Duni kept visiting my dreams often these days. Maybe it's because of Ritaishi.
"Are you awake, Soldier? You must be awake!"
I was back in the slave cage of FFF. As soon as I woke up, the sharp stench of rotten flesh filled my nostrils. It was becoming harder and harder to breath inside a cage full of dead soldiers.
Sometimes the deadbodies would talk. They would weep. But I wasn't sure if that was real or I was really just hallucinating. Maybe one or two of them were alive but most of the time they pretended to be dead to avoid drawing Vern's attention.
The door to my cage fell open. Captain Harper stood with a machine gun slung on her shoulder, "I'm sorry but if you don't move we'll have to leave you here."
I could hear sound of gunshots nearby. A fight must have broken out in the FFF Camp. I climbed out of the cage, "What about them?" I asked Harper about my Comrades, "They are alive too."
"They've been dead for days, Soldier, atleast as long as we've been here, they've always been dead," Harper answer. A lump of emotions choked my throat. I blinked away the tears and quickly followed Harper out of the torture room.
The FFF Camp was an underground camp. The entire area was lined with oil burning lamps. Dead bodies were piled up everywhere. Harper tore off a FFF jersey from a deadbody and threw it to me, "Just in case, wear it!" she said while finding herself another jersey.
We moved quietly amidst the mostly empty path. "Who are fighting with FFF?" I asked Harper but she didn't answer. After walking for few minutes we paired up with the blonde girl and the brunette boy. The blonde girl broke down crying seeing Harper, "Godddd you careless woman," she hugged Harper, "You gave me a heart attack! Who told you to go rescue the prisoner alone!"
"The fight is mostly over anyways," Harper shrugged, "But where's Captain Kris?" The blonde girl and the brunette boy exchanged a 'look', "She told us over radio to go find you since you're going to rescue the prisoner alone!"
"Hold on, you're saying she's alone right now?"
"Isn't she with the Rescue team?"
"THERE'S NO RESCUE TEAM CLARA! WE USED A BUNCH OF ARMED DRONES TO DRAW THE FFF army to the front line! She's alone there against sixty FFF soldiers with her freaking toy drones!"
All three of them just stood there for a second absorbing the terror. And then they started running. "I found a tunnel which can directly take us to outside but," said the boy, "It is used as a Ventilation system, so there are probably fans installed in the tunnel."
"Find the switches to turn them off then!" Harper said. "Those switches are in control room!"The boy wailed.
"Just use grenades to blow the fans!"
"What if the tunnel itself collapses?"
"Excuse me," I said and everyone looked at me, "We can just break the fans into pieces as we go up?''
"You think we haven't considered that?" the boy snorted, "We don't know if this tunnel is full of traps or not."
"I'll go," I volunteered, "Even if it's full of traps I can go. I don't feel pain."
"Doesn't mean you can't die!" The blonde girl snapped.
"I lived through Vern's torture. You think I can't survive a ventilation tunnel?'' I laughed, "Show me the way."
In truth, i didn't care if I could survive or not. I just wanted to see the sun. One last time. The vast endless sky spread over the Dessert of Duni and the blazing Sun that makes everything hot and alive. I didn't care if I died in the tunnel trying to claw my way to the Sun.
"This tunnel will lead you to the nearest exit to Hi- Captain Kris," The brunette boy stuttered, " Just climb upward, it's a one way in and out."
I started climbing in with Harper's machine gun and a rope. I almost slipped once or twice on my own blood. A few wounds on my body were oozing out blood and pus. I knew I should feel alarmed. But I couldn't. I concentrated on breaking down the Ventilation fans as soon as I found them. I was lucky enough not to encounter any trap at all. However, half way up, I was already exhausted.
The tunnel was made of steel and inclined about 75°. I had to put my weight on my elbows and knees to crawl forward. If I stopped crawling, I would start sliding down the tunnel involuntarily. Soon I started feeling dizzy. The moist air made it hard to breath. But the only thing that made me go forward that I could see the light at the end of the tunnel.
It felt like forever. I might have passed out once or twice inside the tunnel. But at some point, I found myself at the end of the tunnel. I bashed the hilt of the gun against the last ventilation fan with the last of my strength. It flew away from the mouth of the tunnel. And I was outside.
I lied down on the sun laughing and crying. Suddenly I was remembering Mom. Maybe I'd be able to meet her. But the people who were now dead back in that slave cage in that dark pit, they wouldn't be able to see their family members. A sense of guilt tightened my chest.
"Don't move, or I'll shoot!"
