Crash Land on Kurai – Chapter 31

I stumble up the mountainside, my eyes closed against the smoke curling up from the plain below. Instead of leaning on Kazuo or Rin, I forge my path alone, my heart and soul remembering everything about Ayamé, every word we ever said to each other, every laugh, every cry.

I already miss her more than my thesaurus-enhanced vocabulary can describe. I’m despondent. Heartbroken. Destroyed. My soul is razed, mutilated. I once witnessed a rabbit ripped to pieces by wild dogs — the flashing of teeth, blood, cries of pain. That’s what I just went through, what I’ll go through for the rest of my life.

Kazuo is needed to help José, and Rin’s eyes are on the sky, the forest, and the plain below. I’m sure he believes we’ll be attacked again at any moment.

We follow a path that curves around the mountain for two hours without stopping. I want to protest that we need rest if we’re going to continue, but we narrowly survived the encounter at the life pod. And though we managed to save more Orihimé people, Ayamé is gone, and we didn’t have time to salvage anything else from the life pod.

“Did you see the Murasaki fall from the sky?” I slow down to ask José, swallowing and wincing at my destroyed throat. Between the smoke and almost being choked to death, my voice is practically gone.

“We did. I thought that was the end of us. So we camped in the forest for several days, trying to stay out of the direct light of the sun.” He sighs as he looks at his skin, the brilliant red of a sunburn marring his usual stuck-in-a-lab-with-no-daylight complexion. “Then yesterday, we saw those… No, they weren’t men, though we thought they were. Anyway, those androids came and ransacked the life pod. They searched the area, but we managed to evade them by climbing the trees. We thought they had gone, so we went back to the life pod to go through what was left. That’s when all this happened.”

Kazuo and I help José avoid a giant log that’s fallen across the path. Everyone else has scaled it with no problems, but my legs are made of lead, and I can barely lift them anymore.

“What about the guy who left? Did you know him?”

“No,” he says, grunting as he pulls his leg over the log. “I think he was an engineer. But he hit his head when we landed, and then he wasn’t the same after that. We went to sleep one night in the woods, and when we woke up, he was gone. We looked for him for several hours, but eventually, we gave up. This whole situation is fucked up.”

I laugh, too short and too loud, both of which hurt my throat and my chest. “That perfectly sums up the situation.”

As we descend downhill, my health goes along with it. My sight tunnels, colors swirling and blurring in my peripheral vision. It takes many minutes of denial before I accept a migraine is coming. The pain starts at the back of my head, where I hit the ground, and it spreads to my temples. Sounds become sharp and abrupt, the snapping of twigs are thunderous booms, and breathing intensifies into a spring typhoon.

Seriously, this is not the time.

But when has my body ever listened to me?

I clench my jaw, doing anything I can to relieve the pressure on my head. I once believed my migraines were a way to keep me humble. Back home, I rarely got sick or injured, but my migraines made me a frequent visitor to the hospital. Now, I’m both sick and injured, and yet my body doesn’t give me a break.

Stumbling down the side of the path, I decide to stop. All I want is a few moments to breathe with my eyes closed. In the past, I’ve been able to halt an impending migraine, or at least lessen it, with meditation and breathing practices. But I close my eyes, hear the crunch of Ayamé hitting the ground, the android’s fist in the air.

“Don’t stop now, Yumi. We have another thirty minutes before we make it to our camp,” Rin says, coming up behind me. That’s a bad sign. He was bringing up the rear, and that means I’ve slowed down considerably. I try to squint and look ahead, but I don’t see anyone.

I whip my head around to face Rin, and the world keeps going even though I’ve stopped. No! My body doesn’t listen and decides my stomach should be empty. I lose everything in me to the side of the path, and Rin jumps forward to help me. My throat erupts in blinding pain, the stomach acid scorching an already tender spot. I fall to my knees, no longer able to hold myself up.

“I’m sorry. Leave me and go on. I can’t walk anymore.” I try to lie down, but Rin squats down to pick me back up.

“Please, Yumi. You have to keep going.”

“Can’t.” I wet my lips and swallow, moaning again at my destroyed throat. “Migraine. My body hates me,” I whisper, chuckling softly.

“Dear God. What else?” I’m surprised Rin doesn’t sigh. Instead, he sounds angry. “I’ll carry you.”

I shift in and out of black spaces, the rhythm and motion of Rin’s stride both comforting me and making me ill. It’s not that different from being on a boat, and I’ve never made it through a journey at sea without getting sick. But like I said, my body hates me. Life hates me.

“What’s wrong?” Kazuo asks. I haven’t heard his voice in hours, and this must mean we’re finally at our camp.

“Migraine.” Rin’s voice is strained, and he’s breathing heavily from carrying me a kilometer along rough terrain.

“Yumi, you have the worst timing,” Kazuo mumbles, his voice filled with aching tiredness. He must have helped José all the way to the camp, so he’s tapped out. “Here. Let’s set her down close to the campfire. She gets cold during a migraine.”

