Alice in Borderland: The Cycle Continues

55) Fifth Day of Exhibitions

"But that's beside that point. After the final game was taken down, which I unfortunately didn't have the pleasure of witnessing, Then, a simple question was asked: are we to accept or refuse permanent residency in the Borderlands? It all finally made sense at that moment."

===Maeda Mihoko===
(Chūō Ward)

I shivered, juddled against a small heating lamp, my fingers numb. Mattresses propped on their side surrounded us, the makeshift fort draped in layers of blankets. We had only managed to find one long-sleeved shirt in a broken wardrobe, out of all the unlocked rooms in the hotel. Zakū had insisted on me taking it, since he had his jacket, though his shivering was enough to knock down the entire mattress fort.

The room was shrouded in complete blackness, the only illumination being the heating lamp between us, which we turned on every thirty minutes for thirty minutes to conserve its battery. Layers of paper were taped against the window, then blankets were hung, before final;ly the curtains were drawn. He said that in the cold snowstorm, the faintest light through the window from our lamp would betray our location to the King of Spades. And it also provided insulation.

The wind howled, and snow pummeled the window. This was the catastrophe for day five: a blizzard that dominated the Borderlands, forcing everyone indoors or underground. It began as a slight chill the second the clock struck four in the afternoon, but the temperature had dropped below freezing within the span of thirty minutes. After the first hour, frozen corpses and layers of snow had buried the ground.

I had four blankets around me, and Zakū had three. We were pressed against each other, and for the first time, I could make out the most distinct parts of his features. The light in his eyes was dim, but were a lighter brown than what I had expected. Gray fuzz had begun spreading from the tips of his hair to the sides of his face. Also, a faint, light scar was on his left temple.

Yet despite the cold, he continued flipping through Charī's sketchbook, rereading each page until he reached the end, then starting over again. Since the start of today, he was rereading his sketchbook for the fifth time. Sometimes, his lips would move, signifying him mumbling the text under his breath.

I blinked hard, putting my arms to my knees and burying my face into my arms, pushing the face of Charī out of my mind–and the face of Haga, too. The memory burned hot in my mind.

. . .

"Come on, we're almost in the clear!" Zakū shouted, as the sounds of crumbling infrastructure and screaming rumbled behind us. His hand clutched Charī's notebook, which is what he was going through as the blimp came. Haga was next to me, his glasses bouncing with every step he took.

"Decree 7:58, the Shimanowa office building will explode!"

The building to our side blew up, consumed by a cloud of flames and smoke, shrapnel bursting in all directions. The people around us screamed, shielding their heads from the falling rubble, a woman in front of me torn by a shower of debris. Scraps of metal flew through our surroundings, a fragment shooting into Haga's abdomen.

It tossed him to the side, and he yelped, clutching his hip. A hole was torn through his stomach, and blood was spewing from the gruesome wound.

"Haga!" I shouted, turning against the flow of the crowd and running back to where he fell. Zakū kept running, stopped and hesitated, before turning back and helping him up.

"Come on!" He said, supporting him over his shoulder. We shuffled away from the university, down the street, as the King of Spades' blimp turned and began drifting away. A few minutes had passed, and the sun had begun setting. We turned the corner, Haga's body shaking with each step, blood running down his shirt leaving a trail behind us. After we turned the corner, Zakū led us to an alleyway, laying Haga down facing the sunset.