YUUKI - To Move Forward: Prelude 1

Log #20: Kingdoms

The Three Kingdoms are protected by a massive, extendable wall known as the Barricade. Its origin has yet to be discovered, and it has existed for as long as any humans who still live can recall. It appears to be an elaborate system of machinery, and requires constant energy to be fed into it in order to stay active due to its massive size. The entire system is approximately 125 meters tall, with a 15 meter-wide rampart. Below the rampart, the Barricade is largely hollow. Large parts of the interior are inaccessible, therefore we have little knowledge of the innermost workings of the system; however, we are still granted the machinery to activate it, expand it, compress it, and shut it down. For reasons currently unknown, those monsters refuse to attempt scaling or flying over the Barricade, and when it is active, they even refuse to approach it. Nobody doubts the indescribable sophistication of the Barricade, and many doubt that it was created by mortal means. Whatever you may believe, it is still humanity’s savior and will continue to be so for generations to come.

-General Elvira Ramos

498 BPE

A hand reached out from the shadows, towards my oblivious shoulder as I stood in the dim, massive cabin. As a grown teenager simply reliving this memory, I knew who it was behind me, and exactly what he would say. But I couldn’t move independently or change what happened, since it was still just a moment from the past that I relived through my own eyes from back then.I knew that the hand was approaching, but the Kazuki from this moment in time was completely clueless. It would almost have been fun watching the dramatic irony play out like a movie if I wasn’t so terrified of what would quickly follow.

I was just about to turn around and look for the others when I felt something suddenly grab my left shoulder. Alarmed, I yelped, spinning around and lifting my left arm to deflect whoever had grabbed me, only to slap Jack right in the face.

“Hey, ow! Come on, dude, was that really necessary?” He rubbed his cheek, grinning despite the pain.

“W-What? Hey, Jack! What the hell do you think you were doing?! Have you forgotten that this is a covert operation? Sneaking up on your teammates like that is not how it’s done!” Despite my obvious anger, I couldn’t help but chuckle a little inside at how openly I had handled the situation. We were both technically whispering, but I didn’t doubt the possibility that everyone in this house was able to hear our cries.

“Well, jeez, it was just a practical joke, you know, lighten up the mood a bit? You gotta loosen up a bit, and not be so scared of dark houses.” By now his voice had quieted down considerably, but he was still grinning. He added a wink with that last remark.

“Yeah, alright, it was a little funny, I guess,” I muttered, looking away.

“See? That’s our second-in-command! Ha, ha!” And with that, he proceeded to treat me like Russell and trap me in a headlock, giving me a hearty noogie.

“Owowow, okay, you can stop now, Jack. I swear, why are you always so... direct? Also, what are you doing here? Have you also explored your room?”

He took a minute to consider the sudden change of subject before responding, holding up a finger for every answer. “Because it’s fun. I wanted to meet up with someone else here. Yes I am done with my room. Turns out I got the short end of the stick, since it was just an empty storage closet, basically. There were a few things scattered around, but nothing noteworthy. Just some headphones, a few colorful rocks, and newspapers. And you? You were the first one done, so you must not have gotten a stick at all!”

Ignoring his weak attempt at humor, I reflected on what I’d discovered in my assigned room. Locked doors, locked cabinets, decaying plants, and a ton of nothing else. “Nope, nothing useable in there, just a bunch of locked stuff. Run into any of the others yet?”

“Not a soul, man. Quiet as heck, too.”

“Yeah, me neither. My talkie died a few minutes ago, so I’ve been in the dark about how Junior’s doing. I hope she’s alright...” I trailed off.

I was sure that no Shade would approach her, since we were too close to town for them to show up, but still. Junior, no matter how smart, clever, and kind she was, was still prone to fright, and she watched us right on the edge of a cliff. She was probably just fine, but I still couldn’t help worrying for her.

“Hm? Oh, I see, then you can just borrow mine. Call your little princess with this,” he handed me his talkie, ignoring my immediate protest, “and check up on our leader, ’k?”

