“Hey, hey Kai-Kun, Kai-Kun, look at this.” She pined and tugged his arm gazing up at him with bright blue eyes under a straight fringe. Her long dark brown hair styled into high twin tails with blue ribbons, a faint scent of marzipan.

“What is it Nai-Chan?” He turned to her. He didn’t have much choice in the matter she wouldn’t take no for an answer anyway. She was knelt down her yellow dress covered in dirt.

“Look Kai-Kun I found some treasure.” She smiled and held up a blue stone her cheeks gleamed. She pried open his palm and placed it in the centre. He smiled.

“It’s a luck stone Nai-Chan, you found it, keep it.” He went to hand it back. She recoiled.

“Nyah, no you keep it. I want you to have it.” She curled her hands into fists and scowled.

“Naiii-Chan it’s yours you should keep it!” He lunged at her and tried to claw open her stubborn fists.

“Nyah, grr.” She growled then buried her head in his neck.

“ArghH.” He screamed and bolted back clutching at his neck, she glared at him. “Don’t bite Nai!”

“Then don’t do that again… It hurt.” She looked down at her hand tears swelling in her big doe eyes. She pawed at a scratch on her hand.

“Sorry Nai-Chan!” He appeared to have forgotten about the bite and crawled back towards her. She sniffled and stared at the ground.

“I though you’d like it.” She whimpered. He reached out and held her hand gently.

“I do. I just thought…”

“Well don’t think, just do what I tell you.” She looked up her eyes were still heavy with water. Nevertheless, she had a small smile again. He smiled back and they laughed.

“Well of course, whatever you say!” He smiled their hands still together.

“Then… then…” She hesitated a moment and looked around anxiously. Her cheeks blushed. “Then.... Let me be your wife!” She mumbled. She looked like she was about to cry. He blinked a look of confusion plastered across his face. Then he smiled.

“Okay then.” He replied, and her eyes went wide.

“Really?” She gasped.

“Yeah.”

“Really, really?”

“Yeah, really really.”

She leant forward and kissed him lightly a slight taste of strawberry, as the sun slowly bleached the sky red. They sat a moment frozen in that lilac field the sky turned to rust a gentle breeze tickling their skin. She leapt up.

“I need to go now. Meet again tomorrow okay Kai-kun?” She asked as she turned on her heel and started to run off.

“Okay, tomorrow!” He shouted after her.

The next day though, the end came, and everything was lost.

Kai lay on his bunk and stared at the silver chain, a pendulum of blue stone hung from a hand made join. Postcards of places that no longer existed and addressed to people who had faded away decorated his wall along with posters of virtual idols held place above him.

What a world. He slammed his foot into the bottom of the bunk above.

“Hey! What the hell!” Someone growled and looked down at him. He just stared back. Three other men played cards on an upturned shipping crate in the middle of the bunkroom.

“Heh, you should chill out Kei, getting pissed at the bunk won’t make life any better.” A bald heavyset man said as he laid down three kings. The other two men swore and threw their cards down.

“I don’t know winding him up always warms a little place in my heart.” Kai smiled staring at the upturned head of his bunkmate.

“Drop dead.” The man said as he pulled his head up from the gap.

“No such luck.” Kai sighed, laid back with his head rested in his hands and stared at the pictures above him. Eyes settled on a single virtual idol her deep blue eyes drew him in. He slipped on his earphones turned it on and listened to his idols sing her gentle lullaby slowly suppressed his rage sending him to sleep.


Kai ended up going to the Zone with his squad mates. They had drunk most of night and he had taken a large range of uppers and downers. Most of the squad had gone on to the blue zone but Kai did not bother with that kind of thing. He dragged himself back to his bunk and after vomiting several times passed out on top of his covers listening to his music. It was more or less a normal night, he would wake up and take a few wake up pills that would cover over the hang over. Then he would sit about waiting for a deployment order playing cards or rolling dice. Everyday was the same. The same people, faces, food, even television, everything was the same. That was life in the city. The city protected by a barrier field, powered by an experimental reactor, the last oasis of humanity on Earth.

