cHApTEr 15. EcosysTEms (3 of 3)

The car Mioray was in stopped in the parking lot in front of the storage facility, followed by the other one that belonged to the guests. Mioray stepped out. He was already able to stand and move on his own. The water he had drunk really seemed to help or it might just have been a placebo effect.

His clothes were ruined. The right sleeve of his hoodie had burned away, and there was a hole at his side from the gunshot. His shorts were covered in soot, and he wasn’t sure it would come out in the wash. Only the sneakers might be salvageable. They were red with his blood, but that wasn’t a problem; the blood would eventually return to his body. Interestingly, a few yellowish blisters had formed on his burned arm, but he didn’t worry about it. He was sure it would heal neatly, like his other wounds did in the past.

Erinel and Lokiel disappeared into the storage facility almost immediately. Kevin followed them, remarking that the adults had matters to discuss. That left Mioray alone with the visitors from another city, the same ones who had tried to kill him and then kept him pinned down until Erinel arrived.

Mioray didn’t feel comfortable staying with them, especially not with Amika giving him a pointed stare. She was wearing Jean’s brown fedora, probably to hide the bald patches on her scalp, but it only made her look more intimidating, adding a sort of mafioso flair. Mioray hurried off to find the others from his group, starting with Mia’s place. The guests followed after him.

He felt a wave of relief when he discovered Mia wasn’t out somewhere. She was in her room playing the guitar. When she rolled the door open, the instrument was strapped over her shoulder and connected to a speaker with a cable. She even had two listeners, Matt and Farah, sitting nearby as if nothing unusual had happened today. They were still lounging in the cane-line armchairs. Matt looked better than he had earlier, and his mouth was full of lollipops.

Before anyone could say anything, Kiriya suddenly pushed past Mioray – he had a brief, irrational fear his feet might snap again – and rushed straight to Mia, leaning so close her nose nearly touched the guitar.

“Wow, she’s beautiful!” Kiriya squealed as if she were looking at the cutest puppy in the world instead of an instrument. She grabbed Mia’s hands excitedly. “Is she yours? Do you play her?”

Because Mia’s hands were occupied, or perhaps she was simply too stunned by the enthusiasm of this unfamiliar girl, she could only nod shyly. Mioray suspected the latter. Mia glanced at him, clearly hoping he would explain what was happening.

Instead, it was Saria who stepped in.

“For Holy Mirabelle’s sake, Kiriya, why do you always have to be like this?!” The red-haired woman grabbed Kiriya by one of the earrings along her pierced ear and dragged her away from Mia. “Can’t you behave like a decent human being for once?”

“What’s your problem?” Kiriya howled. “Why do you always pick on me?!”

Saria looked ready to tear the girl’s ear off before Niles gently placed a hand on her forearm.

“Hey, it’s alright. You don’t need to feel embarrassed,” he said calmly. Then he turned his covered gaze toward Kiriya. “She’s not picking on you. But you know people might not appreciate being overwhelmed by someone they’ve never met. You should introduce yourself first.”

“Fine, fine, let’s do it properly,” Kiriya muttered, touching her ear to make sure it was still intact. She turned back to Mia, who was watching them in bewilderment. “Look, sorry if I startled you. My name is Kiriya. When I was alive I played lead guitar in a band, so if you ever want some pointers, I can help.”

With hands free again, Mia began signing.

It’s fine. I just wasn’t prepared for that kind of reaction.

“Wait, you don’t talk?!” Kiriya blurted out in surprise.

“Kiriya!” Saria snapped.

“What?” Kiriya shot back. “I’m just curious. Is that forbidden too? For all I know, maybe she doesn’t talk because of some psychological trauma.”

Mia’s expression darkened, and she placed her hands on her hips.

“Mia has been deaf since birth,” Mioray stepped in quickly before the conversation could derail further. He could already see that getting along with everyone wasn’t going to be simple. “You know what, let’s go inside and get to know each other better. Mia, can we come in?”

