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nutteu · 7 months

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chin up, darling, we’ll wreck this world [Chapter II]

[AO3 Chapter I] [AO3 Chapter II]

The thing about storms was that everyone could predict that. Everyone could garner what they had from their surroundings, aided by technology and old-age knowledge of what to look for. They prepared themselves, they readied their bearings, they waited for the storm to hit and dealt with the aftermath. It was something they could prepare for, but it was also something entirely unavoidable.

But another thing about storms was that while they could predict it, they couldn’t know when exactly it would hit, and how much of a damage it would wreak upon them. They could be sheltered under their roofs all they wanted, they could be buried underneath a mountain of blankets, be safe behind a fortress—but then the storm hit, they would still be left in shambles. The storm would rip out all their roofs, destroy their fortress, and left them cold and shivering in the ruin it left behind.

The curfew was in place, everyone was advised not to approach stranger and always have companions everywhere; they were advised to have means of protection to fend off the hostile unknowns. But how could they be safe when the night wasn’t the problem? How could they be safe if they didn’t know which was human and which was the monster? How could they be safe when those monsters were stronger, faster, more vicious than them?

How could they be ready for the storm when they were standing right underneath a brewing one?

It was a peaceful day when the end of the world came upon them, much like the way there was calm before the storm. And much like the storm, it hurled them in a whirlwind of harsh current and torn them to shreds in its brutality, in its inevitability.

Toast was sitting along with his friends, a rare day for them all to be relaxed and chatting amiably amongst each other; to let up a little from the fear that had gripped them tightly in its talons. Corpse was working on a new song, and he was planning to record it himself. Tina was waiting for her graduation in a couple of days, and they had agreed to come to congratulate her. Janet was finally getting her days off after exhausting night shifts several weeks in a row. Peter was making new designs for his plushies. Rae was about to be a shareholder of the company that she streamed under. Edison and Leslie were planning to have a private wedding in their house instead of the venue they had wanted beforehand.

Toast himself was taking a break. He couldn’t handle the stress of hearing about the atrocity around him day in and day out. He couldn’t even imagine what Jimmy was feeling, knowing that he was in deeper in the case than Toast was. He was thinking of maybe resigning from his workplace. Sure, the money had been good these days, but his mental stability had undergone through a lot of things. He couldn’t stop worrying about his family, about the future, about the unknown.

This was a good thing to have, something mundane amidst the amounting panic around them, inside themselves. Frankly speaking, Toast didn’t know how would he handle it if he were to meet one of those monsters. He would just probably die on the spot. Those things were powerful, and fast, and vicious. They wouldn’t stop until they had their fill. No one knew anything about them, and the police force was in confusion as to how to answer the questions from the media about the appearance of those monsters. All they could say was to be cautious.

Being cautious wouldn’t cut it, however. Not in the face of such unnatural force, in the face of the impossible. Those things could infect people, have them come back from the dead to become one of them. How were they supposed to fight that?

Maybe it was human’s ignorance, maybe it was fear, maybe it was denial. But despite the cases, despite the damning evidence, despite the very real nightmare they were living in, life continued as if nothing happened. As long as they could pretend that they weren’t about to be swallowed by the harsh wave of the tsunami, they would continue as if they could live forever.

That was a laughable fantasy, however. One, that would be trounced down in just a moment, faster than they could anticipate, faster than they could blink, crueler than they would have thought.

Toast was waiting for their food, playing with Janet’s fingers as Tina chattered on about Rae’s new photoshoot while Rae herself was smiling widely from how excited the younger woman was being. Corpse was humming along, throwing a remark or two. They were content; dare he say, they were happy. They would eat their food, chat some more, and then they would be back home before the curfew.

Before he could even reassure himself of all of that, however, a toe-curling scream pierced through the air.

In just a heartbeat, Toast’s breath was caught in his throat. His stomach twisted as his mind ran through possibilities. He immediately stood up from his seat, to see what the commotion was about. It was then, that he realized, that the storm had arrived, bearing monsters of the unknown and condemnation of humanity with it.

The waiter fell to the ground even before they all could react. Once everyone realized what was happening, the screams arose once more. Toast turned back to his friends; eyes wide in panic. He had seen the monster—no, there was more than one of them, and they had infiltrated the restaurant. Now that he was aware of the situation, he could hear more panicked screams outside.

“Up,” he said, firm and strict. “Get up, now. We have to go.”

“What- what’s happening?” Tina asked, voice small and trembling as Corpse ushered her from her seat. “Toast? What—”

“They’re here,” he said shortly, and held Janet’s hand as he led them all through the door of the restaurant. It was hard, everyone was screaming and running from their life. His heart was in his throat when he saw one of the monsters grabbed at someone next to him, narrowly missing Janet and his friends. “Faster! Run faster!”

One by one, people around them fell to the ground. The more people were dead, the more they heard the growl of the creatures amidst the dying screams. It spurred their legs on, made them push through the throng of people, through the panic that had seized their hearts. Once they were out in the streets, however, they were left staring at the shamble it was in.

Those creatures were everywhere, and they wouldn’t go down. There were police officers shouting for the citizens to run, to take cover behind them as they tried to shoot the creatures. But they only stumbled, and charged at the officers instead. Guns didn’t work, Toast took a quick note inside his mind, thinking hard and fast as to how to get the hell out of here when the streets were too crowded to travel with their cars. They had to run, and find somewhere to hide, fast.

“Come one,” he said. “Let’s go. There’s a warehouse of my company around here. We have to get there. No matter what you see, no matter what you hear, just run.”

His friends were paralyzed in fear, but they nodded at him nonetheless. It didn’t feel real, it must have been not real. This all was a dream, a nightmare. It was just impossible to think about, how the fear that they had been feeling, ghosting around their heads, their hearts, had finally surged their claws to tear them to pieces. This wasn’t real; the way those monsters were just in the same room as them, the way people were dying left and right, the way everything was in chaos, the way they were trapped with no way out of this reality. This—this was real.

He was so focused on navigating the crowded streets, so focused on keeping the number of his friends intact, that he couldn’t see it when he was suddenly slammed to the wall of one of the shops lining the streets. Toast groaned out loudly; his head was dizzy, and he could feel blood in his mouth from how hard the hit was. Janet screamed as their interlinked hands were disconnected, but Toast was too out of it to properly comprehend what was happening.

But when he felt a weight dropping on him, cold fingers wrapping around his neck, his heart was rioting against its cage as reality descended upon him. He fought his dizziness to see, and got his breath caught in his throat when he was faced with the most horrifying face he had seen. The flesh around the face of the creature had decayed, slivers of bones showing through the rotten skin, sharp fangs and bloody white lips opened up in a shriek. He wanted to close his eyes, to pretend that this wasn’t happening, that he wasn’t about to die right this second. But fear kept his eyes open, made his body freeze despite how many times he was telling it to move.

The grip around his neck was painful, and he couldn’t breathe right, couldn’t think right. He was aware that his breath came out in terrifying squeeze, as he waved away his hand as best as he could. “R-Run,” he choked out. “Run!”

Out of the corner of his unfocused eyes, he saw that his friends, that Janet was still standing there, eyes wide in panic and fear as they watched their friend got captured by one of the monsters. He closed his eyes finally. They were going to die. He was right, he didn’t know how to defend himself against this inhumane strength, and his friends soon would follow him to the afterlife because they couldn’t run fast enough to evade the attack.

What a way to end a joke, huh?

As the grip on his throat started to crush his windpipe, as his consciousness was teetering on the edge, as he had accepted his fate with grim resignation, there was a gunshot heard, and the creature shrieked loudly, spitting out thick, gooey saliva all over Toast’s face. The grip was still there, but it loosened a little. Toast tried to heave a breath, two, and then more when there were gunshots heard again. The creature stumbled from him, and moved to chase its attacker, leaving Toast alone as he coughed harshly.

“Get away from here! Quick!” a man clad in police officer attire screamed at them, still shooting futilely at the creature advancing on him.

Toast was utterly disoriented, his visions dotted with black spot from how hard his neck was gripped in crushing strength. There were hands helping him to get up, and he faintly recognized Edison’s and Peter’s voice next to him. He couldn’t hear clearly what they were saying, only that he was suddenly draped onto a curved surface, and two strong hands heaving him up. He was being carried.

“Pe…ter?” he called out with difficulty.

“Toast!” Peter exclaimed. “Oh, thank fucking God you’re alive. Hang in there buddy, we can’t read your mind and we don’t know where this warehouse of yours is.”

He chuckled, delirious from pain and lack of air. Classic Peter, always spouting off jokes even in the direst situation. Good to know that humor hadn’t eluded them even in the pressure of the mass panic. He tried to gather his wit, thinking of the route, and nearly slapped his head with his weak arms when he realized that they could have detoured a little bit to reach Peter’s house.

“No, change of plan,” he said, voice a wreck but still loud enough to be heard by Peter’s ears. “Detour, take the route near the subway station to your house. It’ll be closer, and we’re on legs anyway. We can fit in the small alleyways.”

