Monday, October 24th, 4:37 P.M.
Rinoa and I were making our way to the top of a hill
near where Gin's plane had come to stop.
We weren't going too fast, due to the two of us being in a deeply packed
forest and Rinoa was concerned about my headwound. As we were walking, Rinoa heard what she
thought were people talking. Thinking
they could help us, Rinoa and I started looking for them.
It didn't take me long to find them. They were pretty loud and pretty close. However, once I saw the people I got down and
hid amongst the brush. Rinoa wasn't far
behind me, and when she came upon me, I yanked her down beside me.
"Hey!
What's the deal?" Apparently
Rinoa doesn't like being yanked to the ground by her arm.
In a hushed tone I said, "Quiet," and
pointed toward the people. There were
three men, all about my age, looking around at the wreckage that is now Gin's
plane. They looked to be opfers carrying
assault rifles, but what made me anxious was the uniforms. I know those uniforms. I've seen those uniforms before. The men inspecting the plane were wearing the
exact same uniforms as the police in Moenia Prima.
In a normal tone of voice, Rinoa said, "What's
going on?"
"Keep it down, they'll hear you."
Now in a hushed tone of voice, Rinoa asked,
"What's going on?"
"You see those guys over there?"
Rinoa popped her head up and saw the men by the
airplane. "Oh, I see them. Maybe they can help us." When Rinoa raised her hand to wave at the
men, I pulled it back down.
"Stay down, I don't want them to see us."
"Why now?"
Rinoa seemed sincerely puzzled by this.
"You see the uniforms they're wearing?"
"Yeah."
"Those are the same uniforms worn by the police
officers in Moenia Prima."
Rinoa lifted her head to get a look at the men. "Are you sure?"
"Yeah."
"Oh."
There was a short pause.
"So?"
"So?"
"Yeah, so what if these men are wearing the
same uniforms as the police in Moenia Prima?"
Rinoa's question was a valid one, so I searched my
memory to find a reason for me to be so apprehensive about those men. "There was a story on the news about the
Moenia Prima Police Department infiltrating the opfer community center,
catching some people doing something slightly illegal, then saying the
community center was a central hub for some kind of opfer crime
syndicate."
Rinoa lifted her head again to look at the men. "But their skin, it's dark like ours,
like all opfers."
"It's makeup.
When the police officers infiltrated the community center, they wore
greasepaint. They're wearing
greasepaint, using blackface to deceive us."
Rinoa thought for a moment and looked up at the
sky. "But it's raining. Wouldn't the makeup wash off, or start
running at least?"
Rinoa's point may have had more sway with me if we
were talking about someone that I in any way trusted. "It's really good makeup. Come on, we need to get out of here,"
which is exactly what we did. I ran
about as quick as I could in a direction that was away from the wreckage of
Gin's plane. I couldn't run as fast as I
could because I had to make sure Rinoa was still behind me.
After some time and what I thought was a
considerable distance, Rinoa and I stopped to catch our breaths, at which point
Rinoa asked a critical question.
"Where are we going?"
I didn't have an answer to that question but I
wanted to appear like I did. The map
program on my Hipster should have helped me get an answer. Unfortunately there are no roads in the
forest and the GPS coverage was spotty at best.
After looking at my Hipster for a while and trying to not make my lack
of knowledge known to Rinoa, I pointed in a direction and said, "North. The map on my Hipster says there's a town to
the north of here," and started walking in that direction. I took about a step and a half before Rinoa
stopped me.
"Hato, given the time of day and the way the
shadows are falling, isn't north that way?" Rinoa may have been right, Rinoa may have
been wrong. All I know is the direction
Rinoa pointed to was away from Gin's plane, so we went that way.
We continued running through the lush, green,
naturally abundant forest untill we encountered something that was in no way
natural. A fence. A fifteen foot tall chain like fence with
razor wire on the top. Due to the razor
wire, we couldn't scale the fence besides I doubt Rinoa could have done so
without making a lot of noise. Going
through or under the fence was obviously not an option, so Rinoa and I had to
move along the fence untill we reached the end of it while still remaining
under the cover of the forest. As we
followed along the fence line, it became clear to me that Rinoa was beginning
to wonder if I really knew where we were going.
"Do you really know where we are going?" I couldn't say yes to Rinoa's question but I
couldn't really say no either. So,
rather than address Rinoa's question, I asked one of my own.
"Have you seen any more of those uniformed men
around?"
"No, I haven't seen any since we saw those
other ones. Do you know where we're
going?"
"Maybe we should take a break to catch our
breath."
"Catch our breath while you figure out where
we're going?" Damn, Rinoa's
persistent. I found a nice large rock
where I could sit down and pretend like I was looking up our location on my
Hipster. Rinoa, after several attempts
to glance at the Hipster I was protecting, decided to look at something
else. "Hato, look at that building
over there." Rinoa was referring to
a building beyond the fence slightly obscured by trees, but still plainly
visible from where we were standing.