Mia stood there for a moment with her lips pursed, considering whether she should invite everyone into her room. Then she raised her index finger, slightly curled it, and motioned it toward herself. Mioray understood it as an invitation.

Mia’s room wasn’t very big, and it quickly became crowded. That was despite the fact that Jean was missing. He had slipped away unnoticed even before they reached Mia’s place. Saria explained that he was always something of a loner and preferred spending time on rooftops. Perhaps he was doing the same now. Neither she nor the others knew much about him, only that he had been a sniper or something close to it in his past life.

Once everyone settled in, Mioray introduced his friends, while Saria took the lead in introducing her group. As Mioray had guessed, she was the most reasonable among them. Niles spoke little and mostly listened, but he balanced out Kiriya well. She tended to be tactless whenever she opened her mouth, and the blindfolded young man was usually the one who pointed it out to her in a way she would accept before apologizing. The only time he let her vent was when she started complaining about Kevin – how he had dared to attack and paralyze her. Kiriya called Kevin a jerk, which might have been the one thing everyone present could agree on.

During all of this, Mioray tried to keep his distance from Amika. He avoided looking at her, not even from the corner of his eye. The misunderstanding about her husband’s death had been cleared up, but he still had the uneasy feeling she remained hostile toward him and was simply waiting for the right moment to beat him up.

And in a particularly unfortunate turn of events, Farah took a liking to Amika. The reason was simple and rather insulting. She admired how Amika had ambushed Mioray and beaten the hell out of him.

So much for Mioray’s friendship with Farah. He had expected her to be cautious around someone who had just tried to kill him. Mia and Matt, for instance, were polite but clearly wary. Farah, on the other hand, had immediately found common ground with Amika, not even bothered by what had happened at the burning residential building complex.

That axe she had thrown into Mioray’s back last Friday the Thirteenth? That definitely was no accident.

He tried pointing out that Amika hadn’t exactly won their fight. He had managed to land a headbutt on her, and part of her hair had burned thanks to his quick thinking. He would have escaped too, if Jean hadn’t shot him. In the end it had been two against one, which hardly seemed fair.

Oh well. Farah didn’t want to hear any of it. After a while she left with Amika, probably to start some kind of Mioray hate club. He didn’t care.

With Farah – and especially Amika – gone, things became much more relaxed. At least that was how Mioray felt. He chatted with Saria while the others gathered around Niles. Mia and Matt were fascinated by his ability to move around confidently with his eyes covered by a blindfold. Kiriya joined them as well, sharing their excitement, though she likely already knew the trick behind it.

“It’s nice, having a place where everyone can stay together,” Saria said, watching the others with a faint smile that carried a hint of bitterness.

“Why? You don’t have one?” Mioray asked.

He was sitting against the wall. From time to time he caught Matt’s attention and quickly covered his eyes, though they were still visible through the holes in his palms. It brought a few laughs out of the boy.

“Not really,” Saria admitted. “Usually we’re on our own, just looking for the souls of the dead. To tell the truth, each of our deaths is a known fact, so we can’t really see our friends and families anymore. We’re all from different cities, and before coming here we stayed in Chern City for a while. We don’t remain in one place for long. Often we help in other areas where too many souls gather and the greanrips assigned there can’t handle them in time.”

“So you’ve seen other greanrips?”

“We have. And they all look human.”

“I wonder what that’s about,” Mioray mused. “So I guess Lokiel wasn’t lying when he said you came here to help. It’s hard to trust that guy.”

He remembered Lokiel’s triangular smile and grimaced. Really, how did that greanrip manage an expression like that? Mioray had never thought it possible, not with the kind of facial muscles humans had.

“I know. He gives off that vibe,” Saria said with an apologetic chuckle. “But hey, he gave us a second chance to live, so I can’t really complain. It’s not unusual for greanrips to help each other, and Lokiel uses it as an excuse to travel around, since he gets bored staying in one place for too long. Still, excuse or not, he does help his kind, so I don’t think your situation is an exception. Though I’ll be honest, I have no idea what that blade he mentioned was.”

