The Footsteps are Fading

by Saki

“…every man makes his own religion, his own God.”

                                                          - Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

 Chapter Four

 

China’s power over the people finally ended.

Like a massive dam that had kept back thousands of tons of water, when one stoke broke, the whole mess collapsed upon the country. Tidal wave after tidal wave of people slammed against the communist party, and when that was crushed beyond recognition, the people were still not satisfied, so they swarmed over the whole of China, even spilling into Mongolia and Laos, Tahiti, and others in that proximity, looking for anything that minutely reminded them of the communists and they overtook it with such burning force, such reckless, mortifying desire, that none dared to stand in their way. The people embraced anarchy so violently that no new political parties even began to spawn the idea of talking to a group of merely five people in hopes of getting the country back together. Obviously, the masses of the people wanted absolutely no government, so politics therefore came to a screeching halt for a very, very long time. As a result, food began to become sparse. No imports of it were happening, due to worldwide fear of the one billion angry peoples in China, so soon such a lovely, technologically advanced country turned into a savage wilderness. All stores had been looted, no hospitals were functioning, and the virus of SARS was still creeping around, jumping on people from behind when they least expected it. The death tolls were heart stopping in their numbers. In a few months, thousands of people had died. Japan, keeping its isolated mentality as always, shied away from any happening in China, for it had it’s own troubles to worry over. Their short revolution was already beginning to fade after several guerrilla leaders were killed. Now the masses teemed into submission, but there were still ruffles to be smoothed.

Halfway home, Yamato was stopped in the street by some long-missed friends. They looked concerned, tired and hungry, but altogether healthy and alive despite his fears. He took Koushiro, Mimi, and Takeru back to his house for dinner and a long interrogation. His first question pertained to Sora. All three of them were confused at his mentioning her, as they hadn’t seen her since the mesa. An iron fist squeezed at his heart painfully, but he continued the conversation quickly with asking them what the digital world looked like now. All were silent for some time.

“It’s…” Takeru started, but told his companions with his eyes to continue the description. Koushiro took it up.

“…like a maze now, Matt. A brown, lifeless maze. There were times when I had no idea how we ended up in one place, and then suddenly we were in another like that.” He snapped his fingers.

“And you left Davis and Kari?”

“Yeah, Davis…” Mimi struggled with her words, so Koushiro once again finished the sentence.

“He’s stronger than us; he didn’t need us. We were just hindering him like little children.”

“So then why is Kari still with him? Wouldn’t she be the most clingy?”

“Yeah, but…I’m not sure how to explain this, but they are the team. There really was no need for us three at all. Davis is smarter now, he easily replaces me.”

“And who needs me to fight when Davis is so strong?” Takeru said.

“Hikari is his support in this thing, too. It might have been too much of a hindrance if I had stayed.”

Yamato nodded at Mimi. So Daisuke and Hikari were the only ones fighting now. How fitting.

“Did you find anything about the enemy?”

Takeru laughed loudly.

“Weeks spent there! – starving, dead tired – and we didn’t find one SCRAP of anything of the guy. Somewhere along the way we lost the trail of the explosions and just started wandering. That was the time when I think we were hit mentally the hardest, and when most of us gave up. I really admire Davis now, because he was the one who kept our mission before him as top priority. Us…I can’t give us that credit.”

“Our merit is terrible,” added Koushiro sadly, and somberly picked at his plate.

“So…basically nothing happened?”

The three stared at him blankly. So it seemed that nothing happened, but they couldn’t remember very clearly anyhow. So, forgetting the blurred weeks spent in the desolate digital world, they pushed into the subject of Japan and why it was so chaotic.

