Zeros

Kyouma found the darkness to be abnormally stuffy. He turned on the flashlight attached to his helmet. Up ahead he could see a derailed train car. Rusty bars lined the walls and roof of the car, while decrepit suitcases, old newspapers, and shattered glass cluttered the broken ground. There was no shortage of bodies around either.

He held on to a hand bar and looked around. With a sudden crack, the rusty bar snapped and hit Kyouma on the head.

Kyouma grunted, more in anger than in pain, "ouch!"

His low voice carried and reverberated weakly through the subway tunnel. He was answered by the faint sound of a rock falling to the ground in the darkness of the tunnel.

Kyouma stepped out of the train car and onto a splintering wooden board of the train tracks. With a weak crack, it shattered under his weight. Sighing, he crept through the tunnel quietly. The whispering howl of the wind steadily flowing through the tunnel.

Another flashlight suddenly beamed onto a wall ahead of him.

Kyouma quickly doused his light and dropped into a crouch. As he carefully moved closer to the source of the light, he heard what he thought sounded like a water faucet that someone had forgotten to turn off. He soon got close enough to see a man urinating near the front of the train and muttering to himself.

"Gettin' real sick of this place," the man swore belligerently in a language Kyouma couldn't place. "Hope poppin that train full of freaks was worth it." He zipped his pants and stormed off down a maintenance corridor, still muttering to himself. "Should go check on Steinvoch. Lad probably got his hands full with that lass."

Kyouma watched the man as he turned the corner and disappeared.

"Charming," Kyouma quietly whispered to himself.

He shook off the thought and followed the man down the hallway. He skillfully stuck to the shadows, being careful not to unexpectedly bump into someone turning a corner. The tight corridors worried Kyouma. If anyone were to happen by, he'd be a sitting duck.

Kyouma entered a short hallway with three angry men sitting around a can with fire spewing from the top. The hallway was musty; it smelled of alcohol, mold, and urine. Its few light sources were dim and often flickered.

Within seconds the guards were sleeping on the ground. From the time he entered, Kyouma had surmised that there weren't many, but he was still outnumbered. If he could get through this without raising alarm it would be better for all of them.

Kyouma followed the hallway to a dead-end. There was a dim light coming from a room with a cracked door. Through it he could hear voices.

"Stop screaming bitch. No one is coming for you."

"Yeah. Now just spread them and we can get this over with."

This room was actually two different rooms. The smaller was more to the back. Inside was a desk littered with papers, a single candle resting on a shelf, and a young woman curled up in one of the corners. Kyouma noticed she was wearing clothing that looked they hadn't been washed in years. Her hands and feet were bound with rope and she had a strip of thick cloth wrapped around her head that the bandits used to keep her gagged.

Back in the first room was the owner of the voices. Where a burly man and a man with a fedora were both standing over a motionless body. "Damn. Looks like I overdid it."

"She's no good to anyone now." The man beside him sighed before kicking the body with the toe of his boot.

The burly man grinned. "If you're not going to use her."

"Gross. It's a corpse."

"Hey, I don't tell you how to live."

Kyouma waited for the two to leave, and then snuck into the back room. The woman became alert upon seeing him enter. She tried to crawl away from him, but already had her back to a wall. Kyouma held his hands out in front of him in an attempt to show the woman he wasn't going to hurt her. She was frightened; Kyouma could see that from the tears streaming down her.

Kyouma spoke softly, "I'm here to help you. Do you understand?"

She looked at Kyouma cautiously and slowly nodded.

"Alright, I'm going to get you out of here."

Kyouma pulled her up, binds and all, and threw her over his shoulder. He sprinted from the room and back out to the train line.

Kyouma could hear the bandits shouting behind him, "We got trouble! Everyone get back here!"

Kyouma quickly ducked to the side of the stairs into a shadow. The woman squirmed in her uncomfortable position, so Kyouma gripped her clothes tighter. Two more bandits rushed past toward where they had come from. As soon as they were past, Kyouma quickly made his way up and away from the platform. He set her down on the ground beside a toilet stall. He pulled a knife from his belt and cut the rope around her hands and feet.

"I'll get the gag when we're clear," he whispered.

She nodded.

A group of guards slowly made their way back up the tunnel, guns ready and trigger-fingers itching.

The two of them hugged the wall of the tunnel and hurried down the tracks. The tunnel's end was still a way off. But it wasn't where they were headed. Buried and just barely visible in the dark was an iron disc. It reminded Kyouma of a manhole cover. Except that there were already underground.

He tried to lift the cover. It was heavier than he had first anticipated. He braced himself and lifted the cover on the second try. The sound of metal and rock scraping against each other made much more noise than Kyouma had hoped it would. With his guest going first, Kyouma climbed into the small maintenance shaft. Grasping the ladder tightly with one hand, he slid the cover back over the hole as pebbles bounced against his helmet visor.

He climbed down slowly. The walls were lit by an eerie green light from below. It was fairly dim, but bright enough for Kyouma to assume the worst. They reached the bottom but didn't get off the ladder right away. He switched on his flashlight before looking at the ground and down the tunnel before him. Glowing, green mushrooms sprouted from piles of dirt and rubble. Weaving through the valley between these small hills was a stream of still water. Kyouma let out a heavy sigh as his suspicion was confirmed.

"They didn't tell me it was flooded," he said disappointedly.

He stepped off the ladder, being careful not to step in the water, and onto one of the small hills of mushroom. With a weak crunch the light emanating from it faded and died.

Kyouma grumbled to himself, "Out of the frying pan and into the fire."

He turned back to his charge and released her of the gag.

"Finally." She stated.

But before she could continue, Kyouma placed a hand over her mouth. "Careful. It's dangerous here."

She looked at him skeptically. A look that only increased when he produced a gas mask from his backpack.

"Put it on." He instructed.

She shook her head in refusal.

"Please?" He tried.

She shook her head again.

Kyouma shrugged and returned the mask to his backpack.

Between them and the ladder out of the tunnel was this puddle of water. The puddle looked shallow enough to walk through unimpeded.

Kyouma took a step back and readied himself. He took a deep breath in and slowly released it. He took another deep breath in, then broke into a sprint. His boot hit the ground and sent water through the air. Water droplets shimmered in the dim, green light. Kyouma immediately felt weak. He kept running, even though he felt as if he were about to vomit. His body felt like it was burning, freezing, and melting all at once. The helmet's Geiger counter went crazy and started clicking wildly.

He reached the other end of the shallow lake relatively unharmed. With shaky legs he collapsed against a wall and waited for the woman.

He didn't have to wait long. As soon as she was out of the water, her knees buckled, and she hit the ground. She broke into a blood expelling coughing fit. She gripped at her neck and squirmed on the ground. Kyouma crawled over and tried to calm her down. He rolled her onto her back as she took rushed deep breaths. When she had regained most of her strength, she got back on her feet.

Together, they climbed the ladder out, eager to put the irradiated death-trap behind him. However, when they reached the top, Kyouma was greeted by another tunnel stretching into abysmal darkness.

Mira was going to kill him for being late.