For some reason, I could feel blood rushing to my cheeks and denial reaching my lips. “H-Hey, she’s not–I mean, we aren’t–I mean, shut up, Jack! I only need it in case she calls me, ya jerk.” With that, I snatched the talkie out of his hand, and turned away bashfully. “We aren’t like that; I just want to keep her safe, since she’s like a little sister to me, alright? We grew up for a while in the same house, and she is still really young, and a girl. Why wouldn’t I want to protect her?”

“Heh, okaay. Anyway, we should probably get go-” His next words were interrupted by a loud BOOM. Immediately after, the entire mansion began to shudder and shake violently, the chandelier overhead swinging. “Crud, this is bad! Is it an earthquake, or what?”

“I dunno, but I’m worried about the others. What if they’re injured?” I managed to say. It was incredibly hard to speak clearly, since the rumbling and quaking was growing more intense.

“Maybe, but shouldn’t we worry about ourselves first?” he responded.

Jack was glancing around nervously at the splintering wood around us, as the floor began to crack and rupture. Meanwhile, the chandelier was swinging wildly directly above Jack, threatening to break the chains holding it up. The second I realized that, the shaking abruptly stopped, and the swinging chandelier began to slow down.

“What in the hell... What just happened?” he said.

In truth, I was beyond clueless, since the shaking had stopped way too abruptly to be a regular earthquake. The floor was cracked and torn, but stable. The walls were similarly affected.

Before Jack could respond, a shy voice rang out from my right. “He-ey! Is that you, Jack? And Fo, too?” We looked towards the voice simultaneously, and saw Terry leaning on the rails of the bottom of the stairs to our right. He was waving with his right hand, and a big smile was plastered across his shy yet openly relieved face. Clearly, following that earthquake, silence was no longer a priority.

“Yeah, you caught us, officer!” Jack raised put his hands behind his head in mock submission. This was the last place I would normally expect anyone to pretend like a cop just pulled them over. But since this was Jack, I could have expected far less appropriate reactions.

“Yeah, it’s us, Fi. Ignore the muscly moron next to me, would you please? Hey, is Fee with you by any chance? And maybe Russell, too?”

“Oh yeah, right! Fee’s the reason I went looking for you in the first place! She’s in the room behind me, and got hurt and a little stuck because of the shaking. As for Russell... Nope, haven’t seen him! Can you please help, Fo?”

“H-Hey! What about me?” To my grand amusement, Jack was completely taken aback by Terry’s silent agreement to ignore him. Jack was looking back between me and Terry in disbelief as I walked over to the door, and I couldn’t help but giggle. Tilting my head back slightly, I called out, “You can just, well, go up these stairs and search for Russell? See ya.” And with that, Terry and I headed into the room that had been originally assigned to Eir.

The room where everything began to fall apart.

Similarly to the main hall and dining room, the space behind Eir’s door was unnaturally large. Despite that, it was still fairly small, and looked kinda like a miniature library. Four bookshelves were spaced out in the center of the room parallel to the door, or I thought that’s how it used to be. The furthest from the door had collapsed, and the others were not only crooked, but also had books strewn across the floor. As Terry led me around the maze of literature, I searched the room for light sources. All the ceiling lights were out, and the only object illuminating the otherwise dark room was a candle on top of a wooden desk next to the collapsed shelf, burning desperately. There were a few windows, but they were covered in vines and hardly provided any light. As we rounded the corner to the last shelf, I heard a moan somewhere on the floor. I fell to my knees, and began to shove books out of the way in order to free whatever was buried underneath. As I cleared the last book that was directly underneath me, I felt a hand brush my knee. Startled, I jumped back, only to see Eir staring up at me, her glasses bent. Her left leg was buried under a mountain of books. The shelf was most likely somewhere buried, too. Just looking at her expression of pain and fear made my heart ache.

“Hey, Fee. Are you al-?” I stopped myself before finishing, realizing the stupidity of such a question. It was horribly clear that she wasn’t alright, and the last thing I wanted to do was have her admit it out loud. “How is your leg? Can you move at all?”

She tilted her head back, and pushed on the ground, but the books barely budged.

