Chapter 9 – Let’s survive
Océane’s heart dropped, her body trembling like a naked man left in Antarctica, as her face drained of all color. She staggered back, her eyes transfixed on the sight in front of her.
Behind her, Emrys bit his lips, lowering his head, finding no words to describe the situation.
Not much could be seen from the apocalyptic sight in front of them, but buried deep inside the sea of shattered rubble was soone.
Emrys didn’t need to guess to know who that person was.
He slowly raised his head again, looking at Océane still frozen, her eyes wide in complete shock, her tears swelling and then falling down her cheeks nonstop.
Her legs gave in. Her knees slamd onto the rocky floor below with a resounding crack.
It should have been painful. But the pain inside her heart was so overwhelming that her other pain receptors were completely numbed.
She began to sob and whimper and wheeze, her voice fragnted between sobs.
"N-No... no... no," she cried. "Noah... Noah, you can’t—!"
Her words were stuck in her throat, her breathing so shallow it was a daunting task just to speak.
Emrys was completely lost. But not for long. At that instant, strangely — or maybe not — he began to think of the death of his father.
It was on the day of his funeral that this nightmare had begun. With survival in his mind, he had managed to forget, but the mories of his father’s death were still fresh.
So Emrys knew... he knew what it ant to lose soone you cared for; soone you loved.
He said nothing. Instead, he walked through the shattered house, his steps crushing the rubble beneath him, approaching the buried body.
Squatting down in front of it, Emrys began to clear away the rocks, intending to pull the body out.
His work was silent, and behind him Océane continued to weep like a newborn child, her face soon filled with snot and tears.
She was soaked. And she was broken.
Soon, Emrys managed to pull the body free from the rubble.
Océane snapped her head toward him at that instant, desperately hoping that she was mistaken, that her brother was still alive.
But no.
It was her brother. And he was dead.
"Ah... ah..." Océane barely managed to wheeze, crawling to the side of her brother, as if walking had suddenly beco too heavy, looming over his face.
Noah de Campbell was a young boy around fourteen years old, with blonde hair like Océane’s. His face was soft and fair, holding an obvious hint of handsoness.
But now all Océane could see was the pale face of her brother, accompanied by his cold body that scread of death.
She looked at his legs through her blurry eyes and noticed they were bent inward, the bones cracking out.
She suppressed a shriek of horror.
However, Océane was not able to stop her mind from shutting down when she noticed what was clenched inside the fist of the dead Noah.
Held tightly in his right hand was the shriveled picture of Océane and Noah with the background of Disneyland Paris.
The day of his fourteenth birthday. The day she had saved her ager salary from McDonald’s for months just to bring him to Disney.
The day he said was the best day he had ever had since he was born.
It was the mory of that day he held in his hand as he lost his life.
At that realization...
...Océane’s mind blanked out and she collapsed.
"Océane!" Emrys shouted as he ran toward her, grabbing her shoulders, trying to wake her up.
But it was no use.
Océane’s mind forcefully shut itself down, knowing it would otherwise shatter.
"Ah..." Emrys breathed, his lips trembling as he looked at the unconscious Océane.
He looked at Noah, and for a mont he saw the face of his father in his coffin.
Emrys shook his head, trying to bury the tears in his eyes.
He failed.
And the world blurred.
"Fuck..."
...
Océane’s eyelids trembled a few tis before finally flickering open, the first sight being the worried, apologetic face of Emrys looming over her.
Her head was resting on his lap.
She imdiately tried to get up, but a terrible headache slamd into her skull like a hamr blow, making her slump back into Emrys’s lap.
"Are... are you okay?" Emrys asked hesitantly, looking at Océane.
The woman didn’t answer. She chanically turned her head to the left and saw the dead body of her brother leaning peacefully against a caved wall.
"It... it was not a nightmare," she said, tears falling again. "It was not a nightmare, Emrys. I lost my brother. Emrys, my brother is dead. Noah is dead. My Noah is dead, Emrys."
