With a trembling hand, Cassius raised himself from the ground. Through the billowing smoke, he could make out the figure of the dead Aberrō, staring endlessly and aimlessly. The voices of the Fenders started to come through the clattering of the falling bricks.

  “Head count!” Nelia’s voice rang in his ears. A throbbing pain shot from Cassius’ head to his back, making him slump over out of the smoke. Nelia noticed him through her peripheral after she started counting, running over to him to sling his arm over her shoulder.

  “That’s eight! We need two more! Have any of you seen Han and Carto?!”

  Grace coughed and waved away the smoke as she got up. “There’s still one more, but I haven’t seen Eupho.”

  Nelia, standing with her hand on Grace’s back, huffed in confusion and looked around. “Who’s—who’s Eupho?”

  With a sudden, hefty exhale, Valerio shot up from the ground and mustered all of his strength to limp over to the wreckage. Still with half-lidded eyes and flimsy arms, he threw away the debris and whispered to himself, “Potato Boy…That’s Potato Boy…Never left the barracks…”

  Cassius's eyes fluttered closed as he fell to the ground. The sound of Nelia’s rapid footsteps behind Valerio’s sluggish ones, the incessant coughs of the other Fenders, it all built an ineffable irritation in his head. I should’ve just left…left all of this behind. Now I’m hurt. Can’t move. Have to stay even longer. So much time lost…and she could still be out there…alone.

  So much time. Maybe I’ve been too late for months now. Maybe it is all pointless. Got worked up for nothing.

  Those last words echoed in his head as he drifted to sleep amidst the chaos.

  ———

  Nelia ran past Valerio to the crumbled barracks, her boots clanging against the concrete and squelching from the black blood steadily seeping from the Aberrō’s head. She bit her lip and began digging through the debris, looking for any smear of red blood in the black sea. No, that can't be right. She had accounted for everyone. Valerio must’ve just been delirious. That was then she heard the muffled cry of a boy beneath the rocks of debris. Her upturning of the rocks hastened until she saw his twitching fingers, bloodied and bruised. With a grunt from the recesses of her gut, she rolled the boulder off of the boy.

  Nelia’s eyes widened at the sight. Blood gushed from his gashed nose, painting his face and filling his mouth. His head rolled to the side to cough and breathe shakily.

  “Hey! Hey, stay awake!” Nelia patted his cheek, smearing the blood on her hand. She pried his eyes open, searching for the life in them. Her voice grew desperate. “Grace?! Grace, please!” She called out to her and picked him up, noticing his arm limping unnaturally beside him. She looked around, searching for whatever remained of the barracks. As the dust settled, she saw the bedroom and kitchen were the only parts of the barracks destroyed. The medical supply and armory should still be intact. “Grace! Come on! I can’t—I can’t do this by myself!”

  Grace, still recovering from her fatigue, limped closer to assess Eupho. She weakly nodded her head and went with Nelia to the medical supply room, where she laid Eupho down on the examination table. Color felt the least scarce here. It is mostly children worked on here, after all.

  The sheet beneath him soaked immediately. Grace began moving methodically throughout the room with her half-lidded eyes and heavy breath. Nelia stepped back, giving her some space. In this room, it's as if Grace becomes a whole new person, like a decisive machine that knows exactly where to go and what it needs. But Nelia couldn't help but notice her heaving breaths and the bewildered look in her eye. As she wrapped his arm tightly in a gauze, Eupho opened his mouth to scream, but only a raspy, bloody cough came out. Before long, Grace's anesthesia seeped in. Eupho relaxed on the table with broken huffs of air escaping through his nostrils. His reddened eyes opened, gazing up blindly at the ceiling—at something that wasn’t there.

  “Nel,”

  Grace’s calm voice pierced through the fog, the focus in her eyes grounded her. “Nel, they need you outside. Hurry.”

  Nodding quickly, Nelia ran back outside, where the colors drained.

  ———

  Cassius flicked dirt from beneath his fingernail before resting his head against his precious crate, which had somehow survived the surrounding destruction, and rolled a lollipop around his tongue. The Aberrō’s enormous head laid out beneath rubble just a few yards away. The Fenders groans were out there, somewhere. But Cassius wasn’t here at all.

  He kept rolling the lollipop around in his mouth, clacking against his teeth periodically between sucks. Feeling the flavorful saliva go down his throat, he stared blankly ahead. At nothing, he thinks. A shadow of a presence was in front of him, distorted and not really there, walking past him back and forth. He just kept rolling.

  Han sat outside of the medical room with Carto and Valerio, whilst the other Fenders rummaged through the wreckage for their belongings, as if they were still there. Otherwise, it was unnaturally quiet.

  Valerio glanced down at Han’s skin, burns and speckles of rashes riddled his skin that peeked through the bandages that wrapped around his arm and back. Carto held his shoulder up, and without him saying so, Valerio assumed he had broken it in the fight.