“No, Fo. I can twitch it, but it’s definitely not going anywhere.” I grimaced at the strain in her voice. She must have been using such an incredible amount of willpower just to hold back tears, let alone speak clearly. “Don’t worry, Fee. We’ll get you out of here, I promise. Forget the mission; you need a hospital. Fi, can you help me get these off of her?”

He nodded quickly, and we began the grueling job of removing every last book from on top of her. Every time she grimaced or yelped, we stopped for a bit until she nodded again. Some of the books were really heavy, and took both of us to lift them. When we’d finally removed the last one, the true problem was clear. Her leg was twisted in a painfully abnormal way, crushed at the kneecap by the previously buried bookshelf. I tried to hide my horror, but it probably didn’t matter with Terry next to me.

His hand was over his mouth, and tears had begun to well up in his eyes. Moving the books had been one task, but the entire shelf would be nearly impossible. As if to confirm the bleakness of our situation, the quaking from before suddenly resumed, stealing my already disoriented balance. I fell backwards, and felt a wooden object jab my back. Turning my head around, I was just able to see the candle, still burning angrily, fall from the table.

I watched like a deer in headlights as the flame hit the books strewn across the floor, and spread out like a starving wildfire. I scrambled to my feet, and looked around frantically. The books caught on fire almost too quickly, and it was headed right for the closest bookshelf. The same shelf Eir was trapped under.

“Oh god, oh god, oh god, OH GOD!” Terry was on the ground, his hands clasped around his head. I couldn’t move. I knew if I didn’t do something, we would all fall die, but my body wouldn’t react. It couldn’t react. It was if the world had slowed down, and I had forgotten my flight response. Then I heard a girl’s voice ring out over the flames.

“Fo—Kazu! Please, get Terry and get out of here! I’m stuck here, but you two can still get out! Please!” Her voice was beyond pleading, as tears spilled onto the wooden floor. The sound of the always-cool, always calculated girl practically screaming her heart out was enough to snap me out of my shock, and without wasting a second, I stumbled over the books to Terry. He was still sitting on the ground, pupils distant.

He was muttering something about not letting her go alone, and coming with her. I assumed it was him trying to refuse Eir’s request, but the words never actually left his mouth. Without hesitation, I lifted Terry up onto his feet, and wrapped his arm around my shoulder. As I finally got him to move, I glanced back, and saw the fire brush against the bookshelf. Eir look back at me, a tearful smile on her face. Her glasses had long fallen off, and her clear blue eyes shone in their place. Unable to bear looking at her anymore, I turned back and limped through the books on the ground with Terry, who had recovered enough to drag his feet along the ground. With one final push, I grabbed Terry’s light arm with both of my hands, and used all of my strength to heave him out of the room. As he hit the rug outside the room, his head darted upwards, just in time to see me leap out after him, knocking out heads together.

I rubbed my head, trembling from the excitement, and looked back at the library room. A thought suddenly occurred to me, and I scrambled to my feet, facing the burning room. I took a step towards the room, in a Vain effort to go back for Eir.

The moment I did that, flames charged out of the doorway, knocking me off my feet and into Terry once again.

I let Terry rest on the railing for a bit, since the quaking had died down. The fire was slowly spreading, and had begun traversing the stairs towards Russell’s assigned room. The image of Eir lying on the ground as the flames consumed her still clung to my mind, but I was sure that Terry was being affected by it on a whole different level. He hadn’t spoken a word since escaping the library room, and he never moved his eyes from that distant gaze into nowhere. The stairs began to heat up as the fire fueled itself, so I grabbed Terry’s arm again and led him over to the entrance of the dining room. The second I let go, he slumped to the floor, covering his head in his arms. I decided to leave him there and search for Jack and Russell. Despite his attitude and size I knew that Terry was more than capable of handling situations like this. With that in mind, I patted his head gently, then stood up and turned towards the stairway on the left.