“Roger that,” Peter nodded. “Come on,” he said to the others, “follow me. Don’t let go of each other!”

The trip was a blur in Toast’s hazy consciousness. He was faintly aware of the blood trickling from his head, into his eyes and making the left one covered in a saturation of red. There were screams, shouts of people trying to call for their family and friends, cries of the children, gunshots and sirens, screech of tires from cars trying to escape, shrieks of the creatures. He didn’t know how far they had run, only awake enough to notice that they had stopped for a moment to switch him to Edison’s back, before they were running again. He heard the muffled cries from Tina, the strained reassurance from Rae and Leslie, Corpse’s deafening silence. He thought that the end of the world was so loud, and so, so silent in its crushing inevitability.

There was no stopping this hell from consuming them all, and Toast almost laughed at how this was all was just a joke, an impossibility, just mere months ago. How something that started out as a confusing kidnapping case, could turn out into this living nightmare was beyond him. He thought of Jimmy and Jenny, suddenly, of his mother. Where were they? Were they alright?

As he lost his last grip on consciousness, he thought that they couldn’t get to that camping trip, after all.

When Toast woke up, he came to with a gasp. His mind was still trapped in the moment where it all went to hell, grappling for a sliver chance of survival. He remembered the pain when his head hit the wall of the shop, the tight grip of the creature, the shrieks and the death he had narrowly missed.

“Toast,” he heard someone called out, warm and familiar, tinged with worry. “Toast, you’re okay. You’re safe, I’m here. I’m here.”

It was Janet, and they were safe, they were safe. He relaxed into her embrace, sagging onto her once the panic left him drained and numb. He felt something covering his head tightly, and thought that it must be bandages. Had he hit his head that hard? His throat was pulsing in pain, and his left side was unbearably uncomfortable.

Once he had calmed down enough, Janet ran him through the routine of check-up. He saw his friends slowly came to be by his side one by one. Peter was smiling at him grimly. Edison and Leslie were holding each other, and Corpse—Corpse looked so painfully young and scared that Toast’s heart ached. What would happen to them after this? How could they try to survive when none of them knew how to defend themselves, let alone fight against those monsters?

“There’s no concussion, thankfully,” Janet sighed out in relief. “But you’ll get massive headache, and I would advise you not to move around too much right now.”

“Yeah,” he croaked out. “Not that I can.”

Janet chuckled lightly, caressing the side of his face with gentle fingers. “I thought I’ve lost you, back then.”

“Me too,” he said quietly.

They were all enveloped in silence. It was peaceful in this house, but it would only be time before the screams reached them. Toast suddenly grappled at his pockets, searching for his phone. When he got it out, he was dejected when he saw that it had been completely shattered. Wordlessly, Janet offered hers.

“Go on, we all have called our families,” she said.

He nodded, and dialed Jimmy’s numbers first. There was no answer. With a fear that seemed to grip tightly at his heart, he remembered that Jenny and his mother was out to Jolene’s house today. What if they got caught in the hysteria on their way? What if Jimmy was—

“Janet? Jeremy?” Jenny’s voice came through the tinny speaker, and it was as if all the strings had been cut from Toast’s body. He sagged against the cushion, boneless from relief. “Hello? Where are you two? Oh, God, it’s madness out there. Are you okay?”

“I’m alive,” he said, breathless and almost in tears from how relieved he was. He could have lost them, and he almost lost himself, too. To say that today was the worst day ever was putting it lightly. “Where’s Jimmy? I can’t reach his phone.”

“He’s here, don’t worry,” Jenny said, reassuring him. “He left his phone at the police station when he heard the news. He just came running home. We’re all safe. It’s okay.”

“I’m at Peter’s, my phone’s broken,” he told her. “We’re all safe, too. Don’t worry. I just don’t know how to get home. It might not be safe enough for now.”

“Stay there until it’s calmed down,” his sister replied, her voice gentle though there was fear evident in it. “I’d rather have you alive than recklessly trying to go back to us. We’ll be okay. Call us later, take care.”

“Yeah, take care,” he said, and the call clicked off, leaving him bereft despite knowing that his family was safe and intact. He knew that Jimmy could protect them, but he had seen what those monsters were capable of. Toast was apathetic to most things but those he had considered as his; he could care less about the people dying from the monsters. But to see those dead bodies, made him realize just how foolish he was in thinking that he was immune in his empathy. He was reminded just how easily people died, how easily he could lose his family and friends. How easily it was for him to be another prey to those monsters.

“What… what do we do now?” Corpse asked, voicing the question they all had in their heads.

“Barricade the windows and doors,” Toast said promptly. “Watch out for the news, ration our supplies, get all the makeshift weapons we can have, and be prepared for the worst.” It was easier said than done. They had eight people with them, and there was security in numbers. But none of them knew how to fight, and it would be difficult with the supplies later on. He figured that with the current situation, none of them wanted to go back to their house alone. It was better if they stuck together.

“Do you think the government will have camp for the citizens?” Rae asked, fidgeting with the sleeves of her sweater. Rae wasn’t the calmest in stressful situation; she would be agitated and restless to do something. It was good to have spirit and spite, but at times she had too much of those and it made her reckless.

Toast swallowed, remembering his discussions with Jeremy, remembering Sykkuno and how the higher-ups of the police force wanted him hunted down. What was the reason for that? Was it because he was the reason of all this chaos? Or was it because they were trying to keep his mouth shut for knowing something that no one did?

“Don’t- don’t rely too much on the government,” he finally said. “They were basically helpless when the kidnapping and the homicide cases started. I don’t see how they would benefit us in situations like this. We have to rely on ourselves first and foremost.”

“Okay, Toast,” Janet said. She held his hand in hers, and Toast was reminded that Janet was used to life and death situation. She would be able to keep her head calm in this catastrophe. He just hoped that he would be able to do the same, instead of spiraling into his bad habit of overthinking everything instead of taking concrete actions.

“We can break down my wardrobe to use as the barricade,” Peter said. “And we can still use my car in case we have to get supplies.”

“We have to withdraw our cash,” Toast said. “In case that the electricity is shot to hell. We wouldn’t be able to use our cards. And we have to get supplies soon, before the streets are full of those monsters.”

“I’m not… I’m not ready to go out so soon after- after that,” Tina said, letting out a heavy exhale. “I’m sorry. I just—that was really scary. And I’m still hoping that I’m just dreaming all of this. That this isn’t real.”

“We all are,” Edison said, uncharacteristically solemn in the situation. “We all are, Tina.”

They worked hard to barricade the windows and doors, and had gathered all the things they thought they could use as weapons—kitchen knives, crowbars, wrenches, baseball bats, the authentic spear that Peter bought for no reason, and two guns that he had with him. They all were licensed, and Toast laughed hysterically when he realized that licenses of firearms would be useless in this state of chaos. Sooner or later people would be out there murdering monsters, getting murdered themselves, or even murdering each other when the supplies were thinning.

Janet hugged him when he was laughing until there were tears forming in his eyes, when reality had finally hit him in its entirety and he was left floundering in its wake. What the hell had just happened? What the fuck could they do against those monsters? They were just regular citizens, for fuck’s sake. This was hopeless.

“Toast,” she said, aware that he was spiraling quickly. “Toast, there will be a way. We won’t know until we try. We can still try, okay? We can still do something. This isn’t the dead end.”

He didn’t nod, he just sighed and looked down at the bullets on his hands. “And how long will we try until all of us are dead?”

There was a hitch in Janet’s breath, and soon Toast heard the muffled sobs from Tina’s throat, the disappointment in Leslie’s face as he brought them all down further into the grimness of the situation. He wanted to apologize, but what he had said was right. They couldn’t run away from the truth, after all. Toast knew how to shoot a gun, and he knew that everyone but Tina and Leslie had had practice of shooting one when they had the time to go to the shooting ranges. But it had been for fun, not for survival of their lives. It wouldn’t be enough—they didn’t even know where to shoot to kill those bastards.

“Let’s have dinner first,” Peter decided, trying to diffuse the heavy cloud hanging above their heads. “And then we’ll talk about our plan.”

They had their dinner in silence, before Toast forced them all to gather in the living room. He could see that they were all exhausted from the event of the day, and his head was hurting like a particularly nasty bitch, but he needed to do this, lest he’d be spiraling even further in his mind. They planned on getting the supplies from nearby supermarket tomorrow. Edison, Peter, Corpse, and Rae would go. Toast was still injured, Tina was still too scared to go out, and Leslie and Janet would be the ones defending the house while they were gone.

The only way to go out of Peter’s house was now through his garage, since everywhere was already barricaded. They didn’t want to risk any chances. They packed for tomorrow, talked about what sort of things to get to make makeshift weapons, maybe going into a gun store if they still had the time and the situation was safe enough for them to go.

“If you meet one of them, run,” Toast said the next morning. “Whatever you do, just run. Don’t look back. Get back as soon as possible. Always have your weapons ready and don’t lose sight of each other. Call us when you’re close to the house. We’ll be ready there so you can have fast in and out. Be careful.”

