CHAPTER 86: THE BEGGAR AND THE PRINCESS

’Is there really no freedom for us?’

There was an outstretched silence for a long moment. They were both lost in their own thoughts, staring at different points in the darkness, yet tethered by the same heavy realization.

The sky outside was still hemorrhaging the crimson hues of the burning moon. Under that oppressive, bloody light, the trees were singing a lullaby, synchronized with the melody created by the movement of the golden leaves.

Surrounded by a thousand things that wished to digest them, two humans sat.

Close.

’Too close.’

Well, there was not much space so, it was inevitable.

Ishiki’s face was flustered red, he was unable to focus on anything... he sat with his back pressed against the cold stone, knees drawn up to his chest to conserve warmth.

Beside him, Yuki mirrored his posture and her shoulder hovered inches from his.

It was a gap he could bridge by just inhaling too deeply.

But, he didn’t dare.

His face felt hot. He stared resolutely at the opposite wall, counting the cracks in the stone, but his other senses were betraying him.

He could feel the warmth radiating across the thin divide. He could hear her soft and shallow breathing, hitching slightly whenever the wind howled outside.

For some reason... the Crimson Night felt like it was dragging each minute slowly and eternally.

His heart hammered against his ribs, a traitorous drumbeat he was certain echoed in the tight space.

He glanced at her from the corner of his eye. Yuki was staring at the cave’s mouth, her profile was etched in red light making her look like a porcelain doll abandoned in a ruin.

He was a little afraid actually. He was terrified that if the Princess asked him something right now, he would blurt out nonsense.

He swallowed dryly and decided to take the lead, grasping for a topic that was heavy enough to kill the awkwardness.

"Do..." His voice cracked. He winced, cleared his throat, and asked in a softer tone. "Do you miss the old world?"

Yuki didn’t answer immediately.

Her pink eyes were fixed on the cave’s irregular opening, watching where the slivers of crimson moonlight spilled in and reflected off the polished rocks like pools of stagnant blood.

She looked ethereal in the red light.

"Yes," she said simply, lowering her gaze to her hands. "I do."

"I miss the certainty..." She subtly whispered. "In the tower, everything was... predictable. I knew what would happen tomorrow, and the day after that, and the week after that. It was suffocating, but it was stable."

Her lips twitched into something that wasn’t quite a smile.

"Here, nothing is stable," she whispered. "Any minute, something can try to kill us. And yet..."

She looked up at the thin slice of sky visible through the cave mouth. Crimson light bled across her face, catching in her pink eyes.

She stayed silent for a second, and then a small chuckle escaped her lips. It was a sound of self-deprecation.

"I don’t know... It sounds pathetic, doesn’t it? Missing a cage."

She turned her head slightly, looking at him. In the dim light, the sharp angles of her face softened.

"But I like it here, too," she admitted, the confession came out like a secret. "I am free. I can do whatever I want. I mean... at least no one is telling me when to breathe. No one is correcting my posture anymore."

Ishiki simply sat there with a somber face. Yuki felt like she was free here... that the apocalypse had freed her from the chains of certainty.

What about him? Was he free? If he looked at it from Yuki’s perspective... he had always been free, he could do anything, he had friends and a home to stay.

"What about you?" Yuki suddenly asked, pulling Ishiki out of his thoughts. "Do you miss the life below?"

Ishiki closed his eyes and then shrugged. "Life below..." He mused. "It wasn’t really a life, Yuki. It was a struggle to make it to the next month. hmm... Actually, we had everything down there—latest tech, premium food, good medicines and everything."

He paused for a second, turning his head upwards to look at the ceiling of the cave which was just inches away.

"But it was all behind big glasses. If you didn’t have the credits, it was just a myth. We had everything, but it was all given to a limited group of people. For the rest of us... we just watched. My mother..."

He went silent. The memory of the damp, gray apartment and the smell of tainted air filled his mind. He had lived all his life in one of the worst parts of even the lower sectors.

Yuki frowned, and shifted slightly. Her shoulder brushed his.

He flinched, just a fraction and so did Yuki.

"What about your mother?" she asked gently.

Ishiki felt a lump form in his throat. He swallowed it down.

