The blurry world came into focus for Kiriume. Her eyes set on the rows of bright lights that came and went. The girl abruptly blinked with the realization that she’s the one on the move.
Kiriume gasped and tried to get up, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t even lift her restrained arms. As much as she struggled, the leather bounds were too strong.
Panting in growing panic, Kirime’s vision began to explore her surroundings. There wasn’t much to look at. She was cruising along a bland corridor that was light by neon lights. No windows or pictures on the wall, only some passing warning signs, and level numbers.
Kiriume glimpsed to her left where a man could be seen strolling alongside her immobile form. She opened her mouth to speak, but no words could be muttered. It felt like the air stopped short in her throat before giving up.
Their eyes exchanged sights for a moment. His narrow eyes met her round one. The man fixed his glasses before looking away indifferently. She was putting faith in something useless.
A loud bumping sound could be seen before Kiriume saw the double doors she went through. She stopped right after. The metallic slab moved her body into a vertical position. The unnerved eyes could see the new environment around her. She was in an operating room, complete with the bright surgical lights on mechanical arms and the sterile table filled with sharp pieces of equipment.
Kiriume tried to speak again when another figure came into view. He was obviously a doctor judging from the dark surgical gown he wore a medical mask that covered half of his face. The man lifted his gloved hands at chest height. “Let’s finish this fast so that I can finish my daifuku,” he giggled.
“Yes, Colonel,” responded the first person Kiriume saw with a humble bow before examining the various cutting equipment on the table. Behind them were the observing Japanese soldiers.
The doctor approached Kiriume and held her chin. “What a pretty maruta...,” he said with a raspy voice.
“She’s from Batch 5, Colonel. The last for today since we already got the candidate from Batch 4 too,” reported the other man.
The doctor released Kiriume dan and went to her side. “Ah, yes, this one is nice too.”
Kiriume fought the pressing restraint to turn her head to the right. She could barely see another girl in the same bound position. Her watery eyes went wide. Her numb voice tried to say the familiar name. “Chi... Ka....”
The doctor grabbed the other girl’s wavy hair and smelled it deep. “The two of you are the penultimate evidence of purposefulness that mankind could achieve. Instead of cowering in darkness and hoping that monsters couldn’t grab us from the shadows or wandering aimlessly across the earth without higher calling, you can be one with both life and death. Yamaoka!”
His subordinate bowed while giving a mechanical saw. The doctor grabbed it by the handgun-styled handle and pressed the trigger. The circular blade spun faster with a high-pitched noise. “You have the divine love of our emperor smiling down at you and I’m honored to be His hand on conducting today’s experiment out of pure admiration.”
The doctor moved the deadly device ever closer to Kiriume’s forehead. The girl’s broken voice let out a faint yell of terror. Her bound arms and legs grew restless with futile struggle.
Then, everyone felt the quake. A strong shaking hit the operating room with enough force to make the doctor’s almost lost his footing. It felt like a bomb went off quite far away.
“Don’t let anything disturb my project. Find out what happened!” ordered the doctor.
“Hai!” But before the man had the chance to exit, another boom hit the operating room and tore a hole in the wall. He was immediately sucked into the gaping breach on the metallic layer.
Kiriume could see the hazy urban landscape that sprawled across the horizon. Shards of broken steel and burning pieces got thrown like in a tornado. The operating room was somehow darting over the city!
The doctor was saved from instant doom by clinging on Kiriume’s stomach restraints. He was screaming, different from the girl who held her breath. As the city panorama drew closer, she closed her eyes just in time before gravity took its revenge.
The world went dark.
***
Kiriume coughed when she woke up. Intermittent electrical sparks from the nearby collapsing neon light scared her unprepared mind. The first thing she noticed was the operating room was now dark.
She could smell a burning scent in the air. Everything in the enclosed space was destroyed or mangled. The surgical lights were battered and snapped. The sharp equipment scattered across the broken floor. The large rupture on the wall gave away a soft breeze.
Kiriume realized that she was lying face down on the dirty floor. The metallic slab pressed down on her and, ironically, protected her from the falling debris. For a moment, she thought that her hands would still be restrained. It was not the case. Both of her arms functioned as strong support so that her back could move the heavy operating table away.
The girl stood weakly among the ruins. Her school uniform looked beaten up with smudges on the plain white shirt, but the red bow tie and pleated skirt survived. She could see some tears on the knee-high socks. Kiriume coughed again at the dusty air.
She heard a faint noise to her side and froze when found out its source. The barrel of a handgun was being pointed at Kiriume by the injured doctor. His hands trembled and his mouth red with blood. “You... You wouldn’t understand your destiny!”
Kiriume held her breath in fear. She couldn’t move. She didn’t have to.
The doctor’s arm dropped. He panted for a moment. His breath stopped right after. His eyes still opened wide although life already fleeting his body.
Kiriume felt a touch on her shoulder and screamed. She flung her arm around in a desperate attempt of self-defense. The other girl ducked just in time before holding Kiriume’s hands up. “It’s me!” announced her friend.
“Ichika...,” mumbled Kiriume. She then hugged the smaller girl tight. “Chi-chan!”
“Yeah, hi. Are you okay, Kiru-chan?” asked Ichika while removing herself from the bear hug.
