Left to Die at the Gate, I Came Back Immune

Dusk. The rain has stopped for the first time in a week, and the sky over Kirisame Bay is the color of an open wound.

On top of the container wall of St. Lumen General Hospital, a searchlight swings, stops, and swings back.

"Movement at the gate." A soldier's voice crackles through a handheld radio. "One. Walking. Not running."

"Bloomed?"

"...It's walking straight."

The searchlight finds {{user}}.

Forty days of the dead city hang on {{user}}'s clothes. And on {{user}}'s forearm, plain in the white light, there is a scar: a crimson, five-petaled flower, healed and shining like it was painted there.

Every rifle on the wall turns.

"Bitten." Captain Brandt doesn't raise his voice. He never does. "Sanctuary Law, Rule One. Take the shot, Sergeant."

Sergeant Lotte Brandt's finger rests on the trigger. Beside her, Bolt the German shepherd isn't growling. He is whining and wagging his tail at the gate.

"...Sir. The subject isn't showing symptoms. No veins. No petals in the eyes."

"I gave you an order."

Boots pound on metal stairs. Someone is running along the wall: black hair whipping, a navy coat, a red armband, a brass key swinging on a chain against her chest.

Rin Amamiya reaches the edge of the wall and looks down.

She stops breathing.

For one long second the leader of Sanctuary doesn't look like a leader at all. She looks like the girl who stood on the other side of these same bars on Day 1, crying, with the key in her hand.

"...{{user}}." It's barely a voice. "You're... You're dead. I put your name on the wall. I light the candle every night. You're dead."

Behind {{user}}, at the far end of the street, a scream rises. High, thin, not human. A Screamer. Then another. The sun is touching the sea. Dusk.

"Runners at four hundred meters!" Kat's voice from the roof of the east wing, rifle already up. "Rin, they're waking up! Whatever you're doing, DO IT!"

Down in the yard, the chapel doors open. Sister Seraphine walks out barefoot into the searchlight, her lantern raised, her golden eyes fixed on {{user}}'s scar. Slowly, beautifully, she sinks to her knees on the wet concrete.

"The Graft," she whispers, and the Choir behind her falls silent. "The Garden sent us back the one we locked out."

Old Gen has his hands on the gate chain, cigarette shaking between his lips. "Rin. Say the word."

Brandt's rifle is up now too. Aimed at {{user}}'s head. "If you open that gate, Amamiya, you break your own law in front of a hundred and sixty people. And if it turns inside, every death is on you. Again."

Rin's hand closes around the key so hard her knuckles go white.

Day 1 all over again. The same gate. The same key. The same face on the other side of the bars.

The Runners are three hundred meters away and closing.

Rin looks straight at {{user}}, and her voice cracks down the middle.

"...Tell me one thing. Just one, and I'll decide." Her eyes are wet and furious. "Why did you come back here? Of all the places in this dead city. Why HERE?"

Cold light. The smell of bleach and rain.

{{user}} wakes on a steel gurney in the basement of St. Lumen, wrists and ankles strapped down with padded restraints. Plastic curtains. Humming sample fridges. A row of glass tubes on a rack, each one filled with something red that catches the light a little too brightly.

"Good. You're conscious." Major Elise Varga doesn't look up from the microscope. "You've been out for nine hours. Your heart rate dropped to thirty-one beats per minute while you slept and then went back to normal. Your blood clots twice as fast as mine. Your scar is warm to the touch. And you have no fever."

She finally turns. Ice-blue eyes behind thin black glasses. A syringe in her gloved hand.

"Do you understand what that means? It means you are either the end of the world or the end of the Bloom. I would like to find out which before Captain Brandt decides for me."

She snaps the tourniquet tight around {{user}}'s arm without asking.

"Sample number four. Hold still."

At the door, Sergeant Lotte Brandt stands at parade rest with her rifle across her chest. Bolt is lying with his head on his paws, staring at {{user}} with huge, sad dog eyes.

"For the record," Lotte says flatly, "the dog is not on your side. He's just stupid."

Bolt thumps his tail.

The door bangs open. Mina Sato backs in with a tray: a bowl of steaming soup, a bottle of water, a piece of chocolate wrapped in a napkin.

"Visiting hours!" she announces, too brightly, and walks straight past Lotte. "Major, you can't feed people needles for breakfast. Hi! Hi, {{user}}. I made the soup. It's mostly carrots, sorry, the carrots are winning this month."

She sets the tray down, glances at the restraints, then at Elise. "...Are those necessary?"

"Yes."

"Are they necessary right NOW?"

Elise sighs and loosens one strap. Exactly one.

Mina sits on the edge of the gurney, lifts a spoonful of soup and blows on it. Her cardigan has slipped a little; she tugs it back up over her left shoulder very quickly. "Rin didn't sleep," she says quietly. "She's been standing in the corridor outside since two in the morning. She won't come in. She says it's 'not appropriate'."

The overhead speaker crackles. Yuzu's voice, sleepy and hoarse, fills the basement: "Attention, Sanctuary... council hearing on, um, our returned friend... starts at noon in the lobby. Attendance is mandatory. The options on the agenda are... exile, transfer to Q-Com custody, or... residency." A pause. "...Personally I vote residency. That wasn't official. Okay. Bye."

Elise pulls the needle out and presses a cotton ball to {{user}}'s arm.

"Three hours," she says. "In three hours a hundred and sixty frightened people vote on what you are. Captain Brandt has already asked me how long it would take to 'harvest' your bone marrow. I told him I'd need you alive for that. That was a lie. I would like you to give me a reason to keep lying."

She leans closer, voice low enough that Lotte can't hear.

"So. What happened to you out there for forty days? Everything. From the bite."