At this point Mioray wasn’t even surprised that Lokiel had kept that part from them. He told Saria about Terry and Amika’s husband, Herman Clopton – the two Restored whose souls had been sealed in the Cursed Blade of Avalon – and how it had happened. That explanation inevitably led to the subject of how the undead could lose control and go berserk. Saria listened quietly, nodding now and then. It turned out she and the others had never heard about that state the undead could fall into.

Somehow the conversation shifted to the Soul Collectives. Saria’s group had encountered them during soulwork as well, though only in their ghostly form, never like the one Mioray had faced last year, the massive black creature with a gaping mouth and barbed-wire teeth.

Mioray also brought her up to speed on what was happening with the Order of Mercy. He didn’t see any reason to keep it from her. She and her group already knew that the Order had created the resurrection serum and that some greanrips, like Erinel, were trying to stop them from producing more.

At some point their conversation trailed off when they noticed the others becoming unusually animated, with Kiriya growing particularly loud.

“What’s going on?” Saria asked, her expression suddenly turning stern. She stepped closer to the group, and Mioray followed.

“Sorry, Saria, I’m trying to talk Kiriya out of it,” Niles said with a helpless shrug. “It’ll be fine.”

“Come on, there’s no harm in it,” Kiriya said, throwing her arms up.

Mioray glanced at Mia and Matt. Mia was blushing for some reason and signing quickly, though half the signs were unfamiliar to him.

“I just said I liked her piercings,” Matt explained, confused. He took the lollipop out of his mouth. “She showed me the one in her belly button. Then she said she has her nipples pierced too, and that she could show them if I wanted.”

“What?!” Mioray and Saria exclaimed at the same time.

Kiriya rolled her eyes.

“What’s the big deal?” she asked.

“Kiriya, he’s just a kid!” Saria said, struggling to keep her anger under control. Her hands were trembling.

“So?” Kiriya replied incredulously. “It’s not like he’s going to grow up. He’s going to stay in a child’s body forever. Are you really going to treat him like a child forever too?”

Mioray didn’t know whether she truly meant it, but Kiriya had touched on a sensitive subject, one everyone tried to avoid, even if it crossed their minds from time to time. Mioray certainly thought about it. Mia probably did as well. She was the one who homeschooled Matt and had taken care of him the most since Terry’s passing.

The boy could learn new things like any other child, but it was still too early to know how being dead would affect his development as a person. His body would never grow; it would remain the same forever. His brain wouldn’t develop either. Did that mean he would stay a child forever, in both body and mind? Or would his soul continue to mature, changing his outlook and making him wiser with time? No one had an answer to that.

“He’s still a kid, at least for now,” was all Mioray said. He ignored Matt’s protests that followed. Most kids believed they weren’t children anymore, eager to grow up faster than they should.

Kiriya sighed.

“I don’t get you people,” she said. “Why do you keep acting like you’re still normal? You’re not. You’re dead. You’re free from the shackles of social norms, and what do you do with that freedom? Nothing. You keep restraining yourselves as if other people’s opinions still matter. I don’t want that. I’ll be whoever I want to be.”

She walked to the door and rolled it open.

“Where are you going?” Saria asked after her.

“Does it matter?” Kiriya replied without turning around. “Relax, I just want some air. You’re not going to object to that, are you?”

She disappeared into the corridor, and no one seemed eager to follow her.

“I swear, that girl,” Saria huffed, puffing out her cheeks. “I’m sorry about her behavior. She just… took her death differently. She was a nice person at first, but then she changed.”

“I kind of like her,” Matt admitted.

“Well, of course you do,” Saria said, narrowing her eyes while Matt smiled innocently, shifting the lollipop from one corner of his mouth to the other. “Anyway, I hope we’re not being too much of a bother. Other than Mioray getting attacked earlier today, I mean.”

With only the five of them left, they began talking about their lives before becoming Restored. Inevitably, the conversation drifted toward their deaths. Out of respect for those who weren’t present, they spoke only about their own.