“Oh, that, yeah. Um, that’s sort of a weird topic. All very political and…yeah. Let’s just be happy that everything is getting back to normal. You should be glad you missed the most of it, because it was scary as hell. For some reason, I kept on thinking that bombs would start falling any minute.” He half-laughed, but tried to answer their other questions, but his focus was on Sora, and just where she could be. The last he had seen of her she had taken their bedroom phone downstairs to talk to someone who had called in the middle of the night. If only he had stayed awake and asked her who it was! He bit his lip and stared down at the table. He thought he recalled hearing the front door open…

Suddenly there was a deafening sound that sounded much like a two-ton something falling onto concrete right next to one’s ear. The windows began to shake violently in their frames and a rumbling sound ricocheted off all the walls, causing them to shudder. Yamato ran to window and was looking up into the sky, when the glass shattered and he was thrown backwards onto the table by a fierce wind. A blast wave completely leveled his entire neighborhood and the surrounding ones, throwing all four of them to the floor, semi-unconscious and temporarily without the ability of hearing.

Yamato tried to get up even in his nonsensical state. There was a large slate of roof on his legs, and other such rubble crushing his upper body. Automatically he thanked god for not letting something hit his head and ultimately put an end to him, but then a realization colder than that of Sora’s disappearance hit him: his children.

(Dirty word dirty word dirty word), Yamato screamed in his head. Then: children children children! Where are my children? Oh god, they were upstairs…upstairs…upstairs… Something tickled his brow… upstairs…upstairs…I told them to go upstairs…please let them be rebellious just this once, please, please, I’d give anything to have them eavesdropping on our conversation a few moments ago, please, please, anyone…God?…

He squeezed his eyes tightly shut and thought nothing but thoughts like those said above. Then someone very close to him coughed. Wasn’t a woman, so that scratched out Mimi. Wasn’t very old sounding… His heart beat furiously. Oh please, yes, that has to be…

He opened his eyes.

His boy was trying to wipe blood off of his face with his shirt.

Thank you, god. Thank you.

Over there, to the left, he saw his girl struggling to sit up.

A thousand thanks flew from him up to wherever god was; enough to block all other prays to god and halt any other readings but his for the next few days. He smiled.

Koushiro had already been pushed to the ground by Yamato’s flying body, so he hadn’t received mentionable damage. Takeru, lying not three feet from Koushiro’s shoes, was trying to wrench his arm from under a large piece of debris. Cuts ranged all up and down his body, but not serious enough to cause any real hurt. Mimi (spared by god knows what) was already standing and walking to Takeru to assist in his plight. The house was strewn upon the ground, like all others in propinquity. So the house opened to the sky, which portrayed menacing clouds of blackness, turning the day abruptly into night.

His son fingered his brow softly, with worries etched into his face despite his father’s smile.

“Are you okay?”

His son nodded. Then his daughter stumbled over and fell to her knees by her brother. Tears were sketching the Nile into her cheeks. Yamato reached up and wiped away the dirt and water, smiling at her. She was safe, unharmed. Takeru gradually got out from the painful grasp of the debris and coughed loudly.

“What the hell was that!” he screamed, staring up into the ominous sky.

“A bomb of some sort,” Koushiro said quietly.

“Oh, well, thank you for that informative report, Izzy. I MEANT: who the hell dropped it on us!”

They were all silent. Those who were well educated in this sort of thing (or had read Alas Babylon, whichever) refrained from speaking of the fall-out that might plague the area at any second or had already fallen. Koushiro wet his finger and held it up. He sighed.

“You all don’t know how lucky we are,” and then, “and how unlucky the people south of here are going to be.”

Yamato nodded and all would have been hushed if Takeru wasn’t still screaming questions in the background. They were good questions, but silly because none of them could possibly answer him.

“Did we just survive that?” asked Mimi, and all acceded.

They noticed the neighbors standing up now, and abruptly the whole neighborhood seemed to be alive like it had never been before.

 

Sora’s hand dug into his shirt, pulling him closer with each eardrum ripping roar overhead. Hikari also clung to him; her hands clamped firmly on his arm. Rudely awoken, Daisuke cursed up at the sky and would have joined the group many feet from him, but was inclined to stay and rest, seeing as it would be excruciating to even crawl.