I headed up the stairs as quickly as I could, no longer caring about staying quiet. As I reached the top, I ran as fast as I could on the woolen rug to the other side, and looked at the closed door in front of me. I could hear a faint noise coming from within, but I couldn’t quite make it out. I felt the handle with the back of my palm, and opened the door. I took one step inside, and the room stole my breath.

The scene before me seemed so horrible, so disgustingly impossible, that it couldn’t be anything but reality.

In the middle of the room, Jack was on his knees, his head tilted upwards. I followed his stare, and saw a rope hanging from the ceiling, cradling a boy in its noose.

It took me exactly two seconds to recognize the boy.

Bile spilled onto the floor, and my knees gave way to true horror.

Meanwhile, Russell hung lifelessly from the ceiling, the ever-present grin gone forever. I felt my chest constrict, an overwhelming throbbing drowning out the world. Russell was always so happy, so chipper despite his insecurities. He would always brighten the mood whenever any of us were down, and when we weren’t, he was sure to be planning his next prank. He was a jokester, but always knew the time and a place for them. Seeing his lifeless, hollow expression today was... he was the last of us who would ever... how could this... it’s too much... he’s gone...

Gone...

We need to be gone. We need to go.

Numbly, I rose to my feet and called out to Jack. The inferno outside had spread into the room, and I knew that there was no way any of us would be able to escape if the exit was completely blocked. When I called out to him, my voice seemed so meek, so pathetic, that I was sure he hadn’t heard me. Slowly, however, he turned his head until we locked eyes. I nodded towards the door and the tongues of flames that were caressing walls, and he got to his feet. We walked closer to the door, together, and I grabbed his hand in mine. We looked at each other, nodded, and simultaneously charged through the flaming doorway, shielding our eyes as we rushed out of the room. When we were clear of the flames, and heading towards the farther stairs, I noticed that the entire right side of the mansion had lit up, and was rapidly being devoured by the merciless inferno. As we headed down the stairs, the earthquake suddenly picked up, stealing our footing and sending up tumbling all the way down to the bottom floor.

I rubbed my teary eyes, and coughed out some smoked. I looked through my tears around the room. Jack was rubbing his butt in pain a few feet from me, and Terry was still crouching by the dining room door. The quaking continued, and the fire raged on all around me. Slowly, I raised myself onto my feet, and coughed out more smoke. I stumbled towards the entrance where Terry was, each leg muscle burning whenever they flexed. When I was about halfway through, my wobbly legs suddenly gave way, and I collapsed on my knees, weak from coughing. Then I heard a crack, and raised my gaze upwards towards the ceiling.

I had completely forgotten about the chandelier.

The entire decoration had been swinging like a pendulum, lights flickering angrily, but never had I noticed the cracks beginning to spread on the ceiling. The cracks widened, and the chandelier lurched downwards, hanging at an odd angle. It was directly above me. Another snap, and it jumped again. There was no way for me to dodge it. My legs wouldn’t move.

It was over.

It was, but...

There was a yell, a grunt, and my body was being lifted into the air.

My head drooped forwards, and Jack’s smoke-cluttered, sweat-dripping face was all I could see. There was a glare of defiance and a bit of fear, and his mouth was twisted into a snarl, as if defying our complete lack of control. With a yell that could only originate from the deepest depths of the soul, he lifted his arms, taking me with them, and hurled me towards the exit, and out of the chandelier’s path. I hit the floor violently, agonizing pain instantly replacing numbness. Splinters tore up my legs, and a sharp jolt ran through my spine in the single instant I crashed into the floor. Fighting back dry tears, I raised my head to find Jack. Despite his endurance, he was gasping for breath, his chest inflating and contracting rapidly. His entire body was shuddering, but he still managed to lift his eyes to me, and raise hand in a thumbs-up. Then I heard one final, massive snap, and the chandelier was released. I was too weak to look away as the massive being of glass and metal fell to the ground. It must have been an extremely expensive chandelier: Jack’s sports-toned body barely slowed it down.

