Beyond This Place

Chapter 5

They bound through the darkness of the laboratory, the metal walls once again flanking them like the sides of a gray, frightening animal, heaving and rumbling in the distorted darkness. Rin wonders why this wing of the laboratory is so dark, so terrible, even in comparison to their original location where their cells were.

There is barely any lighting in the halls, the only flickers of luminescence the occasional, dim lamp fixated into the walls, parallel to each other every few yards. Miku seems to know the area well, to Rin's surprise. She appears to know it better than where they had been kept, and she dips through the halls with purpose. Rin can feel the meaning in her stride, the feeling of having a motive, so she follows Miku unquestioningly. Len seems to shrink to nothing in the claustrophobic, choking darkness, almost completely disappearing save his red, glowing eye.

"It's really dark," Len growls and almost betrays the nervousness in his voice. As he fumbles along lethargically in the thick, churning waves of caliginous air, suddenly his ponytail raises and alights. Rin stares in awe not only because she's never seen it light up before, but also because it looks almost comical. The glowing panels on Len's arms and legs also come to life, putting soft golden and pale green light upon their forms and edging them with it.

"Well, that helps me see a little better," Miku mumbles, shuffling through the halls and looking around. "My god, I don't remember this place as well as I used to."

Len wraps his hands around his lit ponytail with slight embarrassment as Rin looks at it in awed amusement, but she looks away quickly, not wanting to embarrass him anymore. The dark halls are mostly deserted, though they do pass by rooms where light flitters out, and when Rin peeks inside from the glass windows fixed on the doors she sees strange scientists doing strange things, bent over frightening looking severed human body parts and skeleton-like frames. Once she even passes by a room where a scientist is examining the skeleton (or a model of one) of a dog-like creature, but far burlier with huge, unnatural teeth as sharp as knives.

"These are the development labs. No one really hangs out in the halls because they're always busy, and it scared me when I was younger," Miku says, laughing a little, almost awkwardly. "It was always so dark and unlit, and the less disciplined and younger scientists would tell me scary stories about failed robots that were half people, half robot."

"Like Kaito and Meiko," Rin says. "That's probably where they got that idea."

"Yeah. What a mean twist," Miku says. "Anyhow, I learned to get used to the dim lighting of the place after they locked me here for a while because they had nowhere else to keep me. I wandered the halls until I memorized almost every turn. As you can see now, I've kind of forgotten a bit."

"Nowhere to keep you?" Rin asks faintly. "How about the cells?"

"When they made me, the whole wing with all the cell rooms wasn't constructed yet. That only came later." Miku tells her. Rin is surprised by this and wonders briefly just how long Miku's been around but decides only to ask later if at all (or maybe, she thinks, she should ask Neru). Miku shrugs and dances down another twist and turn.

"I'm pretty sure there's one door to the outside of the development wing that I always wondered about when I was younger," Miku says. "I recall trying to open it and failing. Maybe we can bust it down now."

They walk in silence for another while, Len's ponytail illuminating the path. After many more twist and turns, the soft golden light from Len's ponytail shines a dim circle on a room with no lights at all, cold and foreboding and metal in the darkness. Rin is afraid—the darkness is scary and pitch-black, completely opaque, but the lights from Len's ponytail continue shining dim light over the room, barely managing to fight off the cackling, burly blackness. Miku stumbles over to a door, metal and cold, with peeling white paint across it. "EXIT" is written on it, just above the twisting handle. Miku tries it and it's locked.

"Okay, Len," Miku says, sighing. "Could you break the hinges to this door so we can open it? I've always wondered what's beyond it, and this is my chance to know and also for us to actually get somewhere and escape."

Len nods and steps forward slowly, obviously still shaken up by the clawing darkness. Rin flanks him closely—he's painfully warm in the icy-cold temperature of the room and halls of the development wing. His warmth almost burns in contrast, feverishly hot. Len presses his left hand to the metal hinge of the door and, with a flick, his long, spindly spider-leg fingers form a drill, sharp and ridged. He begins drilling through the metal.

Rin cringes from the noise and she sees Miku glance around in paranoia to see if anyone has heard. The drill scraping and cutting through metal is loud and rumbles like the roaring of waves. Rin silently urges him with her eyes to work faster and Len presses harder against the metal.

Rin's heart nearly stops when she hears loud, purposeful footsteps approaching, accompanied by the scraping of metal against metal and metal clanking on metal.

