The events portrayed within this tale predate both anime and manga. Most of it comes from things portrayed or strongly implied in manga and / or anime.
Note: I do not own Vash "the Stampede," Rem Saverem, or Millions Knives: they all belong to the incomparable Mr. Yasuhiro Nightow.
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Trigun: Shipwrecked
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Chapter 2: Transitions
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November 2410, exact date unknown
Day 372
Sand.
Iles and iles and iles of sand, stretching as far as the eye might see.
I knew, intellectually, that a planet was larger than a ship. Even so, I'd always thought the ship upon which I was born was large. In fact, it was large... for a space ship. Yet it was not anywhere near to as large as a planet.
I had read about measurements, and tried to imagine what a planet might be like. My imagination, at that time, fell far short of this reality.
Nothing could have prepared me for the endless, barren stretches of sand on this world. I could never have imagined anything so vast, before I found myself here.
The only things here, besides countless iles of sand, are rocks. Some are small, but others rise up out of the sand like the teeth or bones of the planet. Some of the larger rock formations contain caves or tunnels and caves. We have sheltered in them, at times, though I prefer to be out under the sky unless the weather is extreme.
Weather and seasons. I am only very slowly growing accustomed to them. On the ship, the environment was always completely controlled by computer and Plants. It never grew uncomfortably cold or hot there. Here, on the planet, we get both extremes somewhat regularly.
At night, especially during the winter, it can get miserably cold. During the day, especially in the summer, it can grow miserably hot. I sometimes wonder if I shall ever really grow accustomed to these things. They are so different from what I knew.
The twin suns, which are nearly always the only occupants of the endless blue sky, blaze forth to cause heat that - especially in the summer - can be quite intense.
Those suns have set, for tonight. I lay wrapped in my thermal blanket, and stare up at the stars. There is something comforting, to me, about gazing at the stars. I used to enjoy looking at them, on the screens and through the portholes on the ship.
The stars still feel more like "home" than this place.
That first night here, slightly over a year ago, I desperately hoped that the fall of the ships was nothing more than a terrible nightmare. I didn't want it to be real. I kept hoping that I would wake up to find myself back on the ship, with Rem and Knives as we had always been.
"Always," at that time, had only lasted about two years. I suppose it was foolish of me to hope that happy days like those would continue.
After our escape pod crashed, and he finished beating me, Knives insisted that we walk away. He gave no reason for this. He still has not said why he is so strongly inclined to travel.
To be truthful, I am curious about this world. For the most part, I don't mind exploring it. It can be interesting to see the different rock formations. The sunsets can be breathtakingly beautiful.
I'd just enjoy it all a lot more if Rem were my traveling companion, instead of Knives as he is now.
I follow him from several paces behind. I'm still close enough that we can talk to each other, when he has anything to say to me. I have learned to bury my emotions deep inside of myself. If Knives detects an emotion that displeases him, he will beat me for it.
Walking behind him means he doesn't see my face as much. He's a little less likely to beat me, if he doesn't see me crying. I cry partly because I miss Rem so much, but also to mourn all of the many other people who died when the ships crash-landed.
And, sometimes, I cry because of his cruel words.
The last words Rem spoke that I could hear clearly, before the groan of machinery drowned out her voice, continue to echo in my mind. She asked me to take care of Knives. So I follow my brother, to honor her and her request. If not for that obligation, I would probably have run away from him within a week of landing. If not sooner.
I'm thankful that Rem was able to at least partially correct Knives' sabotage. If she hadn't, it would have caused all of the ships carrying any humans to strike this planet with enough force to destroy them. Rem risked her life by staying behind.
She must have worked fast to countermand Knives' programming and activate the ships' reverse thrusters before they crashed. She succeeded well enough to prevent some of the ships from being completely destroyed when they hit the ground. For a few of the ships, it was already too late. Even those ships that landed reasonably intact were damaged so badly that they could not return to space.
From what I've seen during this last year, it looks like none of the ordinary humans knew how to repair the ships. Some of the other Plants, our elder siblings (the ones who live inside of those large bulbs)... they might know how to fix the ships. However, the ordinary human survivors might not know how to talk with them.
After only a few months, the ordinary humans began taking the ships apart. They use pieces of the hulls to build shelters and homes for themselves.
"This is a terrible environment, just as I predicted," Knives said earlier. "It will be impossible for the trash to live here."
I knew that by "the trash" he meant ordinary humans. It's merely one of many insulting terms that he uses when he talks about them. He uses such insults every day, as he verbally vents his hatred toward them. He rarely calls them "human" and never "people."
"It can still work, if they use the Plants," I said.
"That is probably true," he said. "They will survive by leeching off the living blood of our siblings. I can hear the screams of our siblings, the death-cries of our friends."
"Is that why you killed those people?" I asked, thinking of the fall of the ships.
"That's right," he said. "I killed them to save Plants. It's simple logic."
I didn't think it would be smart, right then, to remind him that, if Rem hadn't protected the ships from crashing, he would himself have caused the deaths of many more Plants.
I also chose not to remind him how, on that day when the ships first began falling, he had spoken of using the bulb-Plants to make a home for ourselves... I wonder if he would have been careful of their health - or if he would also have used them to death, as some of the ordinary humans may yet do.
As things are, his sabotage caused several Plant deaths that Rem's quick reprogramming was unable to prevent.
Nor did I remind him that, by bringing the ships down onto such a barren planet, he had personally forced the ordinary humans to rely entirely upon Plants simply to live.
