My head is heavy, impossible to open my eyes, even if I put all my strength into it. I try to lift part of my body but nothing helps. I try to speak, but only a few inaudible murmurs come out. So I listen to find out what's going on. People are getting restless around me. They seem to be moving objects around me, on my side I'm lying on a mattress and I feel a sheet on me.
-Be very careful. I want you to constantly check to see if they are breathing. If they're not or if you have any doubt, finish it off.
What? What does this mean? What does it mean to finish it? Uh-oh! I'm still alive myself. Well don't panic Myo, listen and calm down.
-Three of them are already dead. At this rate, there might not be half of them left alive by tomorrow.
-Half is an average, you know. It seems that sometimes none of them survived and that even some Shimasu had run away and caused a lot of inconvenience.
-Yep. No way that's going to happen to us. I don't want to see Alfredo angry at all. Last time he punched one of the guards so hard that he has been drinking all his meals through a straw ever since.
-What did he do to make him so angry, because he looks pretty calm as a captain.
-Beware of the higher ranks. Alfredo can smile sometimes but he doesn't tolerate insubordination at all. This one had questioned one of his orders and this is the result.
-Hum... Well, he deserved it.
-What? Are you serious? You're so heartless, it's amazing.
-Maybe, but I'm doing my job well. Look at this one, his pulse and breathing are back to normal.
-It's not supposed to take two days logically.
-Dude, forget the logic, they were all almost dead when we picked them up.
I can feel one of the trainers' hand shaking mine a couple of times as if he was waiting for an answer or a reaction. I try as best I can to react, but it's who's sick that kills without batting an eyelid. God, my hand hardly reacts at all. I have to put all my strength into it to finally be able to squeeze his.
-Hey, someone is finally reacting and his heart is still beating.
-At last! Go and see the others in the meantime, I'm going to give him a little pick-me-up in his transfusions.
Phew... I thought that was the end of me. And the others? What about them? Did they get rid of them? Are they being treated next to me? Damn... I have no means of communication, but there's no point in psychoting. The best thing for now is to rest and regain my strength. I'm just thinking about something else or someone else...
Ouch... Not easy to wake up, what time is it. I'll try to sit up. I'm in a hospital. I'm not the only one by the way, around me there must be at least thirty beds facing each other in column-back. The sun that just passed in front of one of the stained glass windows woke me up and the doctors don't seem to be very concerned about me. So much the better, it couldn't have been that bad. But this building is amazing. I've never seen anything like it. The stones are beige and well cut, and the floor is rather warm. Speaking of warm, all I have left are my tracksuits. So I'm not going to leave this blanket for a long time. I turn my head left and right, maybe I'll see the others. They are a little further to my right. I recognise Wistom, Pold, Hirion, Lyra, Zoé and Malagri. But where are the others? Maybe they have already recovered. I have to call a doctor to find out what's going on.
-Hey, Ho! Yes, Nurse.
- I'm coming, I'm coming.
It's a pretty big one, Winston could look like a weakling in the face of this force of nature. And she's easily one head taller than me, her arms are even bigger than my thighs. To tell the truth, it's very likely that she's got the wrong job, because here... It's beyond comprehension.
-So my little man. Are we starting to get some colour back? Open your mouth so I can inspect it.
No time to tell her that she already has both hands in my mouth to try to get into it. I'm struggling as best I can but nothing helps. Finally, she lets go of me and throws her sort of stick in a bin next to her.
- Well, you gave us quite a scare, my boy. You and your friends almost died. But what possessed you to stay under a cloud of Rey?
-Under what?
-Well, doesn't a pink cloud mean anything to you? It's also called a Cloud of Rey. But I'm almost reassured that you don't know what it is; because young scatterbrained people like you who run under it on purpose to get watered, well, I've seen them and often with both feet in front of them.
-Wait a second. What are you talking about? Do you know this phenomenon?
-Yes... Well listen, I'm not supposed to talk about it, I'm going to call one of my superiors and he's going to take care of you. Just sit tight.
Well it's not going to get very far in my underwear. I keep looking around and I see that there are two doctors taking care of Hirion. One of them has just put a kettle on his bottom. To see that what is happening to us is not as bad as it seems.
-You are Myo Keisam, aren't you? Bullock Keisam's adopted son.
