000
There’s no point moving forward.
A point moving forward is a line.
Or a lie.
001
I have no idea where she came from or how she got to our position. Rudy, the one who brought her in, later swore to god that she had suddenly appeared from the fog right in front of him… But I think that was mostly because he had to somehow cover the fact that he hadn’t noticed her before it was too late while he was supposed to keep watch.
Still, according to him, she showed up while he was lying in cover behind the sandbags, squatted in front of him and began to talk in a language he didn't understand.
Why he thought it was a good idea to bring her to me is another of many unresolved mysteries. Probably his train of thought went as follows: she sounds foreign, she looks foreign – escort her to the commander and let him deal with it.
And so he did.
And now I have to deal with it.
Dealing with what looks like a highschool girl randomly showing up on your position right on a frontline is not something I've been trained to do.
“Do you speak English?” she asked after some awkward silence. Her voice sounded unexpectedly calm.
“Well… Yes… A bit rusty, but… yes.”
“Londun iz e kepeetal of Gryet Breeton!” With those words Petrovich, our machinegunner, let everyone know that he, too, had somehow managed to drag himself through eleven years of school.
“I'm not from…” she began to talk, but I've interrupted:
“That's just a phrase… From a textbook… One that everyone knows by heart after they graduate from school – pay him no mind.”
“Dizu izu a pen.”
“What?”
“A stock phrase… one that everyone knows even if they have no idea what it means. This one is from our textbooks.”
“And where it is you're from?”
“Japan.”
“Whoa…” I whistled in disbelief. “From the other side of the world…”
“Yes, you might say that, I guess, though it depends…”
“I just meant to say you're from very far away, no need for a geography lesson.”
“Sorry, I’m…”
“Oh, forget it. What are you doing here?”
“Travelling.”
“Travelling?”
“Yes,” she nodded, “I mean, you can call me a tourist, probably, but I’m more of a curious observer…”
“Stop.” Does she even understand what she’s saying? “You’re in the middle of the war, see? You’re not telling an unknown person you are just a ‘curious observer’ unless you want to get shot. Or you’re from OSCE, I guess. But you’re not, right?”
“I’m… I’m not.” Her expression didn’t change. Did she not understand what I was saying as well? Should have I been more clear about ‘getting shot’? Could I even be more clear?
“Yet that’s who I am.” she said after a brief pause. “Will you shoot me now?”
“I could.” I said, trying to make my stare look as cold as possible. “Or I could’ve just sent you to the higher-ups with a ‘I caught a spy’ memo and let them deal with it – seeing as you are a foreigner it could’ve been the right thing to do. Don’t think we ever had someone from Japan here before.”
“So, what would it be?”
“Hm…” She certainly made me curious. Not because I suddenly decided to keep a schoolgirl around for any terrible reason – though the host of those reasons just ran past my mind and was hastily disposed of. But there was something about her… The look in her eyes, the way she held herself, the strange notes in her smell…
“Look, girl. I don’t know myself why I’m doing it, but let’s say you stay here until tomorrow. Tomorrow morning the Hospitaliers’ van should pass through with supplies – I’ll ask them to take you further into the country… That’s where you were going anyway, right?”
“Right.”
“So I’ll tell Taiga to take you with them and save you some time.”
“Tiger?”
“Um… No, Taiga – as in geogra… climate zone.”
“Oh, I see… Thank you for the help!”
“Thank me later, when you’ll be leaving. Until then – be our guest, but try not to get in the way. And if the shooting begins – you’re hiding here, no questions.”
“That’s fine, I know how to hide.”
“I hope so – less than anything I want to explain to anyone why I have a dead foreign schoolgirl on my position.”
002
And so the girl stayed.
“My name is Tsubasa Hanekawa. It is nice to meet you all.” She introduced herself with a bow.
All present personnel – Rudy, Petrovich and Vus – didn't understand a word but caught the intention, so they started smiling and raising their hands in greeting gestures even before I could translate anything.
Then I introduced them, and finally myself.
“Call me Bes.”
“I'm sorry, but what kind of name is it?”
“Um… it's not really a name…” I scratched the back of my head. Not telling her my real name felt wrong, but on the other hand I'm already so used to this one… “It's a callsign – same as 'Rudy’ or 'Vus’. We usually use them instead…”
“Hm… Fine, I understand. Bes.”
