[chaptered] Breaking Zero Kelvin - Chapter 9 (The Living Dead)
Title: Breaking Zero Kelvin (Multichapter)
Author: Luna (dreamweavernyx)
Pairing: Kazuyuri
Genre: Fantasy/Scifi
Summary: AU. They are two runaways, chased out of society through a deep-rooted stigma though they have no say in it at all. Only relying on word-of-mouth rumours and a set of sketchy directions, they now have to set out on their own journey to accomplish the impossible: escape.
Notes: Character list here.
Previous chapters: Prologue | 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07 | 08
~
09: The Living Dead
The drive towards District 8 was extremely lonely, with the wind whistling past his face and a sadly empty seat behind him.
Kei had been driving for four hours straight - without Tae we felt less obliged to take regular breaks.
If I take less breaks and sleep less, I’ll get there faster, he reckoned, remembering that there had to be a time limit for this - after a certain amount of time he was pretty sure Tae would be executed.
A grim look passed across his face - he did not want that to happen. Not now, when he had already become sufficiently emotionally attached to his partner to dread having to find another one.
He ate less, trying to save resources and save the time he spent resting. Now it would be a routine in which he would hop off the motorcycle after five to six hours of constant driving, cram half a cereal bar into his mouth, stretch a little and then drive off again.
It was a hellishly fast-paced schedule he was trying to keep, and he swore to himself he would take a long rest after he had reached District 7.
The motorcycle sped on into the darkness of the tunnel that stretched way ahead.
~
After an agonizingly long period of doing nothing but sit and stare at her feet in the van as it sped over bumps and past turnings in the road, they had finally stopped.
“We’re here,” the officer growled, raising a metal stick. He used it to prod Yuriko’s back, and she flinched when a small electric shock hit her.
“Move.”
She did so slowly, stumbling clumsily out of the van. Her legs were extremely stiff and sore from days of not moving at all, and as she hobbled along, squinting at the bright sunlight, she could feel the prickly sensation of pins-and-needles creeping up her leg.
Next to her, the little boy was plodding along, his face despondent and his pace slow.
Both of them followed the officer to a large metal building that stood like a huge metallic statue right in the middle of District 7. A metallic plaque outside the building read Central Prison and Detainment Center, and Tae scowled a little as they were pushed inside.
The air within the building was cold and dead, and an oppressive silence hung everywhere.
“Keys for Witch cell #54 and #36,” the officer growled at the receptionist suited in an immaculately clean black pantsuit, hair perfectly tied into a tight bun.
Smiling a small plastic smile at the officer, the receptionist handed over two keys and watched as he roughly signed a couple of forms, before heading off towards a lift lobby.
Tae and the little boy trailed after him silently.
The elevator came swiftly, and the officer used his electric baton to prod the both of them into the small box that smelled vaguely of cigarette smoke and sweat. He pressed a button, and suddenly all the air whooshed out of Tae’s lungs as the elevator began to plunge downwards.
When the elevator doors opened again, what met Tae’s eyes was a dark corridor. Metal grilles lined both sides, and as they began to walk through it Tae realized that they were prison cells, each containing up to five people seated in a dark square cell with no window whatsoever.
The officer stopped in front of one after they had walked down a good half of the corridor. Inserting the first key in, he roughly unlocked the door and shoved Tae in, not caring that she stumbled and fell in rather than walked in.
The metal grille slammed shut behind her, and the beep of the electronic lock system indicated that the door would no longer be able to open until the next time the key was inserted.
Taking a while to let her eyes adjust to the darkness within the cell, as contrasted to the dim lighting in the corridor, she realized that there was only one other figure in the cell, sitting crouched in a corner.
“T-tae?”
A sharp intake of breath followed that whisper, and Tae stiffened, blinking several times to focus on the female who was now slowly straightening up to come out from her shadowed corner.
She was met with a familiar pair of large eyes, though the hair had become lank and dull, matted with as much as dirt as there was on her face and arms and legs. Nevertheless, it was enough for Tae to recognize her when she moved into the area where the light from the corridor shone into the cell.
“Shizuna,” Tae croaked, voice hoarse but filled with surprise and shock.
~
Kei froze, and immediately stopped his motorcycle as he noted a small glow up around the next bend in the tunnel. Dismounting, he began to push his motorcycle with one hand, the other reaching into his pocket to pull out his gun.
