Nikke: Godess of Victory {Lose Yourself}

Chapter 5- Back in Time

Some years previous. . .

Cryostasis Unstable. . . Please remove patients at once.

Failure to do so can result in serious injury or death.

Cryostasis unstable. . . Please remove--

Snow White drives her fist through the control panel and sparks erupt in a showering fashion as the A.I.'s voice dies out, hissing within the ships cryobay is audible. The Pilgrim Nikke looks around, setting her large pack down as the six pods spray steam and discharge their coolants to release the passengers inside.

It seems she'd gotten to the pods just in time. . .

Snow moves around the sparking panel and steps over an encroaching vine, making her way through the overgrown bay to the nearest pod to her and reaches in to pull the occupant out. His brown hair has grown out and falls down to his waist.

As Snow pulls him out, she realizes something flashing on the screen of his pod.

Deceased

"Or maybe I was too late. . ." She mutters as she looks over to the next pod, seeing the same flashing message on it's screen. "I was. . ." Snow says in a sickening realization.

Suddenly, something hits the deck farther down the line and the sound of someone puking up mucus is audible. Snow glances to her right and spots a young male, no older than what she'd assumed herself to be, on the ground, arms limp and forehead pressed against the deck as bile leaks from his mouth.

Snow hurries over to him and rolls him onto his back as he squints up at her. Through all of the visible pain on his face, he manages to smirk lightly, his head lolling sideways slowly. "Aren't you a bit too cute for the military?" He rasps before his eyes flutter shut again.

Snow's cheeks arm up before she shakes her head vigorously and picks up the man and making her way to the giant hole in the side of the ship. Back out past the skeletons and into the wasteland outside. This boy was her duty now. She'd find the closest patrol of Nikkes and have them take him to the Ark.

/ / / / / /

I don't wake to pain. Just a numb feeling in both of my arms. The taste of bile is heavy on my tongue, but that doesn't bug me as much as the fact that I couldn't find it in myself to move my arms.

"You're awake." A smooth female voice says and I roll my neck sideways to look at her. "I am pilgrim Nikke Snow White. You may call me Snow if that is convenient."

"I. . . I can't move my arms." I rasp, realizing my voice was almost non-existent.

Snow nods, hefting her large AR and setting it against the wall by an even larger backpack. "The Cryostasis I pulled you out of had frozen  your nervous system in your arms." She explains. "That being said, there is a chance that you won't be able to use your arms ever again."

I scoff for a moment and look down at my legs, relieved I could move them still. "Well that's a heavy hitter." I mumble to myself before attempting to sit up.

After I find myself unable to do so, Snow comes over and helps me.  I exhale in slight annoyance that I couldn't have done that myself. "So where am I now?" I ask, seeing as I wasn't in the ship or the cryobay.

Snow takes a moment before replying. "You are in the wasteland." She says.

"Wasteland?" 

Snow nods. "What is left of human civilization on the Surface."

I furrow my brow and realize there's an itch on my neck that I couldn't deal with. "Are you saying the human race is extinct?" I squint at her.

"Not necessarily." She shakes her head and sits on the floor next to me. "They were forced into hiding underground where they constructed the Ark."

To be frank, Snow was a rather vague person, and that traveled into the answers she provided for my questions. So it was rather hard to get most if any of the details. "Do you happen to know what happened to the Pilar?" I ask, gazing at the ground. 

"The ship you were on?" She asks, though I can see it's a rhetorical question. "The way it's spread into three parts across the land leads me to assume it suffered a large scale attack of sorts. The hull fell apart and miraculously, the Cryobay suffered minimal damage." She pauses, glancing up at me. "For all I know, the Pilar could've crashed within the first week of the Raptures' attack." She stands and moves to one of the cupboards, opening it up to search for a can of food.

"Raptures?" I echo.

Snow nods again. "They were what attacked the humans. An army of robots."

"That's what you called them?" I mutter, unimpressed. "That's not super flashy."

Snow stares at me as she finds a utensil and begins to eat the canned food. We sit there in silence as she eats half the can before making her way over and sitting next to me. "Open up." She says.

As I comply, I can't help but feel as if some of my dignity is leaving my body. I've never been fed by someone else since I was young. Especially not by a woman.

"We'll find you a Nikke patrol that can take you back to the Ark." Snow say.

I swallow my last bite and look at her in confusion. "Why not just take me yourself?" I ask.

"I'm a Pilgrim Nikke, I wander the surface, eliminating Raptures and reclaiming the surface piece by piece." She declares proudly. "I've never been to the Ark and don't plan on it."

I nod, assuming that the Ark was where the remains of humanity had hidden from the Raptures. "Are there patrols often?" 

Snow tosses the can, which is now empty, into the corner of the room and leans against the wall beside where I was. "Often enough." She confirms before yawning. Within moments, she's asleep.