"Hurry," Miku urges, and Len manages to cut through the first hinge before moving quickly onto the other one, his drill arm whirring with desperate action. Rin glances down the hall where the footsteps are approaching.

"What is that?" a mature, yet not-completely-womanly voice calls out, sounding annoyed and tired. "I've got a feeling this might be the escaped robots that Mr. Arai told me about."

"Hurry," Miku repeats, and Len growls to signify he's hurrying as much as he can. The footsteps get closer, closer. Sweat breaks out on Rin's forehead, cold against her clammy skin.

At that moment there's an unearthly growl as suddenly something bursts out of nowhere, sleek golden fur gleaming in the dim light from Len's hair.

The voice comes back again, this time raised to a high-pitched yell. "Get them, Hiro!"

The creature leaps and Miku is knocked to the ground, her eyes gleaming with annoyance but also underlying fear.

Rin hustles over, and though she knows she's far from a bodyguard robot, she begins to attempt to claw the creature from Miku's chest. It appears to be a normal dog, nothing like the one Len killed weeks earlier, but its intent seems to be equally or more savage as it begins to attempt to rip at Miku's clothes.

"Rin!" Len says and his voice is panicked and sharp with desperation. "You try to tear this hinge off—I've got it halfway done. I'll help Miku!"

Rin nods wordlessly, and as she hustles over to the door, she sees the owner of the voice come into view. It's a girl who looks barely twenty, her bright green hair cropped short and falling around her face in soft-looking strands. She glances at them and sees the dangerous appendages fly out from Len's back, ripping a hole into the red fabric of the sweater as his third hand digs into the soft pelt of the savage dog.

The dog yelps and snarls, leaping off Miku to attack Len. Rin quickly turns to concentrate on the hinge and begins to twist and shake the hinge, attempting to free the half-ripped metal. It begins to come loose, the rounded nails beginning to come undone.

After a few moments that feel like forever, the final nail is almost out. Rin can't get the sound of savage growling and roaring behind her out of her head as Len and the dog fight. What scares her most is that she can't tell the difference between the snarls and hatred of the dog and Len. She knows Len has the intent to kill, his muscles instinctively moving and only wanting to rip flesh to shreds in the fire of battle.

At last, the nail clatters out and the door falls out of its place, revealing light beyond. Miku looks up desperately and bolts for the door.

"Len!" Rin calls out, trying to raise her voice over the din of the dog and Len. The dog is indeed far more savage than the one they had seen before—it appears to be putting up a decent fight, inflicting painful looking wounds on Len's skin and ripping his clothes. Likewise, wounds are scattered across the dog's pelt and Rin notices no blood wells up from the punctures in its skin.

"It's time to go! Just leave the dog!" Rin screams, but Len doesn't seem to hear her and Rin is afraid to approach him. Meanwhile, the female scientist moves closer. Miku is long gone.

At last, Rin cringes and lunges at Len, grabbing him by the collar. Len screams as Rin attempts to drag him off, but Rin dares to put her face close to his ear and whisper soothingly—though desperately— into it. Len begins to calm and his body grows limp, allowing Rin to drag him off slowly. After a few feet Len realizes what they have to do and grabs Rin, who's tired beyond what she can believe and her fingers sore from prying the hinge away from the door. He hauls her up and she clings to his ripped shirt desperately as he bolts out the open door and into the light.

They seem to move for forever, and Rin can't remember when Len first started walking instead of stumbling, running. Her eyes are closed peacefully and she doesn't want to look around. Her eyelids glow yellow from what she can see with her eyes closed, signifying light outside.

Len continues holding her, and Rin senses Miku is nowhere near their proximity. She doesn't hear Miku's labored breathing or her soft pattering footsteps.

At last, Len speaks, groaning softly. "Rin, I'm so tired. I'm sorry."

"No, I should be sorry," Rin mutters softly, her mouth only moving slightly to speak. She allows Len to set her down on the ground—it is soft and powdery, like dirt, and her eyes open instinctively to stare at her surroundings from where she's lying on the floor. Besides her, she feels Len slide down into a lying position as well.

The ceiling is a comforting yellow, warm, orange lights shining down from lights fixated in the plaster. Large, tropical trees and vegetation bow and form hammocks, reaching high to the ceiling in deep, forest green waves. The humid air touches Rin's face, warm and sticky on her skin.

