Part I Insomnio

He was running through the maze the forest had become bellow his feet. Running to save his life, as fast as his tiny feet could take him. Or to end a life. The branches of the trees that continuously hit his face had broke his lips. Small, bloody scars ran up his face. His eyes, blood shot and wide, looked at the forest, hardly taking anything in. He was tired, scared and hungry.

He had been running forever.

The young boy gasped, his mind thrown out of the momentum his feet were taking. He stopped slowly, his hand reaching for a branch to steady himself. The voice he had heard was growing louder. Coming closer. It sounded like the one making the voice was also running, perhaps from the same nightmare he was escaping. The young boy closed his eyes, searching with his trained ears for the source. He opened his eyes sharply, his breath lost, as the one making the noise shot out of the bushes before him.

The young boy swallowed his scream, his eyes widening. A young girl, her hair all tangled with weeds, her feet bare, her shirt half torn around her body, ran out of the bushes. She didn't see him, for she was concentrated on getting away, and smashed into him. The boy felt her weigh hit him fully, sending him to the floor. She gasped, her lovely eyes narrowing slightly and finding him.

He would have said something, told her to get off from him, told her to watch where she was going, but his brown eyes had shifted to blue unwillingly, his breath lost. She was looking at him silently, her own mouth mute. He staggered to get up, his limbs feeling all torn and broken, like one of the trees that was burning in the distance. Back home, where all was Hell now.

She got up from him, helping the boy to his feet. She blushed slightly as their hands met, only briefly, and stood back, her long, dark hair blowing in the soft breeze. Sweat fell from her brow to her lips, dark rivulets of ashes mingled with her sweat, just like they did on his own. Her scared eyes bore into his own, his filled with similar fear, and smiled softly. The boy looked at her silently, his short, dark hair hanging in wet rings over his eyes.

Taking a small step towards her, he reached out a hand, small and insignificant, towards her. He spoke, hardly a whisper.

"What is y-"

He was not allowed to finish, for the bushes where she had come from began to move violently, the sound of booted feet erupting from the surroundings. The girl, her eyes still looking at the boy, sprang from her place, her bare feet taking her fast, away from there. The boy cursed, his voice small, as he was taken back by the new figure that smashed at him from the bushes. An old woman, her face haggard and brute, ran out, her hands bloody. Her eyes, filled with madness and wickedness, bore into him. She raised her old hand, a large, sharp knife in it, and smashed it at the boy. She, old yet strong like an ox, pushed the boy aside, her eyes feverishly looking at him. Her knife had torn the boy's shirt, sending a long scar down his chest. The young boy cursed her, his eyes darkening as he looked up at her.

"You saw a small little girl run this way, boy?"

The boy swallowed and held his chest, his eyes looking at her with hatred. She, the eldest woman back home, had sold the country. Her signature had been found in the documents that the Fed patrol had posted in the city. Her own hand had doomed many of the young children that now lay dead under the feet of the powerful Mobile Suits that had brought Hell into his home. The old woman, foam falling from her mouth, staggered in her madness, and reached for the boy, but he stepped back.

"Tell me where she went, Hiro," she said. "You saw her, I know so."

The screams of the people grew louder, far off, in the maze of trees. People running, like him, and crashing blindly through the foliage, only to find someone like this woman to kill them. Hiro stepped away from her, his eyes narrowing like a wolf, and his breath becoming shallow like a beast. His feet sprang to action, like the little girl's had done, and he dived blindly into the bushes before him, away from the old woman, her mouth open wide with curses.

"Hiro, return!" she yelled at him, but he didn't listen to her, he only kept running. His eyes were full of tears, his soul full of shame, but he'd find her again. That small little girl, small like him, lost and alone. Like him.

The small boy smashed into countless rocks, his small body horrified out of his wits, his eyes wide with fear, his breath coming in gasps. His chest ached terribly, the blood in his temples mingling with his sweat. He heard the voices of people grow louder, then shots rang out. Horrible, loud shots, like the sound of huge beast devouring humans. The scream of the men filled the chambers of his heart. He was going insane.

His small body crashed through the trees, his feet broken by the weeds and grass that cut his skin, and fell into a pool of water. Dark water that filled his nostrils as soon as he fell inside. Hiro yelled, his head aching, as the water filled his ears and mouth. He staggered to his feet, his mind spinning, and tried to get out of the pool.

Unknown things swam past his legs, his skin caressed by dark fish softly. Other things that were not fish began to caress it as well, sending shivers up the boy's spine. He cursed, his small hand reaching into the murky, smelly water and pulling his feet free from the algae that trapped him. Something shot out of the water at his hand, biting his fingers. Hiro yelled, his hand shooting up again.

Leaches had become attached to his legs and he was desperate to free himself from the water. He drew in a ragged breath as he struggled out of the pool, smashing at the animals to get them off. The animals fell to the fungus, leaving red streaks of blood on his legs. The boy fell to his hands into the wet mud, and crawled off as fast as possible. His hands stung, but his mind kept telling him to keep crawling. Keep running.

The mud threatened to swallow him, but he pulled himself up, cursing himself, and broke free. He gasped as he hit something soft with his tennis shoe. Soft and delicate.

Hiro screamed silently as he saw what it was he had hit emerge slowly from the mud. He fell backwards, his eyes wide, his mouth frozen in a mute scream. There, in the mud, lay the body of a dead child. His face, just like Hiro's, looking at the sky, his eyes frozen in death. His skin was dark, full of leashes, and gooey, but he was intact. A huge wound lay over his left shoulder.

Hiro retched, holding his sides, and closed his eyes. He let his body lie there for a long time, his mind and soul sinking in the mud. Sinking into death, like the other child. Sinking... sinking...

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