He had gotten close enough to hear murmured voices talking, when suddenly he stepped on a stick that he had not seen in the darkness.
All murmuring ceased.
“Who’s there?” called a wary voice, one that Kei found oddly familiar.
Nevertheless, he did not let down his guard, raising his gun and preparing to shoot as he inched closer to the source of the glow. Slowly, he rounded the corner, and as he heard a sharp gasp he immediately let magic flow to his arm, saturating the gun and causing it to glow faintly.
Kei looked up from his gun to face his potential attacker, only to meet a pair of warm brown eyes, now stretched wide in utter surprise. Behind him, another man with a bandaged leg and arm slowly got up, but Kei had no eyes for him, keeping his shocked gaze on the blonde man standing metres away from him with a gun aimed at him.
Slowly, the other man lowered his gun, hand shaking a little, and Kei did the same, still in shock.
“Kei,” the other man whispered. “I didn’t think we would see you here.”
Kei’s voice cracked with emotion as he replied.
“Naruse.”
~
Tae was about to open her mouth to ask another question when she heard the officer’s heavy footsteps coming back up the corridor. Clamping her mouth shut, she winced and tried to look inconspicuous as he strode past. Sure, their metallic collars had been removed before they left the van, but she was still paranoid that he might do something else to torture her should she talk in his presence.
When he had gone, Shizuna heaved a sigh.
“He won’t punish you if you talk here,” she informed Tae. “The most you get is him coming up and leering through the bars. He won’t even touch them - when the door is locked the bars will give whoever touches them an electric shock.”
Casting another wary glance at the metal bars, Tae turned back to Shizuna.
“How…you were discovered?”
Shizuna’s expression changed immediately into a bitter one, and she looked away to the side.
“Tai-nii and I both,” she said quietly. “A couple of weeks ago.”
Tae frowned.
“B-but when I checked your names against our name generator they flashed green! They weren’t blacklisted.”
Shizuna chuckled dryly.
“When you arrive here, they do a DNA test, then blacklist the name that appears on the database. Haven’t you gotten that yet?”
“No,” Tae shook her head. “They just sent us here straight from that van.”
“You’ll get DNA-tested soon, then,” Shizuna murmured. “Where’d you get caught, anyway? Weren’t you running around in Central-proof tunnels?”
Wincing, Tae stared at her own feet.
“In District 9,” she replied at last. “I was helping a little boy witch escape.”
Shizuna threw her a long look, then shrugged and sighed, raising one hand to run through her messy, tangled hair.
“Ah well, nothing you can do about that now. They’ll find out you’re originally a blacklisted witch when they test your DNA, and then your punishment will probably be more severe than a normal civilian involved in assisting enemies of iT and Central.”
The word punishment did not sound particularly appealing to Tae, and she was hesitant to ask what it entailed. Shizuna caught sight of her facial expression though, and explained it anyway.
“They torture you on a regular basis,” she said quietly. “Terrible stuff. They try to make you spill about your comrades and stuff. Don’t give in though.”
Tae squirmed, recalling something the officer had said when she had first woken up in the van.
“What about my trial…?”
Shizuna scoffed.
“That? It’s just a load of bullshit. You’re pronounced guilty anyway, and then they set a date for you to get executed. And then apparently I’ve heard they make you watch the execution of the person before you, like a week or so before your own execution date. Final mental torture or something.”
Tae shuddered.
“There’s no escape?” she asked in a tiny voice, and Shizuna looked grave.
“Tae, this place is a crazy technological maze. We’d need a technological miracle to get us out.”
~
After getting over his initial shock, Kei was now sitting at Naruse’s artificial stove, watching as Naruse heated up some instant cocoa in a cup for him.
“What happened to Naoto?” he asked, once he had recognized the bandaged man and gotten over his second shock of the day. “I was under the impression that he was…dead.”
Naoto snorted.
“Naruse broke me out of Central’s jail, that’s what,” he said dryly. “You’ll have to ask him for the full story. I’m injured like this because he rescued me a day after my final torture session, two days before I was scheduled for execution.”
Sputtering, Kei stared at Naoto in horror.
“They really execute you, then?”