When I turn around to see my interlocutor, I see an elderly man. A well trimmed white beard and round sunglasses with no branches on his nose. Impossible to see his eyes through. In spite of his somewhat astonishing look and his shiny bald skull, he is very muscular and seems to analyse the slightest of my movements.
-Yes, indeed.
-Nice to meet you, I hope you are beginning to recover from your little "accident". My name is Soryo, I am a captain in the army of his majesty the emperor Meji III. My assignment is to manage the incidents that take place because of the Rey's Cloud in the southern territories. You have been the victim of a phenomenon that has been occurring for almost 10 years but which is very rare. You survived it, which makes you doubly lucky and your friends too.
-How are they doing? That's all I care about.
The soldier suddenly takes on a serious tone and a sad face.
-Five of you are doing very well, but the rest of your group unfortunately did not survive.
-What?
-I'm sorry. Please come to the side of your friends who survived, they must be looking forward to seeing you.
The soldier beckons me to follow him and goes to my friends' beds. Meanwhile I grab and put on my trousers that I have just noticed on my dresser. Wistom, Pold and Lyra are awake, only Hirion is still lying down and apparently feverish. When I get to Wistom's bed, Lyra jumps on my neck and hugs me while crying. Wistom sits at Hirion's bedside and nods at me and smiles.
-It's awful, the others... All the others are dead. Only the five of us survived.
Indeed, only their faces look familiar to me among the sick people lying in their beds.
-Don't worry. It's all over, Hirion is going to make it and so are we.
-I was so scared Myo, with Wistom we thought we were the only ones who survived. Then Pold woke up several hours after us but you and Hirion were totally unconscious.
Wistom finally spoke too, smiling at me.
-Glad you're better big brother. It would have hurt me to lose such a strong competitor.
He doesn't lose one to get noticed that one. But now I would like to really understand what happened, where we are and what are these soldiers doing here?
-Captain Soryo. Could you explain what happened to me and my friends in more detail.
-Of course. Follow me to my office, where we will be more comfortable to talk. As for your friend lying down, don't worry. He has with him one of the best doctors in the Kingdom, Captain Enjinto.
-Thank you Captain, we will follow you.
The captain is finally less cold than he seems. This way of walking is when she is far from being military. It is when two arms are joined at the back while he seems pensive as he bends his head towards the ground. Lyra on her east side between Wistom and me and we gaze at this hospital where all the nurses and doctors take great care of their patients. We are rocked all along our walk by the thanks that the wounded give to their caretaker. I had never seen anything like it and neither had Wistom and Lyra.
But the surprise is even greater when we leave this room and arrive in a huge hall.
It is simply titanic. You can't even see the ceiling, all the walls are made of a kind of white marble. The floor is also tiled in black and white of the same material. Everywhere floats the great standards of the royal family, a golden phoenix crowned with a tiara on sparkling red silk. There is also a huge staircase that turns left and right along the edges of this masterpiece. Statues decorate each edge of this magnificent technical feat. Splendid heroes, looking proudly at the horizon as if they had accomplished their duty and admiring their work. Each one of them is different, a doctor, an architect, a fighter, a monk, an explorer... Like an ode to life where each one holds a central place and allows the whole to hold.
Moreover, we are not alone in this wonder, many people dressed for some as soldiers and others as scientists. I am surprised to see some female officers. I naively thought that this task was forbidden to them. But seeing the character of some of my school's female officers, it doesn't really shock me because for some of them, they are capable of hitting even harder than men.
Wistom for several minutes hasn't been able to close her mouth and moves like a fish out of water, but Lyra for her part doesn't lose her charm. Her pupils sparkle in front of such a work. Soryo makes us go up one floor and finally the task is not at all exhausting compared to its height, perhaps because we can't manage to counter ourselves on anything other than all the treasures that this hall possesses.
When we get to the first floor, a man is waiting for us behind his stone desk. He is rather tall and his long greyish hair reaches down to his shoulders. He is dressed in a burgundy suit and on his shoulders he has a coat with epaulettes that seem to indicate that he too is a high-ranking officer. On his table there is a feather in an inkwell and a pile of documents on which a muddy cup of tea is placed.
- Soryo, what are you doing here so well accompanied? A few more specimens to test?
-Indeed, Vorka, but not right away. No need to disturb Phileas for the moment.
-As you wish. By the way, Wolgen is looking for you and he seems to be in a rather foul mood.
