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Zoffy stepped carefully over the fragments of a home. Droplets of water plinked, plinked, plinked on either side of him; one drop spattered on his chest, leaving the cold, unsettling impression that the ruin was bleeding on him.
He hated this part more than anything else about the war. At least during the fighting he could do something, he could fight back. But even the victories rang hollow when they left scenes like this one.
The skirmish yesterday started as a simple rescue operation: some troops pinned down, an extraction and counterattack he’d seen Belial and Ken run a hundred times. And it had been simple, at least, until the opposing general had taken the nearest building and tossed it into a residential complex.
Now, all that remained were shattered bits of crystal, the plink, plink, plink noise, and the dull ache in Zoffy’s chest at the sheer senselessness of the destruction.
He shook himself. He was here to look for survivors, and Light leave him, he was going to find some. No matter how long it took. He tried to squash down the reminder that they hadn’t found anyone alive yet, and the likelihood of anyone surviving this far down…but no. Ken would promise there was always hope, and Belial would insist that they search every shard before they gave up.
And yet, perhaps nothing remained here to find. Room after shattered room yielded the same dim results, varying only in the number of bodies. In the upper levels, farther from the impact, they hadn’t found any remains; perhaps, Zoffy dared hope, they’d been able to evacuate. But the closer to the site they drew, the more ultras they found.
None alive.
Zoffy carefully picked his way through the next room, somewhat comforted by the voices of his commanders in the room one crumbled wall over. He scanned the space, though without much hope; a mangled pipe had burst overhead, and water already pooled around his feet. He noticed an upturned bedframe of an odd construction; a chair, almost intact; some sort of container, too battered to identify. A flash of light caught Zoffy’s eye, just under the water, and he delicately fished it up. A segmented, shiny thing, connected to a crosspiece with a golden wire and silver knobules of varying shapes and sheens. It wasn’t until Zoffy held it up by its central crosspiece that he recognized it as a child’s mobile.
This had been a nursery.
Zoffy mercilessly crushed down the wave of sickness that rose in his throat. He couldn’t afford to process that, not now. He knew what he had to do, but at that moment he would have given anything not to look inside that quiet, quiet bedframe (a cradle, of course it was a cradle). Zoffy straightened, braced himself for the worst, and began to search the room in earnest.
The cradle was empty. Zoffy wasn’t sure whether that helped or not. The water rose patiently, licking across his ankles. The voices from the next room seemed to rise in urgency, and Zoffy took one last, desperate circuit of the room. He reached out with his light-field, almost pleading for any response, any sign of life and light.
The container he’d dismissed as a toybox shifted. Slightly, ever so slightly, but it was enough that Zoffy’s gaze snapped up to it.
Another plink of water pattered over the half-open lid, and, in the sudden silence, he wondered if he’d imagined it. He reached out again with his light, this time stronger, more focused.
And distantly, softly, instinctively, a responding light brushed his.
In an instant Zoffy was at the box, prying off the damaged lid and lifting a tiny bundle of soaked fabric. Swaddled in this mass of cloth, dripping and cold, Zoffy found his survivor.
The baby was small, likely barely out of its capsule, legs tightly twisted together through the drenched swaddling. “You’re alive,” Zoffy breathed; he couldn’t think what else to say.
No response. Slowly he realized a baby this cold and wet should be fussing, crying, at very least shivering. But this one seemed almost asleep. Dim, dark eyes opened for one moment, just long enough for Zoffy’s heart to stop in his chest as the infant met his gaze.
And Zoffy saw hope.
And then those eyes went dark.
“No, no, no no no stay with me,” Zoffy gasped, pulling the infant tight to his chest in the hopes of warming it. His light field flared, hard, trying to rouse the child, or at least get some response.
Nothing.
He needed a medic, fast, but the only people nearby were—
He straightened and shot out of the room, almost flying in his haste. He had to find Ken, he could do something.
The next moments were a blur he could never truly remember afterwards. He remembered the sight in the next room, the gruesome remains of the man who’s crest looked so much like the infant’s, with identical lifeless eyes. He knew he said something to Ken, he must have handed the baby over at some point, because he remembered Ken’s face at the sight of the baby.
Zoffy had seen commander Ken scared dozens, maybe hundreds of times. But he hadn’t seen this. It only lasted a heartbeat, a momentary flash across his features, but it was enough to shake Zoffy to his core.
It was almost immediately superseded by a look of grim determination as Ken took the infant. Zoffy felt Belial draw him aside a little, felt him murmur some words of distraction, but he couldn’t process any of it as he watched Ken wordlessly work to try and revive the child. Dumbly he watched as his commander performed CPR, pressed light into the infant’s chest, worked to warm and revive him.
Zoffy didn’t know how long the interval was. Perhaps only a few moments, perhaps a lifetime. But all he could do was watch and wait and will for that child to live. Distantly he felt Belial’s light signature next to him, trying to steady his, but Zoffy couldn’t keep from reaching out with his own light, again, again, trying to catch the child’s light field and bring it back.
And then a tiny cough broke the silence. A spatter as specks of water hit water. And then a thin cry.
Zoffy realized he hadn’t been breathing. “He’s okay,” he managed, almost laughing in his relief.
“He’s loud, is what he is,” Belial interjected, and if Zoffy hadn’t seen his face in that moment, he might have been convinced he meant it.
Ken didn’t speak, but the relief flooding his face spoke more than eloquently.
Zoffy’s gaze returned to the infant, now being bundled up in Ken’s own dry, if tattered, cape. Trying to steady his heartrate, he reached out one more time with his light. He felt a flicker in reply; small, fluttering like a shaky breath, but alive. Alive. Alive. You’re a fighter, aren’t you. You’ve already fought for your life. But I promise you, I’m going to keep you safe. I felt your light reach out to me, and I promise you, you’ll never have to fight alone again.