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Chapter 6

Survivors

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(CHAPTER PENDING REWRITE)

Immersed in dense darkness, I ascend to the surface.

I pierce the veil and breathe as if I had been breathless for days.

I open my eyes slightly and the little light that surrounds me assails me.

Where am I...?

My eyesight clears as I rub my eyes. I'm lying on a mattress, under blankets and with my head on a comfortable and wide pillow... In front of me I have something that blocks the light.

Feeling all my muscles semi paralyzed, I turn sideways and wait for the confusion in my head to subside, and a white room of 6 square meters welcomes my sight, without a ceiling... all still blurred.

I plunge under my pillow and find my communicator... I turn it on and look at the time at the top right of the holographic screen. The orange light dazzles me as I read that it is 5:47.

A bit early to wake up. But I don't want to sleep anymore... maybe 6 hours are enough.

The orange light illuminates the room. Looking up, I see the second mattress of my bunk bed on which I fainted last night, and I become aware that... I must remember myself to change the mattress with the one above, this one destroyes my back every night!

I walk my arm over the mattress and look for something on the floor, searching blindly.

Where did I throw them?

My hand closes on my sports glasses, which are then unceremoniously placed on my nose. I remain in place for a few minutes, observing the light in the room slowly intensifying.

I cling to the slats of the bed above and lift myself sitting, watching the room where I woke up: a pile of dirty clothes, three pairs of abandoned shoes, fishing rods left against the wall near the bed, an open suitcase next to a corner, plastic trays dirty with food folded in four and forcefully inserted in a basket, a tent that separates the room from the hallway ... today I definitely have to clean.

I hope not to wake anyone up...

I rub my eyes to remove the remnants of the night and then get up in the semi-darkness, while my stomach cries out of hunger. So, should I wait three hours for breakfast? Forget it!

I take off my white pyjamas and, trying not to make a noise, I wear my off duty Stamen uniform: a single gray piece with blue inserts on my chest, short shorts, long sleeves with sewn shoulder straps, a zipper that starts from the white collar to the waist passing near a red Y reversed on my chest, the badge of my Plantation on the right of it and brown shoes with high dark gray socks.

I stretch myself, suppressing a brief yawn, and I take in two hands the stack of dirty clothes that are forcefully slipped into a bag previously launched on the upper bed. With the bag in one hand and the full basket in the other, I get out of the room pushing the curtain with my elbow.

The Parasite Dormitory, in the half-light of dawn, welcomes me: a huge room with a grey dome decorated with orange lines, with a diameter of a hundred meters, divided into concentric steps on which the Parasite rooms are built. The dome of the room is dotted with rows of skylights from which the still weak sun penetrates, and wide staircases connect the bands to the bottom of the room.

The silence of the tomb and the curtains pulled in all the rooms are indicators that everyone is still fast asleep. I do everything in my powers to walk in silence: it's not that everyone is grateful to be awakened at dawn like me. Who knows how Hiro felt when I shared the room with him and went fishing early...

I go down the stairs and take the elevator to the lobby floor, deserted and still in twilight. This was illuminated by the light of artificial gardens made up of steel trees, built behind look-through glass. What a desolation! Maybe if we find packs of flowers, we could ask Kokoro to plant some, so it distracts her and improves this depressing area... Actually, everyone needs a distraction. Even me.

Crossed the lobby, I walk through a double sliding door that gives onto a bridge, suspended between the sphere of the dormitories where my room is located. This passageway leads to the command section of the base, the curvy pointed building.

As I step outside, I am dazzled in surprise by the sun, just born from beyond the hills to the east... I stop for a moment to admire it, in the fresh morning breeze.

Continuing in the main building, another lobby welcomes me, made like the previous one. From it, labelled corridors branch out, one of which is called 'Maintenance', without windows. I turn on the lights and walk along it, up to a room labelled 'Washing Room', full of trolleys for transporting vestiary and rows of giant washing machines are integrated into the walls. I load my uniforms into a washing machine and start it off. Having to go around in pajamas is not very nice!

On leaving, opposite the door, I find a wall opening with a bell-shaped vertical access door, above which we can see the label 'Compactor'. I open it, raise the basket two-handedly, pour the contents in it and close the door again.

"Grrrbl! My stomach protests. I would eat anything now... maybe in the cafeteria I can find something.

I return to the lobby and approach the elevator in the middle of it, get inside and select the twenty-seventh floor button: 'Officer's Quarters'. The button scans my finger and lights green.

"Whew! Thanks, Hachi!" I'm happy that Hachi authorized us, we're the only ones here who are doing something.