Cloud after cloud piled up into one, forming a bloated mass of darkness that started spitting out burning hot rain on them. It was an odd sensation; one like thinking something weighs much more than it does, and then picking it up with a strength unnecessary. Daisuke was fortunately saved from being scalded on top of all his other injuries, for his three companions picked him up and carried him to the safety of thick trees. All four sat under the foliage, staring at the sky, wondering what else it would bring. Steam rose in thick sheets from the ground outside the protection of trees and spurts of lightning shattered the sky, instantly followed by the bellows of enraged thunder. The four of them huddled together, dashing away pride, as they watched in silence the horrifying yet intriguing storm from their standpoint. They crossed their fingers and held their breath, hoping that the lightning would not strike their tree. Whether or not it struck that particular tree didn’t really matter, because the strike of any tree in the oasis would surely see them to running, seeking shelter from rain and fire. This possibility of lightning striking was as sure as they were digidestined, for the storm above was outrageously furious. Taichi sat chewing his lip, Daisuke covered his eyes from any penetrating raindrops, Sora stared up in wonder at the clouds, and Hikari sat dead still, watching Daisuke. A miracle then happened.

Lightning, as we have convinced ourselves before, was sure to strike, but by pure luck Daisuke had left his knife in the clearing, in which there was sparse grass and no trees for quite a wide diameter. Again and again, the white bolts of electricity were drawn to the conductor, saving the digidestined from any further woes that might have come to pass.

So, that poor little blade, took the full impact of several bolts, leaving it steaming red hot, with all of its little electrons racing as fast as their “legs” could carry them. This was a spectacular and wondrous picture. Like the center of everything, with the digidestined only yards away, it withstood all attacks and sat still, almost mocking the sky. Many hours were thus passed in this manner, until the digidestined were driven away from their hiding spot, for the heat from the knife was incredibly strong. When the storm finally abated, the clouds refused to leave.

The digidestined (excluding our fearless Davis) stood up soon after the rain discontinued its assault and tried to walk around, but found the ground so sodden in parts that their shoes sunk to almost the very top. So they returned to the handicapped Daisuke to sit and think, like stranded people on an island in the middle of an ocean.

“Well,” Taichi said, “this bites the bagel big time. What are we supposed to do now?”

“What were you planning to do in the first place? Miraculously find the enemy that is so elusive?”

Taichi shot Sora an altogether evil look, but refrained from opening his mouth further.

A long lapse of no talking then followed, until Daisuke eventually pushed himself up (with much groaning) to a sitting position. He stationed himself against a tree, facing the others. Taichi and he stared at each other unconsciously, maybe communicating in some special language that only leaders can understand, or maybe just staring stupidly at one another. Against all of our hopes, the latter was not the truth.

Taichi stretched to a standing position and stared up at the sky. He was unaware as to whether it was night or day for the clouds still festered in the heavens, blocking sun and moon. He pulled out his digivice and fingered the buttons on it. He had always wondered what those did (don’t we all?) and was, just out of curiosity, going to push one, when Sora walked up behind him and put a hand on his shoulder. He let his shoulder ease under her touch as he looked back into her eyes. She was smiling.

“What,” he said, feeling a smile lift his face, too.

“Well our brave leader, what is it that you had planned?”

He laughed; an odd sound that seemed to creep into the trees around them, and arouse their questions.

“Just keep in mind that I’m open to suggestions.”

“Whatever you say, o great one.” She tried a curtsy but was wearing pants.

“Tai?”

He tore his eyes away from Sora and to Daisuke, who, compared to Sora, had a dreadful countenance.

“You’re standing on something.”

He looked down towards his feet, saw nothing, and turned back to Daisuke, confused.

“Sora, too.”