“Okay,” Edison said, clapping Toast’s back firmly. “You get some rest. We’ll call you if something happened.”

There were dark circles underneath their eyes, and Toast knew it was because none of them slept restfully. He had woken up from nightmares twice, and then twice more because his headache was killing him. Janet was always there to take care of him, but it still pained Toast to hear Tina’s soft snuffles of cries, Leslie’s and Edison’s reassuring whispers to each other. They were in this hell together, but he wondered still if they could get out of it without being burned to husk.

They had gotten into the car, and Leslie and Toast had closed the garage door as fast as they could. They couldn’t wait around for the automatic closing; it’d take too long and something might slip in if they weren’t careful. There were four people in the house right now, and not a single one of them knew what the hell they should be doing. Tina was still shaken, and Janet had gone to talk with her. So Toast joined Leslie on the couch as she watched the news raptly.

“Anything new?” he asked.

“It’s chaos,” she murmured. “The incident yesterday is reported everywhere, and the media is so hectic with speculation. It’s almost funny, if it’s not so scary. Toast… there are multiple people reported missing. People who are presumed to be dead from CCTV recording and amateur videos. They- they—”

“They came back from the dead,” Toast finished for her, sighing. “What does the police say about it?”

“They don’t,” Leslie said, bewildered. “I don’t understand. The attack was there, there were victims, those monsters are still out there, why aren’t they doing anything? They just told us to stay at home until the situation is cleared. We’ve seen how those monsters killed the police officers. They just took the bullets like it’s nothing—nothing! What good it will do to stay at home when they can chase us back?”

He didn’t know, and he hardened himself when he calculated their grim possibilities. He knew that Leslie was worried for Edison, for their friends. If they didn’t even know how to kill those monsters, then what the hell could they do? They might not even be able to outrun them, considering how fast those things were once they saw their preys.

“Are there any reports of similar attacks?” he asked instead.

“Yeah,” she said. “Two more in W. 4th and 3rd Street near Sycamore Ave.”

“Shit,” Toast gasped out. “That’s close too each other, and too close to us.”

“I know,” she sighed, downtrodden. “How long do we think until we’re no longer safe here?”

“Not much longer,” he grimaced. “Not to mention that we don’t even know where they came from. The recordings of their appearance are all over the state. We don’t even know where we’ll be safe. Our best bet is to stay here and defend the house.”

They knew nothing about the monsters; their pattern, their behavior, their weakness, when they would attack and when they would stay dormant. They had been seen at nights and broad daylight, just like yesterday. He wondered if they would be safer in the hills, or if they would just expose themselves even more. He retracted to what Rae said about the government possibly making camps for citizens, but camps weren’t what they need. They needed something more.

“Have they issued a quarantine yet?”

Leslie shook her head. “No, nothing. It feels- it feels like they don’t even care, you know? I understand that they’re confused and helpless about those monsters. But at this point, with all the murders all over the state, why aren’t there any preventative measure yet? We don’t even know where those monsters reside, nowhere is safe until we know it.”

Because the government might not even care whether they died or not, Toast thought, but kept it to himself. There would be a time when he told his friends, but their state of mind was incredibly fragile right now and he couldn’t shake it too much just yet. He himself wasn’t even ready for what was waiting for them, laying dormant with its sharp claws and poisonous fangs. All they could do right now was plan and survive.

“They’ll be back soon,” he said, rubbing Leslie’s back when she buried her face in her hands. “They’ll be okay, they’ll call if something happens. We have to wait and believe in them.”

“I just- I wish that this isn’t happening to us, Toast,” she sobbed out, finally letting everything out after staying strong for so long. “We were about to have our marriage, and now we have to fend for our lives. What is this? No one can help us, no one is doing anything about those monsters. Do we really have to wait until we die, all of us?”

He swallowed around the clog in his throat, and closed his eyes. He didn’t know the answers, despite having more clues than anyone else. He should call Jimmy soon, see what he knew about the recent events. He hoped that his brother wasn’t out there with the police force, hoped that his family was doing alright.

There were many things to think about. Not only their immediate survival, but also other commodities they would lose over the time. If this continued, and if they got to the worst scenario where help came too late, then he had to predict about loss of electricity and water, difficulty in having supplies, more defense for the house, means of transportations with the city in shamble, and weapons they had to train to use in case they ran into those monsters again.

But where would they go after this? They all were separated from their families, and though some of them were in the same city, the others were too far to reach. Would it be wise for them to reconcile with their families, with all the risks along the way to go there, or would it be better if they stick together until they were sure of their plans? They all were worried about the safety of their loved ones, but they weren’t in the position where they could go out easily. It could be that the threat hadn’t completely encompass the city yet, but they were only humans. They were paralyzed by fear, they were paranoid of going out, they were helpless in the face of this vicious nightmare.

All they could was wait, and it was laughable, when the storm wouldn’t wait for them until they were ready. This was only the first wave of tsunami, and they were already drowning so fast into the bottom of the ocean. Toast hoped, with everything that he had, that they could still come up for air, instead of sinking amidst the corpses that had littered the ocean.

When the group had come back from the supply run, they were hit by another grim news.

“They’re everywhere,” Corpse said, voice full of panic and almost out of breath.

“We got into the supermarket and everyone is already panic-buying everything. We got as much as we could have,” Peter said, gesturing to the abundance of supplies on the back of the car. “But we, uh, stole some of them because the monsters—they were already there when we were about to pay for our groceries.”

“That doesn’t matter,” Toast said, waving his hand away. “Sooner or later the trade will evolve. Everyone will be scavenging for supplies, and we will steal a whole lot more than this when the time comes. The most important thing is that none of you got hurt.”

“Yeah, we ran as fast as we can,” Rae said, grinning brightly. They could count on her to thrive in this kind of situation, given that she actually had something to do. “But fuck, it was so chaotic back then. We almost couldn’t get the car out in time.” Sooner or later, they wouldn’t be able to use the car at all, and Toast had to think of other alternatives.

“Toast,” Edison called, face set in a hard line. “There were a lot more of them than we saw yesterday, and- and we saw something different, too.”

“What is it?” he asked, gulping down his fear. It… couldn’t be what he thought.

“All those monsters that we saw, they just sucked the blood out of their preys,” Edison continued. “But there were… some of them who ate the people, too. Like, they just ripped out the flesh and ate them. They were far stronger than the ones we saw. They- they ripped apart the ribcages like mere butter.”

“And they ate the heart?” he asked in trepidation.

“Yeah,” Peter nodded. “It’s fucking gory, I’m telling you. I thought I was about to piss my pants. Good thing we were already in the car by then.”

“Let’s get this all sorted first before we talk,” Toast said, nodding to their supplies.

They brought everything to the kitchen and started categorizing the supplies. There was food, drinks, medicines, more kitchen knives, steel baseball bats, planks, nails, batteries, tissues, and a whole load of essentials that he predicted would be enough for a week. More, if they could manage it carefully. He looked at the abundance of snacks, and raised an eyebrow at the scavenging team, who just grinned at him like it was Christmas.

“What?” Rae asked. “We got all this for free! Might as well take as many as we can.”

“You’re all children,” he sighed, massaging his temples. But he was glad that they could have something to smile about at least. “We need a whole lot more water and medicines. And actual weapons. I’ll look around to find the place where we can make the trade. What else did you see? Is there anything you can garner from the monsters? Attack pattern, body movements, anything?”

“Uh, it was too much of a blur,” Corpse said. “But I know for sure that the vampires are afraid of the flesh-eating ones. They attack one person and drink from them at the same time, but they stay away from the flesh-eating ones, maybe because they’re stronger? Like a hierarchy.”

“Good, that’s good,” he nodded. “We know something at least. Do they move in crowds? Or individually?”

“Oh!” Peter piped up. “Now that I think about it, they kinda do. They prey on one person together.”

“Okay, what else?”

“Nothing much,” Edison shrugged. “We just ran. We didn’t stay around to observe their behavior.”

He nodded, that was the main plan; to run away from the monsters and staying alive. He sighed out when a thought occurred to his mind. This was all so… wild, savage. It felt almost like they were back to the era where humans hunted for food, and there was nothing to be concerned about but having roofs to stay under, enough good to fill their bellies, and staying away from predators. Humans adapted and evolved based on their environment, and their current environment was one that necessitate them to prioritize survival than second-tier needs like comfort and entertainment. It was survival of the fittest in the jungle full of monsters.

“We will come out of this alive,” he said, looking at them all in the eyes one by one. Though strength and resources were necessary, the will and spirit to stay alive was also important. A broken mind couldn’t be bothered to fight for their lives, they would just waste away, waiting for the nightmares to claim their soul. They were young and thriving, flourishing in their lives, and he would make sure that it’d stay that way until this storm was over.

