Saviour
It's dark.
Where am I?
I can hear something, but I can't see anything. It still feels like I'm blurred out by the gas earlier… the gas, right. What happened? Where's Luc, and Krim, and Neo, Leon, everyone? Were they able to escape? I try to move, but suddenly everything becomes crystal clear.
A great, ear-splitting screaming reaches me, roaring, crackling, the sound of huge explosions rolling across land. I'm being pulled, and my feet are moving on their own. In front of me, a dark-skinned, red-haired young woman dressed in clothes I've never seen before pulls me along by the wrist, desperately running from something.
Who is this girl? What are running from? All around us, more people flee, and burning buildings crash down and splinter to pieces. The ground is shaking, and smoke envelopes us.
Lightning flashes violently in the sky, and rain lashes down in torrents, mixing with the flames. People scream and run for their lives.
What the hell is this? The end… of the world?
No. This isn't Erisen. The buildings are far too primitively built. The clothes people are wearing seem like loose rags.
The… past?
Lightning and thunder boom, lighting up the world. The girl in front of me screams and covers her face. The ground gives way under my feet, like it's swallowing me, and everything shatters, crashing down around me.
Sudden, spine-chilling, maniacal laughter rings in my ears.
My eyes jerk open and I spring up so fast that my forehead collides with a sickening crack against someone else's, and we both tumble backwards, dazed.
"Hoh, he's up!" an unfamiliar, older male voice says. "He's a tough one, that's for sure."
"Where am I!?!?" I demand, whirling around.
My head clears slowly, and I take in my surroundings. We're in a decently large, rounded, dry cave, lit by burning torches and campfires that spread warmth through it. I've been lying in a blanket of something half-soft, and my scrapes and bruises are all patched up.
"What's going…?"
"What the hell are you doing?" Nyx asks, rubbing the bruise on her forehead.
Heart hammering, I scramble upright. My forehead throbs where it collided with Nyx's skull.
"Can you not headbutt people when you wake up next time?" she grumbles. "I was gonna give you some water but now I'll pass."
"My bad - where are we? What happened? Is everyone-!? And you, you're awake…!?"
A dry laugh rings out from behind me, and I turn to see its owner.
"Heh," he says. "And here I thought the muscleman woke up dramatic."
A man older than me by a few years kneels besides a row of makeshift bandages behind me, wringing out a wet piece of cloth, his sleeves rolled up and hands steady. He has tired, sunken eyes and dark hair tied back, a bloodstained cloth bound to his forearm.
His voice holds this tranquillity that doesn't match the Facility.
"You're safe," he says matter-of-factly, folding the cloth. "Or safe as can be."
"Who're you?" I ask.
"He says he's called Tavin," Elemental says from a couple feet away, leaning against the rocky cave wall. "He and his sidekick pulled us out of the gas cave, they saved our lives."
"I don't trust him," Luc says from the other side of the cave.
"Ya'll alive," I say. "That's good."
"Did you just call me a sidekick!?" a second new voice says, from somewhere around my elbow. "I'm a professional survivor, master-class cook and full-time reliability. The name's Bryce."
"One of those statements is a lie," Krim mutters, also up, sitting cross-legged by Elemental.
"ALL of those statements are true," he snaps back, puffing out his chest proudly.
He's definitely younger than me, with eyes too bright and a grin too wide. It's a bit mean but I can't help to think that he has an annoying voice.
I look away from him and glance around properly. Mist lies curled near one of the campfires, bandaged, breathing shallow but stable. Ronin and Diva are still out beside her, arms wrapped with thick plant-fibre splints, Leon is barely awake, staring into the flames with exhausted eyes. Jora sits next to him, huddled around her knees, trembling but awake and alive. Kino and Neo are asleep.
"You saved our lives," I say to Tavin, who's laying the wet cloth on Mist's forehead. "Why?"
I am curious. He risked his life to save us in that gas zone, people he'd never seen before or talked to. Why, when we're trapped in a hellish game where every death means your chances of living increase?
He meets my gaze calmly, and I see something strange in his eyes, his steady green eyes, peaceful but troubled at the same time. It feels like he's seen stuff I've never even dreamed of.
"I am a doctor," he says simply. "Why would I need a reason to save lives?"
Luc scoffs. "Hate to break it to you, doc, but most crazies in here are trying very hard to do the exact opposite."
"That's why we're alive," Bryce chirps, tossing a pebble in the air. "Uncle does the saving, I do the stabbing."
"You."
