#trial 5

A STUNTMAN’S LAST ACT

It took an effort for Kichiro to pick himself up off of cold concrete below him after being cast aside from the trial room, mind taking its time to catch up with his whereabouts as he wobbled to his feet. A shaky breath wracked his lungs, but he steadied himself, inhale for 5, exhale for 7. His eyes fluttered open to assess its surroundings.

He stood on building rooftop amidst a vast cityscape dense with infrastructure. It appeared as if it would be bustling with life, and yet it was eerily quiet and still, as if recently abandoned by its citizens. A camera hung in front of him by a metal crane, lens pointed towards him, staring back at his hunched figure. By his side was a second, but its focus was on the buildings that stood tall in front of him. They were firmly attached to a harness that hugged his torso tightly, like parasites, and god were they heavy. 

“Shit…” Kichiro muttered as he swiveled his body around and pulled at the straps that were bound to him, only to find that they had no intention of loosening up. He could only wait for something to happen, powerless to do anything in the midst of his confusion, but the silence didn’t last long. It was only a matter of seconds before someone else’s voice sizzled to life and rang through his ears.

“Ki-san!” 

From the building just a wide street across, Akito stared down at the cameraman, one hand pressed up against the clear glass between him and the drop below, and the other on the headphones clamped tightly around his head, another accessory that Kichiro soon came to learn he had. He bit his lip as his gaze closely followed the boy below him, the lump in his throat growing as sweat dripped down his forehead.

“...Akkun? Where are you?”

The boy leaned into the glass. “I...I’m In the building, across the street, just a few stories--” 

Their meeting was suddenly cut short by a deafening boom that shook the city out of its silence, the rumbling almost sending Akito to the ground. He was relatively quick to regain his bearings, amber eyes now wide and alert as he turned his gaze back towards the window, and beheld the sight that met him. 

Whatever was there, just two buildings away from his partner, was now in ruins, merely a pile of rocks and metal in the settling dust.

As if the first explosion had awoken a slumbering beast, the city began to spring to life; the lights within the buildings that appeared to stretch endlessly into the horizon flickered on and livened the otherwise desolate town, and the tall yellow cranes that lay dormant on various lots began to creak and turn, the giant metal balls that hung from them swinging from side to side, as if taunting them. Akito’s breath hitched as he watched the spectacle, and he turned his eyes downward, only to be met by rows upon rows of dynamite that littered the walkways at Kichiro’s side of the street, ready to be set off at any given moment.

It was all too quick to sink in, and yet, only one of them knew of the danger that befell them.

“Kichiro-san, you should start running.”

“What? Akito, what the fuck was--”

“I said run! J-Jump onto the building to your left, hurry!”

The ground shook once again as a wrecking ball crashed into the walls of the building where Kichiro stood, pieces of concrete narrowly missing his head as he dodged out of the way. Stunned into silence, and without a spare moment to question Akito, Kichiro lurched forward and ran as fast as he could muster with the equipment strapped to him, and leaped from his building to the next without so much as a missed beat. He had no time to pause before more instructions were fed to him, and barely enough to even scramble to his feet. He could only curse as he hurdled over the rooftop railings and latched himself onto the windowsills of the next edifice, the structure behind him quickly crumbling into a heap of debris after a final blow.

Akito could not sit still either. Eyes transfixed on Kichiro and the destruction that chased after him, he pulled his feet off of the ground and ran with ragged breaths across the glass halls and empty rooms of the building he himself was trapped in, attempting to navigate its twists and turns and corners that barred him from trudging forward. He struggled to catch up to Kichiro, to keep him in view, to instruct him, to direct him to safety, but he had no intention of falling behind. Akito wasn’t going to lose him-- He couldn’t *afford* to lose him amidst the chaos, in fear that every glance would be the last he’d ever see of the cameraman.  

The only thing the two could do was run, run, and run, and yet the game of cat and mouse did not relent despite their best efforts to escape it. They were only minutes into their seemingly endless plight before exhaustion began to weigh on them. 

Kichiro’s lungs burned as he continued to drag himself across the cityscape without pause, heart pounding loudly in his chest as he surged forward. Akito’s words began to blur in his ears, and the weight on his back only grew heavier by the second, but he kept himself standing nevertheless; he knew that slowing down could spell a death sentence.

Move forward.

He repeated to himself.

Move forward.

