Major Arcana -Birth-

Chapter 1.2

I woke up to the sound of splashing and then the sensation of something warm being placed on my forehead.

I opened my eyes and glanced around.

A girl with short, dark brown hair, soft, light brown eyes and thin, black glasses was looking over my body. The number, "18" was on her left cheek.

A "Moon" Ranker.

She looked nice and smelled faintly of roses and plantlife. The girl also had this sort of refreshing aura surrounding her. It felt a little like cool water washing over my body. It was nice.

I could feel bandages wrapped tightly around my torso, my right leg and left ankle, so I assumed she was checking my injuries.

But...

Why was I hurt in the first place?

Ah. That's right... Rubble fell on me.

I looked at the girl again and she finally seemed to have noticed I was awake.

"Ah...! Um... I...!"

She seemed nervous and very shy. So much so that her face was turning red and she stuttered and stammered before she eventually darted out of the room. I blinked, very confused. Was there something on my face? I was about to get out of bed and chase after her when someone else walked in.

It was another girl around my age. She had raven hair and hazel eyes, but the most memorable thing about her was her rainbow-striped scarf. The scarf was worn in such a way that it covered the girl's lower part of her face. I couldn't see her number.

"Hey, you're awake! How do you feel? I'm sorry about my friend who just ran out; she's really shy around new faces." she asked me.

"...I feel like a pile of bricks fell on me." I responded. She laughed at that.

"Yes, well, a pile of bricks did fall on you. You should be more careful from now on. Always run if a building nearby is starting to collapse." the girl said with a friendly wink. She sat down beside the bed I was lying in.

"Oh... There was someone stuck under some rubble, so I went to help her." I explained. For just a second, the girl had a really sad expression. But, it was gone just as quickly as it came, so I thought it was my imagination.

"Um... Where am I?" I asked, catching the girl's attention. She blinked.

"Whoops! I didn't even mention that, did I?" the girl said apologetically. "You're at an evacuation shelter. Since the town was attacked by terrorists, everyone was evacuated and escorted to various shelters."

I blinked and asked who it was that saved me.

"Oh, I, uh, don't know." the raven-haired girl responded quickly. It was a little too quick of a response, but I couldn't think much on it since she said something else quickly.

"Oh, but my friend who ran off earlier? She's the one who dressed your wounds."

Oh. So she's the one who did that... I thought, feeling somewhat grateful. These people were very kind, weren't they?

I was going to say something else but I was interrupted by a really upbeat song. It sounded a little like dubstep or techno.

"Oh, that's me," the girl said before taking out a black smartphone-like device with a rainbow stripe pattern on the back. It looked kinda like a Sam-Xing Cosmos phone, but also a little different. She pressed the call button and put the phone up to her ear.

"Hello?"

There was a pause as the other person on the phone spoke before the girl's face got really serious.