Although sincerely, I don't blame the others.

...

...

I was still in my FranXX at Bird's Nest when Hachi called the end of operations and the return to base. Having done what we had to do, we were the first ones to be already laying our Franxx in the retention cage. Once that was done, we headed for the dormitories, expecting to see an Adult, a Guard, someone.

We didn't find anyone.

The service screens gave a single, brief message: 'All parasites are to gather at the Sphere One lobby for debriefing', accompanied by an arrow pointing the direction to follow.

We waited for our comrades to return in front of the door to Sphere One, one of the three parasite dormitories, not yet openable.

After about ten minutes, a river of Stamen and Pistils invaded the corridor and waited with us, with none of our squadmates yet arrived. The door finally opens and reveals a bridge, fire-red coloured from the sunset, connecting the corridor to the Sphere.

Advancing through with Ichigo at the head of the column, we entered the lobby by a solid automatic door. The Parasites who operated the field hospital were sitting on the ground waiting, in a pitiful state of both clothing and faces.

A sweaty Hachi stands in front of the black and white crowd, holding with one hand a small container about twenty centimetres tall. He places it on the ground and climbs up to it.

"Hello everyone." Said in his monotonous voice, while standing on the container. "Sorry the wait, but we brought the wounded to the hospital of the command building.

"Are they all fine?" A Pistil shouted from the crowd.

"Where are the Adults?" Other Stamens scream.

We were all incredibly scared.

Hachi raised his hands to appease everyone. "Yes, they're fine, but one thing at a time… Debriefing first."

With palms pressing the floor, he intimated "Everyone sit on the ground".

And they all sat down on the spot. Including the two of us. Ichigo took a frightened look at me.

"The evolution of the state of the operations was as follows." After a brief pause to recompose, Hachi began the debriefing.

"During the assault of the Klaxxo forces upon Gran Crevasse, an unknown enemy appeared, indiscriminately exterminating the forces of both sides: they identified themselves as VIRMs.

"The enemy attacked the area of mass operations with ground, air, and orbital forces. Our forces were overwhelmed by the mass of... I think robots, similar to our FranXXs. All of a sudden, the Klaxxosaurs disengaged our forces and attacked the VIRM mass, as you had seen being on the field. Star Entity had then been enclosed in a kind of suppression coating laid out by the new threat.

"Then, after our sabotage operation, the VIRM dome on Star Entity was blown up. The latter, using an unknown weapon, then proceeded to nuclearize the air column above the AO. Telemetry data suggest that orbital forces were on the fire direction of the weapon and were vaporized.

"Really?" I instinctively asked in disbelief, feeling all the hairs of my skin rising under my suit as if it were made of ice. "Nuclearized? Vaporized?" Everyone turned and looked at me.

"Yes. On the spot, thanks to drones, it was found that a column of radioactive air was suspended up to the exosphere. The weapon's 'beam' was of millions of degrees and caused the nuclear fusion of hydrogen, nitrogen and atmospheric oxygen in the trajectory all the way to space." Hachi said with tranquility.

Some of those present were looking at Hachi with my own incredulous expression of what they had heard, fixed in turn by their companions. Unlike everyone else, double codes like me knew what you were talking about.

At the time, my mouth was so open that someone could shove an arm in it.

"…056?" Hachi addressed me. "Can you tell me what a Gamma Ray Burst is?

"Yes! Ehm...". I stand up, but I'm still stubborn with words. I recompose myself and enunciate: "A Gamma Ray Burst is an explosive reaction caused in collapsing supernovae or neutron stars colliding... it is a ray of plasma and high-energy particles that is capable of incinerating everything that hits... stars, planets... it is one of the most catastrophic events in the observable universe."

Hachi nodded. "Good'.

I sit down, then Hachi continues. "That was Star Entity's weapon, albeit on a very small scale. Heavy fusion products fell to the ground, but the neutron-activated air column remained suspended for hours on the battlefield due to altitude winds. Then, passing the time, they fell towards the ground."

In response, I looked at him with a destroyed expression. Ichigo's eyes were open wide and her breath was broken.

"I couldn't let you stay any longer, because your FranXX are not equipped for that scenario. You would have found yourself irradiated, unable to drive and in danger of life."

He sighed. "… I have set up an exclusion zone within 30 kilometers of Gran Crevasse."

A whisper imposes itself, while those present look around lost.

"What...?" The curly-haired boy with who had contacted me and Ichigo on the battlefield, 371, got up and took the floor. "What will become of our comrades left on the battlefield? We can't leave them there!

"They won't survive the night."