The crunch of bones snapping and the screech of glass shattering melted into the chaos, as well as the distant, brief shriek as Jack was buried alive. A small pool of blood had gathered around the mound of broken glass and metal, shards of glass flowing within. I felt my entire body tremble uncontrollably. My vocal chords weren’t responding to me, and my muscles refused to move. The world I saw twisted and morphed into shapeless images, all sense and reason abandoning the once silent cabin.

He’s dead. The thought was quick and unbelievably painful. She’s dead. He’s dead. As Jack’s death clicked in my brain, the other two finally hit me, and I fell over only my side, those thought flowing through my mind in a desperate effort to control my sanity.

He’s dead, she’s dead, he’s dead, who’s dead?

Incoherent thoughts tormented every inch of my essence, and tears flowed into rivers that stained the dusty wood below. All three of their smiling faces, their playful faces, their mockingly humorous expressions. Everyone looking down upon me, impatient for me to join them, but unable to admit it. Somewhere inside me, there was a desire to reunite with my friends, a desire to end the misery of life. The pain searing through my lungs fused with the stench of death lingering in the air, beckoning for me to move on past my physical being. The thought was so enticing, so relieving that I could already feel myself slipping away, giving in.

A voice snapped me out of my trance.

A scream from a little boy. With effort, I stretched open my eyelids, and through the tears, saw the boy. The boy on all fours, beckoning me out of my paralyzed state as the ground below him shuddered and split apart. I noticed tears on his own cheeks, smoke in his own breath, fear in his own eyes.

Terry. An image of that same boy in a bed of flowers, lying with a girl with glasses, both smiling at the clear sky. Eir. A boy with an uncertain smile, and the aura of compassion and friendship radiating from him. Russell. A football field, desolate, spare for a kid reaching for his fading friends in a cloudy world. Jack. A girl sitting all alone, waiting for me with eager yet worried eyes, twiddling her thumbs nervously. Junior. Junior.

Junior!

At that moment, the numbness disappeared from my body, and a surge of purpose and hope coursed through my limbs, desperate to cling to life. I raised my head, using a hand to raise myself up. My muscles screamed in agony, but stopping now was impossible. I took a heavy step, smoke and blood spraying from my breath. Another step, less blood and smoke. Another step, a drop of blood, and little smoke. I stood up fully, and took another step, until I was halfway to the dining room doorway, where Terry had broken down, sobbing on an unstable platform of fractured wood. My mind desperately wished to carry Terry with me to safety, but it was impossible. The truth sent waves of nausea and guilt coursing through me; there was little chance of me escaping on my own, but with Terry, it would be impossible. Even Jack would have needed to exert himself to his fullest just to get Terry to safety.

A heavy heart paled in comparison to the sorrow consuming me as I turned my hand away from a friend and started again for the door. There was never a moment where pain abandoned me as I headed towards the exit from this hell. Every excruciating step reminded me of how badly I had to get home, every drop of blood I coughed out prompted another breath to move forward.

Just a few more strides.

The realization flooded my mind with relieve and grief, and the sudden burst of emotions stole my balance; I fell to the floor, the splintered wood tearing at my body. Cuts and stabs pierced my flesh, and with renewed horror I felt all feeling desert my legs. My muscles went limp, and I slumped to the floor pathetically. The fire nearly blinded me, its ravenous hunger devouring the old structure I was trapped within.

Miracles often appear when you least want or need them to, as if fate had made it a hobby to torture whoever it wished. Rarely is it that a miracle would make itself known to any man when it is truly needed, so praying for one generally proved to be in Vain. That’s why when the massive doors of the mansion slammed open, and a large, aged man entered with an expression of cold determination, I was certain that the smoke had summoned a hallucination to distract me from my painful demise. His arms were well built, and when he walked, I could see powerful legs that could easily carry a man twice his size. Strangely, he wasn’t looking towards any of the rooms where the important belongings resided. His gaze was solely focused on me.

As the owner of the mansion squatted down, I could make out light gray stubble growing out from his chin, and gray hair extended to the back of his neck, clearly uncut. He looked old, but his eyes warned me that he was a man of power and confidence. Two arms reached out, and I felt my own chest being lifted off of the stained floor. My muscles remained limp—I couldn’t even speak to the man. After he was sure that I couldn’t struggle or break free from his gentle yet stern hold, he stood back up, and without a backwards glance, took off in a sprint towards the outstretched doors.