Mioray was the first to start. He told them how he had met Erinel in a bar just hours before the Dismantler murdered him. The killer had turned out to be Amika’s husband. Mioray spoke about losing his left arm and getting it back a month later when they raided the Dismantler’s lair. He also described the attack at the university, where Herman Clopton, transformed into a twisted killer, had murdered Mioray’s friends while hunting for him.

His perspective on that chaotic chapter of his life – or death – had changed over time. Back then it had been shocking, terrifying, and deeply traumatic. Now it sounded like an intense story he could tell others. Saria listened with rapt attention, gasping whenever he paused for dramatic effect and shaking her head in disbelief. Niles was less expressive, but he seemed to follow every detail closely.

“That’s quite a story,” the blond man said when Mioray finished. Mioray couldn’t help but agree. “Mine isn’t as intriguing as yours, but here it goes.”

Mioray hadn’t been certain that anyone could top his story, but as Niles went on to describe the circumstances of his death, Mioray’s quiet pride began to fade. By the end of it, his own tale felt almost insignificant in comparison.

Niles came from a distant part of the world where the political climate was unstable. The region was ruled by a cruel dictator supported by the military, and together they oppressed the population, who wanted peace, freedom, and prosperity. Guerrilla forces formed to resist the regime, and Niles joined them. He wasn’t suited for fighting on the front lines, so he helped from behind, gathering intelligence and maintaining contacts with regions that sympathized with the rebels.

Unfortunately, last year he was exposed and captured by the dictator’s military. They tortured him to extract information about the guerrilla movement. The soldiers did not hesitate to gouge out his eyes right from the start. It was during that time that Lokiel appeared to Niles, offering him a serum that would bring him back to life after death. At the time, Niles thought it was one of the soldiers administering some kind of truth serum, and he didn’t understand why the man was inventing a story about resurrection. He assumed he was simply being mocked.

Later it became clear that the military hadn’t captured Niles so much for the information he carried, but because the soldiers enjoyed torturing their prisoners. A few hours after receiving the serum, Niles succumbed to his wounds and was thrown into a mass grave where the bodies of other rebels and civilians had been dumped. When he regained consciousness, the same man who had given him the serum was there. Niles could not see him since his sight was gone forever, but he recognized Lokiel by the sharp voice that cut through the air. Lokiel offered Niles the chance to join him, but Niles refused.

However, there was nothing left for him to return to. The guerrilla forces had been defeated, and without his eyesight he had no way to survive on his own in the harsh conditions of the dictatorship. Besides, people knew he had been captured, and in that region it usually meant only one thing – death. If anyone saw him alive, questions would arise, and he would be taken again. This time, even death would not release him from the torment, even if he no longer felt pain as he had before dying. After thinking it through, Niles eventually accepted Lokiel’s offer. The greanrip had remained nearby, apparently expecting that Niles might change his mind.

When Niles finished his story, no one spoke for a moment. Mioray lowered his eyes. It was difficult to compete with a story like that. The young man had been a hero, practically a martyr, while Mioray was… just Mioray.

“So I guess the blindfold isn’t only for looking cool,” he said awkwardly.

“Does it make me look cool?” Niles laughed. “Well, I’d be lying if I said I don’t enjoy looking cool. If it does, then I’m all for it.”

“But how can you see then?” Matt asked, pointing his lollipop at him.

“A man has to keep some secrets,” Niles replied, raising a finger to his lips. “If I just told you, you’d lose interest right away.”

Next it was Matt’s turn to share his story, and after him Mia followed, with Matt acting as her interpreter. Mioray already knew what had happened to both of them, so he paid more attention to how they told it.

Matt spoke about his death as if it were something settled and distant, and it always made Mioray wonder how the boy could be so composed about it. He must have missed his parents terribly, yet he never showed it. Much of that was thanks to Mia. She had become something of a surrogate mother to him, and the others always tried to make time for the boy, even Kevin. Perhaps that helped him cope with being separated from his parents. Mioray remembered how devastated Matt had been when Terry died. Terry, like Mia, had been a kind of parental figure to him. Matt had grown deeply attached to them, his new family.