The days afterwards were spent planning for more supply run, reinforcing their barricade, trying to reach out with their families and friends, and watching the news nearly all the time. There were little movements to solve the current problems from the police and military. The president was unreachable, and there was still no quarantine whatsoever. The world was still revolving, and their lives was still in danger.

They had tried contacting the police, but the line was always busy. With how many people were in panic about the incidents, it was given that they would also do the same. But when they tried calling the National Emergency Center, it was when the horror hit. They were met with radio silence. There was nothing, the line was connected but there was no one at the other end of the line. Toast watched as panic enveloped his friends’ faces, when they realized that they were well and truly alone in this.

There was something bigger going on, he could feel it. There was no way that such an emergency, a catastrophe like this wasn’t taken care of by the government. If they ever had the intention to help at all. But it didn’t make sense at all. The monsters wouldn’t discriminate between citizens and the people of the government; they would kill them all. Why weren’t they doing anything to prevent that, then? Countries all over the world had heard about the news, and the reactions varied from one person to another. Toast had seen from the social media how many people thought that this was merely fiction, that it was just some ploy to market a movie or something. He wanted to laugh; America was so notorious in its outrageous events that everyone else in the world felt disconnected from the country itself.

America was more advanced, conquering everything from military, weaponries, technologies, medical, politics, and economy. The only they lacked was common sense and humanity. The rest of the world was forced to follow the flow of where America would take the world next, and when something like this happened, it was understandable, even expected, that they saw it as something so unreachable. As if it wasn’t real, because they were so disconnected from it.

But countries that previously had tension with America immediately banned any flight and transportation means that came from America. Russia, China, Middle Eastern, and East Asia had closed their ports completely from America. But America itself still continued to open their ports, by the sky and by the seas. Anything area that was connected through the land was still open as well. If they kept this on, sooner or later the whole continent would fall.

Maybe it was something so far-fetched. Maybe the government was just preparing something to combat the tragedy. They had the means for it, they had the technology and weapons necessary to eradicate anything that stood on its path to glory. But knowing what he did, remembering what Jimmy said about the government and its possible ties to all the kidnapping and homicide cases, made Toast think that maybe this was the path to glory. For whatever reason, they had deemed that the suffering of the people was the way to achieve their goal.

There wasn’t any terrorist group to watch out for, there wasn’t any ominous organization who had all the strings. The government itself could be the perpetrator of all this madness.

A week leading to the next supply run, Toast forced them all to practice. They would find a gun store later, but right now they had to be able to use the weapons they had in hand. Having a knife was useless if they didn’t know how to use it; it could even hurt themselves if they weren’t careful. They were all hesitant, and they didn’t even know where to begin. But Toast talked them through it all, telling them that they had to be ready to do anything to survive, and it meant that they had to be ready to face the monsters should they find a situation where they couldn’t run. They couldn’t hesitate to kill; they couldn’t let go even a millisecond and create an opening for the monsters to attack.

So far, all the girls had practices in simple defense mechanism. It saddened Toast, that the reason they knew about it at all was because women were always in danger, all the time. They had to be prepared to defend themselves because the world seemed to be out for them. It wasn’t enough to fight blood-sucking monsters, but it was better than nothing. The guys could fight, sure, but they weren’t used to a life where they had to use it all the time. Each of them wasn’t working in any job that required them to fight at all. Edison was a programmer for Microsoft, Peter was a businessman, Toast was a production manager, and Corpse was a musician. Their chances were grim, but they had to push through if they didn’t want to die a gruesome death.

The week felt… desperate. They tried their best not to let silence envelope the house at all. Tina was getting better at accepting the situation, but they all worried for Corpse’s health. He had his medicines with him, and though he was better from his last treatments with Sykkuno, he still had weak constitutions compared to them all. While Toast was out of commissions because of his wounds, they agreed to let Corpse switch out with Leslie so his body wouldn’t be so burdened.

“Be careful,” Toast said when the day of the supply run finally came. “Watch out for the flesh-eating ones. Supplies are important, but we have to find medicines and weapons first and foremost. Do not hesitate to push away people out of your way. It’s either us or them, now.”

Leslie looked at him sadly. “I wish we never have to say that,” she said, looking down at the metal bat she had on her hands. “That’s just… so cruel. What if they’re on a position where we could help? What if we’re on their position and no one helps us because they all think the same way as we do?”

Toast sighed, but he understood what she meant. The thing was, he knew this was hard for all them. They all were adults, but they had lived so comfortably, surrounded by luxury, including the luxury of kindness. Toast was better at managing his feelings because he was always a little bit out of touch with his emotions; it was hard for him to let himself be vulnerable, to let himself be weak, especially in a kind of industry that he lived in. The media industry would tear him apart to shreds if he wasn’t always so ready for any threat, if he ever showed even the smallest mistake, the barest hint of weakness. In a way, the industry was as vicious as those monsters in toppling down anyone that wasn’t strong enough to aim for the top. It was another case of survival of the fittest.

So Toast, with his apathy and coldhearted intelligence, would bear the burden of having no empathy, of being cold enough to not be kind, for the sake of their survival. They weren’t used to this kind of thing, but he was. He would bring them all through this tragedy, even if they would hate him, even if he had to let go of the last remnants of his heart.

“There isn’t time nor place for morality now, Leslie,” he said, aware how cruel he sounded like. “We can think about our sins once this is all over. But now, we have to get through it first, okay?”

“Okay, Toast,” she nodded, though there were tears glistening in her eyes.

Janet changed his bandages after they were gone and the garage door was locked tightly. They didn’t have much time to talk, with Toast so busy planning and not letting them going down further into sadness. He had done that enough when he was spiraling in hysteria. Having the time to talk to her, listening to her soothing voice as she assessed him was something he needed after a stressful week.

“The wound is healing nicely,” Janet said, smiling sweetly at him. He gave her a gentle smile in return, caressing the side of her face. He missed this, even if they were only in this hellhole for a week. He missed having enough time to relax instead of fearing for his life; he missed having the chance and time to just existed with her. “You’ll be up and ready in no time. But remember to not exert your body too much, okay?”

“Okay,” he nodded, and kissed the back of her hands. “Thank you. You’ve done so much for me.”

“We’re in this together,” she said, and Toast remembered why he had chosen her to be his partner in the first place. She was competent, though despite her soft exterior, knew how to carry herself, and knew how to still be gentle in moments like this. She wasn’t just a nurse; she was his partner, his friend, a strong woman, and they had been together longer than he had ever been with anyone else. “I don’t want to lose you to the unknown out there. So, keep yourself alive for me, okay?”

He hugged her tightly, inhaling the familiar scent of her perfume, and sighed out all the burdens on his shoulders. He didn’t know how long this would last, but Janet was right. They were all in this together, and they had to keep each other safe no matter what. He said it himself—they would come out of this alive.

While they waited for their friends to come back, Janet’s phone rang. It was Jimmy. She handed the phone to him, and he prepared himself to hear any bad news. He thought that it was very sad, that each time Jimmy called, he was always expecting to hear something bad instead of hoping for anything good. This was his longstanding problem; this suspicion and pessimism, this absolute certainty of the worst thing so he could prepare every inch of himself to deal with it. It wasn’t the best view of life, but it had worked for him so far, and he was clueless in changing this deep-rooted habit.

“Jeremy,” Jimmy called out, voice small and quiet. “Are you alone?”

He motioned to Janet that he was going to take the call privately, and she nodded. She went to Peter’s room to maybe talk to Tina instead. Tina and her had cooked simple lunches for them all, and Toast and Corpse had triple-checked their barricades. He sat in the living room alone, speaking to his phone. “I am now.”

“Do you remember the kidnapping and homicide cases?”

How could Toast forget about them? They were the opening of this tremendous tragedy, after all. “I do. What happened?”

“Some of the kidnapped victims have been recorded in several CCTVs,” Jimmy said. “And they were no longer humans. My contacts have suspicion that those homicide cases are indeed connected to the kidnapping. Jeremy—they- they slaughtered those people without mercy. It was worse than the monsters, they didn’t just suck their blood. They ate their bodies, too.”

Toast didn’t even know what to think about. Hearing Edison telling him about those monsters was bad enough, but at least he had assumed that they were far and few in-between. He had forgotten how similar homicides happened all over the state, nearly at the same time. Which meant that there were multiple of them, more than he thought. “Great,” he sighed out. “Now we have two different breeds of monsters altogether. Just what we need right now. My friends saw them too at the supermarket a week ago.”

“I know,” his brother replied, wistful. “I need you to be aware of them. Jeremy, they look like human. They aren’t like the monsters, at all.”

“What do you mean?” Toast asked carefully, sitting up straighter.

“They look just like normal people,” Jimmy said. “There literally isn’t any difference between them and us. The only thing you can watch out for is that they walk weird, and they’re usually dirty and bloody from eating all those people. I’ll send you the list of missing people. Should you find them, run as fast as you can. I have a feeling that these people will be the ones who are different from the monsters.”

“Why isn’t the government issuing this?” he demanded, frustrated and confused by the lack of information and action from the government; no matter how much he speculated about their involvement in the catastrophe, there was still a part of him that was still foolishly hoping for a help, any help. “This should be broadcasted in the news so people will know what to watch out for.”