The boy looks at him with dismay. "So why don't we return immediately? They will die!"

"Until this afternoon the amount of exposure inside your FranXX on the battlefield had remained at 0.01 Sieverts per hour, and now it has been calculated that it will touch about 0.1 Sieverts per minute. This means that if you go back there, you will receive a lethal dose of radiation in less than an hour."

"But... MY TEAM IS STILL UNDER THERE‼" He screamed while tears came down from his eyes.

Hachi looked at it with a stoic expression but with one side of his mouth pulled downwards.

"Sorry. We can't do anything."

The boy covers his face with two hands and falls on his knees, sobbing. His pistil embraces him. Everyone looked at themselves and realized the catastrophe, so other hiccups filled the room.

An atmosphere of mourning takes over the lobby. Hachi looks at everyone, inexpressive.

All of a sudden, a short, but deserted, brown-haired, low, slender-bodied Stamen raised from behind the crowd.

"Are you saying that all those who are left behind are to be given for dead?"

I recognize him: it's Argentea's Stamen, Zorome.

Hachi nods.

The boy was looking at him with open-mouthed. Then he put his hand on his mouth, turned around and dashed out of the lobby. A girl with long red hair gathered in two high twintails, the same height as Zorome, ran out with him. She is Miku, the Pistil of Argentea. She tried in every way to hold his companion back: both came out on the bridge. Zorome, while Miku held him by his shoulders, leaned out of the parapet and barfed.

The door then closed.

I looked at Ichigo, she responded with eyes full of tears. I, too, could barely held back my tears as a chasm was opening in my chest. Something absolutely horrifying... all the efforts made on the ground, useless. At that point, for them I could only hope that they would not suffer.

After a few minutes of silence in which the crowd painted itself with glances of pain, Hachi resumed.

"After the destruction of the orbiting forces, all VIRM soldiers freezed instantly as if they were drones and the Klaxxo forces withdrew. Then fleets of... fixed-wing aircraft... of the Klaxxosaurs emerged from the ground in vertical flight, directed into Earth orbit. Thus, all the enemy forces had left the battlefield."

"Our units... still operational consisted of 42 Franxx and their crews, totalling 84 unharmed Parasites. Crews recovered amounted to 81 evacuated pests, including 43 wounded 13 of whom were seriously injured. There are 83 confirmed deaths, while..."

Hachi stopped, the crowd was hanging from his lips.

"...Two hundred FranXX are still missing, that is about four hundred Parasites".

Everyone took the blow in silence. Most looked down, crawled or arched their backs forwards. Lost glances languish in the air, including my own and Ichigo's.

I was completely devastated, I had never understood what it meant to lose anyone, and now I knew it.

Looking at the crowd, I could recognize the contracted faces of my teammates, Mitsuru, Kokoro, Futoshi and Ikuno, with a devastated Miku returning to the lobby holding on to a weeping Zorome...

I could see some red suited Parasites not far away, sitting in a circle...

Hachi got off the container and sat on it. He grabbed his chin, pensive... and fixes my gaze. I diverge my own, embarrassed, and with the tail of my eye I see his swaying between me and my squad companions. Then he takes a deep breath and gets up.

"The debriefing is over. Hachi concluded. "The doors to the dorms are open. After changing in the locker rooms in the corridor you just went through, go immediately to your rooms."

"All except the Nines and Plantation Squad 13."

I looked at him frightened, with the sense of guilt that slammed into my chest to the rhythm of my heart. Did I make any errors in the operation? Was it my fault...? Ichigo next to me was scared to death as well, her uncontrolled breath going off. I instinctively took her little hand, and she replied squeezing back hard.

...

...

Everyone around me slowly got up and went to the dorms. Many remained like me sitting. Hachi approached the moving crowd and gave some directions. "Help your companions to get up. Don't wander."

I looked around and found my companions as frightened as I am, but ready to take their responsibilities. Ichigo leaved my hand and suddenly got up, slamming on the ground the heels of his suit with a serious look, determined and ready to receive the harsh truth. With arms crossed at the front and a high back, now more than ever, she was the team leader I knew.

I rose in turn, strengthened by her example. Our teammates imitated us and formed a line in front of a Hachi, with Zorome and Miku still holding each other up.

The red suits, the Nines, approached and did the same. Three girls with long grey hair and steel mandibles, Zeta, Eta and Theta, were supporting three boys: Alpha with golden hair, Beta with turquoise hair and Gamma with red tailed hair. The last three had fatigued, painted white faces.

Alpha looked at him impassively. "You know we don't answer to you, don't you?

