Ketsuraku Sekai

The Raincoat Girl

Once again, I found myself drawn to hospital. So far, I hadn't explored too much beyond the waiting room but I found myself going through one of the corridors before my eyes caught something yellow with orange flowers. I opted to follow behind the yellow with orange flowers, finding out what I was looking at was a raincoat on an unusual little girl.

She looked similar enough to May, so figured they were sisters or otherwise related. I couldn't gauge how old she was but she looked small for her age and somewhat rougher looking. Her hair was ebony like May's but with a prominent streak in it and she seemed to have something of a slight overbite (or her teeth were crooked). Underneath the raincoat, she wore a hospital gown or something like it and she wore no shoes. On one of her ankles, she wore a similar band that May wore. From the way she moved, she seemed to have a slightly hunched stance but I would find out why, as she promptly squatted and got into something of a crawling stance. I suppose Uzu would be correct about the "feral girl" but he was wrong about which girl, as this girl wasn't sure what to do when she saw me besides to get close, hiss at me, and then bite at me. She would dart to a corner, hissing at me still.

She would keep at this, until she stopped briefly to sniff the air, going "Food?" before darting over to my and going after my backpack, scratching at it. I wasn't sure what to do, so I just gave her my sandwich. She ate it like she's never eaten anything before, before going, "More?" I told her that I didn't have anything else besides a sandwich, to which she answered, "Oh~."

As I carried on my explorations, I noticed that she followed me, at first silent, and then muttering, "Apple Girl", before she started to string together a few notes for a song or what she would consider a "song". By a point, I asked her name and she told me, "R'uko." She told me this with gestures. I was curious and so I asked her to spell it, to which she told me, "Can't." Did something happen in this girl's past? I brought her over to a sign in the hospital and asked her as to what it said to which she said, "Dunno. Dunno what them is." She would point to what she didn't know and it was the letters on the sign. So, as I figured out, she couldn't read, much less spell. Okay, something did happen.

I would explore with her tagging along and, somehow, for some reason, R'uko followed me outside of the hospital. She would follow me home, the entire way. That was something I didn't expect and didn't know with how to deal with. If anything, I just knew she was hungry or, otherwise, wanting more food. I thought about bringing her back to the hospital so I wouldn't upset 050195 but it was so late that I decided to hide her in my room. I wasn't too successful at that, as she kept getting out throughout the night to find food. How she didn't wake up the others is beyond me.

"Do you ever sleep?"

"Yes!"

"Then why aren't you trying to?"

"Food!"

"You just ate."

"So?"

"Then why are you looking for food?"

"For them."

She didn't name "them" but I knew she was talking about 050195 and someone else. I asked her who "them" was and she told me, "Sisters." Alright, I'm definitely taking you back tomorrow morning. Besides the fact that she is indeed related to 050195, I noticed that, briefly, when she took off her raincoat for a moment, she had two swellings on one of her arms and they weren't the kind of swellings that came with injury or illness. The next morning, after she raided the refrigerator in the early hours, I made my way back to the hospital with R'uko.

"Is she gonna be mad?" she asked, out of the blue, before going, "No, prolly not."

Afterwards, at the meetup point and the revelation that I brought R'uko home with me shocked them. "Nonon, what the hell?! You brought that girl back to our house with you?!" Uzu asked me, while Houka asked as to what R'uko looked like. "Aside from the streak in her hair, she looked similar to the 050195, except she was rougher looking, smaller, and she wore a raincoat. She did take her raincoat off for a moment and she had these circular swellings on her arm." I told him, while Gamagoori asked what R'uko's swellings looked like. "They were circular." I told him, to which he told me that R'uko has medical ports in her arm.

"Medical ports?"

"Yes. They're disk or oval shaped devices for either collecting blood or administering medicine. Generally, patients only have one but you mentioned she has two."

"Huh?"

"Typically, patients have one port, so the fact that she has two is unusual. Was she sick or anything?"

"No, she was just hungry."

"How old was she?"

"Well, I don't think R'uko would know how old she was but I think she might be small for her age. "

"Hmm, how old do you think she is?"

"I don't think she was older than ten. Like I said, she might be small for her age, so I couldn't tell either ways."

Uzu was more bewildered by the fact that R'uko followed me home. "So, she followed you home and you didn't think to take her to the police or anything?" We looked at him sideways. Since the Event and what came afterwards, the police have been rather useless and, odds are, they wouldn't do anything about a random girl in a raincoat. If anything, we were lucky to still have a functional enough healthcare system or, for that matter, education system. Speaking of, what threw me off the most about the R'uko is that the kids around her age could read and write, while she couldn't even identify letters.

"Uzu, what would the police do with her anyway?"

"I don't know but, maybe, someone's looking for her?"

"I don't think so and I don't remember any missing children's reports about her or anyone fitting her description, not since the Event or before it. "

We never really did talk about the Event or its aftermath, just that society changed. I don't know how long it took for society to get close to what it was now but I know it took a while. From what I could tell, 050195 was born before the Event but I couldn't gouge when R'uko was possibly born. I didn't get a closer look at her anklet either to ascertain the date of her birth.

Later, I went to continue on my explorations, running into the R'uko again, who promptly asked me, "Got any more?" I asked her if her sisters knew what she was up to and, before she could answer, I heard some kind wail or what could be best described as such. At which point, R'uko hurried off and it was silent, besides the ambiance and my footsteps. After about an hour, I saw R'uko again, who said, "Sis called me."

"Sis?"

"Yes."

"Where is she?"

"Somewheres in whatever this is."

"It's a hospital."

"Hospi'al?"

"Yes."

"Oh."

Her face seemed to light up with the new information she got. Certainly, she was curious and interested in this mess up world around her. "Will you teach words?" she asked me. I asked her as to what she meant, to which she pointed out the letters on the signs, telling me, "Those things. All I know is that thems are word but I don't know how to make words and what makes up words."

I told her that the "things" to make words with are called "letters". She was intrigued by what I said, before going, "So teach me letters." I wasn't sure as to how I'd teach her anything, though she seemed rather willing to learn. After some silence, I asked her about the band on her ankle and she showed it to me, telling me, "Since you know words."

Reading her ankle band would confirm something. As I've read, unlike May's, R'uko's band clearly had her name, stating it to be "Ryuuko" and her ID number was 09032002. If her identification number is her birthday and if that date is accurate, that made her approximately seven years younger than May, so Ryuuko really was small for her age. With that in mind, I figured that Ryuuko was born before the Event, though, she likely didn't remember it.

At the moment, the only thing I could teach her how to spell was her name but that came with an explanation of what the letters were and how to use them. "Oh, Sis would like it if I could do that with my name." she said, almost giddy. She didn't know the word for "spelling" nor did she know what "literacy" was but she seemed pretty happy with knowing how to spell her name at least.

What happened in this girl's past?