Keira examined herself in her bedroom mirror, staring emotionlessly into her own green eyes. Her face was now restored to its natural, healthy complexion, courtesy of her father and the healing wonders of green eco. She could actually recognise herself again. No scars, no bruises, no blood. She stroked a gentle finger down her smooth cheek, and there was no pain, nothing but the phantom warmth of the eco tingling beneath her skin.
But then her finger found a small depression in the soft centre of her cheek. Grimacing, she hooked the corner of her mouth open and drew back her lips, revealing a gap where one of her teeth used to be. That was permanent damage, something that the eco could not repair, an ugly and unpleasant deformity. Keira cringed at it, hating it, knowing that her smile would never feel the same ever again.
Finally, she let her lips snap shut, and her face automatically fell back to its empty expression. That was not the only wound she bore; the emotional ones were still fresh and deep, the eco powerless to seal them. They were rising up within her again, and in a desperate attempt to prevent herself from succumbing to their influence, she turned her back on the mirror to face the centre of the room.
The spare mattress lay at her feet, unoccupied and taking up most of the floorspace. The window was open, and a cool breeze carried in the sounds of the city and the smell of sunshine. Sitting on the bed was Tess, gently massaging her legs, feeling the bones that were now mended. She looked up when she realised that Keira was watching.
"Keira," she said simply, "Thank you for getting me out of the forest. That's twice now you've saved my life."
She made a brave attempt at a smile, but Keira could only twitch her lips faintly in response. Though well aware of her own heroism, it felt hollow in the light of the bigger picture, and somehow she wished she could have done more to prevent Tess from ever being so terribly hurt. If only she had fought back harder against their mysterious assailants. But was there really anything she could have done in the end?
"How're you feeling now?" she asked instead, distracting herself from her own critical judgements.
"Much better," answered Tess truthfully with a cathartic sigh. "It's so good to feel my legs again."
She leaned back and supported herself on her arms, then flexed her long feet and wiggled her toes. No pain at all, and it felt beautiful. Every muscle and nerve was unburdened, hypersensitive, and her entire body felt as light as a feather now, a surreal sensation after the traumatic, paralysing injuries that had almost killed her. It still scared her to think how close she had come to death, probably no more than a few seconds away, but by the miraculous powers of eco, her body was hers again. She could move and walk effortlessly as if nothing had ever happened to her, and even now, half a day later, she could still feel faint vestiges of the green eco pulsing warmly through her limbs, a comforting and energising residue that embraced her from within.
For a brief moment, things seemed a shade lighter than they really were. But after the silence passed, the mood fell again as the two of them remembered the ongoing drama that they found themselves stuck in the middle of, and it pulled them painfully back down to ground level where it was cold, grim and desolate.
Tess looked back at Keira and broke the all-consuming subject. "Has the Guard found anything out in the forest?"
Keira sighed balefully. "No," she said sadly, slumping back further into her chair. "Not yet."
"What about Azyma?" asked Tess with worry.
Keira felt another familiar twist of grief in her stomach. That was the part that pained her the most about all this, worse than any of her own physical injuries. Azyma was gone. Lost. Taken. Still missing.
Slowly, her eyes cast downwards, Keira shook her head.
Tess felt forlorn. "Oh, I hope she's OK," she said delicately.
Keira made a distracted, half-hearted 'hmm' sound. Her mind was still out in the forest, where the Freedom League search parties, led personally by her father, were currently combing the lakeside and the surrounding areas, searching for evidence, tracks, traces, anything that could provide a clue to Azyma's whereabouts. Keira lost herself again in the terrible memories that refused to leave her in peace. Azyma's harrowing screams replayed endlessly in her head, chiselled onto the inside of her skull to torment her forever. This was just wrong.
Bitterly, she poked at the gap in her teeth with the end of her tongue, feeling the unfamiliar void, and it triggered a fresh wave of guilt, reminding her of her own fragility and failure. "I… I couldn't save her," she muttered in an abject voice. It was an almost unendurable thought. "I tried to get to her, but I… This is my fault."
"Don't say that, Keira," Tess said consolingly, also sharing her pain and loss. "You didn't do anything wrong. We couldn't have known this would happen. You can't blame yourself."
Keira listened, and a part of her agreed, but she still felt helpless and critical of herself, like she still wasn't doing enough. Azyma was out there somewhere and needed help, yet she just sat here at home doing nothing. A part of her desperately wanted to get right up out of this chair, march out of the house and search for Azyma, find her, bring her back safely, and not rest until it was done. But she was at a loss for how to start. The drive existed; she could feel it, but it was somewhere deep down and unreachable, anchored and shackled. Though she kept pulling at the chains, reminding herself forcefully of the urgency of the situation, she felt so low and grief-stricken that she couldn't find the impetus to get going. She just didn't feel like moving, and continued to languish in lethargy, paralysed by indecision.