Kai and his squad mates were sitting around the main table idly playing cards and pushing reprocessed food around their plates.

“Hey Kai, why is it you always go home early?” A soldier with old-fashioned ray bands on asked as throwing down some chips.

“Because he doesn’t think it’s worth the effort.” A female soldier answered matching his chips. Kai stayed silent and then fiddled with the controller on his old music player.

“How the hell can getting tail not be worth the effort?” The soldier shook his head.

“Maybe he’s gay?” Another soldier said throwing his cards on the table.

“What difference does that make? Damn, the gays are always getting it! Left, right and centre!” The soldier reinforced his statements with several pelvic thrusts. Everybody laughed; even Kai let a chuckle.

“I just don’t want to feel. It’s easier this way.” He said with a smile.

“Damn. Only you’d give an answer like that.” The soldier said throwing some more chips onto the table. The woman seemed to be weighing up her next move when a loud alarm started to sound in the barrack.

“Ah hell, now there’s a shame, we gotta roll.” The woman said smiling.

“Ah what, no way, I was gonna win!”

They rushed out of their quarters to the deployment zone where they fitted their battle armour.

“Scourge beasts have infiltrated recreation dome 7, we are to deploy immediately, and 3rd Sentinel Platoon should already be there.” The squad leader outlined the plan of attack.

Before they reached the main entrance to the recdome, they could hear the automatic fire from the Sentinel Platoon, the screeching of the scourge and the screams of civilians. Kai and Summers were to breach the dome through a side vent.

Kai grinned a moment Summers nodded in agreement and Kai kicked through the vent and leapt down to the ground. Within moments, he had found his optimum defensive position behind a low wall. Summers opened fire on a small group of creatures that were bearing down on a small group of people. Kai watched silently, his eyes tracked the monsters motions as one by one they dropped to the ground felled by Summers marksmanship. Then it appeared all claws, fangs and armoured plating, a hundred eyes atop a nightmarish skull. A stalker, they were almost invisible to the naked eye until their final strike. Kai however expected it.

The group of people just sat frozen and if Kai had not been there that monster would have been the last thing they would have ever seen. Through the scope of his battle rifle, he saw the monsters skull explode. He let out a breath; he hadn’t noticed he’d stopped breathing. Then as he was, about to remove his eye from the riflescope his heart stopped and a single instant stretched out forever. A girl with long dark brown hair styled into high twin tails with blue ribbons, her bright blue eyes wide and beautiful.

“Kai!” A crack of gunfire snapped him back to reality, and a new rush surged in him as he turned his rifle on the oncoming beasts, the firefight was short but brutal the Sentinel team cleared the dome and suppression teams torched the corpses. Kai propped himself against a wall, Summers shoved him.

“Hey what happened there?” Her brown eyes fixed angrily on him.

“What?” He asked blankly.

“What do you mean what? You completely spaced out!” Her anger seemed more out of worry then anything else.

He thought a moment but couldn’t recall much, “I don’t know.” He pulled his helmet off.

“Well you best stay focused, or else you’ll wind up dead.” Summers turned and walked off down the packed corridor.

“Shit.” Kai turned a moment, and there she was. Stood there almost in tears. He blinked and then rubbed his eyes. He could not believe it. It was like staring at an echo of the past. Older yes, but.

“Kai-kun.” The girl whimpered.

He couldn’t say anything just stared. Her twin tails were much longer; her delicate face framed by the same dark brown bangs was older.

“Kai-kun!” She said louder her voice wavering; her big blue eyes heavy with water her shoulders shuddered.

Another moment past. “N… Nai-chan.” He finally answered her calls.

“Kai-kun!” With his words she dived into him, her arms wrapped around him and squeezed him tight. She sobbed, chest heaving against him, her back shuddered, and he was holding her too. He couldn’t believe it. He couldn’t stand the thought of letting her go in case she just disappeared. She just kept repeating his name between sobs. He wondered that perhaps he had really died back there and that this was heaven.