“Yeah,” Naoto shrugged. “Physical torture, electric shocks, all that. They make you watch the previous witch scheduled in front of you get executed, too. Then you get a whole week for your mind to torture yourself before you get executed. Disgusting, the executions - I’ve never seen so much blood in one place. And that iT-”
“Hold it,” Naruse interrupted. “You saw iT? You never told me that.”
Naoto fixed Naruse with a pointed stare.
“I saw it at my ‘trial’ too,” he explained. “Was this giant…brain-thing in a vat of liquid that could spell out simple sentences on a screen. Basically all throughout the trial he said ‘guilty’ a number of times and ‘kill’ as well as spew out my execution date.”
Choking a little on the hot cocoa Naruse had just handed him, Kei blinked at Naoto.
“…A what?”
Naoto grinned, clearly enjoying the effect this news had had on Kei, as well as on Naruse, whose mouth was hanging open in shock.
“You mean to say that the people have been following the commands of a brain all this time,” Naruse stated, incredulous.
“The wonders of technology,” Naoto shrugged. “iT actually acts like a normal human mind would, though. Enough so that the rules of Central are partially decided by iT, or so I’ve heard.”
“A brain in a vat,” Kei echoed Naruse, the disbelief still strong in his voice. “I suppose we are all in this state because of iT too, aren’t we?”
“Mostly,” Naoto said. “Central has a Parliament that helps review the laws laid down by iT, though. Or at least, that’s what I think it said in that old history book back home.”
Kei looked away, down at the dregs of his cocoa. Swirling it around slowly, he sighed heavily.
“I’ll need to save Tae soon then, before iT orders her execution.”
“…Tae?” Naruse’s voice was curious.
“My new partner,” Kei replied. “Central caught her.”
A silence descended upon them, before Naoto thought of something.
“What happened to Masaru?” he asked. “Wasn’t he your original partner-”
“Dead,” said Kei shortly, coming off more gruff and annoyed than he had intended to. “Central officer shot him right through the stomach, and my magic couldn’t save him.”
Naruse looked grim.
“I’m sorry.”
“No,” Kei sighed. “It’s fine. This is why I need to rescue Tae before I lose another partner.”
Naruse’s eyes lit up slightly then.
“I have an idea…”
Author: Luna (dreamweavernyx)
Pairing: Kazuyuri
Genre: Fantasy/Scifi
Summary: AU. They are two runaways, chased out of society through a deep-rooted stigma though they have no say in it at all. Only relying on word-of-mouth rumours and a set of sketchy directions, they now have to set out on their own journey to accomplish the impossible: escape.
Notes: Character list here.
Previous chapters: Prologue | 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07 | 08
~
09: The Living Dead
The drive towards District 8 was extremely lonely, with the wind whistling past his face and a sadly empty seat behind him.
Kei had been driving for four hours straight - without Tae we felt less obliged to take regular breaks.
If I take less breaks and sleep less, I’ll get there faster, he reckoned, remembering that there had to be a time limit for this - after a certain amount of time he was pretty sure Tae would be executed.
A grim look passed across his face - he did not want that to happen. Not now, when he had already become sufficiently emotionally attached to his partner to dread having to find another one.
He ate less, trying to save resources and save the time he spent resting. Now it would be a routine in which he would hop off the motorcycle after five to six hours of constant driving, cram half a cereal bar into his mouth, stretch a little and then drive off again.
It was a hellishly fast-paced schedule he was trying to keep, and he swore to himself he would take a long rest after he had reached District 7.
The motorcycle sped on into the darkness of the tunnel that stretched way ahead.
~
After an agonizingly long period of doing nothing but sit and stare at her feet in the van as it sped over bumps and past turnings in the road, they had finally stopped.
“We’re here,” the officer growled, raising a metal stick. He used it to prod Yuriko’s back, and she flinched when a small electric shock hit her.
“Move.”
She did so slowly, stumbling clumsily out of the van. Her legs were extremely stiff and sore from days of not moving at all, and as she hobbled along, squinting at the bright sunlight, she could feel the prickly sensation of pins-and-needles creeping up her leg.
Next to her, the little boy was plodding along, his face despondent and his pace slow.
Both of them followed the officer to a large metal building that stood like a huge metallic statue right in the middle of District 7. A metallic plaque outside the building read Central Prison and Detainment Center, and Tae scowled a little as they were pushed inside.
