"Where... is this..."
Weakly opening her eyes, she found the bright incandescent bulb overhead somewhat blinding.
The young girl's consciousness was blurred, and her brain was suffering from a bit of lag. Everything around her appeared so illusory, giving off a sense of unreality.
"Oh my~ You're awake~"
The speaker had a strange voice. The girl couldn't hear it clearly; it seemed somewhat distant and distorted.
"Let me help check your body~ See if it can still be of some use~"
The voice remained blurry, but soon her hazy senses instantly snapped to clarity.
She felt it. There was a hand, swimming endlessly, endlessly inside her abdominal cavity.
"St—Stop it!"
She panic-strickenly tried to reach out to stop this woman's violation of her body. However, it didn't have the slightest effect...
"Ahhh!!!!! My hands! Where are my hands?!"
She looked down at her own body, only to discover with horror that her hands and feet had vanished at some point. She was like a human vase, left at the mercy of others touching and manipulating her.
What happened next caused her pupils to contract sharply. The other party actually reached their entire palm into her stomach, groping their way up along her intestines.
Feeling the other party's fingers sliding over her internal organs through a layer of gloves, the girl's nerves trembled incessantly as if being plucked.
Her heartbeat became faster and faster, and those fingers drew closer and closer to her heart, closer and closer...
"Ah, ahhh!! No, no, don't!!!!"
Her consciousness returned to chaos, followed by a scent of rust and sweetness combined with the smell of disinfectant stimulating her senses.
The girl bolted upright in bed, gasping for air with heavy breaths.
Large beads of sweat strung together like a curtain before her eyes as she frantically touched her limbs and lower abdomen.
"Still there. My hands and feet are still there."
"Oh, you've woken up?"
Following the sound, the girl saw an Ethereal standing at the door looking at her. Having just woken up from a nightmare, she was, without exception, startled once again.
But closely following that was the instinctive reaction of a soldier.
"Die! Monster!"
She first threw her pillow at him to attract attention, then immediately leapt up from the bed and kicked out at him.
Although there was a pillow in between, Geno could still feel the force exerted by the girl's soft little feet against his body. To be honest, it was a bit... Ahem.
But Geno was still sent flying by the force of the kick, crashing into the wall.
The girl who launched the attack took this opportunity to run out of the hospital ward.
"Ouch. She's so small, how is she so strong?"
Recovering his wits, Geno hurriedly followed her out. She had just woken up; he didn't want her getting hurt again.
Walking out of the room and following the traces in his line of sight, he found the girl standing dumbfounded at the door of another room.
"Did... you do all this?"
Lying in the room was nothing else but her companions from the Silver Squad. Everyone was unconscious, but the wounds on their bodies had been properly bandaged.
"Carrying you all in took me quite a lot of effort."
Geno rubbed the spot where he had been kicked. Although he had a monster's body, the pain he should feel was still there.
Looking at her properly settled companions, the girl's emotions calmed down. She turned around to look at this strange Ethereal, not knowing what to feel in her heart.
"What exactly are you?"
"You little girl, so rude. I'm not a 'what'. Pfft! I mean, I'm just a passing-through ordinary person!"
Ignoring Geno's slip of the tongue, the girl sized up this strange Ethereal with a skeptical gaze.
"You? An ordinary person? I've never seen an Ethereal that could speak."
Although Ethereal types were bizarre and varied, as far as she knew, there wasn't any type of Ethereal capable of speech.
"Well, just treat me as naturally gifted. Anything weird can happen in this world, right? Of course, I don't mean that I'm weird."
To prevent her from misunderstanding, Geno felt it was better to add that last sentence.
"...Let's just pretend that's the case. My name is Twiggy. And you?"
"Just call me Geno."
Twiggy finally accepted all of this. Being ordered by the higher-ups to die, and then immediately being saved by a passing strange Ethereal...
It really felt like a movie. Captain Anby would probably like this...
...
Her memories were slowly waking up bit by bit. Her injuries weren't severe; it seemed that because she had fallen into that Hollow Fissure right at the start, her injuries were relatively light compared to her other sisters. This was also the reason she was the first to wake up.
But when she recalled what had actually happened that night, her expression suddenly became somewhat desolate again.
It seemed she... had nowhere left to go.
"Hey, why are you spacing out again? Did you hit your head? Follow me: three, two, one. One, two, three. Ah—ah—"
"Pfft~"
Twiggy was amused by Geno's strange behavior, covering her mouth lightly as she ruthlessly laughed at his performance.
"What kind of weird examination method is that? I'm fine. I just remembered some unpleasant things."
Geno didn't mind her mockery; after all, as long as she regained her spirits, it was fine.
Twiggy then realized that he was helping her relieve her mood, and the distance between the two instantly shortened a great deal.
However, looking at that face devoid of any features, she still felt it was a bit subtle. She felt that Geno's behavior was less like an Ethereal and more like an ordinary person wearing an Ethereal's skin.
"Umm... I'm... I'm sorry..."
The girl expressed the apology she owed for her impulsive and reckless behavior.
-----------------
One person and one Ethereal sat in the adjacent room, exchanging intelligence.
This was an abandoned hospital inside the Hollow, located right after passing through that fissure.
Although they didn't know when this place had been abandoned, fortunately, they found some medicine and gauze for treatment—though who knew if they were expired or not.
"This... really must have been hard on you."
Twiggy's mouth twitched. Looking at the bandages wrapped around her arm, she suddenly felt disgusted. She could only say it was fortunate she wasn't an ordinary person either.
But there was no helping it. In times like this, having anything was better than nothing. If wounds were left exposed to the air, allowing the Ether to act willfully, it wouldn't take long to turn into an Ethereal.
Yeah, just like this guy sitting across from her.
Then it was Twiggy's turn. She briefly recounted the origins of herself and the others.
Twiggy and the others belonged to the 'Silver Squad'—a special operations unit secretly researched by the New Eridu Defense Force.
And all members of the Silver Squad were artificial humans possessing the same set of maternal genes. This was the reason why their appearances were exactly the same.
"But none of that matters now. After all, we've already been abandoned. By those so-called higher-ups."
Twiggy's tone was very calm, but Geno could feel a trace of hatred and confusion hidden within.
Thinking about it, it made sense. Being abandoned like a useless rag by the military you had always obeyed and believed in—how could there be no resentment?
"Look on the bright side. You can live the life you want from now on, right?"
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