Nai didn’t stop sobbing and Kai didn’t let go of her. He stroked her back and she slowly calmed down.

“Hey, Nai-chan you’ve grown up.” Kai said into her ear softly.

“Hm.” A muffled response from Nai her head still pressed against Kai’s chests. She nodded slightly at the same time.

“You’ve still got the same hair style though.”

“Hm.” Another muffled response, another nod. Her fingers gripped tighter.

“It still suits you.” He noticed her hair smelt like marzipan.

“Hm.” Her muffled response got weaker and higher.

“I’ve missed you. I’ve missed you so much.” Tears poured down his cheeks.

She looked up her eyes red from tears and he gazed down at her. “Kai-kun.” She whispered breathlessly, she had stopped crying. She stood up on tiptoes so her face was almost against his. The tip of her nose brushed his. Her warm breath caressed his cheek.

“Strawberries.” He whispered smelling her scent.

“Always.” She whispered in response, closed her eyes, and lightly pressed her lips to his.

This was the second time she had kissed him, his memory rushed back in time to a field outside a small town. The field he had first met Nai playing by herself chasing butterflies. Always chasing butterflies. Always eating strawberries. Always smelling of sweets.

She stood back down, and wiped his cheeks. “I’ve missed you too Kai.” She sniffled, and smiled - her cheeks showing a touch of blush. She hummed a moment and stood back.

“Hmmm, the dishevelled soldier look suits you.” She leant forward again, flicked his fringe to the side, and smiled.

“It’s stunning how quickly you regain your composure.”

“Jeez you got broad.” She poked and prodded him.

“Gah stop that!” He tried to avoid her but his back was already against the wall.

“How long you been in the city then?” She stopped poking him and looked down. Her voice was distant again.

“I don’t know, a few years perhaps. I was picked up after the Callipsa incident.”

“Oh…” She nodded quietly. He stroked the top of her head.

“How about you?”

She shrugged. “I don’t really know; very soon after I last saw you.” Her voice trailed off.

“So long.” He stroked her hair.

They stood in silence again. Kai wasn’t sure how to act; he knew that he had to do something though. He pulled her close again and held her; she sighed softly and rested her head against him again.

They stayed like that for the rest of the day.


The number of shield incursions had increased dramatically. When he first joined the squad there was around one a week, now there were almost a dozen a day. Not only were there more incursions but each incursion was longer and the number of beasts greater. It left a dull empty spot somewhere inside him. He looked to his right where Nai was carefully laying out a cloth on the metal deck of the observation platform.

“Almost there, almost there.” She muttered to herself straightening it out so that it was perfect. He couldn’t help but admire her adorably cute form. Her twin tails bobbed ever so slightly behind her movements, mesmerising him.

“Hey Nai, why did you keep that hairstyle?”

“Hmm,” she turned her head, slightly startled by the question a napkin in her mouth.

He laughed, and she scowled at him, then realised how she was holding the napkin and took it out of her mouth.

“I kept it like this so if you saw me you’d recognise me.” She said nodding and got back to setting up the picnic.

He looked up at the vast array of antenna, sensor masts, and the soft blinking lights that warned transport craft of their existence. He looked back at Nai who was humming happily whilst she unpacked her hamper.

“You know I’d of recognised you anyway.”

She brushed her right bang behind her ear. “Are you trying to say I haven’t developed?” She put on an indignant face. He blinked a moment, and then she laughed.

“Wah?” He looked bemused.

“Your face was a picture just then!” She continued to giggle, as she sat back next to him.

“That was mean.” He pouted, but she just ignored him and gazed on the distant scenery.

“It’s so pretty.” Something terribly sad in her tone.

