging group returned with both medicine and information, Sophie had come up with a plan. She sat on a milkcrate, left hand crossed over her torso while the other picked bits of dry skin away from her lips. Her usual thinking pose. Her face was illuminated by warm candlelight, and so were the faces of the planning team: around ten people consisting of other scientists, doctors and military strategists.

"I've surveyed the frontlines with a drone one of our guys brought back. It's not looking too good," she announced. She rolled out a map of the coastal area where they were fighting. The left-most quarter of the map signified the Osaka Bay, and was scribbled over in red. A tiny green dot representing the injured civilians, soldiers and temporary forward operating base, was visible further in from the coast line. In front of it was a blue line which represented the remaining JSDF fighting back against the threat. Two arrows indicated that Ares would quickly surround them when they ran out of ammunition.

"We have enough time to radio in something from the soldiers in the other bases. I was thinking a medivac to get all the civvies to safety," she suggested.

"Negative. It'll show on radar and I guarantee you they'll shoot it down," one of them stated with force. "Risky too, putting them all on one flying machine."

"Why don't we ask for explosives? Send a couple remaining buildings falling between them and our guys. That should buy us some time."

There was a chorus of disapproving murmurs. "I doubt it. They're coming in with air and land, and the brass aren't sending reinforcements anyway."

The mention of explosives sparked another idea in the child prodigy's mind. She tapped her index finger at the green dot on the map, and began talking to herself.

"...explosives...yeah...assuming all they want is the coastal area and not the civilians, then we could lock ourselves in. Funnel remaining soldiers into the metro tunnels, and blow up all entrances so that no one could get in or out," she murmured.

"Food? Water? Great, so we'll die by starvation rather than a bullet. Sounds great."

"Listen, we'll follow the tunnels and surface somewhere around Izumisano...someplace far away from the Osaka Bay area. The green space here are mountains and rural areas, good spots for the JSDF to pick us up," Sophie insisted. "They better fuckin' pick us up."

They fell silent, their lack of confidence in the plan apparent on their faces but they made hesitant noises of agreement nonetheless. The military strategist who disagreed with her plan leant over the table to get up close and personal with Sophie, with a menacing scowl on his face.

"You're a spy...aren't you?," he accused. Some people flicked the safety of their weapons. "Leading us all into an underground railway track sounds like a good place for an ambush, doesn't it? Some of your Ares buddies on the other end with machine guns, ready to mow everyone down?"

"You fucking idiot. I don't care what bullshit badges you have on your uniform, but how in your right mind could I arrange that-"

"You knew about the attack on the bay weeks in advance. You planned out what would happen with your Ares buddies. You planned to kill as many Japanese lives as possible."

Sophie pinched the bridge of her nose in frustration as the crowd grew increasingly suspicious of her. She did not have enough sleep to deal with being put on a poor attempt at a trial.

"Now we're hunting witches. Look, commander, I can't deny any of those claims. But you can't prove it either. Where is the evidence? All you have are accusations!," she defended.

He stared her down, him being several centimetres taller than her contributing to his intimating aura, however Sophie stood her ground and stared back. After a minute of thought, the man turned around and dished out the orders to a faceless soldier. Sophie didn't understand how he looked more than willing to venture outside with his team in the night to fetch explosives, flare guns and battery-powered light sources from the soldiers at the other base. Maybe he was only putting on a show for the commander.

He crossed his arms and turned to the pissed-off scientist.

"I smell an ambush," he snarled. "So we're gonna be taking other routes."

"Fine by me."