Shockz !XxBO6IPYQQ 2011/11/18 (Fri) 06:02 No. 149805 Calamity hit some folks worse than others. Me, Zia, the kid, none of us really had anyone before it happened. Don't mean it didn't hurt, seein' all you ever knew turned to ash, but we didn't have a whole lot to lose in the first place.
Zulf, though, he did lose someone. Didn't take it too well, either. Got a feelin' he's more the rule than the exception when it comes to that.
Case in point, this girl here. Funny hair decs, seems to think she can shoot bullets out of her hand. Kid has a feeling he knows why, but figures it's best not to agitate her further. Plays along for now, tells her his name. “I came from the Bastion,” he adds, “and, uh, I'm not really sure how I got here. Where am I, anyway?”
She nods as she circles around him, keepin' the business end of her pointer finger trained on him the whole time. “Bastion, hm? Never heard of it.” Ignores the question at the end, bends down to pick up the machete instead.
Kid doesn't like the sound of that. Bastion's pretty common knowledge for the people of Caelondia, even all the way out on the fringes. Means he's real far from home, maybe all the way to a whole 'nother continent. Didn't think the Skyway could take him that far, but there you go. Before he has too long to think on that, though, girl pipes up again. “When you say you're not sure how you got 'here'...do you mean 'here' as in this exact spot, or 'here' as in this whole forest?”
Kid has a real bad feeling about this. “The forest. I just kinda...woke up here. I don't even remember leaving the Bastion.”
Girl rolls her eyes. “Great. Here we go again.” She taps a strange little box attached to a wire near her ear. “Hashi here. Target wasn't hostile, just some lost kid. Not from around here, either.” She waits for a moment. “Roger.” Then turns back to him. “Follow me, kid. Your day's only gonna get weirder from here.”
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Turns out, those hair decorations...ain't. They're the girl's ears. Kid finds this out when he asks her...after seeing her 'sisters'. That's what she calls 'em, at least. There are dozens, hundreds of them, all throughout this “Eientei” place (which, by the way, is a fair bit bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. Kid's still tryin' to figure that part out), and they've all got those ears. Same ears as some kind of large rodent that's all over this place, which the kid declines to ask about. Mostly look to be teenagers—a few younger, a few older. None look much older than him. All wearin' the same little pink dress, exceptin' a few in the same uniforms as the girl escortin' him.
Anyhow, way she tells it, Eientei's the local hospital, mostly by way of its owner—one “Mistress Eirin”--bein' the only decent doctor in those parts. The exact location and nature of those parts is the first question the kid asks. She shuts him down, though; says 'new arrival orientation' ain't her job.
One o' the other girls gets the kid's attention as they pass her by. Nothin' about her really stands out—she's wearin' the same pink dress most of 'em are—but the way other girls stand around her make it clear she's in charge. And, well, she never actually says “Eh-heh-heh. Fresh meat,” but her face says it for her.
Eventually, kid and the girl end up at what looks like a little dinin' room. Another girl's sittin' there at the table. Looks a bit older, has long, light purple hair, wears the same uniform with a couple extra badges. “Welcome to Eientei,” she says. “And based on what Hashi here has told me, welcome to Gensokyo as well. My name is Reisen Udongein Inaba, and I am in charge of security and public relations here at Eientei.”
Kid thanks her, introduces himself. Asks her where, exactly, he is. She tells him. Turns out, Eientei's part of a little piece o' land called Gensokyo, sealed off from the rest of the world by some kinda energy barrier. Reisen calls it “majik” or somethin'; kid just nods and pretends he understands. Only gets worse from there. People end up there all the time by accident—usually folks livin' near the barrier, but sometimes from places much farther away. And the reason it's sealed off like that? There're things called “yo-kye” that live here. Some are nice enough. Some like a nice pot o' human stew for dinner.
“So...this barrier,” kid asks. “That's what protected you all from the Calamity?”
Blank looks all 'round. “The...what calamity?” Reisen asks.
Kid's worried now. Still, he presses on. “Well, uh, maybe this barrier you talked about stopped it somehow. But, uh...about two weeks ago...put it simply, the whole world was destroyed. Cracked open like an egg, split into millions of pieces. Almost everyone died. Turned...turned to ash. In an instant. We...we haven't found many survivors yet.”
Awkward silence. Long, awkward silence. Reisen waves Hashi over, whispers something to her. Hashi whispers something back. Reisen nods, whispers again, and turns back to the kid. Hashi walks over to a closet, starts rummaging through.
“Where are you from, exactly?” Reisen asks.
“Uh, well, we've been tracking down survivors from the Bastion, but I'm originally from Caelondia.”
“I...see. And where is Caelondia?” Hashi comes back, lays some paper out on the table between them. “Could you point it out on this map, perhaps?”
Kid looks down at the map.
Now, kid learned his geography in school. Whole lot of the world's unexplored, but Caelondia knows what it looks like for the most part. Continents, coastlines, they don't move all that much.
But the kid don't recognize a single thing on that map. Nothin' looks even a tiny bit like the continent that Caelondia and the Ura Terminals call home.
“It's...it's not there,” kid hears himself say, barely believin' it. “Caelondia's not there...this is the whole world?”
Reisen nods, slowly. “And...I am sorry, truly sorry about your...world, your people, but we had scouts to the outside world report back just a few hours ago. This world is very much intact.” Gives the kid a long, sympathetic look. “I'm afraid you might be very, very far from home.”
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Now, thing about Eientei...it's as big as it needs to be. Need an extra room for an unexpected guest? It'll have one. Might not even have any medical equipment in it.
So there lays the kid. Room's got a big, comfy bed, but he's on his old bedroll on his floor. Can't sleep with all that extra padding. Can't sleep anyway, but that's beside the point.
Kid's tryin' not to think about it, but, well, ain't much else to think about. Already lost his whole world once, and now he's lost the few pieces he had left. Even his trusty machete and mortar are gone, confiscated 'til he leaves. Kid don't have much else to lose.
And...kid buries the thought, soon as it comes up, but it stays there, bubblin' beneath his mind like bad pecker stew. What if, he thinks, what if I'm better off here?
Kid finds sleep eventually, though it's a long, hard search.
[]He dreams of a better time.
[]He dreams of a broken world.
[]He dreams of what might be.