The air within the building was cold and dead, and an oppressive silence hung everywhere.
“Keys for Witch cell #54 and #36,” the officer growled at the receptionist suited in an immaculately clean black pantsuit, hair perfectly tied into a tight bun.
Smiling a small plastic smile at the officer, the receptionist handed over two keys and watched as he roughly signed a couple of forms, before heading off towards a lift lobby.
Tae and the little boy trailed after him silently.
The elevator came swiftly, and the officer used his electric baton to prod the both of them into the small box that smelled vaguely of cigarette smoke and sweat. He pressed a button, and suddenly all the air whooshed out of Tae’s lungs as the elevator began to plunge downwards.
When the elevator doors opened again, what met Tae’s eyes was a dark corridor. Metal grilles lined both sides, and as they began to walk through it Tae realized that they were prison cells, each containing up to five people seated in a dark square cell with no window whatsoever.
The officer stopped in front of one after they had walked down a good half of the corridor. Inserting the first key in, he roughly unlocked the door and shoved Tae in, not caring that she stumbled and fell in rather than walked in.
The metal grille slammed shut behind her, and the beep of the electronic lock system indicated that the door would no longer be able to open until the next time the key was inserted.
Taking a while to let her eyes adjust to the darkness within the cell, as contrasted to the dim lighting in the corridor, she realized that there was only one other figure in the cell, sitting crouched in a corner.
“T-tae?”
A sharp intake of breath followed that whisper, and Tae stiffened, blinking several times to focus on the female who was now slowly straightening up to come out from her shadowed corner.
She was met with a familiar pair of large eyes, though the hair had become lank and dull, matted with as much as dirt as there was on her face and arms and legs. Nevertheless, it was enough for Tae to recognize her when she moved into the area where the light from the corridor shone into the cell.
“Shizuna,” Tae croaked, voice hoarse but filled with surprise and shock.
~
Kei froze, and immediately stopped his motorcycle as he noted a small glow up around the next bend in the tunnel. Dismounting, he began to push his motorcycle with one hand, the other reaching into his pocket to pull out his gun.
He had gotten close enough to hear murmured voices talking, when suddenly he stepped on a stick that he had not seen in the darkness.
All murmuring ceased.
“Who’s there?” called a wary voice, one that Kei found oddly familiar.
Nevertheless, he did not let down his guard, raising his gun and preparing to shoot as he inched closer to the source of the glow. Slowly, he rounded the corner, and as he heard a sharp gasp he immediately let magic flow to his arm, saturating the gun and causing it to glow faintly.
Kei looked up from his gun to face his potential attacker, only to meet a pair of warm brown eyes, now stretched wide in utter surprise. Behind him, another man with a bandaged leg and arm slowly got up, but Kei had no eyes for him, keeping his shocked gaze on the blonde man standing metres away from him with a gun aimed at him.
Slowly, the other man lowered his gun, hand shaking a little, and Kei did the same, still in shock.
“Kei,” the other man whispered. “I didn’t think we would see you here.”
Kei’s voice cracked with emotion as he replied.
“Naruse.”
~
Tae was about to open her mouth to ask another question when she heard the officer’s heavy footsteps coming back up the corridor. Clamping her mouth shut, she winced and tried to look inconspicuous as he strode past. Sure, their metallic collars had been removed before they left the van, but she was still paranoid that he might do something else to torture her should she talk in his presence.
When he had gone, Shizuna heaved a sigh.
“He won’t punish you if you talk here,” she informed Tae. “The most you get is him coming up and leering through the bars. He won’t even touch them - when the door is locked the bars will give whoever touches them an electric shock.”
Casting another wary glance at the metal bars, Tae turned back to Shizuna.
“How…you were discovered?”
Shizuna’s expression changed immediately into a bitter one, and she looked away to the side.
“Tai-nii and I both,” she said quietly. “A couple of weeks ago.”
Tae frowned.
“B-but when I checked your names against our name generator they flashed green! They weren’t blacklisted.”
Shizuna chuckled dryly.
“When you arrive here, they do a DNA test, then blacklist the name that appears on the database. Haven’t you gotten that yet?”
“No,” Tae shook her head. “They just sent us here straight from that van.”