A soft weight suddenly landed in her lap, and it pulled her back out of her deep thoughts with a slight twitch, but it was a distraction that she needed. Tess had come to her, looking sympathetic and supportive.
"There's still time," she said, holding Keira's hand in comfort. "The Freedom League are acting fast, they will find her. I'm sure of it."
Keira really wished she could believe it, but right now, weighed down by the lingering trauma, it was difficult to be optimistic. It seemed like everyone she knew and loved was being unfairly snatched away from her one by one. First Jak and Daxter, and now Azyma. She didn't think she could bear it to lose anyone else, especially not Tess. She needed her close right now.
Without saying anything else, she reached out, and Tess allowed herself to be pulled into an embrace. She held Keira too, snuggling into the fabric of her clothes, and feeling her heartbeat through her chest. Mournful and listless, the two of them remained there in their places, holding each other and silently absorbing the melancholy in the room.
But just when all seemed irrevocably and unbearably miserable and dead, Tess's ears pricked up. Drifting up the stairs came the sound of the front door opening, then there were footsteps, so heavy that they felt the vibrations through the bedroom floor. Then a familiar voice called out, deep and strong.
"Hello? I'm back, cherries!"
Keira and Tess looked at each other, instantly recognising the voice. It was the one thing that lifted them out of their mournful trance, and turned all feelings of sorrow momentarily away, replacing them with genuine hope. They leapt up out of the chair at once, through the bedroom door, and then hurried downstairs to see none other than Sig waiting in the front room. He smiled at the sight of them, completely unaware of what terrible news awaited him.
"I'm back, ladies!" he said with a triumphant gleam in his eye. "Told you I wouldn't take long. Those marauders didn't know what hit 'em!"
But his victorious mood did not last long. Neither Keira nor Tess were smiling back at him, and the gleam in his one real eye disappeared and his smile melted.
"What's the matter?" he asked uneasily. Then he noticed Azyma's unexplained absence, and his face fell disturbingly. "Where's Azyma?"
His muscles tensed while he waited for an answer, sensing something terrible. At the same time, his robotic eye beamed up the stairs and through the walls, searching out Azyma's distinctive signature. But he could detect nothing. There was no one else in the house.
Keira swallowed deeply. "Sig... while you were gone, Azyma, Tess and I went out to the forest again, just like we'd planned. But… we were attacked by a group of... I don't know what they were, but Azyma's missing. We think she's been taken by those... things."
She and Tess explained all else that they could remember of the fight and the searching that was taking place right now out in the forest. Once they had finished, Sig felt like he had been punched in the chest from the inside, so strong that he nearly staggered backwards. For one of the first times in his life, he was almost speechless and felt drained of all his power. He looked at Tess, hoping that she might contradict this terrible recount, but she never did.
"No… I… damn…"
Then he shut his eye, sank his head and growled in pained defeat. A heavy and uncomfortable silence hung between them all, as they shared an emotional moment of solace together, the dreadful hopelessness returning and swallowing everything.
But then Sig looked up with a new determination in his eye. "We've got to find her!" he said, and his voice grew stronger in righteous anger with each word. "I can't let her remain lost out there. I bet it's that bad guy who torched the bar. He's gone too far now! I'll show him who he's dealing with! When he messes with my friends, he messes with me!"
He banged his chest plate with one arm and cocked his Peace Maker with the other, standing tall and dominant in the centre of the room. Keira and Tess now beheld a new image of Sig, an intimidating and dangerous warrior of the desert who was prepared to unleash death upon his enemies and those who wronged him. Standing in his great shadow, they even felt a little afraid.
But Keira felt his strength spreading to her too. This was it, she realised. This was what she needed. Sig was the means by which she could act, the impetus to loosen her feet from the quagmire of uncertainty that trapped them, and commence Azyma's rescue. Now that Sig was back, she really felt that they stood a real chance of finding her, and Tess felt it too, rousing to the call. United, they could do this.
"Has anyone checked her house in the slums yet?" Sig asked.
Tess was uncertain. "I don't think so."
"Let's head over there," Sig suggested. "We might find something. Let's go!"
He headed for the door, and Keira followed instantly and unquestioningly in his footsteps with Tess riding atop her shoulder, out into the city's troubled and darkening streets.
