OBLIVIOUS

Chapter 5

Luminous, blinding lights were aimed at us like some kind of weapons and I heard several noises on the ground. "Here they come," I heard my companion whispered to himself and I wish that he would explain what was happening, or what exactly is the thing that was coming towards us that alarmed him. I was facing the other direction from where he was looking because he was still carrying me on his shoulders and that just made me more scared.

I wanted him to put me down, but he did not move a muscle. Aside from it only made me uncomfortable from the pain surging through my already strained body, the weapon that he used on blasting my room's window was almost poking my eyes as it was strapped to his back.

His silence also irritated me. I wanted him to tell me what he was seeing, but of course, I couldn't tell him what was on my head. As time goes by I felt more helpless and I hated it with my whole being.

"Targets found..." wheezed a loud voice nearby. I couldn't tell if it was a man's or a woman's. "Axis 1, identified. Baron 1, identified. Protocol Number 1 initiate."

What they said made me think that there was a Mediborg, and this was what made my companion froze. However, I remember him saying a different name, so I'm not really sure.

"We need to get out of here," this young man said and without a warning, he just ran to his left. We heard loud explosions again. Those loud bangs convinced me that whatever or whoever was chasing after us have the intention to hurt us. "Hold your breath, we're going into the smoke," he added.

I had no time to prepare. Bluish smoke was all around me as if we just delved into a cloud of this eerie-looking smoke. I did what he told me to. I held my breath while he was running blindly on the smoke. We could still hear the explosions behind us so I presume that someone or something was still chasing us.

But as I expected when we entered this smoke cloud, the young man stumbled upon something on the ground causing him to trip to the ground. It was lucky that we fell into the grass, but the fall caught me off guard so I accidentally inhaled a lot of the smoke.

Gasping with the dread of what just happened, my throat immediately felt like it was starting to burn from the gas that just went inside me. I instantly felt warm inside. But it was not the good kind of warm. It felt like my body temperature was fluctuating oddly. My cheeks burned and my eyes watered. And then I coughed.

I coughed so loudly that I knew somebody would hear me, thus locating us. "I told you not to breathe the smoke! This was our only way to get away from them!" he yelled, scaring me more than I already did. He was so mad at what happened to me but forgot that this was all his fault. Besides, his shouts were loud enough for people to hear too.

I saw him come to me and he started carrying me again. This was the only good thing about him so far. He was serious about letting me escape with him. He must've really planned on getting me out of this place then.

"You'll feel giddy and numb because of the smoke but you'll live," he said to me as soon as he was able to run while carrying me again. "But I'm warning you not to inhale it again as it is toxic."

He resumed walking into the cloud of bluish smoke, so I held my breath again. It's obviously hard, but I didn't want to die from this toxic gas yet. I still want to live even for just another day. I don't want this to end just like this. I don't even know who I am yet.

I don't even know if I can still survive after the amount of smoke I inhaled, but I wanted to believe this person. I wanted to hold on to the possibility that both of us will be able to escape from here alive.

"Let us rest here for a while," he told me as he stopped just as when we got out of that huge swirl of blue smoke. I looked around with just my eyes and saw that we were somewhere with lush vegetation. It looked like a weird garden or a meadow with plants everywhere. He put me behind a tall bush with gigantic, ear-shaped leaves.

I could hear him gasping for air even with the respirator on. The sprint must've tired him. "Y-You---"

I gasped too as soon as I realized what I just did. Even this person with me right now looked surprised at what we just both heard. "You can talk now huh?"

I nodded and tried to utter a single word again, but nothing came out of my mouth. That flustered me because I wanted to show him that I was not as helpless as I appeared to be but my damn body doesn't just want to cooperate with me right now. I can't understand why there are times when I can use my voice and move my body and then when I wanted to use them my body just does not respond.

"I don't want to repeat this to you but don't push yourself too much," he said, finally removing his mask. I was able to see his full face now. He is definitely young. Maybe in his late teens. Or early twenties. He had a small beard growing on his chin. His eyebrows were thick, and he had pale skin just like me. Freckles are present on his cheeks and he had this default expression on him like he was a little bit haughty. His image screamed that he was not the type of person you can boss around because he looks like he is the boss.

"Can you move your neck now?" he asked, looking at me with that smug look, but he also appears like he's in deep thought like he was studying my appearance too.

I nodded to his question, and he pointed something behind me so I looked around to see what was it that he wanted to show me. My neck hurt with the movement but I endured the pain. In fact, I was already used to the physical pain I had been feeling since I was able to get up from my bed that I don't care about it anymore.

Behind me where he was pointing stood some kind of fence in the distance. It's tall as a building, and it's glowing an electric yellow kind of light that appears to 'flow' on its body. As an afterthought, I think the only reason why I could see it right now in the dark is because of that particular light that it has been emitting. Otherwise, it would have been impossible to spot in the darkness as it looks like the steel that makes up its entire body is made of a black type of metal.

"Do you see that glowing fence? Behind that is our freedom," said my companion and savior. "If we can cross over to the other side, we can be safe from the White Shadows and the Slackers."

"Sla... Sla---?"

"Slackers," he repeated what I was trying to say. "They were the ones that were chasing us. They are basically like the Mediborgs that visit your room, but the Slackers' main purpose is to guard the facility against intruders and catch Mosses like us if we try to escape from here. There were three of them earlier so I decided to just run away. I can fight them but they already know who I am and they're very keen on killing me. I can't risk our safety." He was explaining to me in a calm demeanor that surprised me as I thought that the angst he was showing earlier was his usual personality. "I don't want to get killed. They nearly had me the last time I showed up here."