He looked out too, the vast city whose only protection was quickly crumbling. The horizon was a magnificent crimson colour, the sky black with a scattering of stars. Towering above the city were several mass drivers. They watched as a ship launched into the darkness flung from the end of the rail like a rock from a catapult. Those ships were destined for the orbitals.

When you looked towards the horizon, you could see the towers of buildings that had once been protected by the shield. Now abandoned, left to the scourge, but even those towers looked seductive in the light. Each one held meaning. Each one had memories of the people who had lived there. It was so… pretty.

“So what’s for dinner?” He had to get away from that mood.

“Yes!” She nodded and got out the plates. There was so much food and so many things that he hadn’t seen in years. Like fresh fruit, and fish.

“This must have cost a fortune!”

“No… No.” She shook her head and smiled.

“Wah?”

“My father is in the Administration.” She played with her food.

“Really!”

She nodded and set about eating some sandwiches. He joined her. Knowing that she didn’t want to talk about that, and that it didn’t matter to either of them anyway.

“So how many girls have you dated?” She enquired from behind a piece of chicken.

“None.” He answered bashfully. She blinked and turned red.

“Really?!”

“Yep.”

“Why?”

He thought for a moment. “Because there was no point getting involved with someone; I just didn’t want to be connected to anything again. Not when I can see the end so clearly.”

“Mm.” She nodded, and looked back out into the darkness. “But then, why go on at all?”

“You know I hate to give up. Besides. If I had of, we wouldn’t be here.” He smiled and handed her a strawberry. She took it and smiled at him.

“I was the same. Although I tried to open up to people. I just couldn’t connect anymore. I never gave up hope though.” She rested her head on his shoulder.

“I don’t think we’re alone in feeling like that.” Another ship launched in the distance.

“The administration is evacuating you know.”

“I know. At least you’ll be safe.”

“I’m not going.”

“What!” He leapt up; she steadied her head, and then shook it.

“I’m not going.” She stood up too.

“You have to go!” He almost yelled.

“No I don’t. I’m staying here.” She sighed and lent back against the wall.

“But.” He was at a loss for words.

“Why would I want to go? There’s nothing up there for me.” She said sadly, her palms were flat against the steel wall. She fixed her eyes on his.

“But… I don’t want you to…”

She stood up again, and walked up to him. “Every single minute I’ve struggled, every person I’ve watched disappear, every tear I’ve shed, every moment I’ve merely survived. Every moment. Every. Single. One. Has been worthwhile, and I’d live through a billion more for just one more moment with you.” She stood, tears once again pouring down her face.

He nodded, and cupped her cheek in his hand, kissing her gently. That gesture said it all. It confirmed that he understood, and that he felt the same. They sat down again; Nai curled up and nestled under his arm.

They went back to a hotel after finishing the last of the food it was embarrassing.


“Hey Nai” He whispered in the darkness.

“Hey Kai” She answered.

“Are you happy?”

“Happier then I’ve ever been.”

“Happier then when we first met.”

“Hmmm I’m not sure about that, you did catch me a very pretty butterfly.”

“You made me let it go.”

“It was too pretty to be caged.”

“That’s true.”

“I’m glad you still have that stone.”

“What choice did I have? You cried so hard when I told you, you should keep it.”

“Was it a good present?”

“It’s the best I’ve ever been given.”

“I’m glad.”

“What was that you sent to your father earlier?”

“Hmm, that? It’s a secret.”

“No fair.”

“Hmm, that’s life.” She smiled in the dark and curled back up to him.

In the distance, a siren pulsed.

“What’s that?” Nai asked sleepily.

“The shield alarm. It’s finally collapsed.”

“We don’t have much more time then.” She tugged at his hair gently then pressed herself against his body.

“No, not long at all.”

“What should we do?”

He thought for a moment. The only escape was to get to the hanger deck, or the mass driver launchers – but only people on the administration list could get onto those.

“Do you want to go to the orbitals?”

“No.” She firmly answered.