She was impressively quiet and collected for someone who randomly found herself amidst the war. I can’t say I haven’t had any suspicions about her, but… She was – how do I even put it?
Absolutely natural.
I mean I, along with everyone else on our position, was a bit mistrustful at first – to put it extremely lightly – but it looked like she really was what she was claiming to be. Somehow a simple schoolgirl from a far away country waded her way here, on our checkpoint forgotten by almost everyone, stuck in the middle of nowhere.
Everyone, me included, was expecting she'd start asking questions – not necessarily because we thought she’s a spy, but it’s a normal thing to do for anyone encountering our lifestyle for the first time. At least we expected to get some questions about guns and equipment – I was getting ready to translate what I could – but instead she was just sitting there, reading some book or writing something down. Out of curiosity I glanced at what she was reading but it all was in, probably, Japanese...
So passed the day and the evening, and the night began to settle in. Thankfully, no emotional events happened during this time – distant rattle of small arms and machine gun fire not counting.
“I'm sorry, we don't really have much in a way of comfort in the blindage…” I approached Hanekawa. “But the guys had dragged in and put together some crates with whatever they could find on top of them, so you’ll have sort of a nest to sleep for the night.”
“A nest? I guess it's fitting to my name…” she saw my slightly confused look. “Oh, don't mind me. I'm actually used to sleeping in strange places… like on school desks and old newspapers…”
“... Oh, and we’ll hang a camo net around, just to give you some… uh, what's the word… some privacy.”
“Thank you! You all didn't have to…”
“Don't worry - the guys, me included, are just trying to be nice. There's not much reason to do that here, usually, so we're all too happy to have one.”
003
“Why do you fight?” a question came up suddenly, not connected to anything we were talking about previously. One moment she was explaining to me her country’s bullet train network, – seriously, such nice things those trains are, wish we could have something like that instead of our snail-paced metal boxes, – or talking about the sakura blooms… What, did anyone really expected me not to ask a japanese person about sakura? You thought too highly of me then.
Anyway, all of a sudden she got serious:
“Why do you fight?”
“Well, if not me then who?”
“That is not an answer...”
“It’s hard to find one for your question: there’s just too many…”
“What if you pick something that is the most important?”
“Ugh… Look… I don’t like when others are telling me what to do. I might listen to someone who I think is worth listening to – but when they come with their guns and start ordering me ‘be this way’ or ‘don’t be like that’… I can’t stand it.”
“And that’s all?”
“Of course not, I’ve told you… Have you been to Europe yet?”
“I think I already am…”
“I don’t mean geographically. Well, Western Europe then?”
“Not yet… I think we talked about it: I was planning to check something important in Germany…”
“Here’s the thing: I’ve travelled through a couple of countries… once… few years ago. And you know what I remember the most? Not the architecture, not the history of all the places I’ve visited, not even how great hot wine tastes on a cold street in Krakow… What I remember the most is the moment when the bus we were travelling on had crossed the border and one of the two older women sitting behind me said to her neighbour: ‘look in the window, the people here look exactly like we do,’ like she was expecting people from another country would have two heads or tentacles or something like that…
“I just so don’t want to be like those two. And that’s exactly what those we’re fighting against are trying to bring here…”
“Is that what you really believe?”
“Oh, I have plenty of experience from before it all started. Being able to speak English earned me enough funny looks from…” I nodded at some direction, trying to make it look as broad as possible.
“Hm…” she paused, thinking. “That all sounds convincing I guess…”
“One more thing…” I don’t know why I’ve said it, as if my lips were moving on their own, without control or intent. “When… When the war begun… You can’t even imagine how scary… how scared I was. Terrified. To the point where I couldn’t move a muscle – I mean, the extent of my physical activity back then was clicking the mouse to refresh the news webpage, and that was a thing hard as hell to do. That continued for a few days – until… Until I’ve realised that I’m not scared anymore. Not because I suddenly become brave, no. It’s just… I was so afraid that I wasn’t. The thing I feared, the fear itself was so huge, so enormous that it wouldn’t fit in my brain anymore.
“It’s like there’s a limit to how afraid one can be… a line that you cross past which there’s no more fear – just you alone. And I’ve crossed that line, went way beyond it back then.
