- Oliver -

  "Oliver, what was your family like?" Isabe asked.

  The boy, who had a slice of dry bread in his mouth, almost choked.

  "Cough, cough. Where did that question e from?" he ented.

  "You basically already know everything about us," Isabe said. "I've even told you about the dog I had on our farm. But I feel like we still know almost nothing about you."

  Oliver raised his hands as if he were surrendering. "Alright, alright. Let me think."

  Katherine, who was also focused on chewing a piece of dry bread, began to pay attention to the versation.

  "It's been a long time. But my mother, she was normal," he began to expin. "Like all the other mothers."

  "That's not fair. Think of something," Isabe pouted as she scolded the boy.

  These were some of the few moments that kept the group's sanity. Being able to talk about a lighter subject than the hell they went through day by day—a rare way to imagihey weren't there.

  "She was beautiful. Even as a child, I khat. When she came to pick me up from school, there was always a child or tere impressed by her," Oliver said, slightly blushing.

  Isabe smiled upon seeing her friend feel shy about talking, whily made her even more curious.

  Oliver tinued, "However, at home, she was the queen bee. She bossed my dad and me around. I always tried to pretend there was no schoolwork to do, but she always found a way to find out."

  "What did she do for work?" Katherine asked.

  "She was a teacher. However, after we moved, she started spending more time at home with me," Oliver replied, trying to pull as much as he could from his memory. He felt a bit sad, notig that when he remembered his family, they were nothing more than shadows—he even had difficulty recalling their features.

  "And your father?" Isabe asked.

  "He was FRIG smart. That was the only description everyone gave me about my dad. Even though he was young, he left Seoul to e to live in the U.S. and work with a pany that did energy research," the boy expined.

  | Crap

  'Crap?' Oliver thought upon seeing Athena's notification.

  "Wait. Your father came from where?" Katherine asked.

  "S-Seoul," the boy repeated, realizing the mess he'd made.

  | Now you noticed?

  'Hey! You could have warned me earlier,' he tried to defend himself against Athena's judgment.

  "Where is Seoul? Is it some y?" Isabe asked.

  "Ummmm," Oliver didn't know what to answer; he didn't want to have to lie to the two girls.

  "Seoul, Seoul. I've heard of that city before. Wasn't it—" Katherine began to speak more softly until she fell silent. "It's not possible." She looked at the boy as if she were judging him.

  "Hey! It's quite unfortable to have someone looking at me like that." He preteo be embarrassed, c his private parts.

  Isabe punched him in the arm. "As if after months here, we haven't already seen that."

  "Even so," Oliver preteo have his feelings hurt.

  "Alright. What did you remember?" Isabe asked Katherine, who was still looking strangely at the boy.

  "I remembered one of the first history csses. About the beginning of the war," she said.

  "Beginning of the war?" Isabe asked, not uanding.

  "Yes. Seoul was the first city bombed. Sihe first wave, it does anymore. There's no way your father could have worked there. Or is there?" Katherine spoke while looking ily at the boy.

  "Good thing you 't shoot sers from your eyes. You're so fixated on this that I feel like at any moment yoing to pierce me with yaze," the boy ented.

  "Spill it," Isabe said to the boy. "Clearly, you're stalling."

  "Ah," Oliver sighed.

  "Alright, but I'll only tell you uwo ditions," he began to speak.

  "Yes?" the two responded almost in unison.

  "First, what I'm going to tell you is true. I have no way to prove it, but it is. So no freaking out. Sed, you 't tell anyone," Oliver id out the ditions.

  Unlike Nico, he didn't know if they could hahis information; besides, Nico had already figured out everything just by looking at the boy.

  'It's not like I could have prevented Nico from disc something,' he thought.

  | True.

  "I promise," the two girls raised one of their arms as if making a vow.

  "Alright. My whole family—and not just my father—is from Seoul," Oliver expined.

  "B-but how?" Isabe asked, still not uanding the implications.