"Where are we?" Len mumbles. Rin turns her head to look at him and finds him grimy—dirt and pitch are smeared on his face in nasty black smudges, and open wounds cover his arms, black metal shining gruesomely from within. Rin cringes and then groans and sits up.

"You're dirty," she says as gently as possibly. She takes off her sweater, revealing her original clothes below and the cleaning materials attached to her back. She takes a towel out from the container attached to her waist and gently scrubs his face. Len mumbles and sighs at the wet coldness of the towel on his skin. Rin imagines it must be colder than usual from the warmness around them. She dips the towel in a canteen of warm water to the right of the basket on her waist before swiping his face again, rubbing away the stains on his soft skin.

When she finishes doing that, Len's eyes open and stare unwaveringly at her as she pulls the backpack off his back. It's slightly rumpled, torn a little in the corners and the soft covering on the straps are ripped, but otherwise Rin finds it in moderate condition.

She rummages through it and pulls out the skin ointment and begins to seal his wounds. Some are too big and the ointment flops and fails to work, but that only happens on the wounds she can't pinch together again. Len sighs at the softness of the cream and Rin laughs softly—though it comes out like a hacking cough—at the aspect of his happiness as he moves closer to her in delight. She imagines it feels good after having to endure the pain from all of the assorted wounds and carry her around to throw off the scientist and the dog.

She wraps up his larger wounds with wet towels as best as she can and pulls them tightly together with a string. She can't help the tears and rips in his clothes and decides to leave them alone as she begins stroking his hair and combing her fingers through it to free any pitch or dirt.

"Rin," Len asks at last after she continues to comb at his hair for a while. "Where are we?"

"I have no idea," Rin replies, surprisingly content with this conclusion. There doesn't appear to be any scientists around and the warmth of the humid air soothes her. "There doesn't appear to be anyone around, and it's quite pretty here."

Len nods and then prods at the next, somewhat more pressing question. "Where's Miku?"

"I have no idea for that question either," Rin says, and at this she's not so content. "She ran off and I have no idea where she headed to."

Len nods thoughtfully at this, and they sit around for a while until Len feels strong enough to stand again. He stumbles up, tripping a little, and Rin helps him up. She's not as tired because he carried her most of the way here, but she can imagine it's nearly the opposite for him. They beginning stumbling through the foliage, and they both occasionally call out Miku's name but get no reply.

"I wonder what this forest is for," Rin says. They're beginning to get into thicker foliage, the patches of dirt with no spurts of vegetation becoming smaller and smaller as they go along. Len parts two intruding fern leaves as they walk forward, dancing around the thick, deep-brown roots of trees. Len shrugs.

At once, Rin hears a noise.

It sounds like a croaking, but not a very frightening one. It sounds almost comical, not exactly froglike, and Rin looks forward and up to locate who or what is making the noise. Despite how it sounds friendly, both of them tense in warning and worry. Rin's eyes search the dense vegetation and at last she spots the offender and where the noise is coming from.

A colorful parrot sits on a thick branch of a tree before them, wrinkled black and white skin surrounding its yellow eye. It appears to be a macaw, distinctive by its awkward black beak.

It flaps its blue and yellow wings several times and squawks and croaks again.

"Oh, hi," Rin says, somehow feeling unthreatened by the creature despite its hooked beak and heavy black claws that could, if turned against you, rip skin and tear and gouge out eyes.

"Welcome, welcome!" the bird squawks, flapping its wings again. "I can't seem to locate Rin and Len…But if you can relay this message, tell them to be careful!"

Rin gazes at the bird as it squawks again. She's intrigued by its mention of their names, and she realizes that perhaps Miku passed through here and left the message on the parrot. The parrot flaps and flaps. "One plus one equals three!"

The parrot no longer seems to have the intention of saying anything interesting, so Rin glances at Len to have permission to begin ignoring it. Len shrugs his shoulders and they continue on through the foliage.

"That message the parrot said…" Len says, and Rin can guess what he's going to say. "Miku most likely left that."

"Yeah," Rin agrees, hanging close to his warm side. "I wonder why she told us to be careful…?"

"I don't know, and I don't particularly want to know," Len says, laughing weakly. Rin joins in with the awkward laughter as they continue moving on.

For a second, Len pauses and then continues.

As they progress, Len begins to pause more and more, and at last Rin asks what he's doing.

"I keep on thinking I hear something," Len says, his voice quivering slightly. The foreboding message Miku or someone left for them seems to be getting to his mind and he's more tense and ready to strike than normal. "It sounds like…I don't know. Some kind of deep purring, or something."

