Monster (Ryeji)

Blood, toil, tears and sweat pt.2

It wasn't until she finally got herself inside the bunker that she then put Ryujin down. Lowering her carefully onto an empty stone ledge in what used to be the med bay. Surely they had left some supplies somewhere? They can't be that stupid to have taken everything to the front. Yeji scoured the surfaces of every room there, out of breath and desperate. But there was nothing. Not even a bandage.

"Shit!" She yelled. Banging her fist against the concrete wall above Ryujin's unmoving body. "Why couldn't they sound a fucking retreat?" She cursed, burying her face in her hands. "Those damn cyborgs knew we were coming! Why couldn't they have had the fucking courage to admit this attack was suicide?!" Yeji cried. The shaking from distant explosions mixing with the sobs racking through her body as she stood silently.

"I think you just swore more in that sentence than you have the entire rest of your life." A whispered, croaky voice said.

Yeji immediately wiped her tears and stared bitterly at the person in front of her. "Ryujin." She placed a gentle hand on her friend's good shoulder. "I'm sorry." Her head hung. "I've brought you here to die. I ... I can't save you."

But Ryujin simply smiled, staring up at the prettiest soldier she'd ever seen. Temporarily forgetting the pain in her body. "You already did. A long time ago."

But Yeji shook her head. "That doesn't matter now. They won't call a retreat. You're— I'm going to lose you." Yeji's eyebrows furrowed and a single tear dropped from her mud covered cheeks to Ryujin's grimy, blood stained shirt.

"Well." Ryujin croaked out, shakily reaching her hand up to her neck and pulling off the blue scarf sticking out under her uniform. "I won't need this anymore." She half smiled, handing it to Yeji.

"No." She pushed it away, "Please don't...it's yours. Keep it."

"Are you sure?" Ryujin stared wide eyed at the girl squished next to her in the back of the van. "Didn't your mum give it to you as a presen-"

"She's dead now." Yeji spoke solemnly, bringing her knees up to her chest and resting her chin on them. "Clearly it doesn't bring me any luck. Perhaps it will for you."

Ryujin looked down at the piece of material in her hands. Yeji had worn it nearly every day that past summer and Ryujin's heart had crumbled when she saw her friend throw it angrily into the bushes at the last camp the men with the guns had taken them to. She had had to sneak out quietly in the middle of the night to find it. Fortunately she was an expert at sneaking and no one had heard her, though she had accidentally scraped her knee against a tree branch. Not that anyone would be able to tell given the many other scrapes and bruises Ryujin had obtained over the last couple of weeks since being taken from their village by the strange men with guns.

She didn't tell Yeji she had retrieved the scarf until the next day when she and a dozen other children from the camp had been herded into a van and set off to who knows where. At least here, within the dark, grumbling walls of the vehicle, Yeji couldn't throw it away again.

She looked over at the older girl and suddenly noticed she was crying. Silent tears tracking down her face.

"Yeji?" Ryujin gently touched her friend's elbow but she didn't respond. So instead Ryujin circled both her arms around the girl as best she could, the scarf still gripped between her fingers, and hugged her as tightly as she could. "We'll be ok." She whispered. "They'll take us home soon I'm sure."

But at that Yeji scoffed and pushed Ryujin's arms off her.

"No they won't." She mumbled under her breath. But Ryujin still heard it and shuddered, refusing to believe her. Refusing to admit she would never see her parents again. They would be fine. This was just an evacuation. That's what the men had said. They were taking them to safety, away from the new war that was going to happen. That's what they had said.