{ prologue } ; where words scatter like paper snowflakes in the sky ...

Title: Breaking Zero Kelvin (Multichapter)

Author: Luna (dreamweavernyx)

Pairing: Kazuyuri

Genre: Fantasy/Scifi

Summary: AU. They are two runaways, chased out of society through a deep-rooted stigma though they have no say in it at all. Only relying on word-of-mouth rumours and a set of sketchy directions, they now have to set out on their own journey to accomplish the impossible: escape.

Notes: Written for NaNoWriMo 2011.

Character list here.

Previous chapters: prologue | 01

~

02: Alias

The manhole opening led to pitch darkness, and Yuriko cringed at the thought of jumping down into what might possibly be a sewer.

“Hurry!” the man said. “The other drones will catch up soon. The ladder’s safe, just go down.”

Casting one last uneasy glance at the darkness below, Yuriko began to carefully climb down the ladder. Above her, the man yanked the manhole cover down, and for a while she panicked, stuck on the ladder and unable to see anything. A couple of seconds later, however, a lamp flared to life in the man’s hand, and she managed to complete her descent in one piece in the dim wavering light.

Not saying anything, the man walked past her to a slightly blackened spot on the floor. He heaved a square box out of a motorcycle parked nearby, and set it up on the floor.

“Is that your motorcycle?” she asked curiously, eyeing the dirt on its surface and the few jerry cans of fuel surrounding it.

“Yes,” he replied, fiddling with the box which she recognized as an artificial stove – a device popular for camping because it did not produce actual smoke. The man pressed a couple of buttons, and the blue-green fire roared to life.

She stared at the dancing flame for a long while in silence, as he went back to his motorcycle to rummage for more things.

“You’re running away from Central too?” she asked eventually, as he came back. “Are you a witch?”

The man glanced at her irritably from where he had just impaled some brown things on a couple of sticks to roast in the fire.

“I prefer the term ‘magic user’, honestly. It’s a lot less gender-specific.”

“So you are a witch, then!”

She could hear the slight annoyance in his voice as he replied.

“Obviously, otherwise I wouldn’t be in this mess, would I?”

He sounded slightly upset, and Yuriko looked away, feeling slightly guilty for questioning him so much.

“Sorry,” she said quietly. “It’s just…I’m pretty new to all this ‘witch’ business – I only found out today that I’m a witch.”

Taking out the brown things from the fire, he turned and handed her one.

“Only today?” he asked, sounding slightly incredulous. “So quickly? I managed to hide for a couple of weeks before they found out about me.”

“An…acquaintance of mine sold me out,” she replied a little grumpily, the thought of Nozomi souring her tone. The boy nodded.

“Happens,” he said. “I’m Kei, by the way – it’s not my real name, but I would advise you never to use your real name until we escape.”

After taking a bite of the brown square he had handed her – which tasted meaty and surprisingly good despite looking like painted cardboard – she asked him why.

“Has anybody ever told you that Central has ears everywhere?” he asked, and she nodded. “Well,” he continued, “it’s true. Central has hidden microphone systems everywhere. Every time they find a new witch that witch’s name is entered into the system, so every time that name is mentioned they know exactly where it was mentioned.”

“Like a tracking system?”

He nodded.

“That’s right. That’s why you’ll notice that nobody has the same name, to prevent false alarms. It’s the same no matter what district you’re in, so as long as you mention your real name anywhere that’s not within a building or underground like now, you’ll be discovered almost immediately. That’s why our aliases don’t have family names – it’s too troublesome.”

Frowning thoughtfully, Yuriko nodded slowly.

“How will I know which names haven’t been taken yet though? For making my alias.”

Kei smirked, and dug out a slim device with a wide screen.

“Baby name generator,” he said smugly. “It’s automatically updated every week with the latest taken names. Flashes pink for a name that’s taken, red for a witch’s name, and green for a name that’s available.”

He passed the device to her, flicking a switch that caused the screen to flicker to life.

“Finish your beef jerky then play around with that.”

~

Half an hour later, she had finally come up with an available name that she was happy with.

“You can call me Tae,” she introduced herself to Kei at last.

Handing the baby name generator back to him, a new worry rose up in her mind.

“What happens if someone in another district decides to name their newborn baby Tae?”

Kei shrugged.

“Who cares? Unless that other kid is classified as a witch or you’re found out, it doesn’t really matter. Anyway, if you’re found out and your alias gets entered into the system, just change it.”

“And if there is some unfortunate baby named Tae out there?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Kei said callously. “We can’t worry about the welfare of everybody – that’s what Central claims is their job. As outcasts of society we’re better off just worrying about ourselves.”

“Alright,” Yuriko – now Tae – gave in with a sigh.

~

Later that night, as they sat around the stove and Kei read a worn-looking journal, Tae spoke up again.

“What is a witch supposed to do, anyway?”

“Run away from Central and stay sane,” he replied dryly, never taking his eyes off his reading material.

Tae scowled.

“No, as in what’s the basis behind our powers? Mine makes things fuse together – does everybody’s do that?”

“We’re all different,” Kei told her. “I’m not sure how, but witches are born with this power inside us. Around the late teens or early twenties – which is where we are now – the power awakens and manifests itself in different ways. My power allows me to charge or power up non-living things, like how I lit up that lamp.”