Rin thinks, and she finds herself recalling a similar strange noise on occasions earlier and she tenses as well. "Oh boy," she says unenthusiastically, and then they proceed to creep forward slowly, unsure of themselves.

Len growls occasionally and he is obviously disturbed, his ponytail standing out on end as if it has a mind of its own. The sound of whirring emanates from a ventilation slit in his back as they creep, hyperventilating slightly.

They walk for a while when something twisted and strange collides with Rin's foot. She looks down in disgust and finds a ripped, twisted leek near the ground by her foot. It's the one Mikuo gave Miku.

"Len," she says weakly, clinging to the frayed material on the sleeve of his sweater. Len glances down and tenses.

"I…"

Before Len can clearly react, the hidden purring or growling from before becomes a loud, dangerous snarl, then a terrible roar. Rin can feel the ground literally shaking from the noise, and Len's eyes narrow in fear and tenseness as he gets ready to attack anything that approaches. Whatever is making the infernal sound of leaves and foliage being ripped and shredded approaches, and before Rin can even think, Len takes flight.

The fabric of his sweater that Rin holds is ripped from her grasp as Len leaps forward and onto the slippery back of a huge, white metal lion. The lion roars and shakes as the much smaller Len clings to the slippery glossed metal on its back, his hands scrabbling at its smooth coat.

Lines of glowing blue are embossed into the creature's side, the lights ebbing in and out ominously. It manages to send Len reeling off its back, but he manages to hold on by grasping a protruding ledge.

"Len," Rin says quietly as she watches Len hang helplessly as the huge creature shudders and turns, looking for the robot boy to pulverize him and rip him to shreds.

It's huge, at least eight times her size, as tall as a door and as long as at least three normal-sized lions. Len clings to it and struggles to climb back onto it, grabbing onto its synthesized mane made of coarse, white hairs. He clings there, and the lion feels the tugging at its collar. It roars and raises its front legs into the air in attempt to throw him off. Len slips and snarls, his fingers digging futilely into the material beneath his fingers.

Len's attacks to its hide seem pointless and weak, his drill clattering off its side helplessly. He growls and snarls, but it doesn't intimidate the creature at all; instead, it bucks again, roaring. Len begins painstakingly shooting energy from the gun on his back, and Rin's heart flies when she sees it has an effect.

The concentrated energy blasts a large dent into the creature's side, and it roars in agony, twisting in rage and doing a mad dance. Len grimaces and continues to shoot repeatedly at the spot until the white metal gives way and a hole blasts through, revealing complex, silver gears and black wires within, coordinating the lion's body. Len sticks his left arm into the churning gears and grimaces in pain as the gears rip at his skin. Rin hears the whirring of his drill begin and the more sensitive insides of the creature give way and shatter.

The creature roars and convulses, leaping into a tree in its crazed dance. The tree shudders and creaks under its weight—then breaks, sending the creature and the hanging Len down. In a sickening moment, Rin sees Len's bent hands slip and he falls into a clump onto the ground with a nauseating snap. Rin makes a break for his mangled body as he begins to struggle to sit up, his limbs shaking under the effort as he falls again. The metal bangs and clangs loudly as the lion falls to the ground as well, shaking the floor and making powdered dirt fly up. The lion roars and stumbles to its feet hastily, and Rin screams and rolls away as the lion leaps upon them.

She manages to barely escape its fiercely hooked claws, but it's not so lucky for the crippled bodyguard robot. The sound of his desperate screams as the lion rips his skin bang in Rin's ears loudly as she pants and only manages to watch from the side.

Rin can see Len pinned under the claws of the beast and she struggles to her feet, her muscles shaking with fatigue, and she thinks she has no offensive weapons.

She suddenly remembers the backpack.

She looks at Len desperately and is almost thankful that it's no longer on his back. Upon looking around, she finds it discarded to the side, dirty and ripped in multiple places, and she clambers over. Carelessly she throws aside anything she doesn't need and burrows her hand into it until she hands find the cold metal barrel of the small handgun. She pulls it out and cocks it, pointing it at the large wound in the machine-creature's side.

She pulls the trigger.

The bullet buries itself into the metal clockwork of the lion's insides and it screams and plunges a paw forward. The huge, five-clawed paw pushes against Len's chest and Rin hears a sickening crunch as it gives way.

