Chapter Text
Everything happened so fast. Nyaan was packed tightly into the vast ocean of other people. Her backpack straps were tightened, digging deeply into her shoulders. She held on tightly to a strap with one hand while the other desperately hung onto her mother‘s hand. The panic and chaos of the crowd was suffocating. She couldn’t hear much of anything.
The cacophony of mixed voices yelling for a chance to be heard made it so hard to isolate individual voices. Cries and screams echoed all around her. Her mother‘s voice was buried in the mix.
Nyaan’s sweaty hands lost traction on her mother’s, and she felt her mother slip away from between her fingertips. Nyaan’s head snapped back. Her eyes widened when her mother was nowhere to be seen. She desperately reached out to regain that familiar grip, but all efforts were futile. She stopped in place, expelling all of the air in her lungs with a single cry: “Mom!”
She looked anxiously into the sea of faces; her eyes snapped from person to person. None of them was her mom or dad. She called out again, louder. She repeated this, over and over again, until her throat was coarse. Her desperation grew. She tried to concentrate on listening, hoping to pick out either of her parents’ voices. Even just a whisper would’ve been enough for her. But in the slim chance she heard her own name, the call faded, grew farther away, and got lost in the noise.
Nyaan’s heart pounded. It beat deep in her chest and trampled all hope she had. Everything was harder. She was lost in this endless ebb of strangers. Hearing was harder. The sounds around her muddled together, mixing and distorting to the point that words were only sounds. Breathing was harder. Each strained inhale was shallow, and the time between breaths only grew shorter. Seeing was harder. Her eyes misted over, burning sharply. It took every ounce of her willpower not to break down and bawl where she stood.
She couldn’t stop here. She had to keep going. The crowd of people forced her forward, and the station wwas finally in sight. Every few moments, Nyaan would look back over her shoulder just for the a chance that maybe her parents were there right behind her. No such luck.Eventually, Nyaan stopped looking back. She focused on what lay ahead of her. She sniffled to herself, pursed her lips, and wiped away any stray tears from her cheek.
Every face seemed to blend into the next. She had no bearing on what anyone around her looked like, but she imagined that people of all sorts were desperate to get off the colony. When the emergency evacuation order was put in place, Nyaan was sent home from school early. She hurried home, not quite knowing what was happening, only to find her parents packing whatever they could. They instructed her to do the same.
Snapping out of her daydream, Nyaan kept walking. She tried to keep up with the traffic of the others around her. The streets have never been this busy. The stations for the shuttles were completely congested, overrun by an influx of traffic that the colony couldn’t have been prepared for, not even in one million years.
The roars of voices ahead of her grew louder. There was a sudden flow of people turning around, squishing her in between the people moving in conflicting directions. It was too tight to move, and she couldn’t even tell what was happening.
She called out, grabbing hold of an older man. “What’s happening? Why are people turning around?”
“They're turning people away. No space on the shuttles,” he said. His face at first seemed annoyed that she asked, but it softened. There was visible pain on his face. He probably had a family too. He brought his voice down and whispered to Nyaan, “Your best bet is to make your way to the next town over. There may be a few shuttles there”.
He pointed off into the distance and gave her an encouraging pat on the back. Nyaan looked at him dumbfoundedly, sure why he would give such information out freely. The man forced a smile.
“Come on, kid. Get going. If an old fart like me gets there before you do, I’m gonna take your spot,” the man said with a toothy grin, “You've got a lot to live for.”
Nyaan nodded and weaved in and out of the crowd, hoping to go against the current. Sometimes, no matter how hard she tried to get out of there, Nyaan would inevitably be pulled back, like an undertow. Despite this, she had to preserve and move forward. She had to carry on the well wishes of the old man that helped her. She had to move forward for her parents so she could reunion reunite.
After finally breaking free, Nyaan slipped through alleyways, hoping to stay off the main roads. While she slipped out of the crowd relatively unnoticed, that didn’t necessarily mean she wasn’t seen. She had an advantage and a lead over others and she couldn’t let that go to waste. Her heart beat like a drum, wildly pounding against her chest. Her throat was dry. Each subsequent breath was harder to take; though shallow, it felt heavy on her airways.
In the distance, she saw the familiar signage for this town’s shuttle hub. There was no crowd. No chaos. No wave after wave of desperate faces. Her guess was that most of the town had already left or funneled into neighboring towns. The front doors were clearly in sight and she saw one more thing in that building. She saw hope.
Nyaan allowed herself to smile. It was bittersweet. It clutched at her chest, caught under her throat, and burned on the surface of her eyes. Finally, she was feeling good. She eased her pace and let herself calm down and catch her breath.