“That was the thing I discovered.
“And since then I’ve hated the people who made me make this discovery.
“I hope you can understand this.”
She looked at me for a while, then took a deep slow breath.
Exhaled.
Took a breath again, as if not sure how much air she really needs to say what she wanted to say.
Then, finally, words left her mouth.
“I… I was born beyond that line I think.
“Can you… Imagine a little baby girl, barely not a newborn anymore lying in a crib. Now imagine the body of her mother, her real mother, dangling on a rope above her – lifeless, limp, greyish blue… It swings on a rope – back and forth, back and forth, back and… and it makes the little girl so happy she begins to laugh.
“Such a good toy!
“Such a joy…
“Of course, then, some people rush in the room, panicking, frightened – and the laugh stops, because no matter how young that girl is, she understands what’s inappropriate. She doesn’t understand why the panic and gasps and tears, but she already knows somehow that it’s better not to show a smile to someone’s crying.
“I don’t...
“I shouldn’t even remember it…
“Why do I still remember it all?
“And why am I telling you this?”
“It’s because I am a complete stranger…” I stretched my back. “You’ve met me by accident – and you’ll most probably never meet me again in your life. So you can tell me anything.”
“Maybe so…” the light of a kerosene lamp reflected in her eyes gave them a yellowish tint.
“Don’t worry, I’ll keep your secret. Or cat will get my tongue, right?”
“I don’t think that’s how that saying goes.”
In dim, uneven light, her eyes sparkled.
“But you got the meaning… Anyway – it’s time to get some rest. You’ve got a long day tomorrow, Hanekawa. Better have a good night.”
“Good night…”
004
I woke up from a nightmare.
Correction: I woke up into a nightmare. Whatever I’ve seen in my dreams was now quietly sobbing in fear at the back of my brain, for the reality in front of me was way scarier than anything else.
Eyes.
A pair of shining, deep-yellow eyes with vertical slits for pupils was hanging in the air a couple of centimeters above my face. The eyes of a wild animal, ready to snack on the unsuspecting human who dared to carelessly fall asleep on its hunting grounds.
Oh, of course, there was more than just eyes: those two yellow circles were a part of a young girl’s face, the face was part of the head with long, white hair and a neck, chiseled out of the finest marble, that connected the head to her curvaceous body… I couldn’t see it now, really, being focused on the eyes, but I could feel it – she was pushing me down to the bed with all of her weight, with such force as not to let me move even a finger.
Yes, the hair was too long and of the wrong color – but it was unmistakably the same foreign schoolgirl that came to us this morning.
The same Tsubasa Hanekawa.
Unexpectedly.
Well, almost so.
“What… What are you?” she hissed, like a properly pissed off cat would.
I didn’t answer at first, as if hypnotized by her eyes.
Yellow eyes, that almost produced their own light, like embers of a raging fire.
Wild eyes, looking at everyone as if evaluating them: are they a hunter or a prey?
Feral eyes, that prophesied a swift end for everyone who would oppose this gaze.
Cat’s eyes.
Just like mine.
“Ha” I let out half-breath, half-laugh.
“Ah?” she mirrored my reaction.
“Would you look what the cat dragged in…” I showed her the widest of smiles and the sharpest of fangs.
“I’ve walked in here on my own, thank you” she replied with a slight purr to her voice.
Oh, yes, we’re cats.
We don’t laugh – we purr instead.
That’s why we only purr at humans.
She sat up on my chest, looked at me, tilting her head to the side, curiously.
“Energy drain…”
“Cancels out, as we both are trying to drain each other.”
“I see…” she looked up. “Will you follow me?”
And with that she shifted herself up through the roof into the night sky – of course I followed. We had to talk.
Eye to eye.
Cat to cat.
“Who are you?” she asked again.
“Can’t you see?” I asked back, while we were hanging up above just below the thin clouds.
“I’m here because of you” she said, while the moon tried to outshine her eyes.
“How so?” I wondered, scaring some sort of late night bird that was flying by.
“I’ve heard… rumors. About some incredibly lucky man. Someone as lucky as the man I’m searching for…”
“I wouldn’t call myself lucky… Others’ opinions may vary of course.”