Now both Sora and Taichi were picking up their feet and gazing at the saturated ground, unable to find what the man meant. Scrupling Daisuke’s sanity, they gave him an odd look, implying their ignorance of his meaning. He sighed and signaled them to come near him. They did so, and, when at his eyelevel, they found that the piece of earth they had been standing on had in fact a latch of some sort, therefore making it a door.

“A door?” Taichi said blandly. “What the heck is that doing out here?”

“It must be what Davis felt: the thing that we’re looking for.”

“The enemy?”

Hikari vacillated on her answer a bit, then said: “If you wish to call it that. I think it’s more fitting if it’d be called the core of the problem.”

Taichi frowned.

“So…ultimately the enemy.”

She shrugged.

Sora and Taichi walked over to the latch, then crouched next to it. Opening it…what might they unleash? The enemy? Taichi held his breath, touched the latch softly, and then with a  hard and quick yank pulled up the door. Soil silted down into the black hole, wide enough for two people to pass through side by side. The beginning of a staircase could be seen, but everything past that was lost in a dark oblivion. Taichi looked over at Sora, reading in her eyes the same apprehensiveness he knew to be in his own. She jerked her eyebrows up a little, seeming to ask the question, ‘we’re not really going down there, are we’, but Taichi nodded and put on a false, pathetic smile. He craned his eyesight back to Hikari and Daisuke.

“Either of you have a flashlight?”

They shook their heads simultaneously, and when he turned to Sora she was shaking hers as well. He sighed.

“Well, then I guess it’s the old ‘hold hands and feel the wall’ game, huh?”

He rose and went back to his sister. He didn’t plan to take Daisuke along, and he shouldn’t be alone, so…

“Do you mind staying here with Davis, Kari?”

She shook her head furiously, indicating her great will to stay with Daisuke.

“Okay, but if anything goes wrong up here, feel free to follow us in. I doubt there will be many passages in there. Oh, and Davis,” he glared at the man, “you better take care that Hikari doesn’t get hurt.”

Daisuke smiled and gave him the thumbs up sign, then Sora and Taichi seized each other’s hands and descended down the dark staircase.

 

With fingertips trailing across the interior of the passageway, leaving smudged fingerprints that were at once eaten by dew, Taichi and Sora slid into the darkness that beckoned to them, walking into an existence devoid of any shred of light at all. The walls seemed to be constructed of some sort of asphalt, but the floor was spongy and unadorned. There was silence everywhere; swallowing their uneven footsteps, devouring all trace of their breathing, and biting a trail of uneasiness into their minds. No sound welcomed their straining ears, nor did any discernable figure appear before their deprived eyes. So they pushed onward, (what felt like) against the grain, and into the black vastness of the tunnel. It smelled sinisterly sweet, like the entrails of a ripped petal, like the salt of the sea, and all resided in their sensitive noses, awaiting their categorization and filing.

Time, a so unnecessary thing, would give them no comfort here. It had left them at the doorway, bidding adieu and wishing them luck on their further traveling. No, time, that wretched, conniving wench, was too cowardly to fight alongside of them. So the plodded along, pulling their shoes out of the mud every now and then, and always endeavoring to see some light ahead, or feel a change in scenery. Neither happened for well upon an hour, and such a pressing sentiment of claustrophobia was settling upon their diminishing wits, that they were quite ready to sprint back the way they had came and report that nothing was to be found, just a dead end, when their feet gave off a hollow echo.

Taichi squatted and touched his fingers to the floor.

“It’s tile,” he reported, erecting himself. 

Now they hastened forward, drinking in the happy sounds of a real floor, with hopes of finding a room ahead of sorts. That’s all they were expecting, though, and that would of perhaps been their downfall had not Sora suddenly tripped. Taichi’s hand caught her and he was just about to ask of her well-being when a grating sound issued from up ahead. Both snapped their heads to its general location, their hearts abruptly holding a heavy burden of fear. They waited for a moment in total silence, barely twitching, when they heard the sound again. Taichi squatted again and picked up the thing Sora had tripped upon. His fingers slid across the smooth surface of it, acknowledged its bumpy edges, its slim middle and long form, then he held it to his nose and doubled back in surprise, flinging the bone from himself. Before he could hear the expected clatter, the grating sound repeated, and their was a slight cracking noise, then all was still.