Given the circumstances, no tickets were being taken. It was the first come first serve basis, so she was free to head on into the terminal. She wandered through the corridors, slightly alarmed by the severe lack of people. The only people she managed to encounter were employees. Nyaan saw a janitor who was cleaning the floors. It seemed bleak that he was still working, knowing the colony was on the verge of becoming a battlefield.
Nyaan wondered if he was one of many that would not be lucky enough to leave. Perhaps he found solace and his menial tasks. Was he empowered by his choice to live how he wanted to?
After walking into the main gathering areas, she headed towards the glass, hoping to get a glimpse of how many shuttles were available. She needed to know her chances were. Nyaan put her face against the glass, squinted through, and shielded her eyes to get the best view. Her jaw dropped and eyes widened.
This couldn’t be. The runway was completely empty. This explained the lack of people here. This turned out to be a fruitless endeavor. All of her running and all of her energy was used up on a dead end. Nyaan scratched gently at the glass, her fingers balled into fists.
A glimmer from the runway caught her eye. A mobile suit was docking. It was a smaller unit, not bearing the color schemes of the Earth Federation or of Zeon. This was likely a mobile suit dedicated to construction or maintenance of the colony.
The mobile suit knelt down, the lights powered off, and the cockpit opened, allowing the worker to pop out. He scurried off, likely to go home or check in with his supervisor for his next assignment.
Nyaan eyed the mobile suit once again. This was her only chance. Once the airlock doors lifted, allowing for runway access again, Nyaan hurried towards the nearest door that could get her into the loading bay. She looked around, making sure she wasn’t seen. While the lack of people was a bad omen at first, it was now turning into a sign of good luck.
She dashed across the runway where the mobile suit was. Climbing into the cockpit was the easy part. Her next obstacle would be figuring out the controls. Never in her life would she have imagined herself in the cockpit. She was overwhelmed by the sheer amount of buttons, switches, and levers.
After some fiddling, Nyaan managed to close the hatch of the cockpit and even power the suit on. The screen booted up, eventually showing her much more information than she could process at the moment.
One screen showed a map. There were some premarked destinations that she scrolled through, complete with coordinates. She set her navigation to Side 6, remembering the emergency notice mentioning it specifically being the most viable option from here.
With a sharp exhale, Nyaan anxiously took a hold of the controls. Figuring out how to get the mobile suit to stand up straight was hard enough. Getting it to move how she wanted to was tricky as well. The machine felt clunky heavy, and she had trouble believing that a machine like this could be used in combat, let alone win a war.
Nyaan was surprised that the machine stopped moving after the first few steps. She moved the control stick forward, just as she did before. No luck. Suddenly, the screen overlay glowed red, bearing a singular warning notification: CATAPULT COUPLED.
Radio static sounded and she heard what sounded like one of the employees at the station speak to her: “Matheson. I didn’t realize you’re going back out so soon.”
Nyaan froze. She was worried she had been caught, but it sounded like the worker on the other end of the radio had no idea she was in the mobile suit. She cleared her throat, and with the deepest voice she could muster, she answered back, “There's a thing outside that I need to look at. Boss’ orders.”
Nyaan shrunk in her seat. Nothing about that felt convincing, and the silence from the radio didn't vode well. Beads of sweat formed on Nyaan’s forehead.
The static sounded again. “You got it, champ. Don’t be too long. You’ve gotta get to your family. Engaging launch sequence.”
A countdown appeared, overlayed onto her main camera feed. Nyaan tightened her harnesses and took a deep breath. She watched as all the doors going into the building activated their airlocks. The mobile suit’s engine roared, blasting loudly. The gigantic door that led out into the void of space opened before her.
Nyaan looked out.
There was nothing out there that she could see, but this was still her best chance for survival. She gripped the control sticks, and as the countdown hit zero, the mobile suit was launched forward and the back of her head slammed into the seat. Her backpack, which was sat down on the ground and not secured to anything, fell behind her with a dense thud.
Before she knew it, she was floating along. As she gained some distance, she saw the outside of the colony for the first time. Nyan looked around with the mobile suit, pointed the head around in an attempt to see more of her surroundings. There were a handful of shuttles likely heading to Side 6.
Her hands were still tense, gripping onto the controls. Nyaan felt her bottom lip quiver, and she looked back one last time towards Side 2. She was born here. It was all she knew, and she would likely never see it again.
There had to be a bright side, despite everything that happened today. She managed to push forward. She made it. She was free.
Nyaan’s shoulders slouched as she felt a wave of sadness wash against her. Her heart sank deep into the pit of her stomach. Why wasn’t she happier?