Beyond the Horizon

61. Ever After

Shion had fantasized time and again about what it would've been like if he and Nezumi had met at a different time, in another place, a world where they weren't hunted and Nezumi had never been damaged by the horrors of his youth. He imagined they would have been softer, bolder, sweeter. The days living in the cabin after the fall of Horizon Laboratories weren't the happy and carefree ones that Shion played out in his imagination, but with every silent night that slipped into quiet morning, they were coming closer to that dream.

          The first few days had been long and anxious. Inukashi and Nezumi spent more time glancing out the cabin windows than they did on anything else, their eyes constantly scanning the dense woods. Shion didn't blame them; his heart raced when the house creaked in the wind, and he startled badly whenever a pinecone happened to fall and clatter on the roof. They had escaped, but it was hard at first to believe themselves truly free. The Lab had always seemed like a deeply-rooted parasite, one that would take multiple tries and ways to kill. Even though Shion had watched the escaped VCs cut off the head of the beast and burn its body, he still felt a nagging uneasiness that some part of the Lab lived on, and that it would catch up with them sooner or later.

          But as two weeks rolled by, and then three, and four, the paranoia began to recede. Shion no longer jumped at pinecones, and Inukashi stopped wandering around the woods in dog form and spent more time bickering with Rin by the fire while Aki regaled them all with stories of his mischievous youth.

          The cabin had no television or radio, and the phone signal was poor, so the group only received news when they ventured into town for supplies. The first week, all the television talked about was the terrible accident at Horizon Laboratories, and the grocery patrons murmured that the CEO was presumed the orchestrator of the whole murderous event. The second week, the people shook their heads sadly at the news reports and walked on. After the third week, the story had faded into the background more and more until no one talked about it at all and the news moved on to fresher topics.

          Nezumi constantly reminded Shion that just because the news no longer thought the incident was worth covering, that didn't mean that it was over. Horizon Laboratories had never been featured in the news when they were operating at full capacity; they were masters at manipulation and obfuscation. Nezumi cautioned never to let their guards down for a moment.

          But after nearly a month of quietude and not a single visitor to the cabin, Shion noticed Nezumi's shoulders relaxing, his smiles and light touches as he brushed by in the mornings on his way to coffee came easier and more frequently. Despite what his anxious brain warned, somewhere inside, Nezumi was beginning to believe the Lab might finally be behind them.

          Apart from the odd report about freak feats of strength or miracle healings, no breaking news aired about the discovery of superhumans or the danger they might pose. Shion realized then that the Lab must truly be gone; if the program had lived beyond the destruction of its headquarters, superhumans wouldn't feel safe enough to use their powers in the world, even in subtle ways, and the Lab agents would never have allowed them to carry on unchecked. The only pieces of Horizon Laboratories that survived were him, and Nezumi, and every other superhuman who had fought and ripped their lives from the Lab's cold clutches.

          Shion settled into life at the cabin as easily as slipping into a pool of warm water. Every day, the tension in his body eased, his physical wounds healed, and his mind stopped probing the perimeter of their perfect snowglobe of existence.

          Their makeshift family got along well most days, though Rin and Inukashi had their share of squabbles, over food, mostly. They had both turned out to be major foodies, and constantly called upon Shion to whip up sweets whenever Nezumi allowed them to splurge on baking ingredients. They had gotten the generator working, and Nezumi had taken up cooking the meals for the group. His creations were simple, but delicious and packed full of flavor and nutrients. His contribution to filling their bellies made Inukashi and Rin warm up to Nezumi much faster than they probably would have otherwise.