Despite Rin’s obvious exhaustion, he sets me down gently on sandy ground near a crackling fire. I pry my eyes open. Rin’s men and women bustle around, gathering firewood for a roaring campfire, setting up equipment I don’t recognize. José is propped up against a large log, his face drawn and pale.

Kazuo kneels next to me, rummaging in his bag. He swears, pulling one small vial out of the medkit. “Yumi, we only have one dose of the barbiturate left.” He looks across the fire to José, and I tally up our injuries. Sure, I’m suffering, but I’ve had a lot more medical help the last few days than he’s had.

“Give it to him. And see if they have any medicine for him. I doubt his leg has been set correctly.”

“No, Yumi. You take it,” José says, and once again, I remember all the late shifts he took for Ayamé when we wanted to spend time together. He’s selfless, a better person than me, and that only makes me want to give it to him more.

“You heard me, Kazuo,” I whisper, closing my eyes and shielding my head from the late afternoon light with my arms. I’d give anything for a blanket, something to throw over me and deaden my senses.

Kazuo moves away from me, sighing deeply. José protests, but their argument doesn’t last long.

I think I fall asleep or pass out, but I can’t be sure. I try not to moan, I really do. But a few whimpers escape now and then when I relax for just a moment. My migraines are self-sustaining cycles, endless loops I can’t get out of. The pain is so intense, I tighten every muscle in my body so I don’t complain. But the tension makes the migraine worse, and on and on. If I relax, I do nothing but moan, cry, and speak nonsense. If I can speak at all.

“You’ll be all right.” Blessed pressure on my forehead from someone’s hands. “Are you sure this works?”

“I’m sure,” Kazuo says. “Though I’m worried about that laceration. Stay away from that.”

More pressure on my forehead. My face wet. Someone wipes away my tears. I pass out again. The cycle continues two, maybe three, more times before I sleep, not pass out. There’s a difference, and I’m well aware of it. I’ve done both so many times the last few days I can’t count.

Morning comes quietly to Kurai. With no bugs or birds to signal the sunrise, all we have is the change in light or temperature. My eyelids brighten slowly, stirring me from sleep. My head aches like it’s had an elephant sitting on it all night long, but the signs of my migraine have diminished.

I cautiously crack my eyes open, and Rin is sleeping beside me. I watch him sleep for a moment, his face not all that different from when he’s awake. He’s mastered that look of detachment, the professional killer. He almost killed me twice, and now he’s keeping me alive. I don’t know whether to thank him or curse him.

And despite all the things that have passed between us so far, I don’t believe he’s a bad person. He’s doing his job, ‘shutting down’ errant androids, and he was only following his society’s way of life when he purchased me. I close my eyes again and try to imagine what our life will be like on Hikari. Will I live with him? Will he pretend I don’t exist in order to save his reputation? My heart aches at the thought, but I can’t pinpoint why. Am I afraid for him or me? Or both of us?

I push myself up, dizziness making my head pound for a moment, as my heart works hard to keep up with being vertical. Trying not to make any noise, I get to my feet and tiptoe around Rin. He shifts in his sleep, rolling over to face the fire, and I freeze until he’s settled again. Kazuo is awake, eating food from a foil packet. He waves me over and helps me sit down next to him.

“How are you? Is the migraine gone?” He whispers, handing me an extra food packet. I rip open the top and find some freeze-dried vegetable protein. It might taste better reconstituted, but I don’t know how to do that without ruining it, so I eat it dry like him.

“Yeah. Hopefully for good.”

“Until the next one.”

I smile at the familiarity of our conversation. “Until the next one.”

I munch slowly on the vegetable protein and take sips of water from a nearby canteen. I keep my eyes on the fire, letting the flickering flames lull me into a meditative state so I can try to remember what happened last night. Kazuo gestures at Rin still sleeping.

“I’m pleased he’s taken on more of your care,” he says, keeping his voice low and face turned towards me.

“I’m sure he’s only doing it because you expect it of him.” I keep my voice even and noncommittal.

“He spent hours pressing on your forehead. I even saw him wipe away your tears when you were in the worst of it. He was relieved when you finally fell asleep. Don’t count him out.”

I roll my eyes at him. “Try not to put too much significance into it. He was only protecting his property.”

“That’s not fair, and you know it.”

“Fair? Fair is Ayamé still alive. Rin bought me for a lot of money from a competing corporation who tried to sell me on the black market. And now he’s going to make money off me for the rest of my life. He doesn’t really care about me. He only cares that I stay alive so he can fulfill his obligation to Tamura.” I fish around in the foil packet, hoping to find more food in the cracks. “I’m sure he wishes he had never met me.”

I reach for the canteen and lock eyes with Rin across the campfire. His face is as it usually is, blank and uncaring, and he heard every word I said.

But despite my embarrassment at having talked about him behind his back, I’m glad I said it. Now he knows I understand him and his situation. He doesn’t have to pretend to care anymore if that’s what he was doing. I know I’m only as good for him as the money I’ll bring in. What other possible motives could he have for taking care of me anyway?

He rolls over and goes back to sleep.