"K-Killed?"

He nodded. "Yes. They have been chasing me ever since I escaped. The Slackers are not very merciful you know,

so every time we come face to face with each other they say the same thing when they see me. 'Eliminate.' They have no plans on recapturing me so I guess that means they no longer need me on whatever it is that they're doing in that building."

It was my turn to nod at what he shared. It looks like Forte had the right to be suspicious about this facility. No one in their right mind will try to kill a patient who had just woken up even if the said patient tried to escape. Something is going on and that's what I need to know.

"I could no longer hear them," he suddenly whispered looking around us. "They're probably gone. They must have gone to the east side of the fence as they already spotted me there before..." He stood up and wore his mask again. "Come on, we need to get out of here. The smoke here already cleared and if we stay here they might be able to detect us."

"H-How?"

"How can they spot us? These Slackers are not humans, you know. They are machines called robots. They have this advanced technology built-in them that enables them to detect any movement in their vision. I don't get how that works but that's what I overheard from a White Shadow before. That's also the reason why I only come here at night when the smoke is thick enough to cover me from their vision."

That made a lot of sense. If getting out of here was hard, then entering this place must be hard too. In order to get inside this place, you need to study the security first. So this person with me right now knows a lot of what is happening around here. If scary robots that can kill you were roaming freely on this place, then getting inside here was already one heck of an achievement. Outside the building where I woke up is a vast field of grass, bushes, and rocky terrain that makes it look like a huge garden that's been unattended for some time already. It's a big, wide-open space that sometimes has this weird smoke billowing on, so spotting someone here from a distance is actually not that hard.

"The smoke here only appears from time to time, so we have to move on," he added to me. I still wanted to ask more questions but he already scooped me up again and carried me on his shoulders.

He walked briskly into the direction of the fence, while I was again looking at the other direction. It was here when I was able to take notice of the plants and vegetation around us for the first time. Most of these plants have this other-worldly appearance on them. Also, they seem to glow in the dark, noticeably their leaves and flowers. They glow in different kinds of colors, but mostly neon-like. Some are ghostly in appearance while the others looked like they were alive, with the way they emit these strange lights. The glow on them appears then disappears in a blink of an eye like little will-o-wisps. Staring at them gives off this relaxing feeling, but could also hurt your eyes if you stare long enough as their colors create this illusion that confuses your vision.

And then on the horizon, just above where the building where I came from is the moon---or is it the moon? I'm pretty sure that the moon is round and is bigger than what I am seeing now in the sky, but this moon that I am seeing is a little different.

First of all, it is not round. Second' it is not as bright as I expect it to be. It has this pale light that makes it look like it's half-dead. And lastly, it looks like it's moving. Or hovering. It looked like someone just suspended it there in the air. It intrigued me a lot so I made a mental note to remind me that I should ask this person with me about it later.

At long last, we reached the fence, and my companion put me down on the ground again. I was able to sit on the ground now by using my arms as support, which gave me a good view of the fence looming over us. I could also hear running water somewhere near us but it sounds like it's on the other side. I shivered as I began to feel the cold that I instantly realized was coming from the water source that I was hearing. A cold breeze was also coming from there right into where we are.

The fence itself was as high as twice my height, which appeared to be made of some kind of charcoal-colored steel. I saw my companion pick up something on the ground and then threw it on the fence. It was a pebble, and as soon as it touched the fence it snapped into two with the sound of being a mini-explosion. That confirmed my theory that the light it was emitting was not for show. We can't touch the fence without getting toasted.

"Now our only problem is how to get there," he said to me worriedly.

"B-But how y-you---?"

"I came here from the east side of this fence. In there, there is a small creek that is connected to a larger pond on the other side. The fence on that part looks like a bridge with running water under it. I swam there just to get here."

"Can we s-swim?" I asked slowly with the voice of someone who sounded like an infant that was able to talk for the first time.

"We can, but the water current just below the fence-bridge is strong enough to sweep you since you can't still move normally. You'll drown if we use that path as the water there is deep."

"B-But how---?"

"I think we can try another way, but it's tedious to do and we might get caught as it can take a long time to do."

"What is it?" At last, I was able to talk without stuttering and that raised my spirits.

"We can dig a hole here huge enough for us to crawl into. We can use it to avoid this electric fence, but as I told you it can take a long time. It's only a few hours before dawn so we need to hurry."

"O-Okay..."

"So what do you want us to do? Do we cross that river on the east side or do we dig a small tunnel under this freaking fence?"

I was not able to answer him as I did not even know why he was asking me what to do in the first place. The options he mentioned were both dangerous, other than the fact that they were time-consuming too. If we choose to dig a hole in the ground that will connect to the other side of the fence, it will probably take a long time as we need to make sure our man-made tunnel doesn't let us touch any part of the fence once we crawl in it. And if we choose to just swim under the fence-bridge, going there from where we are is already a hard task. Plus there's a huge risk that those Slackers might find us before we can even finish half of what are we going to do.

"I don't w-want to de-decide..." I said with conviction. I just hoped that this person doesn't get pissed at me again for saying that.

"Alright then," he replied with a haughty smile. "I'll decide what we'll do. But because you refused to choose, don't blame me if you'll die..."

"What did y-you chose?" I asked anxiously. I was praying that he chooses to dig, but I was not surprised at what he said too.

"We will swim."