God Eater: Shattered Dawn

Chapter 49: Gone

After most of the God Eaters had left Fenrir, Lupa had been fine- concerned about her friends, but fine.

In fact, Neo remembered, they had talked perfectly comfortably with each other for a good hour about insignificant things, such as how working in maintenance was suiting Neo (he of course replied that it was fine, if a little demanding), and how the milkshakes bought at the bar were delicious (though they had to wonder how Fenrir recreated the flavours of such expensive ingrediants), and of course how Sakaki needed a good haircut and stylist (HAH Sakaki, take THAT for refusing my items ^-^).

Yes, for the first hour, she was happy.

By the second hour, he had begun to see signs of anxiety; her eyes kept twitching about the room and her good hand kept working its way through her tangly hair.

Still, she acted reasonably normally, letting him tell her about a new job he was thinking of taking up when he'd done the necessary training, which just happened to be childcare in an orphanage- at which point he cut himself short, remembering that this orphanage was located in a certain Sector they were avoiding naming, and was probably in ruins.

There was a few moments of terrible silence then, when he finally noticed how far away Lupa's gaze was, her eyes blank.

"Lupa?" But at the mention of her name, she came back with a smile, and was presently asking him about what other plans he had for the future.

It must have been in the next half hour that he realised something was really wrong.

It started off with a simple twitch, hardly noticeable.

Then she kept spacing out more, and during this time, the muscles in her arm would twitch and spasm, and it was only by calling her back again that he'd get a response.

Finally she lapsed into a complete silence, her eyes unfocused. At this point, he was ready to call Sakaki, but was faced with the problem of leaving her alone in the room, so he gently grabbed her hand and applied pressure to the cuticle of her nail, knowing this to be a procedure to bring people back to consciousness.

It didn't quite work at first, and she turned to him, her eyes cloudy, mumbling to herself. It took him a few moments to decifer what she was saying.

"Hun...gry. I'm hungry." She looked puzzled, head tilted onto one side, as though listening to an invisible phantom.

Neo knew something had gone deeply wrong. He found himself slowly backing out of the room, murmuring rediculous words of comfort to her, his hand scrabbling for the door handle. "Okay Lupa, I'll go get you some food, just stay here for a minute, I'll be right back."

Last thing he saw as he closed the door was her blank stare, her skin glowing a deep blue-black as it rippled painfully, as though something was trying to rip through the surface of her skin.

"Sakaki." He quietly called, knocking on his door. No response.

There was a thump from next door.

"Sakaki!" He knocked again, this time with more ferocity.

Another thump.

Please tell me he's in here.

"SAKAKI!" He finally dared to raise his voice to a shout, hammering on the door. There was a huge crash from the Sick Bay, followed by an inhumane shriek. "SAKAKI, SAKAKI-!"

A terrible screaming started up, like nothing Neo had ever heard before. He fell to his knees, hands clutching his ears, sobs escaping him of pure terror.

He remembered it vividly- Sakaki running down the hall, the door being flung open, and the horrible, horrible silence that followed.

"Gone." Sakaki had murmered speculatively, staring at the cavernous hole in the wall that gaped out into the unknown. "She's gone."