Azyma's house lay in a seldom-visited corner of the slums, a dead-end cul-de-sac sunk into the shadows of the city wall. The burning fuel drum in the centre of the road crackled and glowed, releasing a rotten stench that poisoned the atmosphere. It made Tess wrinkle her sensitive nose as she, Keira and Sig approached the house. It looked deserted, but there was an ominous feeling emanating from its walls. Sig reached the doorstep first, and this was when they noticed with alarm that the door was unlocked, and it creaked open freely without them even touching it.
"Get behind me!" warned Sig, sensing danger.
Keira and Tess did as they were advised as he raised his Peace Maker in one hand, while with the other he slowly pushed the door inwards, senses at the highest vigilance. The narrow hallway inside was dark and heavy with doubt and fear, and Sig waited. There was no sound and no movement. Sig's synthetic eye scanned quickly over the entire building for heat signatures, but everything was cold and lifeless, and he took a step inside. He reached for the light switch on the nearest wall, but the bulb hanging from the ceiling was smashed out, and tiny pieces of it covered the floor. Instead, he flicked a button on the side of his weapon, and its mouth lit up to illuminate the hallway.
Keira and Tess hung back by the doorframe, peeping in around the edges. Neither of them were prepared for the scene of devastation that lay inside. The house was a mess. Books, plates, clothes, and many other items lay strewn about on the floor, as if tossed violently and discarded in disdain. Tess also noticed that even the front door was damaged at the lock, like it had been forced open in invasion.
"I don't like the looks of this," she whispered.
Keira was silent and scared, unable to find words, but Sig agreed. Clearly something terrible had happened here, and it had to be related to Azyma's disappearance. He whispered back to Keira and Tess, making clear his suspicions. "Somebody's been here before us, and they were looking for something. Stay here. Don't follow me."
He took a few more steps inside, properly checking each of the rooms on the ground floor. Straight ahead at the end of the narrow hall was another doorway leading into a small kitchen, which was littered with cutlery, broken crockery and spilled food torn from the cupboards and drawers. On the right was the entrance to the front room, but inside lay a similar scene of destruction, smashed glass and overturned furniture. He found no signs of life, but did not lower his guard. He then cast his eye up the rickety stairs in the left wall, ascending into silent obscurity.
"I'm heading upstairs," he said to the girls, who said nothing as he advanced up the steps as quietly as he could, weapon still raised and ready, but they creaked treacherously with every footstep.
Keira kept one eye on him and one eye on the darkness below, fearing that at any moment something terrible might jump out at them as soon as Sig's back was turned. The movement of the light from the front of his weapon brought all of the shadows alive, and they moved slyly around the building like black animals with every step he took.
Sig reached the landing and halted below the top step, faced with two more rooms. The one straight ahead was the bathroom, and it was a mess. The floor was covered in puddles that leaked from a broken pipe, and the cupboard had been raided so that toothpaste, brushes and bottles of shampoo lay piled up in the sink. The bath tub was empty save for shards of tiling and dry plaster that had been rent forcefully from the walls.
With a swift turn, Sig took the last step and twisted around the wall to his right to face the final room: Azyma's bedroom. The door had been kicked in and was hanging off its hinges, and the window was left open, letting in a little more light and blowing a single ghostly, tattered curtain gently in the draught. The other had been ripped from the railing and lay crumpled on the floor. Stepping carefully inside, Sig saw that the bed had been mutilated and nearly split in two. Torn sheets and shredded pillows were scattered across the room, and all of the cupboards and drawers had had their contents ejected in amongst the chaos. But there was no life. No sign of anyone at all. Azyma was not here.
From downstairs at the door, the girls could hear Sig's tread on the floorboards above, and sprinkles of dust fell through the air in front of them, swirling in the dark like flies. They were feeling more and more uneasy by the second now that he was out of sight, unprotected and uncertain, afraid that what happened here might suddenly return and claim them.
"Sig?" called Tess as loudly as she dared.
"Upstairs is just as bad," they heard him answer. "There's nobody around though. Whoever came here before us is long gone."
Tess gulped. This was even more upsetting. Where was Azyma, and who could have ransacked her home like this? And why?
By her side, Keira started to tremble. The heaviness that crept out of this broken home and the emotions that accompanied it were too great for her to bear. Being confronted by such devastation that was aimed at someone who did not deserve it made her feel ill and angry, and the clash of feelings caused her to choke up. She had to step away from the building. She took several blind paces into the alley and sat down on a lump in the road with her head in her hands, succumbing to despair and helplessness.
Tess followed her, trying to offer the little consolation that she could. "Keira, you feeling OK?" she asked.