“This place is…”

“Booby-trapped?”

Taichi nodded, though all movement was lost in the dark.

“How do we…”

He pressed past Sora with his hands held out in front of him. Soon enough they hit cold, rusted metal, and he calculated with his hands the distance between each spike. Enough for a person to squeeze through…

“Sora, would you go through these, please?”

“Are you out of your mind! There’s no way I’m going through those things!” While she spoke the spikes slid back into the wall with much ado.

“Look, they’re timed for a pretty long time, maybe around thirty seconds of sitting still.”

“Thirty seconds! Hey! I’ve got children! Why don’t you do it?”

“Well, alright, but if I get through you’re going to have to do it in the end anyway.”

She sighed, but that was all.

He waited patiently by the spikes until they flung back out at an alarming speed. Quickly, he stuck his leg through one of the lower holes and stooped to its level. With maybe an inch spared above and below his back from the spikes, he edged his body in until he had half of his body on the other side. Unexpectedly, the spikes receded. Options flying as fast as the devil could have carried them whirled in his head as he stayed absolutely still, wondering what would happen if he flung himself out of harm’s way. But the options were swiftly deserted as the spikes more or less flew out of their hiding places, catching him in an odd design. Even with his immovable self, one gashed him roughly on the shoulder, but he disregarded it and hurriedly pulled the rest of himself through. On the other side, he could just perceive the spikes sliding like eels back into their holes. He cursed inwardly at them and touched his burning shoulder. Cursed, rusty metal – it’d probably give him an infection.

“Tai? Are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” and after a pause, “maybe you shouldn’t do this…”

Like a ghost, he felt Sora’s hand upon his shoulder.

“Do what?”

How not surprising…

“You’re hurt! Jesus, Tai, that’s deep…I wish I had something to dress it with, but…”

“It’s alright, I’ll be fine.”

He felt her fancy him lying, but there was really nothing to be done about it right now; curing would have to wait like always. So they set off again, this time with Taichi leading in the front in case any more spikes popped out, because, like Sora had said, she had children and couldn’t afford to die.

Luck filled time’s abandoned post for the time being, and they made it to the expected room without further hindrances.

Shreds of light finally harassed their eyesight, and, as dim as it was, it took them a good five minutes to accustom to the change. When their vision was a hundred percent again, they took in the enormous room before them, though it was more than an eyeful.

Blazing torches were distanced several feet from each other on the wall, draperies fell like red satin snakes from ceiling to floor, the floor itself was pitted in many places, with puddles of water residing in the deeper elevations. They were standing clear near to the roof, with the room set sprawling down below them, and as far as the brightness of the torches would allow them to perceive. In the center of such segue beauty, sat that which they were sure to be the enemy. Yet Taichi’s sharp eye recognized someone standing close to the enemy, someone…

A tugging feeling pulled at him as he finally focused on the woman’s hair, beauty – it told him what he had convinced himself of so many nights ago, while lying in bed: this woman would always be with him no matter what would come to pass. Be she an angel or a devil, Taichi knew that this was a person who, out of animosity or respect, would constantly be with him.

He exhaled his contained breath sharply. What a ride his life would finally turn into.

With a grace evocative of all things divine, the woman lifted her golden eyes up to Taichi’s, and smiled such a disturbing, hell-provoking smile, it instantly occurred to Taichi that the rest of his life would be spent in an inferno outside of the devil’s residence, with this woman as his sole captor.

