The smell of sulfur pounds on Hana's senses as she walks into the elevator, surrounded by cleaning droids from all angles. As she stands in silence, the paper bag with a gently wrapped cardboard handle crinkles in her hand, reminding her that she still is carrying food. A bot slowly moves a generalized shape of a hand towards the elevator button, hitting the correct floor that Hana lives on.

  "Hello, H-H-Hana!" The droids greets her with an eager tone. This AI was clearly designed with friendliness in mind.

  "Privet, Daniel." She responds back, looking at the robot with just her eyes. The robot seemed to silently cheer in response with just his facial movements, chaotic and arousing to watch.

  "S-S-She said hello! T-tha-thank you, Hana!"

  "No problem," she simply responded as the doors opened to let all the occupants of the elevator out.

  Once she was in the hallway, she was met with crowds upon crowds of people flanking the walls to this place. She calmly waded through them all, being forced to hear their screams and cries of pity. The noises they made were torturous to her ears, and she silently begged to be away from them as soon as possible. Thankfully, her moment came once she reached the end of the hall, scanned her hand against the reader, and was let into the apartment.

  As Hana walked into the apartment, the door quickly shut behind her, allowing her ears to be relieved of the restless sensation of the hobos constantly nagging at them for their food and money. She breathed a deep sigh and stepped into the kitchen.

  "Oyogu," she said in Russian. "I'm here with the food. Where is the man you showed me?"

  "Over here!" A cheery japanese voice responded. As soon as the food was set out, Oyogu Sakana came over to eat. She got dumplings as per usual, while Hana simply had sushi. The two of them conversed while eating, talking of random female happenings, but soon carried over to the topic of the man laying in one of their beds.

  "The man, is he alive, Oyogu?"

  "Hai, he's breathing and has a pulse. Why do you ask?" Oyogu swiftly replied, nodding her head with her first word.

  "Just checking. You have a track record of killing the men you touch." Hana snarked, remaining emotionless the entire time.

  "It's not my fault that all the men I date try to murder me every time!"

  "Maybe that's a good thing," Hana quipped before snapping her head towards the bed.

  "What is it, Hana?" Oyogu asked before realizing herself. As she looked towards the bed with Hana, she saw the man with crimson features twitching and squirming, as well as making audible hacks and coughs.

  "He's awake," Hana simply replied.

  My throat ached. I had to relieve it as best I could, but with no water around, the only choice I had was to cough and make it worse. I swear I could hear voices, but I wasn't sure what they were saying. At least, I wasn't sure until I partially woke up.

  "He's awake," I heard in a thick russian accent. It sounded like it came from a woman, but I wouldn't know for sure until I opened my eyes.

  When I managed to open them, the first thing I saw were green eyes staring directly back into mine. I jumped and immediately pushed her away with a force I couldn't have fathomed. With just a push of her shoulder, she was sent up slightly and back, almost until she hit an oddly reclined chair with a purple cable hanging down from the ceiling.

  "Hey, easy! We're not going to hurt you!" She said in a foreign language. Unfortunately for her, I already had my hands held up, ready to swing at either of them.

  As the girl with green hair tried to talk me down, I got a look at the girl in purple. Something about her gaze told me to stop, which seemed to work more than the tanned girl's translated words. Slowly but surely, the more I looked at her, the more I seemed to loosen up, before eventually setting my hands on the bed, looking at the other girl who was cautious, but smiling at me.

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  "Good! You're calmed down!"

  "Where am I?" I asked.

  "You didn't get the rundown?" The tan girl asked.

  "What rundown?" I said confusingly.

  The girl looked at me with thin eyes before pointing at me.

  "You're serious? You don't remember the entire explanation that Leona gave you?"

  "Serious? Y-yes, yes I'm serious." I stuttered. Why did I not understand what the word serious meant for a split moment? "I don't remember any sort of explanation about this place, nor do I know anyone named 'Leona.'"

  The two women looked at each other, one with a confused look, the other with a stoic gaze. Guess which was which?

