Didn’t he say earlier that all the entrances to other stations were blocked?

Of course, there was no time to ask. I kept my mouth shut and followed behind him, retracing the path lit by the green mushrooms.

The sounds from behind grew more distant. Were they not very fast? And what were they in the first place?

There were too many things I wanted /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ to throw at him in words, but I could not speak.

The nameless man did not bother to quiet his footsteps. He ran lightly. So lightly it made me wonder if we would be caught like this.

The screen doors appeared again. The senior passed by the place we had rushed through earlier without a glance.

I too did not look toward the open screen door, just kept running.

Before long, something like a small cart with wheels on the rails appeared.

“Water cart.”

He said briefly.

“Hold on tight. I made it a bit faster.”

I quickly climbed onto the water cart.

With a clatter, the cart set off.

Not that fast, I thought.

No sooner had I thought it than it began to accelerate. Air slashed at my ears painfully. Reflexively I gripped the cart’s edge tightly.

The cart sped along the rails.

“If you’re confident, you could stick around and fight.”

The senior suddenly said something strange.

Watching the gently curving tracks, I turned my head toward him.

“What?”

“If you think you can win against the ones chasing you, you could fight them.”

It took me a long moment to understand.

By the time I realized that what he meant was exactly what I feared, the track ended.

A wall blocked by landslide soil appeared.

The senior slammed the brakes and stopped the cart.

“Well. Since we don’t know how many are back there, we can’t risk it.”

Without waiting for my answer, he jumped off the cart.

There were no mushrooms here. It was nearly perfect darkness. Only the faint glow of tiny luminescent stickers stuck to the cart shone dimly. I climbed down carefully, nerves taut, following the senior.

He was crouching in the darkness.

“...What are you doing?”

“Close the entrance after you come in.”

He suddenly disappeared into the wall.

I groped with my arms, searching where he had gone. With nothing visible, I could only flail. After several minutes, I discovered where he had gone. A passage had been cut into the wall. My arm sank into the darkness.

Inside the passage, not a shred of light.

So this is how it feels to be blind. I staggered inside, fumbling until I managed to shut the door. When the door closed, even the faint light I had not noticed vanished. I could not tell how high the ceiling was, nor how wide the passage.

Stretching my arms out, my left hand touched the wall.

I moved, straining my senses on the feel under my palm and the sound ahead.

Strange feeling.

“What is this passage?”

I whispered as I tried not to fall behind, yet not bump into the Badger ahead.

From the pitch-darkness, an answer returned.

“I dug it. It connects three stations.”

“Impressive.”

“Which hand are you touching the wall with?”

I worried I might hit my head.

Suppressing my unease, I answered.

“My left hand.”

“Good. Keep your left hand on the wall, and you’ll reach our destination.”

“How far?”

“A bit of a walk.”

A short silence.

Then he spoke again.

“This won’t let us escape completely, but it’ll give us some distance.”

“That’s the best we can hope for.”

“Fake rookie.”

He meant me, right?

I really had to ask this man something. He clearly knew something.

I forced down the churn in my stomach and answered.

“Yes?”

“Do you still like humans?”

I was silent for a long time.

Mouth closed, I retraced my memories. There weren’t many. Just fragments that popped up and the new ones I had gathered. Each time I tried to sleep, I clutched them tightly, stroking them carefully.

Where were my roots? It would be nice to have memories to stand on. Since opening my eyes with no memories to lean on, I had kept staggering. I barely managed not to fall, clinging to the fragments of memory, instincts, and the goodwill of those around me.

But in the sleepless nights of loss I could not explain, I held on to one fragment.

A voice from long ago, bursting out the moment I thought my life was over. My own voice.

Of course I must love humans.

I pressed my palm firmly against the wall.

“Yes.”

“...That’s a relief.”

“Senior. Am I not human?”

I asked quietly.

His footsteps stopped. I stopped as well.

Of course I could not see his face, but I lifted my head toward where he would be.

“...What are you saying?”

“I have no memories.”

I answered calmly to his bewildered question.

“I lost them. I woke inside the Core not long ago. Tell me what you know about me.”

Silence.

Time passed where all I could feel was touch, as though sight, hearing, and smell were all paralyzed.

Stay here too long and a person would go insane. Having dropped this bomb, I calmly thought such things.

Ah. A few steps ahead, he seemed to turn and look at me.