  Finally, breaking through the silence that stretched taut over the barren field, he sighed, “Things’re lookin’ pretty rough, huh?” He turned his head to look at them from the corner of his eye. Carto’s eyes hung low, and he adjusted himself between the two of them on the wall. Han looked ahead, eyes trained on the giant Aberrō. Despite the pain, he still felt the ability to curl his lips into a grin.

  “Man, that was something. Never seen an Aberrō like that,” he whispered, as if in awe of the monster’s grandeur. Valerio shifted his brow but didn’t respond.

  “Come to think of it, shouldn’t the Aberrō have withered away at this point? It usually only takes a couple of minutes.” Han’s voice deepened as his look of awe changed to curiosity.

  “You think that thing was a normal Aberrō? Yeah, I doubt that.” Valerio mumbled and crossed his arms.

  “…or it could still be alive. Who knows?”

  Carto tensed up, his knees nearly buckled from leaning against the metal wall, as he glanced back up at the giant’s thin, void-like pupils. Valerio didn’t say anything. The possibility was there. Anything could happen now.

  Uncertainty hung in the air as silence made its presence known every once in a while. Suddenly, a loud whirring sound echoed through the vast soundscape. The sound left as soon as it came, replaced by the sound of heavy boots kicking dust from the ground. Valerio turned to the Aeternum, and between them was Sergeant, treading their space with purpose and a cigarette in his mouth.

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  The others caught on as well, excluding Cassius, and watched him approach quietly. Whence they met his face, he looked them over with hands stuffed in his coat pockets.

  He suddenly boomed, as if he had no reason to greet them, “You lot are lucky. Had it not been for our defense mechanism, you would all be dead.”

  Quiet murmurs spread around before Valerio cleared his throat to respond, “So that was you?”

  “To some extent. Most of it is automated to react to any contact with the dome.”

  “Even us?” Valerio asked raspingly. Sergeant didn’t respond.

  “So, what’s the collateral? And where’s the other three senior Fenders?”

  As Sergeant looked around, so did everyone else. There was Cassius, still rolling the lollipop in his mouth. Grace holed herself up in the medical room for hours, and nobody had seen Nelia. Sergeant walked past Valerio and knocked on the door of the medical supply room more commandingly than asking for permission. Grace's bagged eyes slowly drifted to meet his as he opened the door. She sat across from the table where Eupho laid, face and arm bandaged tight, still dappled with soft stains of blood. She didn’t react to his sudden appearance, again off schedule, and only sat there, watching the sleeping boy.

  Valerio peeked his head out from behind Sergeant and his face immediately twisted at the sight of Eupho. “…Grace, is he gonna be alright?”

  Grace leaned back in her chair and sighed, “He’s stable. His arms will probably heal, but he’ll be…stunted. He won’t be able to fight.” Her eyes dragged up to Sergeant’s. His lips pressed together, and he turned away to face Han and Carto. “Three injured, then.”

  “I’m gonna go look for Nel,” Valerio blurted out suddenly, before storming off. He marched past Cassius, muttering slander beneath his breath.

  “That’s it then, huh? Just collateral, just injuries? Just some damn stats on their charts to jot down and forget?” He kicked up dust and pebbles as he stormed away, leaving the barracks silent.

  Valerio walked into the forest, following faint footprints in the dirt. He went further and further in. The tracks were lost in the darkness, but the creeping sensation on his back was light.

  A thin beam of light peeked through the dense treetops, illuminating the dust in the air. Valerio gulped and dug through the thick bush. The branches pricked his fingers as he pushed through. At this point, he wasn’t thinking. Wasn’t sure if he was actually looking for Nelia, or…whatever else he could be doing all the way out here.

  The thin beam of light grew wider, glimmering into the depths of the forest until he came across the vast valley of flowers. Aberrō walked about, stepping over the poppies and lilies, stark contrasts to their twisted necks, slobbering maws and rabid twitching. Closer than anything was Nelia, sitting with her legs close to her chest, watching them from a distance. Her long brown hair, usually tied in a bun, swayed freely in the wind behind her back. In spite of that, she looked incredibly stiff.

  “Uh, hey, Nel—Nelia. I didn’t know this place was here…or that a place like this could be here.” he walked to her side, sneaking glances at her face. Dried tears crusted her eyes, tears she never bothered to wipe away. She looked ahead at the field, following the movements of an amalgamated lion, breathing through its exposed, pink lungs.

  “So, uh, you alright? Been pretty quiet since you left…and awkward.”

  “Leave me alone, V,” she muttered under her breath, drawing her knees closer to her chest. He didn’t budge and remained by her side, not purely out of thoughtfulness, but also because it would be awkward to leave. Silence spread between them, whispering past their ears.

