Alice In Borderland: Riptide

EPISODE SIX: HANDS TO MYSELF

"We made it! Whoo-hoo! We made it, we're alive!" Takuma's voice, joined by the celebratory whoops of his game compatriots, echoes through the parking garage. You and the others sit up from your makeshift bed.

     "Takuma! You're covered in blood!" You cry jumping from the truck to the gound. He looks down a himself, then to the others gathered behind him, and offers you a small shrug.

     "It's not mine," he says. "Blood and dirt, a little gunpowder, I think. We got a card, and a two-day visa." He hands you the playing card - two of clubs. You take it but stick it in your pocket without really looking at it.

     "The cards don't matter, I don't think, except to let us know what we've already cleared."

     "Better hang onto them, just in case." Kuina tells you and you nod.

     "Go rest and get cleaned up. In the morning we'll move in to the main building," you tell Takuma. He and his group dutifully head off to the little employee showers.

     "Now we're just waiting for Arisu and Karube," Usagi mutters, arms crossed against the slight chill in the night air as she sidles up beside you.

     "Hopefully they find the place with relative ease, and get back safely without being noticed." You grant Usagi a tiny smile. "How have you been, Usagi? Did you learn anything about your father's disappearance before you came here?"

     She shakes her head. "No. But for all I know, he might have shown up here. Somewhere. I will probably never know."

     You stand with her in companionable silence for a moment before weariness overtakes you both, and you retire to your sleeping situations.

     "Niragi, budge over," you whisper, giving him a massive shove which barely jiggles him. Shrugging, you squeeze between him and Kuina, finding yourself once again yanked up against the unyielding log that is his skinny body.

...*...

"Ow-wow, I tell ya—ow." You grouch, rubbing at a huge knot in your back and another, smaller one attempting to paralyze your neck.

     "Ugh, I feel like I slept on a pile of rocks," Kuina says. Niragi is cupping the edge of one ear—it must've gotten slept on wrong, you surmise—and Chishiya looks much the worse for wear, with several knots in his collar-length blonde hair and shaking an arm which has obviously fallen asleep.

     "Never, again." He says with a yawn, scratching his belly idly with the hand that still has circulation.

     "Don't worry, pretty kitty," you tease. "Tonight we sleep in real beds once again."

     "Pretty kitty? Nice one." Kuina giggles until Chishiya throws her a glare, then she waves him off. "Sorry, sorry."

     She's clearly not sorry at all.

     "Everyone, may I have your attention, please?" You raise your voice just enough to be heard over the sound of blankets being snapped out and folded and the soft murmuring of other humans beginning their day. "Gather anything that you want to take with you to the main building. If you have hands free, help us carry up the supplies. I know we can come back for whatever gets left, but I'd rather not if it can be helped."

     The tired mumbles cease, becoming a sort of muted excitement as everyone begins gathering items. Blankets are stacked on the table—if there aren't any inside, after all, is it really a hotel?

     Approximately thirty minutes later, you've left a note taped to the break-room door letting Karube and his scout group know that you've moved everyone up to the main building, and you lead the group up the very slight easement, flinging the doors open and directing the placement of the (actually fairly scant) amount of supply boxes you managed to gather before the—for lack of a better term—apocalypse.