Chapter Text
"Come on!" Ivan's voice rings out in the air, loud over the sound of the meteors falling.
On old Earth, such an onset of meteors would've destroyed it. But on this new Earth, the one ruled by aliens, meteors are but a minor annoyance, with safety measures that are inbuilt into every house, every building and even Anakt Garden.
Ivan grabs Till's shaking hand and pulls him ahead, propelling him towards the opened, abandoned gates.
One of the safety measures in this place was for all guards to leave their stations and retreat into shelter.
Aliens have big heads. Literally. They don't believe a human would even get past the guards long enough to reach the actual entrance gates. And usually, they wouldn't. During such showers, all human children are herded inside like cattle, pulled from yard time and shoved back into the glass cages that serve as their 'bedrooms'.
But Ivan was smart. He saw an opportunity and he took it. He was closest to the gates, pretending to count the petals of one of those strange red flowers he often saw in Till’s hair.
When the alert rang through the place, the virtual sky turning red, the robot guards rushed out, ready to subdue and force the children back inside. Most went quietly. Despite the terrible conditions, nobody really had a death wish. He saw the gates to the outer ring of the Garden, open and tempting and he saw the silver lining, a chance to escape the bloody death he knew lay in wait for him in his adult future.
But living alone wasn't ideal. Ivan was a loner. He always had been. He just didn't gel well with most of the other kids. If he managed to get out today with someone else, they'd probably be an annoyance to him at most, another mouth to feed outside the gates with no scope of pre-planned meals.
There was, however, one person he wouldn't mind being on the run with. The victim of his shallow emotions. The only one to ever catch his attention in his short time of living.
When he looks up, he sees Till staring right at him.
The robot guards are rounding up the quieter children first, the ones near the door leading inside who will be easier to wrangle.
Till is perhaps only a few feet away from him. From the way his eyes dart back and forth between Ivan and the gates, Ivan knows that his thoughts, for once, align with Till's. He holds out his hand in silent invitation, biting back the hope that’s rising inside him at the sight of Till's curious eyes.
Till hesitates for a second— then he drops the strange flower he was holding. His outstretched hand reaches for Ivan's palm and Ivan feels the hair on his neck rise at his first contact with his fascination that wasn't a heavy hit or an attempt on his life.
He's on his feet in a second, Till's hand clammy but warm in his hand. For some strange reason, their hands fit perfectly together. As if humans were meant to keep each other company. To share touch and warmth.
'This is nice.', Ivan finds himself thinking as they run for the open gate. 'Perhaps it will be nicer when there's no threat to our lives.'
Every sensation in Till's body seems enhanced. The feeling of grass on his bare feet morphs into the feeling of his feet slamming against concrete. He can feel the sweat pouring down his face as he follows Ivan through the gate. The outer ring of Anakt Garden isn't nearly as pretty as the inner. A bare mass of concrete in a perfect circle, tall iron gates lining it. A hollow dome above it, glimmering occasionally as meteors hit it and are disintegrated— mostly. The gates are intimidating and sharp— like they’re asking him, ‘Is it worth it? Do you really think you’ll survive in the outside world?’
Possibly because this is the back gate, where no concert-goers enter from. The perfectly decorated doors to his equally decorated death (or so he once thought) would be in the front.
Till feels his stomach curl in on itself, a cold feeling settling into his stomach. There’s not a soul in sight, and he still feels as though he’s being watched. He makes the fatal mistake of turning his head back and feels chills run down his spine at the sight of a red, glowing light blinking at him from a security camera he had never noticed.
Ivan is all but dragging him along now, his feet getting heavier with each step they take towards the gate. He’s sure he trips many a time, but he subconsciously registers that Ivan steadies him with each stumble, his hand a firm press against his.
Right when they reach the opening that stretches out into what looks to be a barren wasteland, Till pauses. His feet grow too heavy to move and he comes to a screeching halt.
Ivan suddenly seems to realise that he can no longer propel the body behind him ahead and turns to see what the issue is. He turns, panting. “What are you doing? We have to keep moving!”
Mizi. That’s what the cold feeling in him was. Mizi.
Till stares at Ivan blankly. The ringing in his ears grows louder.
Mizi. Sweet, innocent Mizi. What is to happen to her if Till leaves? No one to protect her. No one to save her smile from fading when she is inevitably shoved onto a stage infront of millions of aliens, dressed up for her death.
The thought of pink hair growing limp in death, skin turning a sickly pallor, the light of ochre eyes fading makes his stomach turn and he thinks he throws up in his mouth a little. His lips press together. His teeth grind together. He’s aware that Ivan is yelling something at him, but it doesn’t matter. He’s blurring in his vision anyway. His words sound like mumbled garbage.
He catches a tiny bit—“ We have to leave!”
Leave. Yes, isn’t that what he’s always wanted? To leave this hellhole and write his own destiny?
Mizi. But if he left, Mizi would be—
A loud slapping sound rings in Till's ears. The burning sensation in his cheek tells him he was the one being slapped. He raises his hand to it, touching the stinging flesh in shock as his vision refocuses.
Ivan glares at him, his dark eyes hard and determined. His hand is still reared back from the force of the hit. “I won’t let you be stupid.” He hisses out, words laced with venom.
Till gapes at him. In all his thirteen years of living, in all the beatings he had given Ivan and taken from him, never, no not once, had he seen this cold fury burning in his eyes, the lips that always looked soft to touch curled back in a snarl, the hands clenched into fists.
He feels what he thinks is a claw close around his wrist. Before he can process what's happening, Till finds himself being led away from Anakt garden, his wrist ensconced in the palm of one Ivan.
The feeling under his feet changes. The cold concrete now turns to heated mud, drowning his feet with each step like quicksand. It’s too late to turn back now. He’s vaguely aware of meteor chunks hitting the ground mere miles away from him, exploding on impact.