It was only intuition, but I felt him staring.

“That’s true, isn’t it.”

“Yes.”

After a long time, his sunken voice returned, and I replied calmly.

“Sadly, it is the truth. How do you know me, senior?”

Another silence.

It was just as well I couldn’t see his face. Would I get an answer? Did I even want one? I couldn’t tell if I should feel fear or hope.

The reply came slowly.

“How did you become a Badger?”

“Yehyeon accepted me.”

“Yehyeon? Commander Yehyeon? Why? Because he couldn’t bring himself to scrap your enhanced body?”

“I thought so too, but that wasn’t the only reason.”

“What then. What did he say?”

“...That I’m like his joker card. Whether I become the card of victory or the card of defeat, only time will tell...”

The senior drew a sharp breath.

Too embarrassing a phrase to say myself. Joker card? Such flashy words for someone like me, worth nothing.

Awkward, I stared into the darkness where his head would be.

Then he burst into laughter, abrupt and wild. (A bit frightening.)

“So that bastard knows too!”

After laughing for a long while, the man finally spoke.

“I thought he knew nothing. But he knew it all. Of course—given his position, he’d have been watching the truth all along. Right, I’d forgotten. That’s what he was. That’s the kind of guy he was.”

“Uh, senior, I’d like to know that truth too.”

“Yehyeon didn’t tell you?”

He didn’t.

To be precise, he seemed to want me to recover it myself. From the way he always gave me time to ask questions.

I explained, and the senior hummed. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

“When you told him you’d lost your memory, what did he say? You must have told him you remembered nothing.”

“Well. The others reported it. He didn’t say much to me directly...”

Ah.

Right, the first meeting.

Forgetting might be a blessing.

That’s what he said. It had sounded like a mutter to himself. I could still picture that moment as clearly as a photograph.

Sunlight pouring through the tall windows onto the desk. The long, white fingers gently covering the papers.

When I explained, the man snorted.

“In the end, you’ll have to remember everything. Blessing, my ass.”

“Then help me remember. I’m desperate.”

“First, let’s walk again. Stay still and we’ll be caught and die.”

Answer me!

Maybe my desperate plea reached him, because soon after, his footsteps resumed, and so did his voice.

It was a bombshell.

“You’re not human.”

Damn.

“At least, your former comrades you’ve met here all insist they’re not human. Whether that’s true, I don’t know. I never heard the whole story from them either. I wasn’t trusted.”

“...Who the hell are they?”

“Are you crying?”

I’m trying not to.

Pretend not to notice my voice trembling as I struggle to shove the tears back in. Ricardo had said I wasn’t a 10th-class creature. Ro had said, but you look human.

Were they wrong? Were the seniors who looked at me like I was alien right?

The passage sloped. I walked silently for a long while.

The senior broke the silence again.

“When we reach the next station, don’t touch the walls. They have mouths.”

“...Why are we going somewhere like that?”

“If our lives are on the edge, so will the ones chasing us.”

Not wrong. Except that it also meant we might die before they caught us.

I didn’t say that aloud. My voice would crack.

And I was still reeling from the bomb the deserter had dropped. Ignoring it wouldn’t help. Think logically. This senior must have encountered those he called my former comrades during his desertion. And from them, he heard about me. That I was their betrayer.

And that I, like them, was not human.

Damn it. How would I ever face Ami and Ricardo again.

“But I look human...”

“We’re almost there.”

He suddenly said.

Head lowered as I walked, I stretched my neck out. Still saw nothing, but I felt the tension in his voice.

Then he added quietly.

“Whatever happens, don’t touch the walls.”

“Yes.”

“There won’t be any obvious creatures, but if there are, don’t fight—shove them into the wall and run.”

“Yes.”

“And don’t listen to the sound of bells.”

“What?”

What did that mean?

A faint light appeared. A thin streak leaking through an open door.

I almost cried from the return of sight. Not that I’d ever truly lost it.

As the door slowly opened, the light grew. Now I could clearly see the senior’s silhouette. Stepping toward the light, he muttered:

“In this station, you hear bells.”

“Bells?”

“Anyone who followed the sound never came back.”

He didn’t look back at me.

The dark passage ended. My vision flashed clear in the light. I chased after him as he broke into a run toward the brightness, his voice heavy with dread in my ears.

“Shut your ears and run.”

Clenching my teeth, I ran after him.