“They indeed do, but I see now I was mistaken… I've been looking for a human but found just another cat...”
005
It was a year ago. About a year, right. Give or take. Maybe more like ten months… or was it eleven by this point? No, probably ten.
Oh, yes, I’m just trying not to talk about it, don’t I?
Anyway, it was back then.
We were cleaning up a small town – and by “cleaning up” I mean going building by building checking for any remaining hostiles. I assure you it wasn’t anything like the “mopping up” you might have imagined – there still were hostile forces remaining and sporadic fighting was breaking up all over the place. Most of the people who had actually lived there by that point had already learned that they’re much better off hiding in the cellar than staying in the open or even in the house.
So we went from one half-ruined house to another. One by one all were clear, and to be honest that made me uneasy. You know when you are lucky once you think “wow, that’s great!” And then you get lucky a second time and you just go “Aha!” And then, when the luck smiles you thrice in a row you start suspecting that the fourth time would be the time to fold. Or that something will inevitably break the streak soon.
That was an usual house, with the same amount of destruction inside as the ones before it. Small house, door torn off of its hinges, windows blown away by bullets and explosions, glass shards scattered everywhere…
In one of the rooms there was a closet. In that closet was… well, we couldn’t see what it actually was, but we sure heard it – a mournful meowing of a cat, like the crying of a child..
One of ours, “Mars” I think was his callsign, rushed forward, but the commander stopped him.
“Don’t.”
“But…”
“I said: don’t.” he took the radio off his harness and pressed the button. “This is Syvy, do you hear me? Over.”
“Look, Mars,” while our commander asked for sappers to be sent to our position, I tried to explain the reason behind his sudden stubbornness to Mars, who was, honestly, still a novice – like you could tell from that callsign. God of war… eh.
“Mars, you know what’s inside that closet…”
“I do: a poor animal that’s suffering.”
“And a grenade or two tied to the door – whoever left it here counted exactly on someone like you. Take pity on a poor kitty, open it carelessly and boom – we’re all dead. Better wait for the sappers to cut out the side…”
“Do you believe that?”
“What?”
“These stories about cats and grenades?”
“Mars, kid…”
“I’m not a kid! And those are just tales to frighten! Who would ever do something like that? And how can you just wait here while it’s crying…? How could any human with a heart? Isn’t there any humanity left in you all?”
And then you’ve guessed it.
He opened it.
He just went and…
There was more than one grenade inside the closet. More than two even. I don’t know who set that trap, but they clearly had more explosives than I ever saw in one place. And it all went off and blew up in our faces.
In our every part, really.
But in the moment right before that happened, I saw it: a white cat covered in black duct tape so it couldn’t move and that was just hanging on a piece of a rope inside a closet. And in that moment it had seen me and fell silent.
“You’re a monster,” its stare told me.
“What if I am?” I didn’t answer for I had no time left.
...Sappers found us later. Well, they’ve found what was left of my unit, scattered and smeared all over the place, and me – surprisingly intact but unconscious. Questions were raised, inquiries made – but I couldn’t provide any real answers, so as I was visibly quite healthy I was sent back to the frontlines.
Actually, I volunteered, passing on the opportunity to take a leave to go home.
Because this is my place now.
This is the place for the monsters like me.
And that cat.
006
“So that’s your story,” she nods.
“That it is,” I agree.
We remove ourselves from the world – and it becomes transparent, a see-through slide projected on a screen, a play of lights and shadows at the backdrop of the stage, stage set for us soaring up above.
And then I hear it.
Muted and low, pitch-shifted, time-scaled sounds of a voice giving orders, coming from far away. Way further away for me to be able to hear it – if I still had human ears that is. Cats’ ears are able to perceive it – to make out the slightest disturbances in the air, the sound waves, to focus on them, focus on what’s important to me – and so I can hear it.
Sound after sound comes in, and the more of it is collected the more sense all of it makes.
300!
30!
3!
And with that last word given as an order somewhere in the distance, below us lights flare up, rocket engines fire and begin to draw their flashing lines in the dark. From the point of launch to the point of impact. From an ignition to an explosion.
Everything is still slowed down – or is it I who’s sped up? – but I can see the beginning of the rockets’ travel and I can easily trace their path into the future, I can tell where they are going to be in a second, in two, in three… And I can tell where they are going to explode spreading themselves in circles, seeding half-molten metal death all around.