I held my head up to see the girl with gray hair and blue eyes sitting on top of a pile of metal scraps. She was holding a sniper with her full focus on me.
I realized I was wearing the FFF jersey. I opened my mouth to talk but no sound came out, there was just sharp wheezes and coughs. The girl frowned.
I started unbuckling the jersey. "I told you not to move," the girl said calmly, "I won't say it a third time. Stand up and hold your hands up where I can see them."
I tried standing up. But my knees were shaking. I focused on my breathing, if I could get my voice back I could explain to her this whole misunderstanding. Also, I should throw the rope in and alert Harper and others to start climbing up the tunnel.
"I said Stand up and hold your hands up where I can see them!" She snapped. I decided I should do as she said first. That way I could gain her trust. So I took a gulp of oxygen and stood up.
I had forgotten how bright the Duni Sun was. How hot the dessert was. As I stood up, a gust of hot hair blew and my vision went blurry. I lost my footing. The good thing was, I had finally fulfilled my wish of seeing the sun. The bad thing was I was standing right near the gaping mouth of the tunnel.
A hand grabbed a fistful of the FFF jersey I was wearing and saved me from the fall. "Wait I can recognise you," said the girl finally, "You're that guy from the cage!"
She helped me sit down, "Harper must have tried to be EXTRA CAREFUL by making you wear FFF Jersey," she muttered to herself, "I apologise for pointing a gun at you."
The gunshots were getting closer. The girl looked up, "I need to take care of those FFF scums, you can rest here till Harper and others get back."
She had a large pad in her hand, the screen on it glowed red. She swiftly climbed back on top of the metal scraps. I tossed one end of the rope inside the tunnel and tied the other end with a broken old car which was thrown into the metal scraps. After some time my vision became normal. However, I couldn't really trust that this was the end of all my sufferings. For what I'd gone through my rescue seemed too mild and anti climatic. Not that it was bad. But I couldn't help but wonder whether it was truly over or not. So I stood over the tunnel with the gun in case someone Besides Harper and her friends decided to step out of the tunnel.
I was so focused on staring into the Tunnel I hadn't noticed the girl, Kris, had climbed down from the metal scraps and was standing right behind me. "At ease, soldier, you don't have to stay alert now that you're outside and under my protection," I looked down at the girl who was atleast one and a half feet shorter than I was. Harper kept calling her Captain Kris, so she must be good at fighting or military tactics. One can't just simply become a captain on a whim. So I decided not to judge a book by it's cover.
I sat down by the tunnel and Captain Kris sat by my side. She fished out a dry cracker from her pocket and split it in half. She offered me one part of the cracker.
Vern had mostly fed me raw meats and all sorts of things which couldn't be considered to be food under normal circumstances. And somehow, my body was moving and operating on those not-so-food nutrients after getting habituated to them for two months. So I didn't know if something as ordinary as a cracker could fit well with my stomach. I nibbled on the cracker nervously while Kris played with her pad, with which she was possibly controlling her drones.
"How long will it take from my friends to climb out of the tunnel?" she suddenly asked me. "I don't know," I said, frowning. Time was such a difficult thing for me to remember these days. Just now when I was climbing through the tunnel, it had felt like an eternity. Also, I couldn't even remember whether I had or hadn't passed out inside the tunnel.
I thought Captain Kris would get frustrated, or atleast annoyed. Given the fact, her friends were still down in the FFF Camp while a stranger like me was sitting outside safe and sound. But she didn't get frustrated or annoyed. "It's alright if you can't say the time my friends may need to climb through the tunnel," she said, "It must have felt forever to you." she said simply.
There was something soft and soothing about her voice that made me want to break down. Behind us, the Sun was going down spreading orange splashes across the sky. As the both of us sat side by side eating cracker, Kris pointed at the West Side of the sky which was strangely full of deep dark clouds.
"I've heard it rarely rains in Duni," she said.
"Yes, it almost never rains in Duni except like once a year. It is quite rare, so it's considered to be a good omen," I explained.
"Good omen like how?" She asked back, curious like a child.
"Well you're probably from Bahamut," I started.
"That I am," she nodded.
"In the countries like yours, don't you people consider it to be a good omen if it snows on the first day of Christmas?" I asked and added, "Rain in Duni happens only once a year. So if you see rain in Duni, apparently something good can happen to you."
"Something good like what?" she pressed.
"I don't know! Maybe you'll win a lottery or make beneficial connections. Some people even come to Duni to get married on the day it rains in Duni."
Kris sat there mutely watching the clouds for a while. "Before I leave Duni," she whispered, "I hope it rains."