"She’s most probably dead," he said, in a flat tone, stripped of emotion because if he let himself feel them, he wouldn’t be able to stop. "Well, most of the people in the lower sectors died."

"What about you? Was your mother like your dad?" Ishiki asked back.

Yuki stayed silent for a long moment. Then, she slumped forward, resting her forehead on her knees, her pink hair cascading down like a curtain to hide her face.

"No... I don’t know. I never met my mother..." Her voice was muffled. "I have only seen her from far away. Through glass walls inside the hospital. She fell into a coma after giving birth to me and then... never woke up."

She took a shaky breath.

"My father kept her alive on machines for years. Not because he loved her, but because she was ’valuable’. And now... with the world gone... the machines would have stopped."

"She’s dead too," she whispered.

Both of them fell silent... the cave felt much smaller now. In the past, Ishiki had been envious of the Princess. But now... he actually felt that he was luckier than Yuki had ever been. At least he had a loving mother who looked at him, not through glass, but with her own eyes.

’Is this why people say that fate loves playing with lives.’

He didn’t know what to think of it. Fate, it seemed, was like a chain which bound the way a life was and lead it to the inevitable... which they called destiny.

What did he want from his life? He had never thought of it deeply. The Ishiki from five months ago would have replied in an instant: I want to see the moon. I want to go to the Floating Islands.

But he didn’t know anymore. The islands were gone and he had seen the moon already.

"She must have been pretty," Ishiki commented in a soft voice, a futile attempt to cheer up Yuki as well as himself.

Yuki let out a wet chuckle, not lifting her head. "Yeah... She was. She had long white hair, Like snow. When I saw her, she was just a frail old woman... but the maids said, she looked like a goddess."

Ishiki frowned, looking at the vibrant strands falling over her shoulder. "Wait, If she had white hair... why do you have pink hair?"

Yuki lifted her head slowly and picked up a lock of her hair, looking at it with distinctive disdain.

"This is the side effect from gene alteration..." She muttered.

"They look beautiful..." Ishiki blurted out... immediately turning his head the other side.

Yuki stared at him. An undeniable blush rose to her cheeks, visible even in the crimson light. She looked away quickly, tucking the hair behind her ear with a nervous flutter of her hand.

"I hate it, mutations are not pretty..." she mumbled, though there was no heat in her voice. "It’s ridiculous."

"It suits you," Ishiki spoke again, gently. "Better than white. If you ask me."

’Damn It! I need to shut up.’

Ishiki’s heart was beating so fast he thought it might bruise his ribs. Silence stretched for a long moment between them.

At the end... Yuki simply whispered. "Thank you."

Not long after the outside world changed in an instant. Everything around them changed too, the continues lullaby of the trees stopped and the rustling of leaves became uneven.

The oppressive, heavy crimson light of the burning moon began to retreat. It bled out of the sky like a wound clotting over. The true darkness of the night returned and everything became much darker and ominous.

The Crimson Night had ended.

And as always, the Silver moon had once again... taken over. Its cold, sharp silver light began to filter through the canopy. But the dark had become more profound.

The Silver Night had begun.

Ishiki waited for a minute and let his eyes adjust to the sudden darkness. He couldn’t even see Yuki’s face now... but he could still hear her breathing just next to him.

"Time to go," She whispered. The playful atmosphere vanished instantly, replaced by the steel of the survivor.

She crawled out of the cave’s entrance and stood up. In a flash of light, the white robe was gone, replaced by her combat armor. The vulnerable girl with the flushed cheeks vanished and the Princess returned, cold, beautiful and indifferent as always.

Ishiki followed behind her and instantly summoned the [Berserker’s Effigy] and [Curved Bone].

The forest was calm. The trees had stopped their writhing and now they stood like silent sentinels of wood.

It was dark. Utterly, oppressively dark.

The Silver Moon hung high above, like a cold tyrant in the sky. The forest floor was a labyrinth of absolute shadow.

And in those shadows, things were constantly moving.

And within just a few seconds, he could see hungry eyes. A lot of them, surrounding them, all around.

Yuki opened her palm and a sharp blade of ice materialized in her hand out of thin air. She raised it and softly said. "Get Ready."

Ishiki grimaced and raised his pale sword too. A myriad of ghastly creatures stepped out of the shadows.

’I hate this...’