A flashback... roughly nine years ago. Lindsey was around six years old at the time, running alongside a group of children she'd met at a bar not long before.
"Are you okay?" Lindsey asked, turning to look at a girl her age who had dropped to her knees, gasping for breath.
They were in the middle of a long journey on foot... travelling from somewhere near Yogyakarta toward Surabaya, searching for information and survivors of the war.
The girl on the ground reached her hand up toward Lindsey, silently asking for help. "Huh... you're such a bother," Lindsey muttered, before pulling her up anyway.
She wasn't alone on this journey. A handful of children with similar fates walked alongside her, most of them around her age. They pressed on across the barren, building-less stretch of land... until finally...
"Stop," Lindsey said firmly, stepping behind a tree and peering around it.
Her signal brought the whole group to a halt. They crouched behind her. Through the tree, a checkpoint was visible at the base of a nearby hill... several grown men in uniform, firearms at their hips. Lindsey knew immediately they were not the friendly kind.
She thought fast. Without a word of warning, she grabbed the exhausted girl from before. One look told her the girl's body had nothing left to give.
Then... "Kyahhh!" ... Lindsey shoved her down the hill.
The men at the checkpoint snapped to attention and ran toward where the girl had fallen.
One of the boys in the group spun on Lindsey. "What are you doing!?" he demanded.
"No time to explain... move!" Lindsey shot back, already running in the opposite direction, straight into the building the men had been guarding.
"W-wait!" the boy shouted, then ran after her, the rest of the group tumbling in behind.
Inside the building, Lindsey found a pistol and several magazines. She turned it over in her hands, checked that it worked, then slipped out through the back door.
"Hey... you! We have to go back and save the girl you threw!" the same boy said, and several of the others nodded behind him.
Lindsey exhaled slowly, loading a magazine into the pistol. "Don't be stupid. Going back to save her just means we die with her," she replied, her voice as sharp as the look in her eyes.
One of the other girls in the group spoke up. "B-but..." she murmured.
"Enough. We keep moving. Worrying about her only slows us down," Lindsey said, turning and walking away at a calm pace.
"No! I'm going back for her!" the boy declared, loud and stubborn.
Lindsey smiled, cold and thin. "Fine..." She raised the pistol and pointed it directly at him. "But if you die, don't blame me."
The boy froze. None of the others dared say a word against Lindsey... not then, not after that. They stood in silence, and the group moved on, none of them looking back.
Flashback ends.
~ ~ ~ ~
Several days had passed. The situation in Surabaya had begun to stabilise somewhat, as production of the antidote capsules was now underway. Other regions, however, were still in bad shape. The virus had spread rapidly into East Asia. Because it had originated in Indonesia... where Lindsey lived... air travel had been suspended indefinitely.
And today was the start of something new for Lindsey. Today, she was going to school. A perfectly ordinary, productive activity... exactly the kind of thing Lindsey had always quietly wanted, like any other child.
She was getting herself ready in her room. She put on her school uniform carefully, smoothing it out, then stepped out into the living room to show Ryuu, who was waiting on the sofa.
"So... what do you think, Ryuu?" Lindsey asked, giving a small spin in front of him.
Ryuu went quiet for a moment. His eyes widened slightly as he looked at her in her high school uniform... he found it genuinely hard to look away. I didn't know this girl had a feminine side, he thought to himself.
He cleared his throat. "It's... decent enough," he said, glancing off to the side.
"Hmm..." Lindsey let out a low sound and stopped turning. "Well, alright then," she said, walking past him.
Not long after, they headed outside and got into Ryuu's car in the driveway. He pulled out and they made their way toward Lindsey's school.
During the ride, Lindsey sat quietly, watching the world go by through the window. Her mind wasn't entirely at rest... part of her was genuinely excited about school, but another part was still turning over her plan to catch the person behind the virus.
Thirty minutes later, they arrived. The school building rose high above them, its glass walls catching the light. More than a school, it looked like an apartment complex or a corporate office block.