 

Oblivious to the unlucky fate that the stars had bestowed upon her brother, Hikari nestled next to Daisuke, more for warmth than for affection. The clouds still remained locked, and had brought with their cold-heartedness a chill wind that ravaged the trees around the two humans and sent them into violent shivers. Daisuke, for all his pain, managed to bring an arm up and wrap it around the frail body of Hikari. The night (or day, it was still impossible to tell) blackened into a thick cold dread that smeared like peanut butter over the couple, muffling their whimpers to a low whisper in the background. The foreground itself was too occupied with the wind and the clouds to take heed to these two suffering companions, and duly went along with its business, ignoring their trepidation.

“Davis?” Hikari managed to say between her chattering teeth.

He only nodded against her body in response and pushed closer into her small warmth.

“Let’s go sit in just the entrance of the tunnel to get away from this wind.”

With a short and painful jolt of the head, Daisuke agreed. Crawling slowly and carefully, he followed her over to the open tunnel and eased himself onto one of the lower stairs. The wind howled angrily at their departure, skimming like the ocean on crevices that littered the ground, searching for their bodies to hassle. Aside from the cold dampness in the tunnel, it was warmer without the wind and they now could sit opposite from each other, more comfortably. Hikari looked longingly into the darkness, wondering where her brother was and if maybe he was looking back to where she sat right now, pondering the same question.

Daisuke half-closed the door, propping it up with a stick.

“Hikari…” his mouth loved the feel of her name, “do we have any food left?”

She dug through the packs sitting next to her and pulled out a small container filled to the brim with a pasty, green substance.

“Mm, how ‘bout straight wasabi?”

 He pulled a face and dragged one of the bags up to his hand, reached in and lifted out some plastic container. He opened it and sniffed.

“Heh, with California sushi, too. Can’t be too expired…”

He heard her laughing, but so did the tunnel, and it stole away most of her happiness before he could enjoy it. He shoved the package back in the bag and kicked it away from himself.

“Hikari,” again his mouth got a treat, “do you think we should go after them?”

“It wouldn’t help at all. We don’t have our digimon…but neither do they.”

“Hikari…”

“Why do you keep saying my name,” she laughed, “I’m the only other person here!”

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay, it’s just…weird how you’re saying Hikari instead of Kari. I’m already creeped out enough without you going all serious on me.”

“It’s a serious time.”

“Yeah, but shouldn’t you be worried about keeping calm instead of freaking other people out?”

“I’m just responding to what’s happening. Why should I run away from the truth that this is a desperate time?”

“Hm, well, maybe for the sake of your sanity.”

“You mean your sanity; I’m fine with this.”

Hikari was silent. Yeah, so what if it was only for her, wasn’t that a legitimate reason enough to stop?

“Daisuke.” She bit her tongue.

“Yeah?”

“I’m worthless, aren’t I?”

“To what?”

“To you.”

There was a long period of time when she didn’t hear his voice again, which she took to be implying her truth. No, she wasn’t worthless in a material way, but he really had no use for her soul, right?

“Hikari…what would it matter if you were worthless to me, which you’re not be assured, because aren’t you worth something to yourself? You shouldn’t of had to ask me that question, because you should possess confidence enough to answer it for yourself. You are worthless in some way, we all are -”

“Davis-”

“- because what good are we to the next person but to ourselves? What good are any of us to all of us as a whole? We don’t have worth now, I don’t think that one person could ever truly have a complete worth without a complete mind.”

“And we don’t have a complete mind?”

“Of course not! How could we possibly fathom what else others believe? How could we see every person’s thought and soul? Maybe if one could do that, then one would be whole, and then worth something. But until we find who that is, just live with the fact that we are ultimately worthless.”

“Bravo, but that didn’t answer my question.”

“Yeah, I know, I was just hoping to throw you off track.”

“So am I?”

“Considering what I said before…” he started, but shook his head. “No, Kari, you’re not worthless to me, I don’t even know where you got that conviction in the first place. But let me ask you this: what good am I to you?”

“Shut up,” she whispered, and leaned over to kiss him.

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