“Then we’ll help as many people get to the hanger as possible.” He sat up and turned the lights on. He looked at her lying on the bed. She smiled back at him. Her hair was loose it made her look mysterious. She pulled herself out of bed, her skin was smooth a stalk contrast to his muscular hide.

When they finally reached the corridors to the hangers, nothing could move as great throngs of people rushed forwards.

“The last desperate rush.” He looked back at them, Summers spotted Kai and rushed over.

“Hey Summers, you couldn’t spare a gun could you?”

“Sure can.” Summers handed him an assault rifle, some clips, and a few grenades.

“This is it then?” He asked.

“Yeah, looks that way.”

“Where’s the line?” Kai asked checking the gun.

“Corridor 7, intersection 172. That’s probably the best place to go.”

“Okay.” Kai grabbed Nai’s hand and they set off.

When they reached the intersection there were about a dozen troops waiting behind a make shift barricade. Sounds of screeching echoed down the hollow corridors.

“How long since they breached the last barricade” Kai asked one of the troops.

“About 2 minutes, they’ll be here any second.”

Kai turned to Nai, and stroked her head again. “Scared?” He asked, she smiled and shook her head.

“I’m less scared then you.” She leant forward and kissed him again.

“I really do Love you Nai.”

“I knew that the moment we met.” Her eyes sparkled.

“I wish we had more time.”

“There’s always another us, another story, another chance.” She hugged him; her confidence seemed to ebb into all around her.

“Okay then, every second we hold gives the evacuees another second to escape.” Kai knelt behind the barricade, and Nai sat with her back against the wall.

The deafening screeches and roars of the scourge came closer and closer, louder and louder until the equally loud roars of the troop’s guns met them. Seconds stretched to minutes. Screams of “over there over there.” “It hit me!” “Oh my god what’s that!” “Fall back!”

Nai caught Kai as he fell back, his arm severed by the blade or claws of some monster. She wrapped her arms around him.

“Hey Kai-kun.” Tears trickled down her cheeks.

“Hey Nai-chan.” He answered.

“Are you happy?” She whimpered.

“Happier then I’ve ever been.” He spluttered. She noticed the slice across his chest.

She took a hard breath “Happier then that first time we met?”

He coughed. “Jeez that’s a hard one; you did give a mighty nice present.”

She smiled through her tears. “You almost didn’t let me give it to you!”

“Yeah I’m dumb like that.” She squeezed him.

“Yes you’re dumb, but so am I.” She lent down and kissed him, the taste of iron on his lips. She pulled back and wiped tears from his eyes. The sound of death all around them didn’t seem to penetrate their last exchange.

“I’m happy though, really happy, I just wish we had another moment.” He gasped and convulsed. She

“Good bye.” Nai whispered.

“We’re not in a cage anymore.” He grabbed her arm tight with his last arm, and she pressed her lips against his again, and then parted ever so slightly.

“I Love you so much.” She screamed. As her nimble fingers pressed the detonation button on the grenade.

On the shuttle, a man read a note from his beloved daughter.

Dear Father
I shall not be leaving with you, but I’m quite sure you knew that that would be the case the moment I told you who I found again. My life has been good and I thank you sincerely. Everything has been worthwhile and I really am very happy. My only regret is that this time has been too short. I have not left you entirely. We have not vanished completely. Contained within are our dna samples.

Thank you.
You’re ever sneaky daughter.
Nai

P.S. I left some snacks in your bag, don’t eat them too quickly.
P.P.S. I’ve left with a smile; I can only hope there are more like us.

He leant back with a half smile, tears trickling slowly down his cheeks. “I hope so too.” He whispered.

“Don’t worry it’ll be okay.” A young girl with long black hair asked him. He looked down at her.

“I’m sure it shall.” She was sitting in Nai’s seat. She leant over with a hanky and wiped his cheeks with a sad smile.

“We carry their hopes, we have to remember that.” The girl said with a nod.

“Yes we do.” He smiled then looked through his bag. “Would you like to share the dinner my daughter prepared us?”

The girl’s eyes lit up.