Chapter 12 - Infection

It was another familiar feeling.

The slums, as the girl had so surmised, seemed to be underground which meant there was no sun or moon to dictate the time.

She found this frustratingly familiar although she couldn’t recall to what or why.  It just was and she had begrudgingly accepted this fact once again.  She had not liked this place from the beginning, but the idea of no easily visual clock just made it worse for her.  Sighing, she decided to walk around and see if she could find a way out.  She had considered going into a store or a bar, but she had no money and was a suspicious enough character already.

She needed a disguise.

The girl recalled how she had been chased by some person and assumed that she had been mistaken for someone else.  If they recognized her they would probably chase her again and try to catch her.  If they did she suspected she would be regarded suspiciously and questioned before the high probability of being tossed to the authorities.

She really did not feel like being a prisoner again.

…Again?  Had she been in prison before?  Huffing, she decided to focus on the current reality before trying to dig up her past.  This place was a glory of junk.  If she looked around enough she could probably find a hat or a bandanna to wear and cover her face with.  If she couldn’t find anything, she could always just steal something.

Although these people seemed to have a hard life as it was already.

She decided to do it as an absolute last resort.  Kicking and digging around the various piles of things that littered the place she began to search.

It had been at least an hour of garbage digging before she found a cap, and another twenty to find a raggedy bandanna.  She prayed to whatever being above that the hat wasn’t infested with disease, although by the looks of it, seemed relatively new.

She hoped it had simply been misplaced and forgotten instead of being thrown out for other unfavorable reasons.  

The bandanna, aside from being ripped in various places and slightly dirty seemed all right as well.  However, for some reason beyond her, she felt absolutely stricken with ill feelings for its color.

Red.

She didn’t understand it at all.  It didn’t feel like she had had a problem at all with the color before her scar.  She also didn’t believe the blood had traumatized her, although it was indeed sickening.  Perplexed, she put her necessity first and pushed aside her agitated emotions.  Pulling it up over her nose and tying it behind her neck, she covered the majority of her face, thankful that it didn’t smell too bad.  Deciding to inspect how she looked, she walked over to another puddle of water.

She looked like some sort of bandit or thief.

Her long bangs poked out from underneath the cap, but the combination of the hat and bandanna covered the back of her head, making her less identifiable.  Much to her distaste, her almost all black attire made the red all the more noticeable.

Her options were limited.

It was either look like a thief in the open, or look like herself and be mistaken again.  Either way, if she was caught, she was more than likely going to be taken to authorities.  Exasperated, she simply decided to keep the bandanna on and look as inconspicuous as possible.  She started her search.

It was obvious this was not working.

People pointed and whispered at her, fixing wary and leery looks her way.  Discomfort seeped in, and in an attempt to divert some attention, coughed loudly multiple times as if she was sick.  She hoped they would buy her idea of wearing the bandanna as a makeshift flu mask.  Some of the people loosened their critical looks and went on their way, but it was obvious not everyone was going to buy into her play-acting.  Her nervousness beginning to reach uncomfortable heights, she decided to hurry away and look for a way out.  It was much to her relief, but also to her agitation that she came upon a train station that seemed to lead away from the area.

Relief because she could leave.  Agitation, because well she forgot she needed money to ride a train.

She could only watch vexed as the train loaded and unloaded passengers.  Maybe she could grab onto it as it leaves the station and hitch a free ride.  Her plans were foiled when she noticed the security that seemed to roam the cars.  She leaned back against the wall in defeat before deciding to try and find a way to make or find money.  Turning she was about to head back when a boy nearly knocked her down, zipping past her at high speed.

“Jeez, what’s the rush…?” Her question was answered in a most undesirable way.
 
“THIEF!!” a single solitary shrill cry broke the humdrum atmosphere.  Her back instantly felt cold and the clamor of people had turned much too quiet.  Turning her head slowly, she was met with piercing and scrutinizing stares.  

“Thief, thief!  You stole my bag!” The girl began to feel her heart rapidly speed up.

“H-hey wait…T-this, this is obviously social profiling…” She raised her hands in front of her revealing them to be empty and a sign of peace. “J-just cause I look like a thief doesn’t mean I… am..a…”

…

Yeah, who was she kidding?  Obviously not this angry crowd.

“Thief!” and like an epidemic, the shrill cries of people to catch the thief burst among the crowd as they tried to get a hold of her.  Adrenaline shot through her as she raced away from the frenzied mob in a panic.

What the fuck, whatever happened to the bystander effect?!

She supposed this is what happens when someone steals from a poor person in a poor neighborhood.  Behind her she heard a new energetic voice.

“Thief?  Where?  I’ll catch him for you, no problem!” Not interested in finding out who the arrogant hero wannabe was, she had already exited the area, running through alleys and around garbage piles.  Behind her, she heard the somewhat distant, but nevertheless sound of running feet following her.  

The guy was like a disease.  Unwanted, unneeded, and a thoroughly persistent bastard.  He also seemed to have a monster amount of stamina.  She was exhausted from their one sided game of tag, still recuperating from her cut, she felt like she was just about ready to fall over when she had the misfortune of almost tripping over a rock.

Almost.

“Gotcha!”

Almost because the moment her momentum had slowed, she was tackled from behind into the dirt.  Pain flared fresh and with a vengeance beneath her bandages.  She was almost certain she was bleeding again.  Her assailant was panting slightly, and had pinned both her arms to her back.  It wasn’t necessary really.  She felt like jelly and had no energy to even attempt to run away again.  She only had a feeble and rather gurgled response to give.

“Ghhnngghh…” He chuckled, easily lifting the smaller person to their feet.  Her hat flopped off from the previous impact and the hands holding her arms tensed suddenly.  Firmly turning her around to face her captor, she was met with a man, at least half a head or more taller than her wearing the uniform she had seen before in the alley, albeit differently colored.  He had spiky black hair, unruly bangs that framed his face, and the most exotic blue and green eyes she had ever seen that seemed to be wide in shock.

Her brain, having been fried to nothingness from the unwarranted exercise of her body, didn’t register the tentative almost trembling hands that neared her face.  With a hesitant tug on the bottom of her red bandanna, the fabric easily slipped off to fully reveal her face.

…

“ELLIOT?!”

The year was [ μ ] – εуλ 0000, sometime in the summer, and she had encountered Zack Fair, second class SOLDIER for the very first time.