“Jeremy…” Jimmy said, and he sounded… scared, and it scared Toast, too. “They’re manhunting Sykkuno right now. I don’t know what the hell is happening anymore in the police force, but it feels like the higher-ups aren’t even concerned about the monsters. They’re so focused in capturing him, and I feel like he’s tied to why the government is just sitting on their thumbs right now.”

“What the fuck is it about that man?” Toast snapped out. “Why is he more important than taking care of the citizens?”

“I don’t know either,” came the reply, accompanied with a sigh. “But the more I think about it, the more I think that Sykkuno is running away from the government because he knows something that they want to cover up. He’s directly involved with the kidnapping, he was the first one to notify us about his presence, he has fifty-six of his patients missing, and now they’re coming back as monsters. Those people he has treated, with new methods. He might have experimented on them, and- and I think the government knows about it.”

Sykkuno had something that they wanted, and it might have something to do with all this chaos, Toast realized. It brought forth their discussion about the possibility that Sykkuno was held hostage. After all, the kidnapping cases had been done so well without traces, and he suddenly appeared as the only suspect, all on his own accord. If the government knew about it, then it could explain how his fake data could go through Cedars-Sinai, and why he was only treating certain kind of patients. Fifty percent of the kidnapped people had illnesses on them, while the rest were perfectly healthy. Could it mean that he was making comparisons?

“Jim,” he said, breathless with realization. “The mutants, the different breed of monsters, search their medical history and see if they all have certain kind of illnesses to them all. If my calculation is right, then we can predict how many mutants are out there, and how many of these blood sucking monsters are. As far as I remember, none of the mutants’ victims are infected. They’re mutilated so thoroughly; they can’t go back from the dead.”

There were rustles from the other end of the line, and Toast waited patiently as Jimmy went through his documents. After ten minutes of silence, there was a loud gasp heard from the phone. “Jeremy,” Jimmy breathed out. “Jeremy, holy shit. They do. Out of the sixteen mutants recorded on CCTVs this far, they all match the profile of the missing people who have illnesses. If this theory is true, then we… we have nearly a hundred mutants on our hands. Out of one-hundred-and-seventy-nine kidnapped victims, eighty-eight of them have illnesses.”

“I think we can be certain that fifty-six of them are definitely mutants, considering they were Sykkuno's patients,” Toast said, exhilarated by the new discovery. Anything, anything that could aid them in understanding the situation, in knowing the enemies better, would be good for their survival in the long run. “We don’t know about the rest. Keep an eye on the news of any new recording.”

“Jerry… could it be… that Corpse was about to be the next kidnapped victim? Because Sykkuno treated him?”

Toast’s heart stopped in its cage for one scant millisecond. That… was a possibility he didn’t want to entertain. But it made so much sense why Sykkuno called Corpse, why he told him to run. But… why? What was it that was so important about Corpse that made Sykkuno willing to reach out to him personally? Toast wracked his brain for any answers, but he ended up with nothing. There were too many unstable variables to consider. But there was a possibility he could come up with.

“Do you think… there’s some similarity to these mutants? Sykkuno certainly has access to their medical records. Do you think there’s a certain something he’s looking for? Something that made them able to be turned into the mutants instead of the blood-sucking monsters.”

Jimmy was quiet on the other end of the line. When he spoke, he was grim and determined. “We won’t know for sure about that. But one thing is certain: we have to find Sykkuno. Soon, before they found him. There- there isn’t any request to capture him alive anymore, Jeremy. It means that whatever they want from him, it’s something physical and concrete and they only need to find him to get whatever it is.”

“Jesus fuck,” he grunted out. This was fucking insane. Toast was used to crazy things by living in the entertainment and media industry; he was used to all of the anecdotes and embellishment necessary to sell something, to spread an agenda. But this was just pure insanity. This was nearly fictional in its mind-boggling intensity. This was something he would read or watch, not something that he would experience. And yet, here they were, and here he was; talking about possibilities that seemed so far away when all of this insanity started. But that was what he had only know, wasn’t it? What if it had started long before they realized that the storm was about to him them? What if it was already brewing for so long and they were actually unprepared for the torrent it would cause?

“I have a feeling that he wouldn’t leave the country yet,” Jimmy said. “The police forces in Los Angeles are issued to secure every perimeter to prevent the spread of the monsters just now. I don’t know how effective it will be, and there’s a chance that he has escaped via flight or any transportation. But I don’t think so. If the government wants him, they’ll be securing any means of transportation and—oh, fuck. Why didn’t I realize sooner?”

“What?” Toast asked, worried and impatient. “What is it?”

“One of my intel works in CIA,” Jimmy said, urgent and full of wonder in his voice. “We’re still friends, and I often do cases for them to trade for information, to reach all those bastards in high positions, you know? They told me that a few months ago the CIA has been told to monitor the transportations. They complained about it because- because it’s so mundane, right? Certainly something that CIA agents wouldn’t have been doing. But- but they also told me that they’re told to watch out for this guy, that looks totally harmless. They weren’t told that he’s a threat, they were just told to monitor where he goes.”

“He’s still in America, he can’t leave the state at all,” Toast finished for him. A memory rose through his mind, the details that he overlooked all this time because he didn’t know how important it was. “The phone calls from Sykkuno. Both of them. There were always voices of men and sounds of guns. He was being watched.”

“It matches!” Jimmy exclaimed. “Holy shit, it matches! Jeremy, you’re brilliant! We can find Sykkuno, we can.”

“We can’t exactly go out now,” Toast said. “But I’ll tell my friends to look out for him. And, Jimmy?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t act so recklessly,” he said, sighing. “Remember that we still have to protect Jenny and Ma.”

“Okay, little brother,” Jimmy said, fondness seeping into his voice. “You, too. You have to stay alert for anything. I’ll call you later if I find something else.”

When the phone call clicked off, Toast immediately turned on the TV. Jimmy had said that the police force was only now securing the perimeter, after a week of the first attack. That was foolish and much, much too late to curb the spread of the monsters. They hadn’t gone out all week, but they had seen from the news and social media just how chaotic it was out there. More and more attacks happened, and there were little of police involvements. Some of the polices recorded were those of the lowest hierarchy. They were poor sods who were there to give people parking tickets and to regulate the streets. They weren’t there to fight unkillable monsters stronger than them.

But… what if it wasn’t to curb the monsters? Sykkuno had been gone for several months since that fire at Cedars-Sinai. Jimmy said that it was big chance that he was still in America. But what if they knew that, too, and was limiting his movements further. There… was even a chance that he was still around Los Angeles. That was slim chance, but there could be. It all started here, didn’t it? The first kidnapping victim was from Los Angeles, Sykkuno was seen here, too, on the CCTV. Not to mention that Corpse said he worked in Cedars-Sinai sometimes. But then again, he could be in Baltimore, going back to Thomas Allen’s place. That place had been ransacked, and he wasn’t found there. But once the possibility had been discarded, Sykkuno could have gone there because it was one of the safer options. He had months to get that chance.

No, Toast thought. He could have gone there, maybe, but it was most probably that he had gone back to Los Angeles, for some reason. Because the command to secure the perimeters had only been issued in Los Angeles and not on the other cities. It wasn’t even all over California. It was just here. They knew he was here.

Janet’s phone pinged and Toast saw that Jimmy had sent him the information about the list of missing person, along with the details of their data, and Sykkuno's data as well. There was very little known about him. But at least there was a picture and clear descriptions of his physical appearance. As Toast read the data sent, he thought that Corpse was right. Sykkuno was pretty. Slender built, soft-slanted eyes, curved lips, high cheekbones. Not to mention how persuasive he was with his gentle, sweet voice, according to Corpse.

But this pretty man hid numerous terrifying things behind his sweet smile on the picture. It was hard to reconcile this harmless looking person with everything that he had possibly done, everything tied to him. Even if he wasn’t the direct source of this catastrophe, he was certainly one of the catalysts. It had only been a week, but their lives as they knew it couldn’t go back as it was before. Sykkuno was the only one who could at least provide some answers to all of this confusion. And if he didn’t, well, at least Toast could know what was it exactly that he had. There had to be something.

With plans in mind, he gathered them all once the scavenging group was back. None of them was injured, thankfully. Though they had to make do with minimal supplies because they took a detour when they were looking for the gun store Toast had directed them to. The most important thing was that they had weapons now. Guns, proper knives, knuckles, gas canisters—Peter even got a flamethrower out of nowhere. Apparently, it was for display, but the seller was willing to give it for an outrageous price.

“I just think it looks cool,” Peter shrugged. “We’re literally living in a zombie apocalypse. Might as well go out with style, you know?”

“As long as we have the fuel, that is,” Tina piped up, laughing cheerily. She had gotten better and better by days, and had come back to that inappropriately dark humor with Corpse as her aide.