By some god— whatever god is listening’s mercy, they seem to avoid the two boys breaking free from their prison, straying off their path and landing elsewhere.
It is only when they are several, several miles away from Anakt Garden does Till turn and see the dome shrink into a tiny, flickering blue dot, occasionally pierced by a streak of fiery red that bounces off it. “W-wait!” He shrieks and he wriggles free from Ivan’s bruising grip, his wrist red and sore. He’s aware of how hoarse and pathetic his voice sounds and he swallows several times, trying unsuccessfully to slake his thirst.
Ivan turns around, and Till is relieved to see that the flame in his eyes has now burnt down to a spark. Or perhaps it’s the reflection of the meteors raining fire in his eyes. Both boys pant, struggling to catch their breaths. “Yeah?” Ivan breathes out after taking a couple of deep, ragged breaths. He seems relieved, and he runs his hand through his sweat slicked black hair, messing the previously perfectly uniform hair up.
Till stares at him, struggling to find the words of protest that had been on the tip of his tongue mere seconds ago. “We- we don’t have any food.” Is the first thing he comes up with. Ivan shrugs. “We can figure it out. They get food from out here. We can too.”
”Or water.”
”Rivers and ponds exist, Till.”
”No weapons…”
“We can hide till we find some. Or I could find you a really sharp rock if you want.”
”No home..”
”We can always find shelter in the wild.” Ivan waves it off. He stares at Till scrutinisingly and scrunches up his face. His eyes pierce into Till and Till finds himself shuffling his weight from one foot to another under the black holes that stare at him accusingly.
“You came with me. Why are you regretting it now?” Ivan huffs, poking a finger into Till’s chest, a gesture he often used before instigating a fight.
This familiar sign of hostility sends Till into a crazied frenzy. “Because, Ivan, we’re just teenagers! We-we’ve never been out in the wild, we don’t know what sort of food to look for— and- and our friends! What- what’s gonna happen to them- huh genius? They’ll hurt them or- or-“ He struggles to find words in his despair, and his knees grow knobbly and shaky from holding up his weight.
Ivan steps forward calmly and grabs him by the shoulders. His hand nearly push Till into the ground, sinking his feet by a solid inch. His eyes blaze again, but not with anger. There’s a sort of grit in them, some sort of doggedness that grounds Till, despite his mind, which seems to have turned into mush floating in his brain. The sounds of the meteors fade away.
”Say we go back now. What do you think will happen to us?” Ivan forces out, shaking Till by the shoulders. “Come on, answer me.”
His tone is surprisingly gentle for someone who Till knows to be angry. He stares at him, into the dark eyes and struggles to find enough zeal in him to answer. Ivan gives his shoulders another shake. “Go on. I know you know. You can’t have wasted all the space in your brain to write those prettily-worded love songs.”
Love songs? How did Ivan know of those songs, those little verses he used to write on crumpled slips of paper, in hopes of one day serenading his beloved Mizi? The thought of her gives him strength.
He forces his brain to work and he gathers moisture in his mouth, croaking out the logical answer, “We-we die. They- they hurt us for leaving and then we die.”
”Exactly.” Ivan says, satisfied. “If we had returned earlier, they would’ve never even known. Or maybe just let us go with a little beating. But we’ve already traipsed the gates. If we go back now, they’ll torture us. Publicly, probably. And then they execute us.”
Till senses in the non scrambled part of his brain that he’s speaking the truth. The thought of a pink haired girl with the most beautiful smile in the world creeps up on him again. “But- but what about Mizi- our friends?”
Ivan nods. “What about them? What do you think will happen to our friends, to poor, sweet Mizi who will definitely try to protest against whatever they want to do to us, if we go back?” Till gapes at him blankly.
Yes, they will beat her up for sure, think she was in cahoots with them. She wouldn’t be able to handle it, he knows. He’s taken many a beating from his alien but Mizi? Mizi, who is constantly coddled by her alien guardian and who always has more than enough to eat, enough to always share half of it with that cold friend of hers, Sua? She wouldn’t last a minute of that kind of pain.
”Those monsters,” Ivan continues, his voice rising bitterly, “who bet on our lives, who send us, dressed up like showcases to our grisly deaths— do you think they’ll have any mercy, even for an innocent thing like Mizi?” Till stares at him numbly, his rigid shoulders loosening as he slumps over. “No.” Ivan declares. “They’d hurt her worse, for daring to be so pure in the wake of the waste they’ve laid to Earth.”
Till registers how his voice has risen a pitch. How sorrowful he sounds, how dull. In the glimmer of the meteor shower, he notices that Ivan’s face seems shiny down his cheeks. Tears. “You’re crying.” Till says stupidly, reaching up to mindlessly wipe a tear from the pale cheek of the boy in front of him.
”Because I have people I care about too.” Ivan says. His voice cracks mid-sentence and he finally tears his gaze away from Till, directing the burning look at the ground. “Sua. Marty. Yes, even Mizi. You don’t think I haven’t thought about what will happen to them? About how scary it is to run away? The only thing that comforts me, is knowing that you, at least, are here. By my side.”
He looks up, and Till can only describe the look in his eyes as one word— corroded. Blood washing away from skin, glass being swept away. So many adjectives, and all could apply to him.
Human. Yes. Human. It’s a word Till’s never considered for Ivan. Annoyance, bastard, dipshit— all those words are frequent describers when Ivan comes to mind. But human. He’s never thought of it like that. Yes, it’s true, that in this cruel world, where one can only trust those of their same kind, Ivan too is human.
Till reaches out, and envelopes Ivan in his first ever hug, while the noise of meteors crashing in the background acts as his dark, sorrowful symphony.
”We’ll burn it all down. Together.”