Unsure of his existence, hearing was his first experience.
Hearing came first—thin, distant, unreliable. Sound was his only anchor to reality.
Then pain came next.
As a white flash appeared before him, even though he was unsure—if "front" and "back" even meant anything when he wasn't sure where his body ended and the world began. His eyesight started to slowly return, the initial white flash faded, and all he could see was the blinding glare fading into a blurred blue-and-white silhouette, surrounded only by frame of lifeless gray.
Smoke and dust rose from the charred surroundings. The acrid smell of burning metal scrap—scattered everywhere—filled the air he struggled to breathe. As the fog clouding his mind began to thin, the silhouette before him sharpened and took a more comprehensible shape: a girl.
A brunette—young, blue-eyed—with a severe expression and ash smeared across her cheeks.
She was bent over him, frantically shoving aside any twisted piece of wreckage, clearing any debris that was on top of him and kicking away anything that might collapse, making sure nothing could drop on him from above and crush him. Only when she was sure nothing else could drop on him, she then grabbed a small rectangular object attached to her waist.
"BA-01 down! BA-01 down! BA-01 down! Please respond," she was holding a small radio and screaming to it, desperately trying to communicate to anyone who could be online. It was the language he heard as soon as he opened his eyes. And yet…
"We have been shot down! BA-01 down! BA-01…!" After an apparent lack of answer from anyone, her voice grew more desperate "Useless piece of…"
She didn't finish the sentence, but the frustration in her voice said enough.
Maybe the explosion had fried the comms. Maybe they were out of range. Or… maybe there was simply no one willing to answer. Whatever the case, one thing was certain: right now, they could count only on themselves.
Even though he just regained his consciousness, he could not help but feel more drowsy and his vision became blurred white once again. All stimuli from the surroundings became distant.
"Commander! I can't get through to the Ark!" reported the girl after cursing the radio.
Commander…? Who is… the Commander?
There was silence from his end. He didn't even know he was supposed to answer.
"…Commander?" Her voice dropped. Since he did not answer her, she must have noticed that something was wrong. Then, sharp and panicked: "…!! No! You're going into cardiac arrest…!"
He barely understood the words, but her tone cut straight through the haze.
"A… AED…! AED!" she cried.
She scrambled away from him, overturning cases, kicking aside scrap, searching with the frantic energy of someone who knew exactly how bad their situation was, searching for an AED. Panic began to set in her voice. She was worried and had every reason to be.
Alone in hostile territory, no communication, no backup, no proper equipment and transport vehicle destroyed. Her only hope was that, if anything of use survived the explosion, it would be the device she needed right now. She really did not know who she should thank when she found a small portable defibrillator.
Hopefully, she just might avoid the darkest scenario. At least for now…
"Charging…!" she warned. Her voice steadied. "Clear!"
Thumb!
A brutal electric shock ripped through him, painfully kickstarting his heart and getting him to open his eyes in shock. It felt like getting kicked in the chest by a horse. A big, angry horse made of pure voltage. His back arched, air tearing into his lungs in a ragged shout, like someone had forcefully punched it in.
"Gaha!!"
"Commander! Are you okay?! Can you hear me? Smile if you can hear me!"
Because of shock, Commander, with no understanding of how dire their situation was, numbly followed the instruction and managed to smile… or rather grin.
"Finally! All right then, up and at'em. Rise your arms up."
With initial shock and pain fading, young man managed to follow her further guidelines and raise up his arms.
"Okay. STR cleared!" she declared.
"Great…! Everything is normal! Commander, can you hear me? Can you tell me which section are you from?
"Section?" he asked, echoing Marian.
The word hit a wall in his mind and bounced off. He could not understand what did she mean. Section. Did he belong to any section? Wait… Where he was to begin with? What was he doing here? How did he get here? Or… what was his—
i̸̘͛͆d̴̤͙̓̿e̸͇̫̔̀̂͜n̷̮̑͋t̶̮̀͊ͅḯ̷̺̗͗ẗ̵̨́y̷̫̺͈̆͒͠?
"I… don't know…" he answered at last, in the only way he could.
"You don't know…?" A moment of worry softened her eyes. "Your mind is probably still hazy after the explosion. No. That does not matter right now."
The girl who'd helped him so far reached back to her gun. Thanks to a sling keeping her submachine gun in place, her weapon was currently resting against her back.
"Commander," she said, voice tightening into a report. "We were attacked en route to our destination. The transport ship is down. Any Rapture within a hundred mile radius must have heard that explosion and is headed our way. I… realize this is all a bit sudden but I am now under your command. You're giving the orders. Can you do it?"
Raptures? What were these "Raptures"? Under my command?! I'm a Commander?! I'm giving the orders?! HOW?!
Raptures? Command? Orders?
None of it made sense, but the way she looked at him—steady, expectant—told him this wasn't the time to argue.
Before he had a chance to ask anything, a low rumble rolled through the air. Metal groaned somewhere in the distance. The ground seemed to vibrate under him, faint but growing. The answer to this question decided to come to them itself
Whatever "Raptures" were… he had the feeling he was about to find out.
"…It seems I don't have much of a choice," he said, pushing the words out around the ache in his chest. "I'll… give it a try."
Given how little he understood about the situation he currently was—despite her brief explanation—this was the only answer he could give.
"Yes, Commander! Time to get to work. Keep your head down. Please don't worry. I will protect you no matter what happens," she said, reading her gun.
Her eyes glitched faintly, a shade of red sliding over them like a HUD coming online.
"Marian, activating combat mode," she said, almost like a reminder to him as much as to herself.
Her submachine gun clicked as she chambered a round. Somewhere beyond the torn hull, metal shifted. The low rumble he'd half-heard before rolled through the air, louder and closer with every heartbeat.
"…Encounter!"