"You'll be okay from here, right?" Ryuu asked, just after Lindsey climbed out of the car.
Lindsey gave one firm nod, then turned and walked toward the building. She wasn't alone... students her age were walking alongside her in every direction.
The opening ceremony came and went without a hitch. Lindsey sat through it in silence, still among her new classmates. The truth was, she had no idea where to begin. She could have talked to any of them... but she chose not to, for her own reasons.
After it ended, "Class 1-F..." she murmured, walking down a corridor and scanning the signs hanging above each door.
Just as she reached the door to the girls' bathroom, she heard a scream. "Kyaahhh!"
Lindsey turned toward the sound and moved in quietly, pressing close to the wall. She peeked around the corner. Three boys, apparently her age, had a small girl with short brown hair cornered against the wall.
This is... bullying? Lindsey thought, holding her chin.
With one small, deliberate step, she knocked over the broom leaning against the wall beside her. "Clatter!"
All three boys snapped their heads toward the noise... toward Lindsey. "Hey, you!" one of them called out. Lindsey's body jolted the way a cat does when its tail gets stepped on.
She turned around slowly. "O-oh, what is it?" she asked, putting on the most innocent face she had.
"Don't play dumb! You saw everything," the boy snapped, and they closed in, cornering Lindsey against the wall.
Lindsey let them. She knew she could handle all three without breaking a sweat... but now wasn't the right moment. "Don't do something you'll regret, okay?" she replied, smiling faintly and waving a hand lightly in the air.
The three boys bristled. "Hah!? Are you serious? What exactly are we going to regret?" one of them snarled.
Lindsey blinked once. "What I mean is... how are you planning to explain all of this later?" she said, locking eyes with each of them in turn.
"The moment I heard the scream, I ran to the duty teacher stationed at the bottom of the stairs on this floor. I asked them to bring the school counsellor up here," she continued.
"Now imagine what happens if you're still in the girls' bathroom when they arrive," she added, narrowing her eyes.
"Honestly... I can't even picture what's waiting for you after that," she went on, letting the words sink in.
That sent all three of them into a visible panic. The one at the front... clearly the ringleader... grabbed Lindsey by the collar.
"W-what do we do?" one of them hissed.
"Shut up!" the ringleader barked.
"Running won't help you either. There's a security camera at the end of the corridor pointing straight at the staircase to the floor below," Lindsey said, smiling softly and tilting her head.
"Combined with my testimony... and the audio recording in my pocket... you can be certain you'll be expelled from this school. Especially given how seriously this school takes its values," she added, lifting one shoulder.
The ringleader clicked his tongue. "Tch..." He shoved Lindsey's collar away roughly. "Don't you dare try anything. I'm letting you go... but keep your mouth shut!" he threatened.
Lindsey straightened up at her own pace. "I'm afraid I can't guarantee that," she replied, rubbing her thumb and index finger together. The meaning was obvious.
The three of them groaned. "Fine, fine!" the ringleader muttered, digging into his pockets.
Between them, they handed Lindsey a sum of money. "There. Now stay out of our way," they said, pushing past her and out of the room.
Lindsey grinned to herself once they were gone. "Idiots. They were the ones bothering us," she murmured.
To be honest... I have no idea whether there's actually a camera at the end of that corridor, she thought, raising a shoulder. Everything she'd said had been a bluff. She hadn't even brought her phone.
She walked over to the brown-haired girl, who was sitting on the floor looking up at Lindsey with wide, shining eyes. "Th-thank you!" the girl said.
Lindsey stopped.
Her hand trembled... just slightly. Her eyes went wide, fixed on something about the brown-haired girl that struck her as deeply, unmistakably familiar.
"It... can't be," Lindsey murmured.
And then it clicked. The girl she had just saved... the one with the short brown hair... was the same girl she had shoved down the hill as a decoy nine years ago.