Len's soul-splitting scream breaks her heart and eardrums into a million tiny pieces.

The lion falls to its side, the small bullet jarring its clockwork-powered body and causing it to jerk as if having a seizure. Then it stops, unable to move, though it continues watching them with venomous eyes. Rin runs past it and to Len, who is still screaming, screaming.

When Rin approaches, Len doesn't acknowledge her existence. He continues writhing on the ground, eyes feverish and his body mangled. Rin's heart plummets to her stomach when she sees the gaping hole in his chest, black gears whirring within. Strands of long wires and chains are hanging out of the gargantuan wound, pulled out of place and severed by the lion's wickedly hooked claws.

"Hold still," Rin says desperately, but Len continues whimpering and he curls up in pain.

"Len?" Rin asks and her voice is tinged with hysteria. She doesn't want Len to die, not only because she knows she can't defend herself and because—because she actually cares about him.

Rin gently moves him so the wound in his chest is facing towards the sky as she examines the damage. She doesn't understand a bit about the wires within him and she bites her lip, not knowing how to help. His glossy metal hands are dented and kinked, and they scrabble at the dirt in feverish spasms.

Rin reaches out to touch the edge of the wound and Len begins screaming again and flailing, his sharp hand cutting Rin's cheek. Rin bites her lip to hold back the pain and then pins his chest and arms down, preventing further movement. Len whimpers and snarls, so terribly that Rin feels terror jerking through her bones. Unable to do anything but soothe him, she leans over his face desperately.

"Len, Len, Len," she whispers into his ear, softly, reassuringly. Len's screams reduce down to uncontrolled yelps as she does so, then to sad whimpers. He looks at her with clouded, pained eyes, his mouth barely moving to speak.

"Do you love me?"

Rin is taken aback and freezes, then gazes at his teary blue eye for a long while. She finally finds her voice among the sea of confusion in her heart.

"Len?" she asks uncertainly. Len looks at her with those foggy eyes filled with desperation and Rin does the only thing she can to soothe the distressed robot. "Of course," she says, touching his face gently. Len seems to be soothed by her words and her touch and his eyes begin to close.

Rin can feel him slipping. She leans closer to him with worry as his eyes close and the gentle vibration from machinery whirring below his skin stops.

Rin watches him for a while, stunned by his words. Then she wonders if she really does love him. And after a while, she realizes she can.

She's stunned how vulnerable she suddenly feels and, with a burst of hysterical anger, she turns and thrusts the barrel of the gun near the lion's right eye and shoots. The lion screams in pain and roars some more as Rin punctures its left eye as well, her shoulders heaving with anger at everything, everything that has gone wrong.

Her shoulders heave with the beginnings of sobs, her hands dropping the gun to reach up to obscure her face. She finds herself crying pitifully, whimpering with flushed anger and anguish. For the first time, she feels the loss of someone she has loved.

Then she stops, suddenly feeling utterly alone. Len is gone and so is Miku. Still hiccupping, she crawls over to Len, her face pinched with frustration, and begins stuffing the hanging out chains and wires back into him almost uselessly.

"Don't do that, Rin."

A voice comes from nowhere, mature and feminine. Rin turns and she hears approaching footsteps, her heartbeat quickening and her shoulders tensing. What comes stumbling out of the foliage is not who she suspects, however.

It is Meiko, walking daintily and carefully, her eyes as bandaged as ever. To Rin's surprise, she manages to make it over to her and Len without stepping on any of them. She bends over almost as if to look at the stopped Len.

"If you stuff those metal things back in you'll just damage his insides," Meiko says. Rin watches her wearily, surprised.

"How did you get here…?" Rin asks. "And how did you know I was trying to put those wires and chains back in? You're blind, aren't you?"

Meiko laughs, her creamy hair falling around her face as she bends over Len and begins feeling his chest to examine the damage. "How I got here is easy. The news of you three escaping is everywhere. The whole laboratory is under Code Red constantly because the scientists are all having nightmares about the new supposedly brutal bodyguard robot on the loose." Meiko mumbles something and grabs onto a chain hanging out of the wound and pulls softly. She thrusts her hand into the hole in his chest and tinkers with something within as she talks. "So I heard you three escaped almost right away. That inspired me to go off as well, and the scientists thought I was completely harmless and let me wander out.