“I see,” Tae mused, looking at her fingers. “How do I learn to control it?”

Kei looked rather bemused by this question.

“Just…practice, I guess? I had plenty of practice trying to get my motorbike to run without fuel. Here,” he handed her some pebbles he had scooped off the floor, “you can try to fuse these together. When you run out just grab random stuff off the ground. Is your power limited to non-living things?”

“I don’t know,” Tae shrugged, accepting the pebbles. “I guess I’ll only find out when I try.”

~

When Kei had turned off the fire, the tunnel was nearly pitch dark. He had produced a couple of rather scruffy sleeping bags from his motorcycle, and had handed one to her. It was a completely new experience to have to sleep in what was essentially a bag of plastic, since she had spent nearly all her life sleeping in comfortable sleeping pods with specially contoured pillows, soft mattresses and thick blankets.

“It used to belong to my old partner,” he said. “I guess it’s yours now, since we’re partners.”

“Your old partner?”

“He died,” Kei answered shortly. “Shot at by Central officers when we went above ground to steal food.”

“Oh,” Tae’s voice was tiny. “…I’m sorry.”

Heaving a noisy sigh, Kei rustled around in his sleeping bag.

“Don’t be,” he replied. “I know Masa-Macchan would be happy that he died that way instead of being killed by Central.”

She noticed the slip, and frowned.

“Why’d you stumble over his name?”

“His alias was always Masaru,” Kei said after a long pause. “But just before he died he told me to call him by his real name – Macchan is a nickname I’ve derived from it.”

He fell silent after that, and another while later Tae realized she wanted to ask him another question.

“Hey, Kei?”

There was no response – only his slow, even breathing, for he had fallen asleep.

I’ll ask him tomorrow, Tae decided, and tried to ignore the hard ground so she could fall asleep.

~

The next morning, by the time she woke the lamp was lit again, and Kei handed her another sheet of jerky for breakfast.

“Do you have to keep that lamp lit all the time?” she asked curiously, and he shook his head.

“The motorcycle’s lamp will be on when we drive,” he explained. “After you’re done, we can leave.”

Nodding, she chewed on the jerky.

“Where are we going, anyway?” she asked through a mouthful of meat.

“Eventually, Salem city,” Kei said as he began to pack his things and her bag into the boot of the motorcycle. “For now we’ll just concentrate on getting out of this district.”

“…Salem city?” Tae asked, curiosity piqued.

“There are rumours that all the way north, way past the boundaries of District 1, there is a small city that is like a safehaven for outcasts like us. The witches’ city, it’s called. That’s where I’m aiming to go, whether it really exists or not.”

“Past District 1?” Tae was incredulous. “This is Central, and only District 13!”

Kei snorted.

“This isn’t the real Central. The real government centre is in District 7. It takes very long to get from district to district, so we should hurry. I’ve been traveling for nearly a month, I think, and I’ve only gone past five districts.”

“We should get going then,” Tae said, and Kei nodded, getting onto the motorcycle.

“Climb on behind me,” he told her as he started the throttle. As the engine roared to life he put out the lamp and hung it by the side of the motorcycle.

Gingerly, Tae swung a leg over the seat and perched herself on the seat behind him, before clinging onto his waist for dear life as he began to drive.

“What if Central officers find us in this tunnel?” she shrieked to him over the roar of the engine.

“They won’t,” he yelled back. “I don’t think they even know these tunnels exist, since they were dug by the first outcasts!”

She wasn’t very convinced, but didn’t say anything. They drove in silence for a long while, and by the time they came to a stop she was hungry again. Kei dug out the bag of food and peered inside.

“We only have enough food for another couple of days,” he said quietly.

Suddenly, Tae remembered that she had thrown some curry cans into her satchel, and mentioned this to Kei, who broke out into a small smile.

“That’s great!” he said happily, as he distributed some dried fruit. “Then we can put off stealing food a little longer.”

After they had finished their lunch, they took a short break so Kei could rest after a long drive. Tae sat watch and played with the pebbles he had given her the previous day, trying to figure out how she had managed to make them stick.

Closing her eyes, she tried to concentrate, attempting to find some magical spring of magic within her that had allowed her to fuse objects together.

There was no spark whatsoever, and by the time Kei had woken up from his short nap and was ready to go again the five pebbles still stubbornly remained as five separate pebbles in her satchel.

They climbed onto the motorcycle again, and she prepared herself for another long drive as the motorcycle headed forwards, the path ahead only lit by a solitary circle of yellow light.

~

After a long long while of nothing but staring at brown-black walls rush by, they finally stopped at a handpainted red sign somebody had stuck into the ground of the tunnel.

District 13 Boundary, it read, and Kei grinned.

“We’re out of District 13!” he said happily. “It’s the district with the second highest number of Central officers crawling around. I’m glad we’re out.”

“Doesn’t that mean that we won’t be able to steal anything until we reach the next district?” Tae asked, frowning a little, and Kei deflated.

“That’s true,” he sighed. “Ah well. Let’s take a break, shall we? Remind me to teach you how to drive one of these sooner or later.”

Without waiting for a reply, he leaned against the motorcycle and fell asleep promptly. Sighing, Tae settled down next to him and took out her pebbles again.

It was going to be a long day.