Hopeful Despair

The loud robotic voice suddenly emanating from the box instantly awoke Asaki, looking with terror at Celia's direction as he thought that something was attacking them.

The Aurora, kneeling in front of the box, stayed motionless, her heart hardly pounding normally again after such a surprise.

During multiple seconds, only the loud heartbeats of the two survivors could be heard echoing inside of the empty house. Both knew what that voice was, even Asaki who awoke because of it.

It was... A radio ! A radio was hiding somewhere beneath the stuff inside the box !!

A loud and thunderous noise came from the ground as Celia emptied violently the box on the carpet, looking with the now turned on flashlight where could be the radio. Luckily, it only took them a few seconds to find the large rectangle of metal, fainted noises of glitch directly coming from it.

"Celia... Is that a... ?"

The girl couldn't contain her excitement any longer, furiously nodding before grabbing the radio with both of her hands. Asaki crawled on the bed to approach the Aurora, now sitting at one of its corners.

After both of them tried to readjust the antenna during even more seconds, another robotic noise suddenly echoed from the device, was it a record ? A live alert ? Were the presentator, and so his team... alive ? If so, people somewhere else survived long enough to be able to reestablish the communication system.

However, the voice didn't bring the hope both of the young adults expected, a dark and deep expression filling Celia's eyes, as the young man looked with wide eyes into the void, still listening to the terrible words coming from the radio...

"This is not an exercise ! This is not an exercise ! All inhabitants of Vaulstrae actually are stuck in a world threatening disaster. I repeat, all inhabitants of Vaulstrae actually are stuck in a world threatening disaster. Army is currently losing against the enemy, people of Aldeus, if you hear this message... Zzzzb.... Please.... Zzzbb... Join Asagiri and... Zzzb..."

Interferences started to slowly shut down the device, now, only the words "join Asagiri" in addition to some others ones, continuously echoing inside of the room. Looking at Celia, Asaki easily guess that the young woman seemed utterly devastated, her eyes widened by a mix of so many emotions that, even him, couldn't read them all.

One minute passed, and another... A deep silent had installed inside of the bedroom, getting interrupted by some segmented sentences and words, now totally inaudible. The radio seemed to just repeat the same words, again and again, as the two companions didn't even dare to move.

And yet, before the radio completely shat down, one last sentence came from the device, different from any of the others until now.

As he heard it, Asaki's whole body suddenly shivered of fear, his heart tensing with so much strength that he firstly thought that he just had a heart attack.

Those words, trying to bring hope at the beginning, only produced even more despair, and... An utterly sensational of void.

And that hopeful despair only consisted of three words, three words hardly reaching the survivor's ears, the radio dying at the same moment.

"Please... Fight... Survive... D-..."

Now, the silence was back again, not only filling the ears of the two poor student, but also their heart.

°°°

The rest of the night passed extremely slowly ; Celia laid at the right of Asaki, not having said a single word since then. Although she seemed like sleeping, her two orange eyes were wide open, looking emptily into the void while the young woman stayed motionless.

For Asaki, even if he tried to, it seemed truly impossible for him to fall asleep. The thought that the military, had somewhat, lost against the enemy, created a deep and black hole inside of his heart.

'Maybe that it was a troll... It must be a troll... A troll... A bad joke...'

Nobody was about to come to save them, and slowly, but surely, everyone was going to die. Asaki didn't wanted to die, as nobody else wanted to ! Wh... why.... Why did they have to get through all of this !??

Since the beginning, only three questions casually appeared inside of his mind each minutes, each hour passing here ;

Why ? Who ? And... How ??

To be honest, the young man didn't even want to try anything to survive. Laying in a fetal position, Asaki wished to stay in such a state for the rest of his life, after all... He was about to die, no matter what.

Why fighting for his life, if even entire countries didn't succeed to do so ??

'We're... We're completely alone here...'

Asaki wanted to cry all out, and surely for hours. But he couldn't... The man's heart was filled by so much fear, that breathing already was a miracle. Dying from the urge to cry, while being too afraid to do so, wasn't something which felt good at all.

Even the urge to throw up now slowly installed inside of him.

Soon, the sun rose above the morning's mist and clouds, probably thousand of dreadful creature's shadow now violently stretching on the ground.

They, at least, made it... Celia and Asaki had passed the first night.

But why, surviving one night, if it were to die during the next ones ?

A girl's voice suddenly pulled Asaki out of his thoughts, the crimson form of Celia turning back to face Asaki's gaze. A red spar was faintly shining deep into the vast ocean of lava flowing through the Aurora's eyes, indicating that she surely had cried during the night.

Yet... Her voice, only showed a fake tone of braveness and conviction, as her lips helped her throat to make some sounds.

"Asaki... We should head to Asagiri."