“I’m not fine!” cried Kiriume. “What just happened? Why did someone want to dissect me?!”
Ichika shook her head. Her skin color was paler than Kiriume’s tanned one. Her wavy hair was quite messy. “You know it as much as I do. I was training when they took me. The next thing I got I was strapped to the operating table.”
Kiriume observed her friend’s skintight indoor skydiving suit with a contrasting black sling bag across her chest. “Me too....”
Ichika held both of Kiriume’s shoulders. “Look, we can find the answers later. But first, we need to get out of here.”
Kiriume swallowed and nodded. “I think that’s the exit.”
Ichika crouched down and grabbed the doctor’s handgun. “Just in case,” she said before noticing the abandoned Japanese assault rifle next to the dead soldier. She switched the weapons. “Just in case,” she repeated.
Kiriume took a step before stopping and crouching too. From the doctor’s breast pocket, she fished out the round eyeglasses. She blew dust from it before putting it on. She gave a little smile.
“Let’s go,” ordered Ichika after inserting the helical magazine into her assault rifle. Additional magazines were stuffed into her sling bag.
They went through the blown-out door to the nearby corridor. The condition there was as bad as it was inside the room. Neon lights flickered as they hung by a single cable from the ceiling. Sounds of tortured metal could be heard echoing.
“Well, at least we know something about the people who took us,” said Ichika at the end of the corridor. Before them, there was an intersection. On the wall, a symbol of a threatening cobra coiling around a human skull with numbers 731 under it was visible even under the sporadic spark glow of the broken lights. “Epidemic Prevention Department...,” muttered Kiriume.
Ichika snorted. “Naivety is a poison to the mind, Kiru-chan. We both know that Unit 731 was not to stop diseases but to create them. We’ve been kidnapped by the Empire’s prime bioweapon department.”
Kiriume followed her friend. “What does it mean? Are we infected?”
“Perhaps they wanted to infect us with something. I don’t know yet until we can get out of this wreckage,” responded Ichika while turning on her assault rifle flashlight to break the twilight. She was pondering about which way to go.
“Wait, what if they already infected us with something?” asked Kiriume while grabbing Ichika’s left shoulder. They both stopped.
Then Ichika removed the assault rifle’s flashlight. She rolled both of her skydiving suit's arms and shone it. The girl brushed her forearms with force before sighing. “Show me your arm,” she said.
Kiriume’s uniform was a short-sleeved shirt, so it was easier to check. “Nothing?”
Ichika shook her head slowly. “There’s no injection mark. I think we’re good.”
“What if―”
Ichika put out her index finger to silence her friend. “One thing at a time, Kiru-chan.”
With the flashlight back in place, the girl aimed the assault rifle at the intersection. She took a step to the right.
“Left,” said Kiriume without thinking. She pointed at the HIJYOU GU CHI mark on the wall.
“You can read the Latin alphabet?”
“You can’t?” replied Kiriume. Her finger fixed her eyeglasses.
Ichika went to the left and opened the door. “Perhaps I’m just not paying enough attention in the German class.”
“Chi-chan!” shouted Kiriume while grabbing Ichika’s hand just in time to save her from certain death. The set of stairs was gone, leaving only a gaping maw that Ichika almost threw herself in. Kiriume yanked her back to safety.
“Hanpa nai!” shrieked Ichika to herself with a loud gasp. This time, she’s the one who hugged Kirirume tight.
Through the other way, they came to a similar result. “Well, at least the tunnel still takes us to the light,” commented Kiriume while looking down at the sloped corridor.
“You’re joking, right?” replied Ichika being cynical.
Both girls climbed down the perilous and slippery floor of the broken corridor. They took precautions by checking surfaces. Finally, Kiriume arrived at the bottom where they could stand on a concrete expanse. She looked up at the destruction that awestruck her.
Kiriume and Ichika stood in the middle of aircraft wreckage that had been split in two. Compartments were torn with irregular edges as if a giant had shredded them. The aircraft’s stubby wings were missing, ripped apart by the unbelievable force of its impact. The ever-present burning smell was accompanied by the obscure glow of swept amber. “It’s a Silbervogel,” the meganekko concluded while some dust clouded her lense. “We wouldn’t have survived the crash if this thing came at hypersonic speed.”
“Luckily, it didn’t,” said Ichika who crouched over a ventilation opening. “Help me with this thing.”
Heavy metallic noise echoed among the ruins. The girls climbed down the shaft. Double kicks from Ichika’s strong foot was enough to break open their exit. The tapping sounds of their shoes rung in the concrete hallway. “Is this some kind of a building?”
The answer was at the huge entrance lobby that they arrived in. Sunshine brightened the interior through the tall atrium ceiling glass with Japanese interconnecting dark woodblocks. There was a model of a building in the middle. A white lotus-like structure with an opening low terrace that mimicked series of petals surrounding the central tower. At the peak, the golden sculpture presented itself as a flame. “Is that...,” mumbled Kiriume.
Ichika didn’t answer. She instead opened the grand double door that brightened the lobby. Towering before them was the large-scale version of a similar structure. A white lotus monument that glowed in the morning sunlight. “We’re on Earth,” muttered Ichika barely able to close her mouth. She then added, “Welcome to Jakarta.”
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