-I will take care of it later. Now I will talk to these men and women to explain the situation a little bit before the test.
Wistom leans over and whispers to me and Lyra.
-What's all this about the test?
-Never mind Wistom for now. Just obey for once and everything will go well, I promise.
-All right, follow me to my office, it's right there on the right.
So we continue to follow him through a maze where there are a lot of wooden doors with names on top, probably other officers' desks. Finally, the captain's door is rather modest compared to others, it is not very high and its beige wood seems to have been somewhat damaged over time. When he opens it, we arrive in a completely different space. An old-fashioned living room with a coffee table and finely crafted wooden furniture. A chandelier with candles lights up the room and makes a showcase in one of the cupboards shine with rings placed vertically. There is just the right number of armchairs so that we can sit comfortably on small yellow cushions.
-You have a splendid office, just like this building by the way. Let go of Lyra, continuing to admire the place.
-I'm glad you like it, but it's not mine. It is that of one of my comrades who went on a mission. So we won't be disturbed by anyone.
-But where exactly are we?
Good question Wistom. I've been asking myself the same question since we entered this hall and even the hospital. This place must surely be in Z-Hofu, the capital where the emperor lives.
-The exact place where we are cannot be divulged but you should know that you are in one of the army bases which is largely dedicated to the study and understanding of the Cloud of Rey and its consequences. You are not the first, nor will you be the last to be affected by the Cloud of Rey. This phenomenon was first seen off the coast of Flogg (a reptilian or batracian humanoid living in the East of the Middle Kingdom). We had not been aware of the danger and many ships ventured to go under it in order to better understand this strangeness.
Unfortunately, it dropped its cursed rain on more than a dozen ships and this made all the crews on board fail in just a few tens of seconds. So we went to retrieve them once the cloud had moved further south and we faced several hundred sick men and women on the verge of death. After taking some of them back to the nearest hospitals and keeping those that were not transportable in the ships, we quarantined all these places to make sure we didn't contaminate the whole town with what appeared to be an infectious disease.
After a day of trying to treat all the unfortunate people, some of them began to die and there were so many that we transported dozens of them to the nearest hospitals. charters covered so as not to frighten the population when they left the city to be buried in pits not far from the cemetery. We thought the situation was under control but we were totally out of control.
The dead came back to life after several hours. They had a pale complexion and would attack anyone who approached to devour them. But they never attacked each other to devour each other, some fought but they only ate living things. Once the victim was dead, they would drop it and run towards a new target. We were very fortunate that these incidents took place outside the city because the final toll could have been much higher.
So I was called in along with many other soldiers to stem the threat of these undead outside the city. The battle was exhausting, many men and women lost their lives to these forces of nature that were able to crush someone with their one hand. I lost my right eye because of the claws of one of them. After several hours of relentlessness, we finally managed to kill almost all the monsters while some of them fled into the forest that bordered the cemetery.
I was then ordered to pursue them and not to let even one escape. Unfortunately, I did not succeed in killing all of them and at least five of them disappeared in these regions.
Following this, the government made sure that no one disclosed anything about the case so that the population would not panic. I was later promoted to the rank of Captain and was included in a group to monitor and analyse this curse.
We have been doing this work secretly for almost 10 years so that the population does not worry. We have therefore investigated this phenomenon and each time it has occurred on our territory, I and my men have intervened to deal with the undead and deal with the deviants.
-Deviants? What are we talking about? asks Lyra.
-It's about all those who survived this cataclysm. You and many others.
-Why do you call us Captain Syryo?
-Quite simply because this Cloud does not only have a negative aspect. Apart from the fact that it kills and creates monsters. It also creates already endowed with astonishing abilities, to say the least.
This whole story is beginning to take an increasingly surprising turn. We need to know more, I take the risk to speak.
-When you talk about special capacity, what do you mean by that?
-I mean phenomena like this.
No sooner has he finished his sentence than a huge gorilla appears beside him. He is massive and proud on his four legs, and some kind of stones come out of his body and almost form an armour in places. I can't believe my eyes. If someone had told me one day that I would have to deal with such a miracle I wouldn't have believed it for a second. My two friends are All of them are as stunned as I am, I think I'm going to have to shut Wistom's mouth because he's starting to drool on the floor and it looks bad.
-Don't worry, he is completely under my control. Eddy is bringing us some treats, our guests must be starving because of my lack of good manners.
