When life throws different people into the middle of an apocalypse and the end of the world approaches, it's a matter of survival for all of them.
This is the story of the survivors, those who have seen their loved ones die to protect them. The one...
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I could see his blond head coming back from time to time. Nobody had paid any attention to me for days and the hours were getting so long that I thought I was going mad. I was alone, in a sort of glass box. Like a lizard kept in captivity. They'd tried to make me talk at first, and I still had traces of it on my body. The bruises were hard to get rid of, the cuts still deep and the burn marks swollen. On the back of my hand, at the point on size 44 where they'd been most insistent, my skin was blistering. My tattoo was barely visible. It was as if they'd wanted to erase me from their world. I was just a memory. A soldier stripped of all power who barely deserved to be fed.
Despite all this, I wasn't losing hope. I was calm. I had to be if I wanted to win back their trust. My plans had changed. I thought I'd take this blonde hothead back with me to rescue him from here. Like an idiot, I thought it would work. But nothing was that easy... Now I wanted to stay by his side. It was the only way to regain his trust. I would obey him, I would respect everything he told me if he promised me he would think about it. My freedom had never been priceless, it was all I needed to survive, and under these conditions, all my values were stretched to the limit. His safety was all that mattered to me. I had neglected him for too long to push him away now. Even though our lives weren't quite the same, even though I hardly recognised him and he no longer loved me like a brother, I had to work on my appearance. I had to shape myself so that he would recognise me. So that he'd stop taking me for the rebel I wasn't.
'Forty-four. The little soldier had approached, he often visited me and his overconfidence annoyed me. 'You seem very quiet today.'
I didn't reply. It wasn't worth it. His confidence was overflowing. He must have been half my age but I could see he'd been brought up on the propaganda of the government that had destroyed his life. A few scars carved into his face, as if he'd actually lived for hundreds of years. He must have been barely in his teens, his hair growing over his chapped lips. The curls of his hair fell back over his face and I thought back to my blond head. It was so long ago that I forgot that I too had worn that too-tight uniform. The more I saw it go by, the less I remembered what had made me become a soldier in the first place. My brain must have been slowly rotting away, completely washed out by whatever they were trying to implant in my brain. Kimi had done the same routine of checking what was in my cell, I had nothing. My bed was a piece of plastic on the floor, I had no cushions, no sheets, nothing to wash myself or relieve myself on. I was in an aquarium that was serviced from time to time. I didn't know what time they came, let alone whether they came once a day or less often. I was probably their last priority. I counted the visits, I also counted the times I'd seen the blond guy. It was rare. He came at the very beginning, twice. Once surrounded by these guards, and once alone. His face hidden. I think he'd been crying. I saw his pretty eyes glisten under the cold lights of my glass prison. Then he never came back.
'There's going to be a transfer. Don't worry if you see a lot of soldiers.' Kimi leaned against the door. I couldn't escape, my ankles were chained to the floor. 'They won't come for you so behave yourself.'