Toast gave each of them a copy of the documents Jimmy had sent. Things that he had never thought as important, like printers, were truly a blessing now. He didn’t know how long the electricity would last, so he was getting used to old methods. Besides, they couldn’t exactly keep checking their phones in the middle of scavenging and fighting.

“Sit down,” he said. “And be prepared. Throw everything you have known so far about the government, about the kidnapping cases, and the homicide cases. What you have in your hands right now is the copy of the missing person list. There are one-hundred-and-seventy-nine in total. The reasons why this is important, is because the two cases are connected, and they are connected to the current incident as well.”

They all rifled through the pages of the documents, but Corpse was stuck on the first page. It was Sykkuno's data. Toast sighed and motioned for them to get their attention. “Let’s start with the first page. I know this all might seen outrageous, ridiculous even. But trust me on this, okay?

“My brother has been working on these cases for nearly a year. The recorded kidnappings that we know so far started in February, and have been wracking up cases as much as more than ten kidnappings each month. I’m sure some of you recognize the name of the man on the front page. For those who don’t, let me explain. A few months ago, after so long without evidence and trace, there was a recording from a CCTV that showed the man waving to the camera, he was with the last kidnapping victim. He was unknown, and his face wasn’t detected because of the mask. He was seen as the main suspect, and the only lead to the kidnapping cases.

“Two weeks after that, Corpse told us that he was seeing a new doctor. His name is Sykkuno, and he fits the bill of the man in the recording perfectly. About four days before the day of his next appointment with Sykkuno, Corpse got a phone call from the man. He asked for the appointment to be earlier, and he seemed to be running away from something. He asked to be helped. Now, let me tell you that it might be an act, but on the day that we were supposed to meet him, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center was burned in fire, I’m sure all of you have heard of it.”

He looked around, and they all nodded, remembering the grim incident. There were more than three hundred victims who died that night, and the memorial was still visited very often by families and sympathizers alike. Toast knew that Corpse had been feeling incredibly guilty, blaming himself for the incident. He didn’t know how he coped with that, but he heard from Tina that he had been seeing a psychiatrist to alleviate the guilt. It was understandable, because Corpse might think that he was the reason why the hospital was burned to the ground. If they didn’t plan on meeting Sykkuno there, the hospital and those people might still be alright. Toast felt that guilt, too, but he pushed it away in favor of continuing his life and thinking about the bigger picture. It was only the start of many tragedies to happen, he couldn’t just stop and waste away because of one thing. It was cruel and heartless, but it was necessary.

Sometimes he thought about the word: necessary. How much longer he could use that justification until he had turned into a complete monster himself? Those monsters were mindless, only acting out of their base needs to get sustenance. They slaughtered people because that was the only thing they knew how to do. What was the difference between them and the monsters if they kept excusing themselves and every atrocity they did in the name of necessity of survival?

He didn’t know, and right now wasn’t the time to be concerned about it either. Time waited for no one, and those monsters certainly wouldn’t wait for them to play nice with morality intact. There had to be a sacrifice to get through this all alive, and it wasn’t just comfort and safety—it was their sanity and their humanity as well.

“Wasn’t that fire because of the leak in the boiler room?” Rae asked, frown clear on her face.

“It might be,” Toast nodded, “but there’s too many coincidences. Because on the same day, Sykkuno's fake identity, Thomas Allen, who has been dead for eight years, his place was ransacked too. On that very same day, he called Corpse again, telling him to ‘run’. He knows something we don’t, and that might be the reason why the government is looking for him.”

“Wait,” Edison cut him off. “Wait, wait. You mean, the government is involved in this? That all of those are just a ploy to get to Sykkuno?”

“Since the beginning, the government never really did anything about the kidnapping case, or the homicide cases that we know by now isn’t homicide as much as it’s just a… feast, for those monsters,” Toast said. “The kidnapping cases are all clean, too clean, even. Until the day Sykkuno waved at the camera, there has been no trace, no evident, no witness, no record whatsoever. The police were going in blindly at that case. The moment they have a lead, it ended up with the hospital burned, the apartment ransacked, and Sykkuno gone entirely.

“At first, it’s only a possibility that Jimmy and I discussed. But the longer it happens, the more that we realize that Sykkuno definitely has a tie to the government. They’re on a manhunt, for him. Beforehand, the command was to capture him alive, but right now, they just want him to be caught, dead or alive. He has something they want, and that something could be the key to all of these incidents.”

“You want us to find Sykkuno,” Corpse deduced.

“Yes,” Toast nodded. He looked at all of them, finding confusion and the horror slowly slipping in. It was one thing to be confused about the lack of aid from the government, but to find out that they might have their hands in this living nightmare was a brand new of horror altogether. The silence on the other line of the National Emergency Center now seemed more ominous than before. “We need to find him before the government do. There’s only a handful of people who are told to capture him, but Jimmy just told me that a slew of CIA agents might be involved because they had been told to track Sykkuno's movements for a long time now. This is going to be difficult, but this is our only lead.”

There was a momentary silence, before, surprisingly, Janet spoke up.

“But, Toast…” she started, hesitant. “Why should we find him? Why should it be us? We’re just… us, Toast. Why should we concern ourselves with something bigger than us, rather than trying our best to stay alive?”

There were murmurs spreading around the room, and Toast sighed. He had anticipated this. “I know what you think,” he said to the whole room. “I know that this task might be impossible, and I won’t force you to do it. Jimmy and I are willing to find Sykkuno by ourselves, if you don’t want to. All you have need to do is keep an eye out for him. Other than that, I think you all deserve to know the truth about this incident, and the government’s involvement in this.”

“You still don’t need to find him,” Janet argued, standing up now. Distress was clear on every line of her face. “You said it yourself: he’s wanted dead or alive. What difference would it make for us to find him? Even if he has the answers, even if he has—I don’t know, the cure, probably. What can we do about it? We’re just a bunch of citizens. We can’t fight the government if they’re really Sykkuno's enemy, and we certainly don’t have the resources to replicate and mass-produce the cure, if he really has it. We can’t even give it to the hospitals or research center because the government will be watching us. Toast—this isn’t our responsibility.”

“It is,” he snapped out, too blinded with his thoughts to notice the flash of hurt across his partner’s face. “I told you, you don’t have to do it. I’ll only ask those of you who are willing. But this is directly connected to my brother, as one of the few people who have the clear to manhunt Sykkuno. Which means that he has more information than that of regular people, which means that we have bigger chance of stopping this madness. I don’t know about any of you, but I intend to stay alive as long as I can, and I intend on ensuring that my family will be alive as well, with any means necessary. If it means that I have to look for Sykkuno to the end of earth, then so be it.”

“Toast, calm down,” Peter said, standing up to cradle his shoulders. Toast tried to shrug him off, fuming with rage by now. But Peter held him down and push him to sit back on the chair. “I get it, I do. We are all worried about our families, Toast, and if you think this is necessary then you do you. But you also have to understand where we’re coming from as well. This all is so out of our reach, you know? All this cases, the government, Sykkuno—all of this isn’t something that we deal with daily. You must understand our shock. Janet is right when she said that this isn’t your responsibility. Finding Sykkuno can be your secondary goal rather than the first. Because the main goal is always staying alive, isn’t it? You can’t just expect all of this to be over if we find Sykkuno. Think about it.”

He heaved several deep breaths, and realized that Peter was right. Finding Sykkuno wasn’t an instant solution, even if he could shed some light to the current situation. He was doing his bad habit of obsessing over something, of latching onto something with such rigidity that he didn’t think of any other options but the ones he had chosen. He was also inconsiderate in thinking that only his family mattered. They all had families, and they were worried sick of their safety, too. Finding Sykkuno wouldn’t ensure their chance of outliving this apocalypse. He slowly lifted his eyes and looked at Janet.

“I’m sorry, that was uncalled for,” he said softly. She gave him a strained smile, evidently still hurt by his outburst. But she reached across the arm of the chair to hold his hand. He was forgiven, he knew. “Okay. Sorry for that bullshit I just spew. Let’s just chalk this up as additional information for all of you. Treat this as an early preventative measure so you can watch out for the government. The monsters aren’t our only foe.”

“What’s the other list is for?” Leslie asked, trying to lighten up the situation by continuing their discussion.

“Right,” he said, “do you remember what the media said months ago? About secret experiments?”

“Yeah,” Tina said, a wry smile on her face. “And the zombie theory, too. Funny how it turns out, huh?”

“There might be some truth to those rumors,” Toast said. Their eyes widened as they understood the implication. “The list is divided into two. Fifty percent of the kidnapped victims have illnesses, while the other fifty percent are perfectly healthy. What I said about the experiment, is because fifty-six of those people were treated by Sykkuno, with new methods, got better by the end of it, and got kidnapped. Recently, there are recordings of those people murdering people, eating them.”

“Like the ones we saw at the supermarket,” Edison said.

“Exactly like those,” he nodded. “They’re faster, stronger, more vicious than the blood-sucking ones. They don’t just drain the blood of their victims, they consume the flesh, too. These mutants are predicted to be eighty-eight in total. We can safely assume that fifty-six of them are certainly ones, considering that Sykkuno might have experimented on them.”