  “Hey, you can, like, talk to me, you know. To us. We’re here for you.” Valerio spoke softly, suddenly remembering what Grace had inadvertently taught him over the past few days.

  In Nelia's head, she had strung her walls high; they were crumbling slightly, but stubbornness held them strong. Stupid, stupid, stupid. He’s an idiot, I’m an idiot. Everyone is—everything is.

  “What’re you beating yourself up for? There’s nothing we can do about it now. I mean…” Valerio furrowed his eyebrows, realizing what he said wasn’t helping.

  Nelia’s eyes flared up, widening as she stood up to face him. Her mouth hung open and took exasperated breaths.

  “Nothi—nothing? Nothing?!” Her hands wrapped around his neck, tight enough to leave marks on his skin. She pushed him to the ground and stood above him.

  “I am sick—sick and tired—of you just not taking a single goddamn thing seriously! Everything,” she growled as tears resurfaced in her eyes, “Everything is ruined! I’m done! We’re done! We’ll never get to go back, ever! Do you get that?!”

  Valerio sat up on his elbow, his other hand holding his throat as he coughed, “H-huh? Go back? What’re you talkin’ about?”

  Nelia’s sobs hitched in her throat. She raised her clenched fists, nails digging into her palms, shaking in desperation to strike something. She released them and sank back to the ground in front of him, covering her face with her hands.

  “You…You’re such an idiot. I can’t believe I’m here. Why am I here? I should be home right now, at home…” Her fingers curled into her hair and grasped at it roughly, “…not dealing with idiots. Idiots with nothing to lose…”

  Valerio looked at her with a creased brow until he stood up, his legs spread wide and his nose flared, but he kept his voice hushed. “Nel, we did what we could! We don’t win all the time, that ain’t how it works. We’re alive.”

  Nelia wiped her face with her hands as she took an exasperated gasp of air. “Don’t you see that this is still horrible? We have nowhere to sleep, nowhere to cook, and we’re already running out of food before the month is over. And Grace…” She paused, her breath shaking, “... I can’t bring myself to look at her. Her face is always so tired, I can’t stand it. And I can’t do a thing about it. I’m an idiot, an idiot leader.” She buried her face in her knees again, her long hair cascading down in front of her like a veil.

  A chuckle blurted out of Valerio’s mouth, still a tad raspy from his throat. It was unintended, but he kept going anyway. “Leader—an idiot leader—is that what you are?” His chuckle turned to full-blown laughter. “You can’t seriously still think you’re the leader! I already told you, you’re not.”

  Her face snapped to the side to meet his as she grunted, “Then who is!?” Silence followed as they stared at each other, one with a glare and the other with a cheeky grin.

  Valerio’s hand reached behind his head to ruffle his own hair. “Uh…not you?” Her glare remained unfazed at his reply, like a lion preparing to pounce on its prey. Suddenly, he wasn’t so giddy. “Hey, hey—What I meant was that you’re not the leader because all of us seniors are the leaders! Sergeant said so, remember? So you don’t have to blame everything on yourself. No need to be a hero, ya know.”

  Nelia’s glare softened to a tired gaze before she turned away again and muttered, “Do you always have to throw in an extra jab whenever you talk?” She sighed, dusting off her pants and throwing her hair back to tie it together. “Let’s just…head back. I'm sorry for making you come all the way out here.”

  “Pfft, you’re alright.” Valerio held the back of his neck with his hands and looked off into the valley, taking in the sight. “Man, I knew there was somethin’ out here. Didn’t think it’d be like this, though. How’d you find this place?”

  “We snuck out—Cassius, Carto, and I.” She bit her lip gently. “It was a stupid decision.”

  “Eh, maybe not, though. The Aberrō aside, it’s real pretty. Good find.”

  “... Thanks.”

  “Think we’ll ever go out there?” He turned to face her with a casual face.

  She looked at him, then past into the valley. Tall mountains she had never seen before painted it in the distance. Aberrō flew in the air with an ominous grace, as if they were a part of this nature. They’re audacious too now?

  She finally responded hesitantly, “We have a job to do, V.”

  Valerio’s eyes drooped as he scratched his head and muttered, “Oh.”

  “Yeah. You’re right.”

  Nelia began walking back into the forest, leaving Valerio to take a last look at the valley. Among all the flowers and monsters, his eyes landed on a dragonfly flying above a plot of marigolds.

  That’s new. Never seen a bug like that.

  Each blink of his eyes seemed to slow down time, flashing the dragonfly’s flapping wings frame by frame in his head. Delicate was the sound of the beat of those wings, silencing the gusts of wind and rustling of grass. When it perched itself onto the marigold’s petals, it stood perfectly still, looking up as if waiting for something. Valerio blinked again. The sound of grass, wind, and Nelia wrestling with the thick bushes returned.