He planted his feet onto yet another rooftop. 

*Move for--*

The ground below Kichiro’s feet caved in.

Ah.

The boy plummeted as a wrecking ball blew through the roof he was standing on before he could make it to the other side. He gasped as he lost his footing and was pummelled by rubble, breath getting knocked out of him as his back hit solid pieces of hard rock. 

*“A-Are you okay?! Hey, answer me!”*

Akito’s concern swiftly pulled Kichiro out of his daze. He’d only fallen down a single floor, and managed to land atop most of the heavy chunks of rock he lay upon; he just had to push some out of the way with a heavy groan and a sharp breath. His body ached, and the drop opened wounds across his body, but he knew to ignore the pain; he couldn’t rest, not even for a second. Thankfully, the only major casualties were the cameras on his back. He choked back a cough.

*“Damn it-- I-I’m fine, I--”*

Akito looked off to the collapsing building next to Kichiro. The latter’s response was all he needed to reassure himself that the cameraman still had a chance to flee.

*“Y-You have to keep on moving, I’ll-- I’ll find a way to help you, please, just keep going for a little longer!”*

Akito knew that Kichiro was lucky to survive that one.

*“I-- I just, okay. Okay, but… but I’m not sure how much longer I can last.”*

And he knew that they were running out of time.

There must be a way for them both to make it out alive. *There had to be.* All of their efforts up to this point would be all for naught if Akito lost hope now. He couldn’t afford to make any more mistakes, nor sit there and watch. He pushed forward as soon as he made certain that the latter could stand, even though his legs throbbed and threatened to collapse under his own weight, stomach knotting as fatigue continued to wear down on his body.

Move forward. 

His vision tunneled as the frantic search for an end continued. He didn’t know how far he let his legs carry him, or what he was telling Kichiro anymore, gaze focused, moving, searching for that glimmer of hope. Where could it be? *There had to be something*, there had to a light at the end of the tunnel, there had to be an option, but where was it? 

*Move forward.*

Akito slammed his body through a closed door. A room? The boy looked left and right, but could find no other door he could go through aside from the one he entered. His stomach dropped. Could he have taken the wrong turn? This was the only way he could go through at the end of the hallway, and he couldn’t afford to turn back to find another way onwards. He had no other choice but to remain here.

Akito entered with haste, and only then did he notice that the room wasn’t empty like the others. By the window sat a long, crescent shaped table, and a tall office chair that was discarded to the side. Wait, maybe this was it. *What he was looking for is here.* There wasn’t any certainty, but his gut said otherwise.

He clumsily pushed the chair further away as he approached the seemingly empty table. He scanned its surface with trembling hands and they landed on a button embedded into the desk. There were words, printed onto the table with small letters.

‘Terminate Execution’

His chest swelled as hope bloomed within him. This was it.

Click.

And then there was silence. The city lights flickered off, and the cranes were lifeless once again. 

“Kichiro-san,” Akito called out excitedly, relieved smile spreading across his face. Thank god. “I think we did it!”

Kichiro ceased his running. “Really? Holy shit! We--”

And then, there was an explosion, and then another, and another, and another, and Akito’s hopes quickly ebbed away. What was happening? The city before him suddenly began to fall into pieces. The dynamite that littered the streets were being detonated all at once.

“What the-- Fuck, Akito! What did you do?!”

*What have I done?*

Akito stammered. He couldn’t breathe. He tried to find Kichiro an opening, somewhere to go, but everything was falling apart too quickly. The quick succession of crashes hurt his ears and clouded his mind, but he turned his head anyway, back and forth in search of someplace safe. Don’t panic, he told himself. Don’t panic. There had to be somewhere to go.

“Akito, hey! Where do I go?”

*There had to be.*

“Akito!”

...

There was nowhere to go.

“...Kichiro-san.” His voice trembled, and his breath caught in his throat. There was no time for him to say everything that remained at the tip of his tongue. There was no time to apologize a hundred times over for the fate he doomed Kichiro to. There was no time. There was no more time. And he was sorry.

“I-I’m sorry. There’s...nowhere for you to run to.”

Before Kichiro could say anything else, The foundation of the building under him had been destroyed, the tremor knocking the cameraman off of his feet. In a panic, he tried to pick himself back up, but it was only a second before the entire structure fell, and only a second before Kichiro disappeared into the dust.