  "Okay," the purple woman said. "New test. What do you remember from Earth?"

  "Earth? I think I've heard that before, but I don't know where exactly from…" I looked down at the bed before looking between the two of them, who were staring at each other.

  "In that case," the purple blonde perked up again. "We need to find out who you are. Something happened to you and your memory has been mostly wiped, apart from the most basic fundamentals of good conversation and language. Do you have a name?"

  I thought about it for a moment, and decided to use the name that was said to me in a glitchy manner before cops were sent after me.

  "Zenith. I don't know if it's who I really am, but it feels like me."

  "Good to meet you, Zenith." The purple blonde said again. "My name is Hanadea Vostrovna Kani, the daughter of the former-and-now-dead Russian president. And that is Sakana Oyogu, daughter of a Yakuza boss by the name of Sakana Takeshi."

  "Ohaiyoooo!" Oyogu proudly perked up, throwing up a peace sign and then making a heart with her thumb and index finger.

  "Go get washed up. We'll get you some fresh clothes and we'll head out to get you ready for life here." Hana commented, taking a sip of some drink. I looked to my left and saw a closed door, which was assumedly the bathroom. After looking back at the two of them, I got up and entered the room to wash myself.

  When Zenith left the bathroom, he had a towel wrapped around his waist. Clearly something from his supposed past life carried over, or it was simply common sense to cover his sensitive areas when two women were constantly staring at him. As he looked at the both of us, we had a bundle of clothes set on the bed for him.

  "Go ahead, throw them on!" Oyogu said with a cheer in her voice. "We got them for free from some guy off the street!"

  "You robbed him."

  "No I didn't, he tried to rob me first!" She pouted at Hana, crossing her arms with a pout on her face. Zenith probably assumed this was quite cute of her.

  "I'll give you that one, he did try to rob you first."

  Zenith just looked at the both of us before grabbing his clothes and entering the bathroom again. A few minutes later, he exited with a brand new outfit on. He wore a bomber jacket with red displays embedded in the threads, which had automatically linked to his coprocessor to translate his emotions onto the jacket, simply from putting the jacket on. Unfortunately, portions of the display were broken in some places, which gave it a glitchy, sporadic appearance.

  "How does this look? It seems to be broken in a few spots."

  "Not bad, gives you an air of mysteryyy..~"

  "Oyogu, shut up," Hana simply replied.

  As the group exited the apartment building, managing to get past all the hobos and bums that surrounded the halls, they were met with dim skies. It was still raining, but thankfully umbrellas were brought this time. As Hana and Oyogu huddled under an umbrella in front of Zenith, he had managed to get it open and over his head, following behind the two of them as they walk through the crowded streets.

  "While we're here, let me give you the simplified version of the rundown. We were all killed in an act of mutually assured destruction, no one knows who."

  "That's a lie-" Oyogu interjected before being cut off by Hana's continued explanation.

  "It's currently raining acid because of pollution that's well over 250 years old here, which is why we require these umbrellas. It also smells like sulfur because of said pollution. That's not to say that the landscape is barren, only near the massive circular city of Eden."

  "I think I saw that when I woke up." Zenith replied.

  Hana nodded. "It's the largest city in all of Terra, it would make sense as to why you seemed to reincarnate from there. Speaking of which, you definitely had a past life. You weren't born here. You must have seen the mark on your neck, yes?"

  Zenith nodded in response. Hana continued. "Do not show it to others. That mark means that this isn't your home world, and that you were brought here through reincarnation. The people here hate the reincarnated, and we are called Othersiders by their terms. We are ultimately wanted for supposedly being the ruiners of this world, but I think I can prove them wrong."

  Her explanation ultimately stopped there once they arrived at a tall building with wires and vegetation hanging down from it at all angles. It looked like a spider's web with the sheer amount of electric wires crossing over each other. This was the Vladsvink capital building and Hana had to call in a couple favors while she was here.

  Chapter 2 has been presented by…

  SoChi NoChi Dinery

  "So good, you'll kill yourself for it!"