"Yeah."
"You stabbed someone," Nyx repeats.
Bryce beams. "Several someones!"
Krim pinches the bridge of his nose and glances at us at like,
'We really trusting these clowns?'
Elemental shifts from where he's half-sitting against the cave wall, ribs wrapped in chrona-fabric strips that seem to have been torn from Bryce's shirt. He watches Tavin and Bryce carefully, but neither of them seem to care.
"…thanks," I say. "For saving us, I mean. It was my fault we fell into the gas…"
"That's a good way to drive yourself crazy," Krim warns. "We all made the decision."
Tavin looks at us, and the remnants of a smile tug at his lips.
"You said we're safe," I continue. "What about the… labyrinth shifting? And the creatures?"
"This is the lowest floor as we know it," he tells me. "We've been here pretty much since day one after we were trapped here, but it's never changed, so we're under the assumption it's unaffected. As for the wildlife, none of them can get through this stone."
He taps the cave wall. Pyrolucite rock, one of the sturdiest rocks in the natural world.
Tavin steps over to Nyx and takes her pulse.
"You two inhaled the least gas by chance," he says, looking at me and her. "Lucky."
"Lucky," Krim mutters, gesturing round at the others. "is not what I'd call this."
"Enough of this yap," Luc cuts in. "Are we gonna get out of here or…?"
Tavin glances up sharply at this.
"I don't recommend hastening yourselves," he says.
"Right," I agree, taking up his flow. "Luc, chill out for once, everyone's still injured. We're not in a hurry, are we?"
He thinks for a bit, then gives in and shrugs.
"That too," Tavin replies. "But that's not all."
"What do you mean?"
"Even if you were all healthy it's unlikely you could get out of here," he continues. "Wondered why we didn't leave? It's because we can't. There are more unreasonable things here than the underground wildlife."
Bryce leans forwards, with a grin way too wide for the situation.
"If you leave our sanctuary," he says mysteriously, "They'll drag you under the water."
"Someone shut this kid up," Luc scoffs.
"He's not wrong," Tavin shakes his head. "There's… a tribe, of sorts down here. They're not exactly people but once upon a time they might've been. The kid named them the Floodmen."
***
Since we can't leave without a battle, we decide to stay with Bryce and Tavin while waiting for the others to recuperate. The cavern is quiet, with everyone either sleeping or resting, and Luc training with two giant rocks in the corner.
I sit a few feet away from Nyx, who's hugging her knees and staring at the wall like she's trying to read secret messages.
"Uh… hey," I venture, and she turns, orange eyes sharper now that she doesn't look half-dead.
"You hit my forehead earlier," she says.
"Accident."
"Mhm."
"When did you wake up?"
"Two days before you," she tells me. "I was taking care of you this whole time."
"Oh really? …two days? How long was I out?"
"Five, apparently. Luc, Ellie and Krim woke up before me."
"…wow. Thanks for uh, taking care of me."
She pulls her knees in tighter, watching the flames in front of us, and we sit in silence for a few moments.
"It's nothing. It's the least I could do," she says eventually. "This whole time I was unconscious. I must've been a huge burden."
"Don't say that," I say, trying to make her feel better.
But I think I understand. The guilt that comes with being unable to do anything when everyone else is fighting tooth and nail to protect you, I feel it too.
"So what were you doing before we found you? In that cave. With the wire traps."
Her expression darkens.
"My partner was killed by the batsmen," she says, voice half-cracking. "And then I got completely separated by the stupid spatial shift thing. I holed up in a cave and set up traps. My rations ran out super quickly and the three people I killed had nothing either."
I'm silent for a bit. I've really been going through the shit, but Nyx had it worse. She was alone this whole time, she had to make these decisions alone in a dark hole, and if me and Neo hadn't found her she'd have probably died alone too.
"You can take a breather now," I offer. "We won't leave you behind."
"…thanks," she says quietly.
We stare into the flames for a bit, trying to think of something to say.
"Do you remember me?" she suddenly asks.
"Wha-? Oh, yeah uh, yeah, I do. You sat a couple rows in front of me, but we never really talked."
"…I thought I left everything behind," she murmurs. "I thought I'd adapted. But I can't forget them."
She buries her face in her knees.
"They won't go away."
I know who she's talking about even if she doesn't tell me, cuz if she does she'll die. I suppose she must've had a loving family, plentiful friends, a bright future ahead and a life she would never want to walk away from.
"I'm here," I tell her. "So you can lean on me."