I can tell.
So can she.
Two cats exchange a glance – and nothing more is needed for understanding.
We just shift ourselves from point A to point B, – across the world, through the world, inside the world, – aligning ourselves again with what was but a background image just now, appearing on top of the lights of the launching rockets and throwing ourselves at those launching them.
We don’t cry – we meow.
We don’t laugh – we purr.
...And we play.
Such good toys!
Such joy!
And so we jump and we pounce and we fool around – so fire sparks and flames burn and blaze rises around us. Her hair flies up as she flips in mid-air from one car to another, from one burning wreck to another, from one pile of charred flesh to another – and so I follow. From one to another, from broken toy to broken toy, rushing, rolling, spreading in a circle.
From here to there.
From this to that.
From cat to cat.
For nothing is more destructive under this pale moon than a pair of young kittens while they’re having fun.
Then we stop.
The earth itself burns around us and under our feet. White-hot walls are rising into the sky around us, scaring the night’s dark away.
“Look at me!” she doesn’t say.
“No you watch me!” I don’t respond.
“Nya-ha-ha-ha-ha!” we both don’t laugh out loud.
We just stay still for a hot burning second amongst the inferno, surrounded by the hell we raised, – we gave birth to and raised, – and we lock eyes, once yellow, now crimson with blood and flames.
“You’re monster” her stare tells me.
“The same as you” my smile replies.
“You both are!” the burning flames cry at us.
So we agree.
007
“Bes! Be-es!” Rudy shouted at me as he woke me up. “Could you not snore as we’re being shot at? It’s impolite!”
“Wh… What?” my head wasn’t quite clear yet – sparkles are still flying in front of my eyes and two cats lead their joyous dance…
“What even are you, Bes?” he looked at me with a lot of confusion only slightly diluted by respect. “Full pack of grads flies in, explodes everywhere, earth shakes – and look at you… Sleeping as if dead. How?”
“Maybe I am dead…”
“Hah! So I could tell Vus not to cook for you? Or maybe I’ll just take your share… Dead people don’t need food, right?”
“Whatever…” the only thing I’m not thinking about now is food, really. “If that was the full pack as you say… Where’s second one?”
“You won’t believe!” just as I’ve said it, Vus barged in. “Guys, who wants to see fireworks?”
“...”
“Well…” he began to explain as we were staring at him. “I was keeping watch, then everything around went boom, so I took cover… And then as I’m lying down, kissing the ground – nothing. Like, where’s the first salvo, there’s usually the second one, right? So I’m getting up… well, not really up, just a bit upper, just enough to take my eyes from the ground below – and there’s that! Like a blaze on the horizon and the rockets flying every which way – but not at us, thank god, – and exploding… Great fireworks if I say so myself!”
“Not for them…”
“Who cares? I’m enjoying the view for once… Don’t mind keeping doing it while you guys go sleep some more. Don’t think anything will fly our way for some time… at least.”
“Yeah, thanks, Vus. Rudy… don’t get too greedy for my dinner plate just yet, alright?”
“Hah, right” he cast a side glance at the camo net in the corner. “You’d check on her? Don’t think they teach being shelled at any school…”
“I will, don’t worry. Something tells me… She’s fine.”
“As you say…”
“Go away already…”
“As you say!”
Of course, I lied.
I won’t look behind that net and she won’t be fine. I knew it, because I’ve heard...
“Meow.”
From behind the camo net I’ve heard it.
We just meow, right?
“Meow.”
A single sound, so opposed in the way it sounds to what it actually means.
Someone else, some other better-than-me person at this point would’ve thrown the net aside, would’ve rushed in to comfort and calm her, but…
“Meow.”
I knew, I actually knew what she was meowing about. What she was about to ask me if I was to sit next to her now.
“Why do I keep doing it? Why can’t I stop?”
You see, little kitten... once you’ve crossed the line, there’s no turning back. Once you’ve stepped out of the line there’s no return.
It is only going to get worse from there, even if it was the worst before.
“But…
“But what if…
“But what if I…
“...Draw a new line? A line of my own?”
“I don’t know, little kitten. I don’t know how to draw – I only know what I know.”