"Yes, I know. What you do from now on falls on yourself."

"Papa..."

"I confirmed that Papa is no longer here. The APE High Command is empty." Without heart or hesitation, Hachi interrupted him.

It seemed nothing strange to me.

Alpha became agitated in the grip of her partner. "No… It's not possible!"

"Try to confirm it later, then. From now on, you respond only to yourself." Hachi repeated.

Alpha froze in place while the red and the turquoise boys looked and nodded, unhappy.

"This also applies to all of you." He looks at us.

What?

"Hachi, what-" Ichigo inquired.

"I... didn't doubt that the other Parasites wouldn't be able to hold the briefing. You are instead...special, as Dr. FranXX used to say." Hachi explains.

I look around and my mates had giant question marks on their faces, as I almost couldn't see through mine.

"I have closely watched you during your stay in the Plantation 13 Mistilteinn, and I must say that you are completely different from any Parasite I have ever seen."

"Strictly..."? He asks Miku embarrassed.

"In the limit of decency, of course. I think you understood that you are different because you were given the opportunity to be so, right?"

Everyone was watching him in silence. Remembering the Parasites of Plantation 26, I nodded.

"The fact that you have not been indoctrinated as soon as put into service, your FranXX modeled in the mental image of the Pistil to decrease piloting dysphoria, more freedom of action and thinking..."

My head screamed: 'WAIT A MOMENT!'

"Do you mean that ALL parasites are subject to brainwashing like 326 and 556?" Asked Ichigo, who was as displaced as I am.

"No, it's something deeper, it's a kind of emotional block. You don't have that problem."

"P-Problem?" Ichigo asked him.

"Yes...problem. Dr. FranXX did not approve of this. And I with him."

A pause, then he resumed.

"Returning to the subject again... For that reason, you are best fitted to know the situation 100%, including the Nines present here, who are also were not indoctrinated."

The Nines, taken from the speech, became serious. The redhead, Gamma, asked in turn.

"Is it about the Adults?"

"Yes."

Hachi remains immobile. Something really heavy was about to befall on us, I felt it. But with my team-mates, I was ready for anything.

"The Adults are all dead."

Almost everything.

...

...

DING!

The jingle makes me look up and I see the door of the elevator opening on the lobby of the officers.

I can't take that moment out of my head. Like everyone else... as they shut themselves in in their rooms, furnished in such a way as to have as much privacy as possible. Only from time to time you could observe a parasite going out to wander aimlessly, or to look for a teammate.

For us of the plantation 13 however there was no time to dwell.

The elevator door closes in my face... Maybe it's better to get out of here, Goro, what do you think? Becoming an elevator decoration is not an occupation you aspire to.

I reopen the door and enter the luxurious lobby: oval, covered in orange carpets on which white leather sofas and chairs are placed, glass tables and a minimal-style reception, lit by suspended brass LED candelabra. At the center spurts away a crystal clear water fountain, at the center of which lies a tall, elongated statue depicting the stylized symbol of Papa. The outer walls are covered with maple wood, covered with giant paintings of pre-Klaxxo nature scenes.

How green... I miss Mistilteinn.

From here I take the corridor to the right of the reception and enter into a double service door, taking me into a grey and anonymous corridor, with a window on one side and a series of sliding doors on the other. I place my bag and my basket in front of the third door and open it. It welcomes me to a small room with a window, a table, some chairs scattered around and, attached to the wall, a long piece of furniture that Hachi calls 'kitchen'.

I had never seen in my life how food was prepared, but Hachi showed us how... it looks interesting! Maybe I'll ask him to give me some books about it, when he stops going around with the cargo plane...

For now, however, I wash my hands on the kitchen sink and open what Hachi calls 'Fridge' and a pleasant cool invests me: looking inside I find vegetables, meat, fruit... all in raw form. Then, on the top shelf, a large piece of cream cake on a saucer.

Oh my!

Pricing the flavor, take it out and close the fridge. Then I open a drawer and pull out a bowl full of black plastic capsules, the size of my palm, and a cup from a cupboard. I therefore turn to the machine resting on the working surface of the kitchen, which produces a bitter but at the same time interesting drink: coffee.

If only would I remember how it works!

I look at it intensely, passing my hand on my chin and playing with the capsule with the other. Come on, really? I saw Hachi using it with my own eyes!

If only it was easier to operate... maybe if it was like a FranXX, I could just call Ichigo here, let her touch the machine and I, from behind, cling to her hi... NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO STOPSTOPSTOPEMBARASSED

The door suddenly opens and an Ikuno peeps out with her head, framing me with her bespectacled eyes.