The gorilla follows orders without batting an eyelid and serves us some aperitif biscuits and even Daifukus with all sorts of flavours, rose, mango, red beans...
-To put it simply, there are an infinite number of powers and they are always different, even if some of them have points in common. To be precise, there are seven categories of power. The first, as we have already mentioned, is the one called the Shimasu. They are equivalent to almost a quarter of the people affected by the cloud on average, of course it happens that more or less people succumb and become these monsters.
Then there are the Buredos, they are generally the least spectacular but with time they can easily surpass all the other categories. Their senses become sharper and they are much more agile than average. Their reflexes are such that some are able to predict the movements of their opponents. As for them, they represent about twenty percent of the people affected.
Then we have the Crogers, of which I am a member. We can summon an ally to fight alongside us or simply help us in certain tasks. But their power is limited, the radius of invocation depends on the users, but it rarely exceeds ten metres. Moreover, the summoner is bound to his summoning and if the summoner is repeatedly attacked or injured it can sometimes be the same for his summoning.
Fourthly, there are the Obujek. I like to call them suitcases. Simply because they have no power.
-It's a bit like the power of the unlucky one. Ricane Wistom.
-No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Not always. It is not they who have obtained a power but an object or a piece of clothing that they had on them at the time of the incident. They are often the target of bandits or high-ranking assassins because the object can be used by anyone as long as they know how to use it.
The Henkan are the fifth category. They can transform themselves totally or only a part of their body. I once confronted a guy who could become like an alligator and thus have a skin strong enough not to be pierced by bullets.
The penultimate category is the Yoso. They control a unique element, such as air, fire or lava.
And last but not least, the Sekaïs. They are the rarest to find, only one person in a thousand has this power. They can create portals through which objects or people can pass.
So much for the encyclopaedia.
-Wow. I don't know what to say. Says Wistom totally gobsmacked. Neither do I. It's too much information for a small head but I think I've retained everything and haven't forgotten any details.
-My apologies. That's a lot of information to remember but don't worry. You will have plenty of time to study this once you join the army.
-What's that?
Perfect timing of our shock, at the same time we spit out our food or our tea finely prepared by the gorilla.
-Maybe I should have started with that ...
-But you don't have the right, we don't want to fight in the army. Lyra shouts.
-I can understand that, but you should know that it is not me who decides these orders. Unfortunately, all those who have been hit by the Rey's Cloud and who survive, must join the army or they will be locked up for life for high treason.
-That alone.
-As you say, my dear Myo, nothing but that. But see this as an opportunity to discover the World and perhaps to achieve great things.
-I've always dreamed of dominating the World, and that's what I'm all about.
-I think you haven't understood the Wistom situation properly.
-Oh, that's OK. It gets worse. It means we're not going to have any more classes.
-No. For those like you who haven't finished high school, you'll have a tutor who will follow you in the field and teach you everything he knows.
-Wait, does that still mean no more surprise interviews and all that?
-Well... Yes.
-Yes !!!
-You're depressing Wistom. Don't you see we're going to have to risk our lives instead of finishing school.
-It'll spice up our days for once.
-Listen, Myo, for once, an ounce of courage will spice it up.
-That's perfect. I can see that you're motivated and you're going to need some motivation if you want to make it here. If you're finished eating, I'll ask you to come with me this time for a little test battery.
-What kind of tests?
-All kinds, physical, psychological and other... On the other hand, your friend Pold is fine but he needed urgent treatment due to his reaction with the Cloud of Rey and as you like good news, your friend Zoe survived but she too is in intensive care.
-How is it that we lost track of her in the hospital by the way? asks Lyra.
-Please forgive me, but it is my doing. I asked one of my superiors if he could do this without you paying attention, so that you don't worry unnecessarily.
Strange. I haven't thought about Pold for a single second since I met Lyra and Wistom. They haven't raised the subject either. We have to be a little on our guard. I don't have complete confidence in these places, nor in the people there.
We finally leave the office when the gorilla seems to greet us and disappears. We seem to go the other way and find ourselves in this hall where Captain Vorka continues to drink his cup of tea while signing papers. Soryo, on the other hand, doesn't pay any attention to it and runs straight towards a huge silver door. It must be easily four meters high but it is surprisingly not very wide and only one person at a time can enter. He stops in front of it for a moment, takes a long breath and can breathe while pushing the door. We then follow him one by one and I go in last.