“Hey, that’s my line!”
“What, you’ve drawn it already?”
“Meow.”
008
The morning was exactly as awkward as you could expect after such night.
I couldn’t bring myself to look at Hanekawa straight in the eye, and she in turn didn’t look like she wanted to talk to me. Considering that I was the only one whom she could talk to – it was… well… extremely awkward. I could only hope that somehow nobody would notice this change between us.
Of course it didn’t went unnoticed.
“Bes…” Vus was looking rather concerned. “Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think you… we’d probably heard if… but did you two… you know?”
My first reaction was just to call him an idiot. I didn’t. It wasn’t easy.
“When do you think we could’ve had time for that?”
“Yeah, that’s… that’s exactly what I was telling Petrovich, but…” he shrugged. “You two look exactly like… Like things went extremely well and then horribly wrong, if you get me. Don’t look, don’t talk, noticeably uncomfortable when you have to talk…”
“Look, Vus… do you remember the first time you were under the shelling?”
“Even if I’d forgot, my pants won’t…”
“I guess, that’s her reaction to that. The young girl finally realised what’s going on here and what she wandered into. Good thing, Taiga will be here soon…”
Thankfully, the car with the Hospitaliers’ logo on its door showed up soon enough. Taiga, the small energetic woman in her usual worn-out Flecktarn camo clothes, jumped off from it and waved at me.
“Hey there, Bes!” she gave me a wide smile. Hopefully, that means that everything’s as I hoped – and that she didn’t ran in any problems on the checkpoints she visited before coming to ours.
“Wow, I see someone got to redesign the landscape here...” she nodded at the fresh marks the grad rockets left on the ground this night.
“They did – and I hate it” I shook my head. “Such a sloppy job…”
“Someone from their side already threw a fit on the Internet about how US drones destroyed a battery of their rocket launchers… You wouldn't know anything about it, would you?”
“How would I? I’ve been begging Command for a recon drone for half a year now – and I have yet to see one, let alone from US.”
“Thought so… Our intelligence also says it was probably one of the rockets – it exploded before leaving the rails, and that started the chain reaction, spreading to other vehicles…”
“Whatever – the result is the same: nice fireworks.”
“Hah, fireworks… I see you guys are all fine?”
“As I’ve said – they did a bad job at actually hitting anything last night.”
“So you don’t need anything from me this time?”
“Well… Not in a usual sense… But I think I’ve told you… You speak English, right?”
“Huh? E-e… little… some… some speak, yes.”
“Well then, here's the girl we were talking about…” I gestured at Hanekawa, who was quietly standing at the side all this time.
“Picking up random girls… what got into you, Bes?”
“Don't smile so wide, you're blinding me.”
“Still, I can’t believe something like this happened… A cute girl just comes out of the blue – you’re lucky guy, Bes.”
“Stop it. I really should do something about all this ‘lucky’ nonsense.”
“...”
“Please, could you drop her off as far from here as possible? In some town or city would be preferable.”
“Um… I guess we can… You sure she's not, you know…”
“I'm sure. She just happened to be passing through here.”
“Passing through? Talk about bad timing… Well, if you're asking, Bes, I can't refuse…”
I introduced them to each other to the best of my abilities. “Hopefully, they will get out of here safely” I thought. “No random ambushes, no mines… please, cat help them.” Then again, Taiga and her driver weren’t new to this – they really knew what they were doing.
“Okay, girl, hop in. Sorry if it’s… um… not comfy” said Taiga.
“It’s okay, I’m used to…”
“Hold some.”
“...?”
“She says you should hold on to something.” I explained. “You really should: roads in this parts are… well… non-existent.”
“Ah, understood.”
“‘Key! We’re off! Take care, Bes, and bye, guys!” Taiga waved at us one last time, and they left – slowly but steadily, driving around shell holes and fallen trees and other obstacles that just happen to appear on the roads of the warzone...
And that was the last I ever saw of this strange girl that once appeared out of the mist on our position. I don’t know where she went next or what happened to her after she left Taiga’s van.
And, to be honest, I’ve never been interested in finding that out. It’s enough that I’ve asked Taiga where they dropped her off.
Because if there’s one final truth about cats –
It’s that we cats always
walk by ourselves.
