Chapter Text
It was over. As hard as it was to believe, it was finally over.
Iji’s life had been upended in the most dramatic way possible. A tour of her father’s scientific facility abruptly turned into a full-scale alien invasion. Thousands of lights shining through the clouds turned into a torrent of destruction that rained down on the Earth’s surface. In a single instant, the Alpha Strike had decimated life on earth and destroyed all of human civilization.
Six months she had remained comatose, and in that time the surviving scientists had reverse-engineered the aliens’ technology. Outfitted her with a field of nanomachines, shoved a gun in her hand, and expect her the solve the problem single-handedly. Perhaps too predictably, they were all slaughtered from their trouble. She and her brother Dan were the only ones left.
Somehow, things only got worse from there. Soon the entire Earth was a battleground for an existential war between two different alien species. By the end, one race was entirely wiped out, mercilessly exterminated to the very last. The other, which had enacted the genocide, was prepared to annihilate what was left of the Earth’s surface just to be sure.
Her only hope was to confront the alien general, and convince him to call off the second Alpha Strike.
But General Tor, the leader of the Komato fleet, was not so easily swayed. He was convinced that the war was inevitable, that he was bound to the collective will of his people, and that he had no choice but to go through with it. He had to exterminate the Tasen, and he had to destroy what was left of humanity, because that’s what his duty demanded.
Iji was not so convinced. A genocide was a genocide, even if you felt bad about doing it.
The ensuing battle was the closest she’d ever come to dying. Tor’s personal battle mech was among the most powerful front line weapons devised by the Komato, falling just short of the capabilities of their armored battle ships. It blanketed the rooftops in hailfire, sending out torrents of bullets and projectiles that blotted out the sky. Surviving it all almost felt like dodging raindrops in a hurricane.
Yet somehow, Iji won. It took almost all of the weapons her nanogun could carry, rockets and MPFBs and Cyclic Fusion bolts and plasma cannons and even the devastating Velocithor V2-10. But against all odds, Iji won.
With his mech obliterated, Tor used his last moments alive to take pity on the Earth. At his final command, the Alpha Strike was called off. The Komato ships fled back to the stars, and Iji could only hope that they would never again return.
As she looked over the rooftops, at the ruins of the city and the charred landscape that lay just beyond, a single burning question dominated her mind.
What now?
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DAY 1:
I’ve decided to keep an audio log while I search for any other survivors. There were plenty of old Komato recorders lying around the facility, and it didn’t take much effort to wipe one of them so I could start my own personal log. I don’t know what I’ll accomplish with this, but um… somehow, I feel like it’ll help me keep my thoughts straight.
I’ve started my search for others in the city, though I doubt that I’ll find anyone here. It looks like the Komato, um… well, they were thorough. And that’s if the Tasen didn’t kill all of the humans still here anyway, which I don’t think is likely.
…
……
God, they really are all gone, aren’t they? I-I… I already knew that most people died in the first Alpha Strike, but… I guess I never had time to fully process just what that really meant. Why was I ever convinced that diplomacy would be an option with these monsters? Our lives meant NOTHING to them. I should have just blasted that bastard general’s head off.
…No, that’s stupid. If I killed Tor without talking to him, he wouldn’t have called off the Alpha Strike. I…
Oh god, I would have doomed the whole world that way! I was actually thinking about it! I was seriously considering just killing him and being done with it! What the hell is my problem!?
…
……
………
…I don’t know what I’m going to do now. Even if I find anyone else who’s still alive, I… I don’t know if I can return to a peaceful life. Whenever I close my eyes, I only hear the sounds of explosions and gunfire.
Dan’s been acting weirdly distant, too. He keeps ignoring me when I try to talk to him. I don’t know if he’s mad at me, or if he’s just too shaken by everything. After what Asha tried to do to him…
…
…I don’t know what comes next, and I have no clue what I’m going to do with the rest of my life now.
But if there’s one thing I do know, it’s that I can’t give up.
DAY 4:
I’ve spent three days searching the city, and so far I’ve found nothing but a bunch of broken cars, empty buildings, and rubble. As much as I wanted to be wrong, it looks like my initial hunch was right. There’s really nobody left here.
I’ve been thinking about where to look next, and I think I’m going to head east, to the countryside. While it’s a much less populated area, the aliens probably didn’t pay it nearly as much attention… I hope.
Dan’s been acting really weird lately. He keeps disappearing for hours at a time, only to show up later. Sometimes he vanishes when I stop looking at him, or even when I blink. I don’t know how he does that, but it’s really unsettling.
DAY 7:
Dan’s dead. He’s been dead, ever since… e-ever since…
…
……
…I shouldn’t have killed Asha so quickly. I should have made it fucking hurt. A shotgun blast to the head was too nice for him. I-I swear to god, if I could ever go back and fight that bastard again, I-I…!
…N-no, no. Keep it together. I’ve got to… got to keep it together. I can’t let myself break down like this. Not like this.
God, I really did just start hallucinating him, though, didn’t I? I-I just… I couldn’t accept what really happened to my brother. After everything I’ve lost, I couldn’t lose him too.
…
……
………
I-I sometimes ask myself… if this is all worth it. If there’s any reason for me to keep going, now that everyone I’ve ever known is dead. If I’m better off just taking this nanogun and… ending it all.
I… I don’t know the answer to that. But I’m not ready to die. I have to believe that there’s something left in this world worth living for.
Even if I’m wrong. Even if it’s just another delusion.
I just have to stay determined.
DAY 10:
I see Mount Ebott in the distance. I should be able to reach it by the end of the day if I continue my current pace. The lone peak, and the highest place you’ll find for hundreds of miles.
I’ve never climbed a mountain before, but I’m thinking this just might be the time to start. If I reach the summit, I should be able to get a good view of anything around me. If there’s any surviving human settlements anywhere near here, I’ll be able to see them from the peak.
At least, that’s what I hope. But hope is all I have now.
So… here goes nothing.
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A lengthy climb had brought Iji halfway up the mountain trail, when a roar of thunder pierced through the thick cloud cover above. Within less than a minute, a torrential downpour began to fall upon the mountain, leaving Iji thoroughly drenched. Her nanogun was thankfully waterproofed, but the same couldn’t be said of her clothes. A green tank top and shorts was not the best outfit for a storm. For that matter, the recorder she’d carried in her pocket had also short-circuited and died — apparently the Komato didn’t design their handheld devices for natural weather.
Oh, goddammit. And just when I’m miles away from any kind of shelter.
At least the rain wasn’t acidic this time. Perhaps this was evidence that the world was starting to heal, but that didn’t much matter now. Her first priority was finding a place to find cover. A tree might have worked, but all the mountain’s trees were withered and stripped of leaves, no doubt by the aforementioned acid rain.
Thankfully, it didn’t take her long before she found a large cave. Cautiously, she moved into the cave mouth, holding her nanogun at the ready, more out of habit than anything else. The cave was almost impossibly dark compared to the outside world, to the point where she couldn’t even see the ground she was walking on.
Ugh. What I wouldn’t give for my nanofield to have night vision right now. I need to be careful, and make sure I don’t tri—
“WHOA!”
As if the universe itself had heard Iji’s thoughts, her foot fell through a gaping hole in the ground. The rest of her body soon followed, and both Iji and her nanogun plummeted into the depths of the cavernous abyss.
.