She repeated it like a broken record, each word feeling like the tip of a vicious spear shredding away both Océane’s and Emrys’s hearts.
"Emrys... Emrys... my brother... Emrys, my Noah is d—!"
"I know," Emrys cut in softly, unconsciously hugging her, feeling like it was the only thing he could do.
"I know. He is dead."
Océane’s eyes peeled away from her brother’s body and t Emrys’s teary eyes.
"And I know how it feels to have soone you care for no longer with you, Océane. I do," he said, pointing at his blood-stained dark suit.
"I lost my mother during childbirth. And I lost my father five days ago."
Océane’s eyes widened slightly. But Emrys only smiled sadly.
"It’s not to undermine your current suffering, but..."
He hugged her tighter, hoping she would understand what he ant despite the lack of the right words.
"...you will be fine. I swear you will. I am sure."
He was not sure. But he needed to sound sure.
"H-How did you do it?" Océane asked brokenly. "How did you live with such loss?"
"Do I have a choice?" Emrys smiled. "I don’t. We don’t."
"And do you know what my father told when I asked him how he could live with the death of my mother? How we could one day get over it and forget..."
Emrys paused, looking deeply into Océane’s golden eyes.
"He said that we never forget. And that we must not forget."
Océane’s lips trembled.
"And that the whole point is to learn to live with their death and learn to properly honor their image."
"Océane..." Emrys called softly. "How can you honor your brother?"
He asked.
"I-I... don’t know," she said, balling her fist into Emrys’s dirty suit. "I don’t know, Emrys."
"Then you need to live in order to know."
Her eyes dilated at his words.
"You cannot die here, Océane. And you cannot stay in this state for too long. The world is about to end, and it doesn’t care what you — we — are going through."
"But how can I live without my brother?" she asked, completely lost.
She was older than Emrys, but at that mont it didn’t look like it.
Because Emrys had gone through all the feelings Océane was now experiencing. He knew them, and he had learned to live with the pain of loss.
Ah... well, he was still trying to live with it. The task was daunting.
But Océane had never felt this before.
They had been abandoned by their parents because of Noah’s disorder, having no money to care for him amid the difficult life of Paris.
Because of that, she had stopped her studies and gone to work small jobs after small jobs to care for her brother and his dical bills. So to Océane... her brother was everything.
He was the one who gave her the determination to work until she could no longer move. He was the one who told her to train and enter big competitions, saying he believed in her.
She had never been soone with big ambitions or self-confidence. It was all him, her anchor. Now he was gone.
What could she do without him?
"Then let’s try to discover it together," Emrys said.
"Huh?" Océane exclaid.
"I want to know too," Emrys said. "I want to know what I should live for."
"Aren’t you looking for the sa thing?"
Océane nodded gingerly.
Emrys smiled faintly.
"Then let’s do it together. For that, we need to be strong, Océane. And for that, we need to get out of here. So let’s survive, let’s find a portal and enter the Tower. There... we will find it, right?"
His own words were unsure.
"Wh-what if we don’t? What if we die aninglessly?"
"Then at least we tried," Emrys said, attempting an indifferent shrug. He failed. "And in that case, no one would bla us, because we didn’t abandon things when they got hard."
"We did our best. And that’s all we could do. Our best."
Océane fell silent, looking into Emrys’s black eyes filled with pain as deep as her own.
At that instant, she realized she was not alone, and there was soone else who understood her pain.
Soone willing to walk this unclear new reality with her.
That understanding didn’t make the pain disappear. But it gave her enough strength to stagger to her feet.
So she smiled. No, they smiled.
A forlorn, broken smile.
But that was all they could muster with everything about to end.
"Okay. Let’s do it together," Océane said, weakly getting up.
"Let’s... let’s survive, Emrys."
—End of Chapter 9—
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