He wouldn't want to hear such truths, especially not from me. He would probably only beat me again if I dared to say anything like that.
I frowned, but said nothing more.
Knives has become downright mean. It's almost as if there's an entirely different person in front of me: someone who somehow looks and sounds exactly like my brother, but is completely different in every other way. He beats me almost every day. He insults Rem, all other ordinary humans, and me - constantly.
However, if Rem ... if she didn't survive...
I refuse to carelessly ignore what may have been Rem's last spoken wish. She asked that I take care of Knives. At least I can still do this one thing for her, no matter what else has happened.
Those first few days and nights, immediately after the fall, they still blur together in my memory. I'm not really sure which things happened on which day. We did a lot of walking, and Knives did a lot of venting against Rem and against humanity. If I spoke up to defend either, he'd beat me. Sometimes he beats me even if I say nothing. He can tell, if I fail to suppress my emotions, or from the expression on my face (or from the way I'm standing) when I disagree with him. He doesn't like it when I disagree.
I'm getting better at keeping quiet. However, sometimes the things he says... I simply cannot be silent. I don't want it to look like I might agree with him. So I keep trying to reason with him. Sooner or later, surely, he must heal enough to understand that genocide against ordinary humans is not a solution to anything.
He constantly calls me stupid, an idiot, pathetic, overly sentimental, and similar things. He calls Rem's words nonsense. It hurts to hear him talking like this. He used to be the one who was the quickest to say how much he loved Rem.
One day, about a month after the ships fell, I ignored everything Knives said to count the seconds. I used those counts of seconds to add up the minutes and hours. He beat me for ignoring him, but I learned that each day here is pretty close to 24 hours. Coincidentally, that resembles Earth.
The air was hazy, during those first several days and nights. That haze was probably partially made from ashes. The flaming trails that the ships spewed as they fell must have included at least some ashes from fuel that was not fully consumed. I believe this partly because I recall the stench of something burning, and because there was a reddish cast to the haze. The grit and dust churned up when the ships hit the ground was probably part of that haze, too.
It took a couple of days before we could see clearly that this world has two suns during the day, and five moons at night. I recall thinking it might be a good thing, with so many moons, that there are not any large bodies of water here. All of those moons would wreak havoc with tides.
A few more days were required before we could clearly see the stars again.
Those stars have returned to the same positions that they were in on the night when I could first see them clearly. That was 365 days ago. It means that this planet's year lasts about as long as a year on Earth.
It also means that Knives and I are about three years old.
We haven't changed much since we landed. The sturdy survival gear jumpsuits we wear might be very slightly less extra-long on us, but that's about it. I suppose that lack of changes shouldn't be too surprising. Unlike normal humans, our natural life spans will be numbered in centuries instead of decades.
Knives still insists that we are not human at all, but something else that's superior. I think that we are human, but just a different variety. We're not "standard issue" humans, that much is true, but we are human. I still blurt that out sometimes when we're arguing, and a substantial beating is the inevitable result.
What happened to the brother who loved me enough to be patient when we had different opinions?
I keep looking for him, but I haven't found him. Yet. I am determined to keep trying.
I'm getting better at defending myself when he beats me. Sometimes I can protect my face, at least. My ribs are almost constantly sore, and it's not unusual for him to hit my belly if I don't curl up and cover it with my thighs fast enough.
I don't like to hit him back, but it may be the only effective response. I've tried everything else I could think of. I want to discourage him from beating me so often. I'm tired of hurting.
Yesterday evening, only a little before we turned in, he was harsher than usual with both his words and his blows. For a few hours, I despaired of ever finding my true brother again.
I'm ashamed, as I think of it now. When his breathing became deep and even, indicating that he was probably asleep, I picked up a large, heavy rock. I planned on using it to crush his skull.
He'd killed the crew, and probably Rem. He'd killed hundreds of thousands of people who were helpless in cryo sleep on the ships. He constantly speaks of his intentions to kill others.
I try to steer Knives away from the crashed ships, where ordinary humans are building towns. I don't want him to kill anyone, and I fear that he might. Killing humans is almost the only thing he ever talks about. That hasn't changed since the day the ships fell.
I had to find some way to protect all the people. Steering him away from human settlements may not work forever. For a while, yesterday night, I thought that killing my brother was the answer.
Thankfully, I remembered Rem's words in time. I remembered my promise that I would never kill another person. I turned and ran from my helpless, sleeping brother. I dropped the rock on the way up a steep rocky hill. I fell to my hands and knees, by my bag, and sobbed so hard that I could scarcely breathe.
I must have cried myself to sleep, again. I awoke when Knives shouted at me that it was time to go. The suns had risen far enough into the sky that I could tell it was about the same time as when we usually set out each morning. To my surprise, I found my thermal blanket spread over me.
Knives must have done that. I hope he wasn't awake when I considered killing him! But I'm sure he would have beaten me, if he were.
Most likely, he just needed to relieve himself of surplus bodily fluids sometime during the night. When that happened, he looked around until he found me.
Yet the fact that he covered me, to protect me from the cold... it's encouraging. Maybe he's not completely lost to the madness of his hatred. Maybe I can still reach him.
Is that what Rem meant, when she told me to "take care of Knives"?
I don't know. But it's worth a try.
I'm glad that I didn't kill him. For all his faults, including his currently hate-twisted mind, I still love him.
He's the only one I have left, for now, until we learn if Rem is dead or alive.
I don't want to lose him, too.