As I continued to look at this building, I noticed
something. "Are those people over
there?"
"Yeah."
Rinoa left the forest and approached the fence to get a better look at
the building. "Those are
people."
I joined Rinoa standing by the fence. "People in normal clothes, not the
uniforms we saw on the other men."
"And look." Rinoa pointed at a group of people. There were three of them, watching TV,
generally enjoying themselves, what most people would identify as a
family. Mom, dad, and young child. "They're opfers."
I continued looking at the family, trying to see if
these people were also wearing greasepaint.
It was when I was straining to study the family when I heard the
click. "Put your hands up and turn
around." Rinoa and I looked at each
other before we turned around. The look
of total fear on Rinoa's face was more distressing to me than what I saw when I
turned around.
There they were.
Three men. The three men we saw
at Gin's plane. The three men we were
trying to evade. Three men in uniforms
holding assault rifles pointed at us.
Three men, faced covered in rainwater, with clear evenly dark
complexions.
There are certain situations that wise that cause
you to say things that you would never say otherwise. A part of me hopes that doesn't explain what
Rinoa said to me as she stared at the three men. "Hato, I'm sorry about what I said. I didn't really mean to call you a weird
slightly obsessed guy. I was just
upset."
Hearing Rinoa's confession made me want to confess
something. I wish what I had to say was
more significant than it was.
"Rinoa, I'm sorry but I had no idea where we were going. We were running around the forest like a
chicken with its head cut off."
The uniformed man in the center began addressing
us. "Keep your hands up!" We did.
The uniformed man addressing us lowered his gun and started walking
toward me. As he did so, the uniformed
man started looking at my face oddly. He
looked at it left to right, up and down, then through one eye followed by the
other. Then the uniformed man stuck his
hand out and pressed his fingers against my forehead. He placed two fingers in the middle of my
forehead, ran them left and right along my eyebrows, then down the center of my
face to the tip of my nose. The
uniformed man then looked at his fingers and started rubbing them with his
thumb. The uniformed man then did the
same thing to Rinoa. She didn't look
like she enjoyed the strange man putting his fingers on her face, and who could
blame her. After he was done, the
uniformed man stepped back to where the other two uniformed men were standing
and asked, "Are you opfers?"
I hesitated a moment before responding. "Are you?"
"You doubt me?" The man addressing us was not happy to hear
my question.
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Your uniform.
You are wearing the same uniform the police in Moenia Prima wear. Those police would regularly put on
greasepaint and harass opfers. Many of
those police officers killed my parents and many opfers in Moenia Prima."
A knowing look came over the face of the man
addressing us. "Ah, I
see." The man addressing us then
motioned to the other uniformed men who put down their weapons. "I've heard similar reports about
uniformed verbrecher men wearing grease paint.
I wouldn't trust us either under those circumstances. In fact, that thing I did where I rubbed your
faces was me checking to see if you were wearing grease paint." All three of the uniformed man got a laugh
out of that. I didn't feel like laughing
and clearly neither did Rinoa. The man
addressing us stepped forward again, extended his hand to us, and said,
"Brother, my name is Captain Ushtar Alie.
Behind me on the left is Private Billy Mik, and on the right is Major
Robert Dost. We are members of the
Vierdestad Opfer Military, protectors of all those that live in the great city
of Vierdestad."
A look of hope came over Rinoa's face. "Vierdestad! Where is it?
How far away are we from it?"
Ushtar lifted his arm, pointed, and said, "It's
right there behind that fence."
Looking back on it, that was rather funny.
Rinoa continued in her jubilance. "Is there a hospital where Hato and I
can get checked out?" Rinoa says weird
things when she's jubilant.
Ushtar shouldered his rifle and said, "Yes. If you'll follow me, I'll take you right
there," after which Ushtar started marching off with Rinoa following
shortly behind him. I was a bit more
hesitant to follow Captain Alie, but Rinoa grabbing me by the arm more or less
compelled me to do so. It's odd staring
at the butt of an attractive woman while two men carrying assault rifles are
walking behind you.
Rinoa and I are at a medical facility run by the
Vierdestad Opfer Military right now.
They checked me out first and diagnosed me as having suffered a
concussion in addition to the headwound , which they used twelve stitches to
close. They're checking out Rinoa now as
I patiently wait in the waiting room. I
hope she's fine. I have no reason to
believe she isn't, but I hope it nonetheless.
I've never spent a lot of time in a hospital. I don't like it much. Not just because of the general feeling of
sickness here. It's also because of the
many strong muscular opfer men wearing uniforms I've only seen on verbrechers
who had a problem with me. There's a
weird mix of pride and anxiety going through my body right now. I'd like to leave this place so that feeling
could go away.
Later.
Hato Shurtleff
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