As the screaming got louder, former Chronos scientist Howard Jackson laced his fingers together to stop them from shaking. This was the third time that the Lost Unit processing had failed. The nosebleeds had already started for him, and he could see that Hayami had only a few days before they started up for him as well.

"More problems," Hayami muttered sadly as he walked back into the room.

"Yeah, so I heard," Howard said. "We don’t have much time left ourselves."

"Here," Hayami said, wiping away a stream of blood dripping from Howard’s nose.

"Thanks for that. I don’t think I’m going to last much longer, either," Howard said, as Hayami handed him the tissue.

"Don’t say things like that. We’ve lost too many friends already. After we managed to get away from those Zoanoid patrols, you’d think something like this would be at least relatively easy."

Howard chuckled with mordant good humor. "Yeah, you’d think it would be. But this process wasn’t intended to produce Lost Units at all. We’re trying to deliberately screw with the Zoafication process, that’s going to have serious consequences."

"I know that," Hayami said, running a hand through his already disordered hair. "I think we all know that by now. At least, those of us that are still alive. Speaking of which, I think we should go take care of Arnold now."

"Yeah," Howard muttered sadly.

The screams had stopped by now, so Howard and Hayami both knew that Arnold Hanson was dead. Walking back into the room with the processing-tank, the two former Chronos scientists looked at their friend and colleague for the last time. He looked now like some kind of hideous, mutated freak. Caught between his human form and the Zoaform that had ended up being his death sentence.

The processing-tank had already been drained, and the three remaining former Chronos scientists had all gathered around it by that time. There were no words exchanged between them, since there was nothing that they could really say anymore. Their group had consisted of twelve people at first, then Sumio had vanished with the Relic. Donald Akers and Jerome Baker had gotten separated when they had all run from the Zoanoid patrols.

Those two had probably ended up killing themselves rather than being recaptured by Chronos. One of the only female scientists in their group, Hitomi Mimori, had sacrificed her own life to distract another of the Zoanoid patrols that they had ran right into. Two more of their number, Jhon Willams and Kakashi Hitomori, had been buried in the rubble of Mt. Minakami. They had marked a grave for all of the people who hadn’t made it out of Chronos, all of those who hadn’t been able to regain their freedom in any meaningful way.

There were no bodies in those first five graves, of course. But the two next to them held the deformed, mutated corpses of Emile Saavedra and Lorne Stevens. The first victims of the failed Lost Unit processing. As Danielle Sorenson threw a sheet over Arnold’s body and wrapped him up, the two men helped her to pick up Arnold’s body and carry it. All three of them were wondering just which one of them would be next.

There were six shovels leaning against the wall, because there had once been six people there to use them. Now as Hayami, Danielle, and Howard each took a shovel for their own use, they tried hard to ignore the fact that there were three more than they needed. As the three of them carried their burden out into Sumio’s spacious back yard, they headed almost instinctively for the makeshift plot where a few of their group was buried.

At the end of the row of grave markers, there was a small pile of unmarked wood slats. The slats had been carefully carved into grave markers by Danielle. She had also been the one to carve the names of each of their fallen into the markers, since woodworking had been one of her passions before she had come into the employ of Chronos. Hayami and Howard wondered what they were going to do for her if she was the one to die next.

As their three shovels broke ground for the eighth grave, the three former Chronos employees looked down at the cold earth they were overturning. No words of false comfort were spoken, each of the people standing at the gravesite was a realist and so wouldn’t have appreciated being talked to that way. They all knew that they were dying; knew that their only chance of survival was a slim one.

They had known from the beginning that they were playing with fire, and now all that they wondered was just who was going to be the next to burn. Once the grave was deep enough, the three scientists laid their dead friend in it almost reverently. Then, once that was done, each of them tossed a small handful of dirt into the freshly dug grave. Then, standing back up, they began to fill it again.

After the grave had been filled in, the two men stepped back to let Danielle work. Removing a small carving knife from her pocket, Danielle set down to do her last job. All that she carved into the marker that she held was the most basic of information: name and age. Their eulogies could go on for pages, but there wasn’t any real way for such complicated people to be summed up by the simple epitaphs that were normally seen on headstones.

Not for the people who knew them, anyway.

Once she was done with that, Danielle laid the marker on the gravesite and rose to stand next to her colleagues. One by one, as a way of remembrance, the three remaining scientists read the names of their fallen to themselves: Donald Akers, 23; Jerome Baker, 25; Hitomi Mimori, 25; Jhon Willams, 24; Kakashi Hitomori, 26; Emile Saavedra, 21; Lorne Stevens, 27; and now Arnold Hanson, 25.

There were three unmarked wooden slats left in the pile, three more that they each hoped would never have to be put to use. But even then, each of them knew the risks of what they were attempting to do.

"You still remember that promise we all made to each other, right?" Danielle wondered aloud.

"Yeah, Danni. We remember," Howard said.

"We remember every time," Hayami muttered sadly.

"Sorry. It’s just…"

"We know," Hayami said. "It gets harder the more you have to deal with it. You end up needing at least something to hold on to."

"Yeah," Danielle muttered, staring down at the grave again. "Thanks for understanding, Toshi-kun."

Hayami nodded solemnly, remembering even as Danielle did the promise that they had all made to each other. Since it was far too dangerous for a bunch of wanted fugitives like them to try and make contact with any of their family, the six escapees had made a promise that those who managed to survive the Lost Number processing would put flowers on the graves of the ones who had died.

It had been something of a consolation for them, to know that they would at least be remembered somehow. But so far, not one person had managed to survive and become a Lost Number. As the three survivors took one last look at the graves in front of them, Danielle couldn’t help but recall the lines of an old poem she had learned in school a long time ago, before she had even heard of Chronos.

She didn’t want to recite it aloud, though. The fact that it was incredibly depressing notwithstanding, there was also the fact that there was an almost reverent silence that hung over this place, one that Danielle didn’t want to intrude on. Still, ‘Flanders’ fields’ did seem a very appropriate poem for a time like this. They might not have been the ones fighting on the front lines, and their may not have been regular guns, but that didn’t change the fact that they were still in a war.

When Howard started to sing, a mournful but unrecognizable song, Danielle paused to listen. It didn’t seem all that appropriate from where she was standing, but when Howard came to the line ‘find the one song before the virus takes hold’, Danielle started to listen more closely.

"What was that from?" Hayami asked.

"It was a song I heard a while ago," Howard smiled secretively, as if he was about to impart a great and terrible secret to them. "I went to see a musical on Chronos’ time this once. It depressed the hell out of me, and I don’t remember the name right now, but a few of the songs stuck with me. This one just seemed like it fit."

"Could you sing it again?" Danielle asked.

"Sure," Howard said.

When he started to sing, Danielle was quick to join in. Hayami just listened as their voices blended together. He hadn’t ever been interested enough to find out just what his colleagues would sound like if they tried to sing. Danielle’s alto, though, did make a nice counterpoint to Howard’s baritone. Once they were finished, Hayami smiled at them and the three of them walked back into the laboratory set up inside Sumio’s house.