HALF: Dead nor Alive

“You want to go to the FalCon-4? On your own?” Marlon asked as he looked at Archie. “Why are you suddenly want to go over there? And I won’t give you the permission if you don’t tell me the reason why,” he continued as he sat down at his desk and lit his cigar.

“I believe you already know the answer for that, Sir, because you said on each Fallen Continent, there’s a Landing Site, so I want to go there and check it out. I also want to check the situation over there and make sure that there’s no threat from there,” Archie answered while he stood at ease. “Of course, I can’t bring Major Ruby and the others because they’re still struggling with that,” he continued.

Marlon leaned on his chair and puffed the smoke onto the ceiling. “Do you even know how far it is? It will take you at least a month to reach there. If you go back and forth, that’s already two months and we don’t have that much time,”

Archie nodded with understanding. “I know, Sir, but I can get there in less than a week,”

Marlon looked at Archie and started to snicker then bursted out laughing while he slammed his left hand on the armrest. “A week? Don’t be silly! Even if you use a car, it will take you two days or even more. How can you be there in a week if you’re going there on foot? Not to mention the time you’re going to use to rest. There’s no way for you to reach FalCon-4 in a week, Archie,”

Archie smiled and lowered his head. “But will you allow me if I take two weeks off for this, Sir? I will come back exactly on the fourteenth day and I will also bring pictures of the Landing Site in there,” he replied.

Marlon stared at Archie and he could tell that Archie was being serious. “You really think you can make it there in a week?” he asked with a serious expression.

“Yes, Sir,” Archie answered without hesitation.

Marlon rested his hands on the desk and judgingly stared at Archie. “Alright, you get my permission but this mission won’t be recorded and you’re on your own. If you fail there will be no consequences and if you succeed, then there will be no rewards as well,” he said.

“Understood, Sir,” Archie said as he saluted Marlon.

“You may leave and you may grab everything you need for the mission in the armory,” Marlon said.

Archie nodded and then left the room.

Since Archie didn’t need anything, he immediately went to the East gate and told the guards to open the door for him. As soon as the gate was open, he started to jog his way out to the abandoned city.

The moment he left the wall of the abandoned city, he removed his jacket and then put it in his bag. He transformed his body and made himself as big as he could so he could reach FalCon-4 faster with big legs.

While he was busy transforming his body, the eldest wind witch appeared in from of him. “I heard you’re going to the East, may I accompany you?” she asked.

Archie stared at the witch. “Yes, I want to see where the Drautnir went to that might lead me to find that woman he met,”

“So you heard about it,” The witch said with a sad expression.

“He was under your care, right?” Archie asked.

“Yes, the moment we heard that he went missing, we believed that he was already dead,” The witch answered. “There’s no more reason for me to think about that because I have lost my sisters as well so it was all in the past now,” she said.

Archie nodded and grabbed the tiny bag with his fingers then hold it in like a rock. “Let’s move, I don’t have much time to investigate because I have to go back here as soon as I found what I’m looking for,”

The witch nodded and then she followed Archie who leaped from building to building.

Archie’s massive body could be seen from far away because he jumped over buildings and trampled on them like it was nothing to him. His presence was enough to make the parasites around him hide in fear. Archie looked around the area as he ran to check if there were any humans around, but all he could sense were animals and parasites around him.

Days had passed, and he already reached the east side of the continent which was Newfoundland and Labrador. He was shocked when he saw the forest was flattened with no trees around, not just him but the witch was surprised by it as well. The witch said the area wasn’t like this before, she was confused about what happened and so she decided to look for her sisters in FalCon-4.

Archie turned back to his human form and looked around to see any sign of the living but he couldn’t find anything, not even a parasite. He took pictures with his camera to show Marlon and Fanheim about the discovery since the human hadn’t touched the east side of the continent for a very long time.

As he walked through the remains of the forest, he could hear sobbing coming from up ahead. He decided to run and check who was crying and turned out it was the witch, and she was on her knees while she was holding a person in her hands.

Archie approached her and saw a woman in the witch’s arms, a red-haired woman that seemed to be the witch of the FalCon-4. He sat in front of her and he couldn’t feel anything from the red-haired witch, she was already dead but he wasn’t sure when exactly but her body was preserved as if she just died a few minutes ago.

Archie didn’t know what to say and just sat there and listened to the witch sobbing. While he was staring at the witch grieving for her sister’s death, he thought that the red-haired witch shouldn’t be the only one, the other might be dead as well by the look of the flattened forest. Suddenly a fierce wind struck his face and the witch suddenly looked up with tears in her eyes.

“Sister?” The witch asked as she carefully put down the red-haired witch on the ground.

There was no response from the wind and the witch dispersed and became one with the wind. Archie just looked up in the air and heard the wind fiercely moving randomly as if those wind witches were communicating with each other in their own ways.

“Leave…” “You have to leave…” A soothing woman’s voice was whispering into Archie’s ear.” Don’t make the same mistake as him, leave and don’t come back,” she whispered.

“Where is she?” Archie asked.

“Don’t look for her, you will regret it…” “We made a mistake, and we have to bear the consequences,” she whispered with a sorrowful voice.

“Was she the one who did all this?” Archie asked with a surprised expression.

“Yes…” “She’s nothing like anything in this world…” “She’s the embodiment of a calamity,” She whispered.

“Show me where is she, I want to see her,” Archie asked seriously.

The wind dispersed and Archie could no longer feel the wind.

The wind witch appeared in front of Archie and she looked stunned and blankly stared at nothing.

“What happened? What did she say?” Archie asked.

The wind witch looked at Archie and pointed at the sea. “Go to the cliff, you will see an island from there,”

Archie without saying anything immediately ran to where the witch pointed at.

After running for hours he finally reached the edge, he saw the island that the witch mentioned, the Newfoundland island. He squinted his eyes and saw something massive was laying on the island, he couldn’t see clearly what it was but he knew it was big enough to use the whole island for itself.

“What is that thing?” Archie mumbled to himself.

“That’s a king,” The witch said after she appeared next to Archie.

Archie was shocked that a king could be that big, and if that thing decided to move, it would be enough to make the earth shake. He never thought a parasite could grow that big and unnoticed even if he worked together with all the Axis Humans in the world, they would stand no chance against it.

The king parasite slowly moved its body and Archie could see the long neck of the parasite, but then he looked at another neck that came up. The parasite had two heads and they almost reached the sky, and the king suddenly roared so loud that the voice echoed throughout the sky like a rumbling thunder. The birds flew away as the king kept roaring in the sky, and Archie was amazed and terrified at the same time.

“Archie,” The witch called.

Archie took a picture of the king and then turned around and looked at the witch who had been looking around. “What?”

“Someone is watching us, and I don’t think we should be here…” The witch answered.

Archie immediately looked around and he didn’t feel anything at all. “I don’t feel anything, and I came here to find the woman, so I will be here until at least I got any lead of what happened to the Drautnir that came here,” he said.

The witch looked Archie in the eyes and pointed at the island. “If you want to see what happened, you have to go there because my sister told me that he went there and never came back,”

Archie looked at the island and nodded. “Then I will go there and see it for myself,”