“You’ll get DNA-tested soon, then,” Shizuna murmured. “Where’d you get caught, anyway? Weren’t you running around in Central-proof tunnels?”
Wincing, Tae stared at her own feet.
“In District 9,” she replied at last. “I was helping a little boy witch escape.”
Shizuna threw her a long look, then shrugged and sighed, raising one hand to run through her messy, tangled hair.
“Ah well, nothing you can do about that now. They’ll find out you’re originally a blacklisted witch when they test your DNA, and then your punishment will probably be more severe than a normal civilian involved in assisting enemies of iT and Central.”
The word punishment did not sound particularly appealing to Tae, and she was hesitant to ask what it entailed. Shizuna caught sight of her facial expression though, and explained it anyway.
“They torture you on a regular basis,” she said quietly. “Terrible stuff. They try to make you spill about your comrades and stuff. Don’t give in though.”
Tae squirmed, recalling something the officer had said when she had first woken up in the van.
“What about my trial…?”
Shizuna scoffed.
“That? It’s just a load of bullshit. You’re pronounced guilty anyway, and then they set a date for you to get executed. And then apparently I’ve heard they make you watch the execution of the person before you, like a week or so before your own execution date. Final mental torture or something.”
Tae shuddered.
“There’s no escape?” she asked in a tiny voice, and Shizuna looked grave.
“Tae, this place is a crazy technological maze. We’d need a technological miracle to get us out.”
~
After getting over his initial shock, Kei was now sitting at Naruse’s artificial stove, watching as Naruse heated up some instant cocoa in a cup for him.
“What happened to Naoto?” he asked, once he had recognized the bandaged man and gotten over his second shock of the day. “I was under the impression that he was…dead.”
Naoto snorted.
“Naruse broke me out of Central’s jail, that’s what,” he said dryly. “You’ll have to ask him for the full story. I’m injured like this because he rescued me a day after my final torture session, two days before I was scheduled for execution.”
Sputtering, Kei stared at Naoto in horror.
“They really execute you, then?”
“Yeah,” Naoto shrugged. “Physical torture, electric shocks, all that. They make you watch the previous witch scheduled in front of you get executed, too. Then you get a whole week for your mind to torture yourself before you get executed. Disgusting, the executions - I’ve never seen so much blood in one place. And that iT-”
“Hold it,” Naruse interrupted. “You saw iT? You never told me that.”
Naoto fixed Naruse with a pointed stare.
“I saw it at my ‘trial’ too,” he explained. “Was this giant…brain-thing in a vat of liquid that could spell out simple sentences on a screen. Basically all throughout the trial he said ‘guilty’ a number of times and ‘kill’ as well as spew out my execution date.”
Choking a little on the hot cocoa Naruse had just handed him, Kei blinked at Naoto.
“…A what?”
Naoto grinned, clearly enjoying the effect this news had had on Kei, as well as on Naruse, whose mouth was hanging open in shock.
“You mean to say that the people have been following the commands of a brain all this time,” Naruse stated, incredulous.
“The wonders of technology,” Naoto shrugged. “iT actually acts like a normal human mind would, though. Enough so that the rules of Central are partially decided by iT, or so I’ve heard.”
“A brain in a vat,” Kei echoed Naruse, the disbelief still strong in his voice. “I suppose we are all in this state because of iT too, aren’t we?”
“Mostly,” Naoto said. “Central has a Parliament that helps review the laws laid down by iT, though. Or at least, that’s what I think it said in that old history book back home.”
Kei looked away, down at the dregs of his cocoa. Swirling it around slowly, he sighed heavily.
“I’ll need to save Tae soon then, before iT orders her execution.”
“…Tae?” Naruse’s voice was curious.
“My new partner,” Kei replied. “Central caught her.”
A silence descended upon them, before Naoto thought of something.
“What happened to Masaru?” he asked. “Wasn’t he your original partner-”
“Dead,” said Kei shortly, coming off more gruff and annoyed than he had intended to. “Central officer shot him right through the stomach, and my magic couldn’t save him.”
Naruse looked grim.
“I’m sorry.”
“No,” Kei sighed. “It’s fine. This is why I need to rescue Tae before I lose another partner.”
Naruse’s eyes lit up slightly then.
“I have an idea…”