AstroHarmony: The Height of Rebellion

Fight of the Victim

Rokuro collapses to the floor, clutching his shoulder as the blade skids across the floor away from his limp hand. His body falls with a sickening thud, blood soon pooling around where he lay; face down on the metal panel.

Leeh shrieks, jumping away from me at the sight of Rokuro and rushing to his side. I do the same, unaware until I am by his side also, listening to nothing but Leeh's cries for me to do something.

But then, as the smallest fleeting whisper, I hear Rokuro speak. "Go." His voice is faint, strained, but we both hear the panic behind his words; the haste.

"You heard him," I snap to Leeh when she sat there, frozen in panic and fear. "Go! Drive!"

"You!" she screeches back, eyes ablaze with anger, not quite comprehending what she'd just told me. Her hands are hovering over Rokuro's severely burned body, shaking as she contemplated what she could do to help without hurting him more. Her breath was shaky and uneven as her gaze flicked around feverishly.

"I don't know how to drive this thing," I retort, glaring into her glazed over eyes and giving her no sympathy. She glances up from her friend, meeting my gaze with horror and worry before tearing it away and bolting towards the pilot's seat. As I watch, she almost tumbles right from the chair and onto the floor, hurriedly flicking multiple switches before turning back to me. She jabbed her finger in my direction, voice seething with anxiety as she snapped at me, demanding, though terrified; "Watch him!"

I had already made my way towards where Rokuro lay helpless on the floor. "Planned on it," I mutter sourly under my breath, covering my own stress beneath bitterness. I listen to the steady humming of the engine beneath me, trying to focus on the gentle throbbing sound pulsing through the floor.

I look to Rokuro and immediately rip my eyes away; feeling the bile rising in my throat at the sight of what the Elite had done to him. I clench my eyes shut and listen to the steady hum of the hoverpod. Leeh has pulled the craft high into the air and is speeding away before I have regained my composure and risk a glance back to Rokuro, but this time, I am prepared for what I see. My eyes go immediately to his shoulder where his hand is clenched tightly over his burning skin and scorched shirt.

Or what's left of it.

The gray fabric of his shirt has completely burned away on the whole right side of his torso, exposing pink and red blistered skin. His whole arm is burned and the edges of his shirt are black and clinging to the warm skin, raw against the air. A groan of pain escapes him and I cringe as his head lolls to the side, exposing burns stretching up to his cheekbones. His face is pressed into the riveted floor; eyes clenched shut as his fingers tighten around his shoulder.

I sit beside him, hesitant to reach out and remove the burned fabric and hurt him even more.

"What happened?" I ask him quietly, even though I know he probably won't respond.

"He was shot." Leeh's voice startled me; an answer to a question I thought only Rokuro would hear. For a moment, I'm oblivious to the fact that it was her. "The guns that they have send out a concentrated beam of radiation. They can adjust how much to shoot, ranging from something like a sunburn to enough to kill you on the spot." I can't help but to picture the Elite's gun pointed at me, staring straight down the barrel. I remember the blue light, as if the far end of the barrel was a light, almost as if it was gathering the energy to hit me with the radiation level the Elite had set. I shudder thinking at how close I had come to death, facing what Rokuro was dealing with now, though I know I wouldn't have walked away alive. "Granted, they have guns too, but this way lacks the need to clean up afterwards. It's more—" Leeh chokes on her words, the sound of threatening tears leaking into her voice. "—it's more effective."