One, two, three, four, five strides and we were free.

Just like that.

Free from the inferno, free from the collapse, free from the blood, free from death’s embrace. Instead of stopping and releasing me there to go back in, the man never broke his stride, carrying me further into the forest, and away from the cliff where Junior awaited our return.

My return.

His grip became stronger, and I could feel his hands dig into my back. I couldn’t see it myself, but before long I could tell that the forest had drowned that hell in trees and vegetation, far from my vision and earshot. And still, the man continued to push onward, sweat dripping down his fiercely determined expression. It felt like forever before he began to slow, eventually stopping in a small clearing. With a grunt, he lowered me to the ground, and let me fall into nature’s embrace. He turned around, grunted once, and walked out into the forest, out of my sight. I was too numb to care.

As I rolled onto my back, I felt a buzzing noise emanating from my shorts. I felt a jolt of adrenaline, and scrambled to pull the object out of my pocket. I was holding Jack’s walkie-talkie in my hand. It was buzzing and making some strange noise, a noise like incoherent sobbing. I tried to shake the device around a bit, hitting it lightly against the dirt. Before long, the sounds cleared, and I heard a girl’s voice coming from it.

“Hey, is anyone there? Anyone?! Jack, Terry, anyone? Please respond! Tell me you made it out of there! Please!”

The voice belonged to Junior. Her pleas were infused with sobs, and I could even hear her voice strain from the tension. It was terrible, hearing our calm, bright leader in such a frenzy. I tried to respond to her, calling her name, but she never stopped pleading. No matter how loud I yelled, she never heard me.

The stupid thing’s broken, I realized with dread. Then something new came from the device. Amidst her sobbing and begging, I could make out a rustling, and a snapping noise. It sounded like a tree was being cut down or something...

A loud snap, and I could hear crashing, then more sobbing. Static was beginning to muddle all the sounds together, but I thought I could make out unfamiliar voices. They sounded surprised, maybe angry, but either way Junior must have been in trouble. I heard a girl’s scream, the other people grunting, and then silence. The loud voices slowly faded away, as if retreating. The thought that they were merely walking away was obliterated when a loud cracking sound erupted from the speakers. The girl’s scream had abruptly ceased as well. The cracking... it had sounded like the snapping of bones. After that, there was only static.

Then I finally blacked out.

Tears had collected and spilled from my eyes in the time that I was reliving that day. The scenes vanished and the familiar white walls slowly reappeared. I took a delicate, trembling step away from the console. That day, that moment, those people. Somehow, I had managed to forget all of it for years, continuing on with my life. Somehow, I had tossed aside what had happened, and made new friends. Somehow, I had completely moved on from that atrocity. My knees gave way, and thoughts and words dissolved into sobs. Sobs that echoed through the chamber, ringing in my ears. My hands clasped my chest, and I fell to my knees, tears flowing out of my ungrateful eyes, away from my guilty soul. A burning sensation had accumulated in my lungs, so I released it in a roar of agony and sorrow.

They died because of my decisions. Junior had put me in charge of their safety.

They died because I was scared. I had let them all down.

They died, and I kept living. It was unfair. It was cruel.

They were just kids. There was nothing left for me to do.

We were just kids. The throbbing of my aching heart and soul consumed my dreams, gibbering sprouting from my breath.

Sometime later, when numbness had replaced sobbing, and my eyes were too dry for more tears, and the aching had dulled in my chest, I reopened my eyes. It had felt like forever since I had last stood up, and my knees were weak. I half expected to collapse once again, but they held their ground. This entire world was nothing but a recurring dream that tortured me in a new way every time, waking me after I had pushed through the worst. That could only mean that I was to wake any moment now.

Any moment now.

I was to wake up, and live on until the dream returned.

As soon as light returned to my eyes, I would be back, most likely in some hospital bed.

But as I stood there, waiting, nothing happened.

Nothing.