She doesn't say anything. Probably cuz it didn't sound convincing coming from the guy who led everyone into a gas cave and got folded twice by a giant with a bat.
But she humours me and says,
"Thanks."
We watch Luc doing squats with a huge rock on his back on the other end of the cave for a bit, then she tells me,
"Y'know, from the sounds of it, I don't think you really considered me as close."
"What? No - I mean -" I scratch the back of my head awkwardly. "I didn't really think about it."
She lets out a tiny puff of laughter.
"Well, we never really talked anyway. I couldn't find the courage to do it. I was jealous and frustrated, but I admired you."
"You? Admired me? The girl half the class was going crazy over… admired me?"
"Yes," she admits a little sheepishly. "I was sweating my ass off trying to overtake you. But no matter how hard I worked, you left me in the dust every time. You were always top of the class."
It dawns on me that she's talking about those science exams that we used to take.
I can't really explain it, but studying became second nature to me at some point, and I never really struggled with the academy. When I sit down in front of a paper I just know what to write for all the answers.
"Well, I don't know," I say, even more awkwardly. "I didn't know you thought of me like that."
"But y'know," Nyx continues. "Somewhere along the way, I uh…"
A pause. I glance at her and she's staring at me from the corner of her eyes.
She sees me looking and looks away quickly.
"I… wanted you to notice… me?"
She regrets it instantly. Her face blushes bright red.
Hold on.
Wait a minute.
"You're telling me that out of all those guys who'd go crazy if you even looked at them, you ignored 'em all and picked… me!?"
I can feel my face getting slightly hot. I've never been in this kind of situation before. The hell am I supposed to do?
"But that doesn't matter now," she says quickly. "Now, none of that matters. Clean slate now, right?"
She bumps me in the shoulder.
"This time, I'll overtake you, just you watch."
I want to bit back, but then I just find myself smiling and saying,
"Do your best."
Clean slate, huh? I've never thought of it like that.
This is nice. For once, it really does feel peaceful.
Then I realize Luc's been staring at us the whole time, a stupid smile on his face.
"We're fighting," I tell him.
Moment ruined.
***
The next day, I try my luck with the three best fighters in our group.
"You want me to train you?" Luc asks, looking up from his workout.
"Yeah," I say. "It'd be better if we all got stronger, right?"
He looks a little confused, like what I've just said makes no sense.
"You want be a mainstream fighter?" he asks. "I thought you were just the nerd who happened to know how to throw hands pretty well."
"Gee," I tell him. "Thanks."
"Well, I don't really know," Luc scratches his head. "I'm think you already know how to punch, so I s'pose sparring with me wouldn't do shit for you."
"So?"
"What do you mean? I'll make you lift."
He drags to me to the other side of the cave and points at a rock.
"Lift that."
It's huge.
"Yeah, no," I say. "I can't life th-"
"Pick it up, princess."
I try. I strain, use all the strength in my back, legs, waist, arms - everywhere. Somehow, maybe fuelled by embarrassment, I lift it a couple inches of the ground then drop it back down with a thud. Leon, watching amused, gives me a little clap.
Luc whistles. "Damn, viper juice works huh?"
"Buddy," I wheeze. "You're a terrible teacher."
"You shouldn't speak to your sensei like that," he grins. "Now then, time for some more reps…"
***
More days pass. Mist, Ronin and Diva wake up, and Tavin continues to take care of them. Elemental's completely recovered, thankfully, and besides Luc's hellish strength & stamina training, I've asked Elemental and Krim to help me out as well.
"I can't teach you anything," was 004's answer. "You learn plenty fine by yourself."
"I don't."
His eyebrow goes up.
"You mean you don't know? About your own monstrous talent."
"Talent?" I scoff. "Me?"
He exhales.
"Even less of a reason for me to teach you," he says. "I don't fight by technique, I rely on my instincts to tell me what to do and then make my body follow through. Luc's training to help your body keep up is probably what's most important for you right now, but if you want to learn some moves ask Krim."
"You want me to teach you some kicks?" Krim asks.
"Yeah."
He thinks for a bit, then agrees.
So that's what I've been doing for the last couple of days. Strength training with Luc, technique with Krim, sleeping, replenishing myself on Tavin's ration capsules.
The days have passed, and as they do the need to stay in this small cave grows smaller. Everyone's steadily recovering, even Ronin, who almost died. The ration capsules are limited, they cannot sustain such a large group for much longer.
Soon, we will attack the Floodmen, and leave the lower floor.