Keira shivered. "No... I… I just don't know what to do..."
"Just stay strong, OK?" said Tess softly, touching her. "I'm feeling it too. But we'll find her."
Keira sniffed. "Yeah, I... I hope so."
Sig could see the two of them through Azyma's bedroom window upstairs, and he could not help but feel guilty with himself again for not being here when he was most needed. He shouldn't have left. The Wastelanders could have easily defended Spargus without him; he should have stayed here to protect those who were more vulnerable. Azyma was a sweet girl, just an ordinary person trying to live her life in a dangerous time, but now she was gone, taken by fate's dark hand into the deepest and blackest trench of mystery.
He lowered his head and turned away from the window, ready to leave this sorry scene, but on his first step he felt something crack underfoot. He looked down, and he saw a smashed picture frame beneath his boot, the image still inside. He picked it up curiously and brushed away the glass to examine it. On the small canvas in his hand were three figures: two adults and a child. His eyes were drawn straightaway to the woman, dressed in a gown that was plain but pretty, and seated in a chair with her hands folded sedately upon her lap. She wore a radiant and happy smile, her hair was long and dark, neatly falling about her shoulders, and there was a simple necklace around her throat. Sig peered closer, astonished, for she was almost a spitting image of Azyma, and at first he thought that it was her… but no, there was something in the shape of her face that did not look quite right.
Behind this woman, standing at her right shoulder with his hand upon the back of the chair, was a tall man with a proud and presentable bearing. He was also well-dressed, his hair short and neat, and it was plain by his pose and expression that he closely loved the woman in the chair before him. There was something about his face too; Sig felt some kind of unexplainable, distant familiarity about him, like he'd seen him somewhere before but couldn't place him.
But it finally started to make sense as Sig looked upon the final figure in the picture. Standing at the front of the small group in full view, was the child. She wore a simple dress, and had the same long dark hair and glowing smile as the woman in the chair. There was no mistaking her. This child was Azyma, young and beautiful and innocent. The two adults had to be her parents, there was no doubt of it. The resemblance between the woman and the child were so strong that they could only be mother and daughter.
For a long time, Sig could do nothing but stare at each of them with a deep empathy that made the core of his warrior's heart soften. In this picture he could see back into Azyma's past life, to a time when she was happy, loved, and unburdened by the mysterious violence that had now stolen her. He wished there could have been more time to know her before her disappearance, but now he was left with only the unbearable sadness of memories.
He closed his eye and shook his head, overcome by a powerful sorrow and reverence. The special sentimental value that this image held could be felt just by weighing it in his gloved hand. He couldn't leave it here, uncaringly dumped on the floor amongst the other broken belongings.
With a solemn breath, he slipped it into one of the bags hanging from his belt, and walked out of the room in grim silence. Back down the stairs he trudged, the floorboards creaked again, and down into the black hallway. Before stepping outside, he looked back into the still darkness and sighed, wishing he could do more, but there was only so much he could do with so little to go on. It was frustrating, especially since every wasted moment could later prove invaluable in finding Azyma, wherever she may be.
Outside on the road, the air was growing cool as the shadows extended up the walls of the surrounding buildings. Looking up, Sig could see the growing boundaries of foreboding clouds accumulating in the sky, following the falling sun in great rolling tides of grey. They heralded rain, maybe even a storm, and this did absolutely nothing to reconcile Azyma's loss. He found Keira still staring blankly at the pavement with Tess by her side.
"I don't think there's anything more we can do here," he said solemnly. "The best we can do now is tell the Freedom League about what we've found."
"Alright," said Tess. "Let's go find them. Come on Keira, we're leaving now."
Keira snuffled into her sleeve and readied herself, but it took a lot of effort just to raise her head, which was heavy with thick and supressing emotion. But then a pleasant sight gave her the strength she needed to carry on. Hovering in front of her was the great hand of Sig, outstretched and open in an offer of assistance. Her gaze ran up his arm and stopped at his face, which was calm and friendly, smiling gently, and his single eye bore the colours of trust and sympathy. Keira felt his strength and support again; he was an escape from the canyon of despair she was lost in, someone who was truly there for her, someone who she needed.
Keira reached up and clutched on, and was pulled up effortlessly onto her feet. Sig did not say anything, but the look on his face did more for Keira right now than any words could have ever done. Eyes red from unfallen tears, she managed to form a small, comforted smile in response. Then together, they left the sorry scene and walked back into the depths of the city, leaving behind them the lonely and shattered building that had once been the home of a dear and sweet friend, now lost in fate's whirling torrent of uncertainty.