"I managed to get some scientist help and got into the development wing, as I heard a report from the top development scientist, Gumi, that she had found you guys but you had escaped into the jungle where they kept the extremely dangerous battle lion," Meiko continues, gesturing at the now dead lion lying on its side nearby. "I managed to get in because the door they had was very makeshift after you guys ripped off the sturdy old one. And I found you. And at the second question, I heard it. My senses are pretty good, not only because I'm blind, but because they sharpened my senses in the lab but utterly failed at upgrading my eyes."

Meiko reaches up to touch the bandage on her face and Rin watches, feeling bad. Meiko then reaches her hand back into Len's chest and Rin is surprised when she pulls out a whole onslaught of black wires and battery cases and gears, all interconnected.

"I'm going to just take all this stuff out," Meiko explains. "If we just let it drag around, it'll probably damage it more than if we just hang on to this."

"Are you…" Rin says carefully. "…implying he can actually start working again?"

"With hard work and some effort," Meiko says, and Rin can't hide the grateful and relieved smile that invades her face. "Why don't you carry him? We can go get to a phone booth and call Neru. She can probably fix him with time." Meiko says.

Rin is slightly worried about the daunting task of carrying him everywhere, but, upon picking his limp form up, finds him as light as a ragdoll, severely lightened by the wires Meiko had taken out. She puts the gun in the backpack and picks up it up. Meiko carries the bundle of black machinery as they walk.

"Where's Miku?" Meiko finally asks as they dodge sturdy plants through the forest. Rin looks at the floor and shrugs. She desperately doesn't want Miku to be dead (her death would make her feel even more useless than she already does) but she isn't so sure of Miku's fate.

Len is limp and cold in her hands and she gazes into the hole in him with masochistic interest. Most of the machinery within is taken out in the area through his body, and Rin can see the frame that helps hold up his skin on the inside of his form. She looks away quickly because the gaping emptiness of the hole scares her. Len hangs limply off her back where she is carrying him.

Meiko begins humming a tune softly, holding onto Rin's hand for guidance. For the first time, Rin realizes she has to lead them and takes her strides more confidently, despite how cold and fearful she feels on the inside.

At last the trees begin to become sparser, the foliage thinning out. After a while more of walking, they reach another door with an old-fashioned bolt door. Rin slides the bolt aside and the door opens easily.

"What's beyond?" Meiko asks. Rin glances forward. She can see some dark-looking black halls ahead.

"It's probably more of the development wing," Rin says. She glances at Len over her shoulder and remembers his unconscious state. She shrugs quickly, trying not to think about it, and then leads Meiko into the darkness.

Almost immediately, they stumble upon a small phone machine fixated into the wall and Rin is immensely grateful. She picks it up and then turns to Meiko.

"Do you know Neru's number?" she asks, and Meiko nods and holds out her hand for the phone. Rin hands it carefully into her outstretched hand and Meiko begins hitting at the numbers slowly, trying to remember their positions. After a while she hands it back to Rin and Rin holds it up her ear and waits as the phone rings softly.

She's relieved when Neru's familiar voice emanates from the other end. "Hello?"

"Neru?" Rin asks. She's trying not to sound too desperate but she feels like she's failing at it. Her fingers hammer on the synthesized plastic covering the phone out of nervousness.

"What's wrong?" Neru asks.

"Um…Len's really beat up," Rin manages to squeak out. "Maybe…Could you come over to fix him?"

"Um, okay," Neru says and her voice is concerned. "My cell phone says you're calling from the phone booth in the East Development Wing?" Rin quickly utters that that's probably the correct location and Neru seems content with that solution.

"The development wing is kind of far away, but I'll come over," Neru says. Rin manages a quick, squeaky "thank you" before muttering her farewells and hanging up.

"She's coming over," Rin says to Meiko, and Meiko nods. "I guess we should just stay here?"

"For now," Meiko says. "If anyone comes, we're going to have to make a run for it. We can run back into that forest to hide."

With that, Rin slides into a sitting position on the metal floor and sets Len down. His blue eye is closed peacefully, his eyelid unmoving, while his red eye is glaring upwards at the ceiling unseeingly. Rin sees that it has no eyelid but it's still disturbing, seeing the bloodshot eye staring at nothing. She gently smoothes his hair over the offending eye and pats his limp arm, trying to ignore his wound. She begins treating his smaller wounds absentmindedly with the ointment and Meiko sits down besides her.

"Don't kill yourself, okay?" Rin says to Len, even though she knows he can't hear.