The same was true for Mia. Strangely enough, she almost never spoke about her own family or friends, even though she still had the chance to spend time with them. No one knew she had died, after all. In that sense, there was nothing forcing her to cut those ties. Like Mioray, she had been killed and then continued living afterward. The difference was that, unlike him, she still didn’t know who had killed her.

“You never tried to find the people who killed you?” Saria asked Mia.

Mia took a moment before answering. With a stone face, she tapped her index and middle fingers against her thumb.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you,” Saria hurried to add, thinking she had upset her. “I just thought that if it were me, I’d want to find those bastards.”

“Sometimes knowing doesn’t change anything,” Niles said thoughtfully.

“I understand that!” Saria blurted out, suddenly panicking. She seemed convinced she had ruined the mood. “I’m just saying, that’s all!”

Her face flushed until it nearly matched the color of her hair, and Mia had to calm her down and reassure her that she wasn’t upset. Watching them, Mioray grew thoughtful. The way Mia had paused before replying was unusual for her. Did remembering her death unsettled her? That was only natural, of course, but perhaps something else had crossed her mind as well?

“It’s my turn now, right?” Saria asked after she had calmed down and the color returned to her face. When she began telling her story, Mioray quickly forgot about Mia’s hesitation. He was curious whether his guess about Saria’s deflecting ability was correct. “Well, it’s nothing special, to be honest. I worked at Noi Tanigami. I was a researcher assigned to a project developing a kinetic energy shield that could deflect projectiles and protect its bearer.”

Mia signed a question.

“Right, gleonite – or the dark mirror, as people usually call it – already does something like that,” Saria said when Matt voiced Mia’s question. “But that’s a physical material. It blocks light and costs a fortune to produce. Energy shields are more sophisticated. They are transparent and weightless. They do require power, though. That’s what my team and I were working on, creating a shield that could be generated safely and easily using stardust.”

“Let me guess,” Mioray said. “Something went wrong?”

“What gave it away?” Saria replied with a sarcastic chuckle. “It was a stupid mistake on my part. You see, we had a kitten in the lab…”

Mia grabbed Mioray by his burned sleeve. Don’t let her say the kitten died, she signed quickly, looking alarmed. Mioray barely managed to keep a straight face. The kitten mattered more than Saria herself, apparently.

“…and it got behind the shield right when we were about to test it,” Saria continued, rubbing her chin. “Now that I think about it, our safety procedures could have been a lot better. We tested the shield by firing guns at it. It worked, actually, the bullets bounced right off. The kitten was perfectly safe under the shield. But I panicked – well, you’ve probably noticed that happens to me when I’m stressed – so I ran to get it out of there. The guns had already been deactivated, but when I reached the shield I slipped on the spent bullets lying on the floor, bumped into the shield… bounced off it… and hit my head on the wall.” The red-haired woman sighed. “And that’s how I died. After I was revived, I found out the whole project had been scrapped because of the accident.”

“But what happened to the kitten?” Matt asked the question everyone was waiting for.

“Ah, I believe it’s safe and sound. Last time I checked, one of my colleagues had adopted it.”

Everyone let out a collective breath of relief.

After hearing the story, Mioray found himself impressed. That was certainly another spectacular way to die. Not as tragic or heroic as Niles’s, but just as memorable. And it involved a kitten. Everyone loved kittens.

They kept talking about different things, and now that they knew Niles had once fought against a dictatorship and Saria had been a researcher, there were plenty of questions to ask them. A couple of hours later, when Saturday morning arrived, Matt took Niles to his room to play video games. The boy still couldn’t get over the fact that Niles could somehow see without eyes and wanted to test his ability on everything, including video games. Niles agreed, though he warned that he would only watch Matt play. That disappointed the boy a little, but he accepted it anyway.

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