"What are you doing with your arms hanging forward and the face red?"

Oh fuck-

"Ehehehe, nothing, nothing, I swear to you!" I say as I recollect myself while passing a hand on my hair.

"Don't lie, of whom were the hips?" She asks me smiling slightly.

Wow, she's like a hawk-

"What hips? Coffee machines have no hips." I say with a giant poker face.

"But what were you doing then?" She looks at me amused.

"I didn't remember how that works, so I tried to trace Hachi's movements. By the way, already awake?"

"Hachi? Don't you be kidding me... Yes, already standing, what about you?"

You can't do it to Ikuno!

"Yes, every now and then I wake up early- when I went fishing I used to do it often..."

Ikuno looks at the slice of cake and then me, swelling his cheeks. "Won't you share...?"

"Oh sure! But... do you know how to turn this on...?" Giving her the capsule.

"Yes... Yesterday I... exaggerated with coffee..." She tells me, and I notice the slight dark circles behind her thick black framed glasses, as she takes the thing from my hand. "I ended up reading all night."

Whoa, an all-nighter!

"Ah, by the way... yesterday when I left the cake, it was half..." I point out to her, high cheekbones.

Ikuno becomes green with embarrassment and looks the other way. "I-It wasn't me!"

What a L-I-A-R! I send her an amused look, then I give in. "Well, let's do half of the slice each."

Ikuno smiles radiant! An Ikuno with cake is a happy Ikuno!

Cut the slice in two and transport it to another saucer, while she opens the machine, puts the wafer into a slot, closes it, places two cups under the nozzles and presses a button. The machine starts buzzing and, in no time at all, two light streams of coffee come out, one per cup.

"Milk?" I ask her.

"Hm hm!" She replied in the affirmative.

She waits for the machine to finish working and I look at her: she's in a standard Pistil off-duty uniform similar to mine, but instead of shorts she has a skirt up to her knees and an X instead of my upside down Y. Then my gaze falls on her white hair gathered on the back with a purple hairpin... not so long ago it was dark-purple colored.

I know that this time I cannot help but tell her how I feel.

"Ikuno... is everything ok...?"

She looks at me and she sighs. "Yes..." She then stares at the coffee machine with rancor. "Does that make me ...unwatchable?"

"Whaaaat? No, No! Are you joking!"

"Everyone considers me like a terminally sick person... I'm sick of it." She clings to the kitchen's top, looking away.

I understand... you are a very proud person.

"The Ikuno I know doesn't deserve this. You saved us all that day, and to do so you sacrificed something enormous. Ikuno, I owe you my life."

"..." Her hard expression breaks.

"I... you're a teammate of mine...is it not normal... to look each other's back? To take concern for each other...?" I explain.

She looks at me with an open mouth, cheered. "Y-Yes, I guess..."

Wasn't it supposed to be natural...?

"...Thanks, Goro. I'm fine, it really was just the hair decoloring by itself."

I really hope for her that wasn't just her wishful thinking, and that she got an actual medical scan.

The coffee machine stops buzzing, and Ikuno disenchants herself. She removes the cups as I place the cakes on the table with teaspoons, in opposite seats. She puts the coffee next to the cakes, and the milk pack in the middle.

"...Sugar?" She asks me with meek voice.

"No, thank you."

We sit down at the table and start to give ourselves in with the cake. At the first bite, her mouth curls upwards.

"You... somehow changed." I say this by adjusting my glasses. "In the past, you used to be by yourself a lot."

"Mh... You too. Before didn't fantasized on clinging to the hips of a certain someone I know."

Oh, you.

"You're the one talking. You've already tried it once, didn't you?"

Our smug glances collide in fireworks while we take a sip out of our coffees. I am proud to have a rival like her.

Suddenly, the door opens behind me. I turn around and see a newly awakened pajama'd Miku, dishevelled twintails and half-asleep face, whose gaze rests on the cake saucer, emptier than emptiness.

"NOOOOOOOO! The caaaaaaaakeeeeeeeee! She clings to her tails, exclaiming in pure despair.

You can't have the cake and eat it as well.

...

Survivors - END

...

Chapter sources:

Gamma Ray Burst: youtube (dot!) com/watch?v=RLykC1VN7NY&t=177s

Neutron Activation and Ionizing Radiation: wikipedia (dot!) org/wiki/Neutron_activation | wikipedia (dot!) org/wiki/Ionizing_radiation

Sievert unit and exposure table: wikipedia (dot!) org/wiki/Sievert

Expect more of these sources when I bring up science stuff!