  "I was in the first wave," the boy ented.

  "What?!" Isabe almost shouted.

  For the two, some things began to click.

  "You would have to be about a hundred and fifteen years old? Although it's possible to extend a person's average life with the use of Energy, it wasn't a known teique at the time," Katherine ented.

  "With VAT. It was a little before the first wave that they started testing it; at the time, it was supposed to be just for small injuries and still only for tests. It wasn't for the general public," Oliver ented. "I believe that because of the war, they had no choid started putting everyone who was badly injured."

  "But that means you spent almost a hundred years frozen in a VAT. I've never heard of anyone who survived that long," Isabe ented.

  "I 't say what happeher. One moment, I was almost dead; the , I was being released onto the streets of New San Francisco. Without dots, without money, and only with some clothes," Oliver expined.

  "Now your questions about Houses and Great Houses make a bit more sense," Katherine ented.

  "Wow!" Isabe excimed, her eyes shining with excitement. "What was it like before the war? Why didn't you learn about Houses? Is it true that before the war, there were ners?"

  She was firing one question after another without giving Oliver time to selee to answer.

  "Calm down. Calm down. O a time," he said, seeing Isabe's excitement. "It was normal; I don't know what to say. We didn't have a war; obviously, there was always the possibility of a flict, but it wasn't something stant."

  Isabe couldn't grasp the question; to her, war wasn't something so close. Sure, from time to time, there were Orks trying to attack Earth or nd in some remote area. However, for her, it didn't seem that bad.

  "Why didn't I learn about the Houses? Information isn't that accessible, especially for someohout money," he ented. "A person living oreet doesn't have school, , or anything like that."

  "Besides, it's hard to ask about something you have no idea exists. At first, I even had difficulty accepting that I wasn't dreaming; after that, it was a struggle to update and uand the English we speak nowadays," Oliver expined.

  "What? The English spoken today?" Isabe asked. "Has it ged that much?"

  "There are still some simirities, but it's wildly different. It's been a hundred years; everything has ged," the boy expined. "After that, I tried to get a job to have food and a pce to live. Luckily for me, many other Nameless were going through something simir, and they guided me through part of it."

  Now, it wasn't just Isabe who was impressed with the versation but Katherine as well, who had her eyes shining while listening to the adventure.

  "Imagine sleeping one day and waking up in a world a hundred years iure?" Isabe said aloud to Katherine.

  "It must be..." Katherine spoke in a low voice. "Awful."

  Only when the girl spoke did Isabe realize that it could be a terrible experieo gh something like that, especially for someone who lost their entire family.

  "But your parents, are they also in a VAT?" Katherine asked.

  "I 't say. Actually, no one say. It's not like there are many people left from the time of the first wave," Oliver ented.

  "Yes," Katherine agreed.

  "Alright. Now it's my turn," Oliver said. "What will you do once we get out of here?"

  The two were silent for a while.

  "Go back to the Academy," Katherine replied first. "I o get into the Red Division."

  "Why?" Isabe asked.

  "I still want to find my brother. It seems like the best pce to find other clues," Katherine replied.

  "Makes sense," Isabe ented. "I don't have anything clear yet. I want to go back to the Academy—not for something as noble as Katherine's—I just had a dream of being a Ranger. I e from Area 55, where there are basically only cattle and pntations. It was my way of having an adventure."

  "But what ged?" Oliver asked.

  "Maybe I've already had too many adventures after this," she expined.

  "Maybe," Oliver ented.

  "And you?" Katherine asked, looking at Oliver.

  "We have the same goal; I'm going to join the Red Division," Oliver replied.

  The three remained silent for a while, not knowing what else to say.

  Katheri a bit happy knowing that if she at least got out of all this mess, she would have a friend within the Red Division.

  Oliver stretched to open one of the eggs on the ground whearted to feel the ground shaking.

  "Are you—" Before he could finish asking, the three heard a massive explosion.

  GCLopes