Corpse let out a choked gasp. He had realized what Toast did a while ago. That he could have been one of them, too. Toast threw him a comforting smile, as Tina hugged the young man to comfort him.

“We don’t know whether he experimented on them on his own will, or because the government told him to, and that’s not necessarily important to know either right now,” he continued. “Just know that while these mutants can’t infect people, they’re far more dangerous that those- those vampires. You have seen the vampires, have you?” They all nodded, shuddering in discomfort as they recalled the atrocious appearance and how easily they caught their preys. “These mutants don’t look like them. You can differentiate them through appearance alone. They look like normal human, but Jimmy said that they walk weirdly. Most probably because their coordination isn’t very good when they’re not hunting. Watch out for anyone on the first list. Remember their face, this will aid us in the future.”

He waited until they all had gone through the list, before continuing.

“This is all that we have right now,” he said. “Peter is right; staying alive should be our main priority right now, as well as ensuring the safety of our loved ones. Spread this information to them, but tell them to never post it online. The government might take notice of it and shut it down completely. There’s a reason why information about Sykkuno and these people are kept confidential.”

“They don’t want us to know,” Rae whispered, gasping. “They’re letting us die.”

“It’s the most possible conclusion we reach right now,” Toast said in resignation. “They’re securing the perimeter in Los Angeles. Though that would do exactly nothing about our current situation, it could also mean that Sykkuno can still be here since they want to limit his movements. I know that this isn’t your responsibility, and I’m not saying you have to, but do watch out for him, too. For what it’s worth, I think we all deserve some answer, and Sykkuno is the only one who can provide it for us right now. The government won’t tell us anything, the emergency line is completely silent, and it won’t take long before we’re completely left alone. Be prepared for anything, be prepared to fight for your life.”

They all were stewing on their thoughts after that discussion. Toast took a time to close his eyes and think, with Janet by his side. She caressed his hair soothingly, and he leaned into the touch.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated. “That was really mean of me. You meant well, but I just—”

“I understand,” she said kindly. “I think you’re right, too. If no one is helping us, and if no one is thinking about stopping this, then this nightmare will be unending. We have more information than everyone else and we have bigger chance, but Toast… just remember not to lose yourself while you’re chasing your goal, alright?”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” he said, and held her hand tightly in his.

The storm had hit them and they were left in shambles, left stranded in an island where everything tried to kill them. There was no way out, and before long, they knew that another storm would hit again. This time, there was no roof to hide in, no layers of blanket to keep them warm, no fortress to keep them safe. When it hit again, there was nothing but their bare skin and their will to live that would be left.

As the night went on, Toast thought back life before everything went to hell. A life where he was so unconcerned about everything around him, a life where he had always felt like he was on the top of the food chain. Everything had been washed away by the harsh wave, and he had nothing but confusion and a determination that had nowhere to go to. They were up against something that was much, much bigger than them, and they didn’t even know if they could take that step forward.

Toast had his friends, had his family, had a sliver of information, a clue on how to proceed, but God was it so hard to do it. It was getting faster and faster for him to spiral downward, to be obsessive about his single-minded goal. And while it was good for him beforehand, to not be aware of his surrounding in his focused intensity might get him killed if he wasn’t careful. If anyone from the government realized what Jimmy and he planned on doing, they’d be dead before they could even blink. But there was no way to go in this lone island in the middle of the broiling ocean.

It was scary, and he was but a weak man without any survival skill to boast off. He was trying to be strong for his friends, his family, himself, but even he knew that he was basically just no one. He was just another citizen trying to stay afloat in this catastrophe. He could be killed tomorrow, and the world would still go on without him. Toast didn’t care about the world, but his family’s world would be shattered if he was gone and he didn’t want that.

He took a deep breath, compiling his plans in his mind. Regular supply run, practice with the weapons, find things to defend the house better, find other means of transportation in case they couldn’t use the car anymore, find Sykkuno, stay alive.

When the storm hit again, when they all inevitable got pulled into the harsh waves, when they were forced to lay bare everything and be stripped down to savagery and means of survival necessary to not be killed, he just hoped that he wouldn’t be torn to shreds completely. He hoped that by the end of this, he would still have a part of himself, a part of his humanity intact.

#video blogging rpf #shiki writes #from ao3 #toastkkuno #disguisedtoast #sykkuno #chaptered fic #post apocalyptic #apocalypse #discontinued work

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nutteu · 7 months

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chin up, darling, we’ll wreck this world [Chapter I]

[AO3 Chapter I] [AO3 Chapter II]

At the end of the world, Toast was no more than mere animal. Sykkuno was there as his unreliable guidance with his cruel laughter and murky morality. [Toast/Sykkuno; post-apocalypse au; through the looking glass, behind the monster's eyes; published 2021-12-23; total word count: 22,180] warning: gore, post-apocalypse esque violence, flesh eating monsters

ACT I – GRIM JOKES

Hilariously, ironically, it started out as a joke.

“I don’t understand,” Jimmy said, looking down on his dinner with a puzzled face. “No trace, no evidence, no witness, not even a record of CCTV. It’s like they just vanished from the earth.”

Mom sighed from her seat. She had always been disapproving of her children bringing work to the dining table. This was a sanctuary where they could rest, talk with the rest of the family, and get away from work for a second. It had never been a problem, until lately.

Toast hummed around a mouthful of food; he had never been queasy, and he had no qualm listening to grotesque cases from Jimmy’s work as a private detective. More cases meant more money and recognition, though it also meant more stress for his older brother. Lately, though, it wasn’t homicide nor was it about simple things like cheating spouses or about investigating cases of money swindler. It was just about missing person—a lot of missing persons.

“Sorry, Ma,” Jimmy said, throwing an apologetic look towards their mother. Jenny laughed a little, because she knew her brother; she knew he would still continue when his mind had grappled onto a certain subject. That had always been Jimmy’s strongest and weakest suit. “It’s just that,” Jimmy continued, proving Jenny right. Toast exchanged grins with his sister as their mother let out a resigned sigh. “I wouldn’t be bothered if it’s just one or two. But the police call me about missing person every few days, and they’re completely out of it since there’s no suspect to investigate either. And it has been going on for months on end, too, and still no clue about their whereabouts.”

“Alright,” Mom finally spoke up. “Finish your dinner first, and then you can talk about it with your brother and sister, okay?”

Jimmy opened his mouth, then closed it again, nodding instead. Their mother was at the age where she just wanted to be at ease, taking care of her grandchildren. What she got instead was Toast’s absolute refusal of marriage, Jenny’s absolute refusal of having children, and Jimmy’s singlemindedness in chasing cases to even think about having a family at all. If their father was still alive, he’d probably herd them into the church by now. Thinking about him still hurt, sometimes. But they had come to term with it; he was in peace, no longer in pain after so long battling his cancer. Sometimes, they felt guilty about not being proper children for their parents, but they had been raised as strong and intelligent, and with it, came the absolute certainty of knowing what they wanted in life.

They finished dinner in silence, with Jimmy nearly vibrating in his seat to tell them more about his case. It wasn’t even supposed to be told, but he trusted his family, and he needed to let it out lest he’d be going insane from all the confusion.

“Do they have a specific profile?” Jenny asked later on, after they had lounged comfortable in the living room, mulled wine on each of their hand.

“That’s the thing!” Jimmy exclaimed, almost inappropriately excited for the topic. “They’re so random. We have young men and women, adults in their thirties and forties, even old people and children. What sort of fucked up individual collects them all like some sort of Pokémon?”

Toast laughed, despite it all. He didn’t know whether it was life, or whether it was genetic. But they all had this sort of fucked up sense of humor inside them. Some people viewed the siblings as insensitive, but exactly because they were sensitive that they could detect the humor in all sort of things, even the most horrible ones.

“Maybe that’s your graphic, Jim,” he said. “The demography ranges through all ages, all genders and occupations. Maybe it’s some sort of art display, of human’s differences.” It wouldn’t be surprising; Jimmy had had cases like that. But there was a clue in the certain beauty standard of the people who were kidnapped.

“No, no, it’s different,” Jimmy said, sipping from his glass. He closed his eyes for a moment, enjoying the taste of the wine, before he spoke again. “All I know is that they’re divided into two, this far. It’s very balanced; fifty percent of the missing people have history of sickness, and the other fifty percent are perfectly healthy. Other than that, there’s no certain criteria in race, height, weight, wealth, appearance, social standing, or jobs. There isn’t any tie that relate them to one another. And they were picked off all over the state, too. The only way we know that it’s the same related case is through the fact that there’s no evidence, no record, no traces. Nothing.”

“All over the state?” Jenny raised her eyebrow. “That’s crazy. Maybe they’re shipped off to some governmental secret experiments or something.”

Jimmy grinned. “You watch too many of those conspiracy videos.”

“Hey!” she protested. “They’re interesting.”

Toast watched as his siblings bantered, enjoying his wine and not particularly thinking about the missing person case. He had to admit that while he was always interested in what his siblings had to say, he couldn’t say the same about his empathy. Working in the media industry had completely corroded him of that. He had to be quick on his feet and his wit, had to be prepared for the worst, had to harden his heart because he needed to manipulate and use underhanded tactics in order to stay on top. The media was heartless, and the people in it were required to possess the same quality as the world they lived in.

So, honestly, while the case was worrying enough of its own, he couldn’t care less about them. Sure, condolences to the families, but then again, it wasn’t his business to begin with. If it was his family, then he’d be sure to chase the kidnapper to the end of the earth. But since his family was safe and sound, he’d just treat this as an entertainment amidst their hectic life.

Two weeks later, and Jimmy brought five more cases to the dining table. Fortunately, their mother was already resting from fatigue, so he took the liberty of immediately going into tangent about his case.

“Five, five, in two weeks,” he said, sighing dramatically. “The media is starting to notice after our futile efforts of keeping the case hush-hush. There are all sorts of ridiculous theories, and, oh, you’ll like this one,” he said, turning to Jenny, “they said that there must be a secret experiment going on if the government is so silent about this. Said that these people are used for test subjects for secret formula or something. It’s so crazy. I feel like I’m living in a sci-fi horror thriller.”

“You might be,” Jenny barked out a laugh. “See? I told you! It’s the government! What’s the secret formula, do you think?”

“I don’t know,” Jimmy shrugged. “The media is starting to spin the tales into absolute insanity at this point. Human enhancement, cure for cancer, bioweapon—some even said that the government is creating soldiers to prepare for World War III.”

Toast cocked his eyebrow. He was aware of all these gossips, considering his job. But he also knew that these were just bullshits. “No one actually has any clue of anything,” he told them. “All the accounts they have are just from the families of the missing person. But the entertainment industry absolutely loves this. I can’t count how many talk-shows I’ve prepared regarding this issue. I’ve had three this week alone. Honestly, it’s more money for the industry, but the theories are just plain stupid. My co-worker said that we probably have to be ready for the zombie’s theory soon enough.”

“Oh, God,” Jenny cackled, heaving a breath as she tried not to choke on her food. “Alright, as much as I like my conspiracy theories, that’s just too much.”

“I should dub this case as that,” Jimmy joked. “The Zombie Case, the Area 51 Case, the absolute shitshow of police force’s capability case.”

“That’s harsh,” Toast commented lightly, though there was a quirk of a smirk on his lips. The media had been accusing the police and the government, too. Said that with this many cases of missing person, they ought to have a clue, a suspect, or something rather than just radio silence. But how could they, when there was nothing to work on to begin with? Honestly, he pitied his brother. It would be better if he pulled himself out of this case, because it was evident that this was going nowhere.

“It’s true,” Jimmy replied, self-deprecation written all over his face. “We don’t know how much longer we can go on before we have to give up. I’m not even in the police force, and I’m stressed out from anticipating the riot and the protest that will soon arise if we don’t give something to assure the media and the citizens.”

“Don’t stress it out too much, though,” Jenny said, patting her brother’s back soothingly. “You’ve worked hard enough. Maybe take some days off to clear your mind.”

“Yeah,” came the reply, along with a tired sigh. Despite all the jokes, it was clear that Jimmy was exhausted from this all. “Maybe I would. Soon, I think. How about a camping trip? The three of us. Mom can visit Cousin Jolene; she would be delighted by her youngest daughter.”

“Sounds good to me,” Toast said easily. “Maybe in two or three weeks, though. It’s very hectic now. Your crazy zombie case is making the media totally whack. They’re trying to milk this sensation for all its worth.”

“Glad to know you’re making money out of my suffering,” Jimmy said, and laughed when Toast saluted him solemnly.

It was just a joke that had become their usual routine in dinner by now. The three of them could have their own place, and they did have it. But after their father’s death, they had agreed to move back into the house. They didn’t like thinking about it, but they had long since accepted that it would only be time before their mother would follow. They wanted to spend as much time with her as possible before the inevitable end. Money and ambitions might be important, but they were tight knitted as a family, and they would prioritize it above anything else.

By now, even Mom was used to the reference of the Zombie Case. She just told Jimmy to take it easy, worrying over her children even when they were adults by now. Sometimes Toast looked at her, and felt the tremendous sadness over losing something that he hadn’t lost yet. She was so gentle, frail now in her old age. She nurtured them into who they were right now, and Toast had her to thank for the last remnants of empathy he had in him.

“We have a new lead,” Jimmy said one day, excitement shining in his eyes. “You’re not going to believe it! It’s just so ridiculous that the police force almost thinks that it’s a joke. It’s unbelievable!”

“Are you going to tell us, or are you going to keep telling us how unbelievable it is?” Toast drawled as he typed over his laptop. He disliked writing reports, but it was part of the job, and he had to do it. He was half-tempted to swindle some of his subordinates to take care of it for him instead. It would be so easy, too. He had sufficient silver tongue to lure them into the false sense of security in earning their superior’s approval. Maybe he should do it later.

“Alright, alright,” Jimmy acquiesced, though it was clear that he was still in disbelief of the new clue. “There’s a record, finally. There’s a man, around five eight, slender built, black hair, clad in doctor attire, and he was seen with the last kidnapped victim.”

“That’s good to hear,” Jenny said. “But what’s so ridiculous about it?”

“It’s our only record so far, Jen,” Jimmy said, suddenly turning serious. His hand spanned around him to enunciate his point. “See, we have no record whatsoever and it’s mindboggling. With how many cameras around the state, it’s impossible that not even one catches anything of the kidnapping. But then this man just came, and he just talked to the victim, and the victim willingly went along with him. It’ll be all and well if it’s just that, but no. He just suddenly turns around, stared right at the camera, and waved. As if he’s mocking us, Jen. As if he knows how desperate we are and decides to scatter the crumble of clues out of pity.”

Toast blinked. That was—that sounded ominous. Someone who had been doing so well with the kidnapping, without any evidence whatsoever, just suddenly turned up to give the police force a lead. As if he was playing with them. “It sounds like a trap.”

“It does,” Jimmy nodded. “We’re wary, but this is the only lead we have now. We have zoomed in on his face, but he was wearing a mask. No nametag, no symbol of institution, all we have is the shape of his eyes. Soft-slanted, brown eyes, most probably of Asian race. But even that isn’t enough. There are millions of people who fit his profile. The thing that is most puzzling isn’t that, but how he just basically got the victim following him willingly. That’s dangerous and scary, Jeremy.”

“How many victims do we have up until now?” Jenny asked, though it sounded rhetorical. “Almost two hundred? There’s no way that he’s working alone, then. There must be a bigger organization behind all of this.”

“There might be,” Jimmy said, and leaned back against the couch. “It’s just—I don’t know whether he’s actually a doctor or he’s just dressing up as one, Jen. But it reminds me of how we talk about that experiment joke, and it hits different now. What if they’re actually being experimented on?”

“If there’s an experiment with such a big scale of test subjects, we would hear it sooner or later,” Toast said. “Let’s just hope it’s not something as crazy as zombies or super humans.”

Jimmy gave him a sliver of smile and nodded. “Yeah, I hope so, too.”

It was worrying, how a joke could turn out into a real possibility. It stayed in Toast’s mind, despite his resolution of not wanting to think about it. It wasn’t his case, wasn’t his responsibility, and he wasn’t even in the police force to begin with. He had no capability of helping his brother whatsoever.

“You don’t talk much tonight,” Janet said, leaning against his shoulder.

Toast hummed distractedly. They were in a bar with their friends, hanging out after so long grappling with their respective work, trading stories and catching up with what they were doing lately. Edison and Leslie were going to be married in a few months, Rae was doing well with her streaming, Peter now had three more branches of his handmade plushies business, Tina was finishing her thesis, and Corpse apparently had a new doctor for his treatments.

“It’s nothing,” he said, smiling to reassure her. They had been together for almost four years now, and though he knew that Janet would want a marriage, he also knew that she loved him too much and she was willing to make compromises on his stance on marriage. Sometimes he thought that despite all the sheer efforts he had done in his life, he was also graced with a lot of luck; luck in being born in a family like his, luck in possessing intelligence and wit necessary for his work, luck in finding his circle of comfortable friends, luck in having Janet as his significant other. “There’s just a lot in my mind. Work, you know? It’s crazy out there and the media is even crazier in reporting the news.”

“Oh!” Tina suddenly said. “Is it about the kidnapping? I watch the news, and man, it’s so crazy how almost two hundred people just went poof without a trace.”

Toast nodded at her. “Yeah, my brother works in the same case too, and he’s in a tizzy because they don’t know how to proceed with it.”

“I heard that there’s some experiment going on,” Corpse said. Just like Jenny, he was also an enthusiast of conspiracy theories. “Like, the government is probably planning for a zombie invasion, Resident Evil style.”

They all laughed, but Toast’s laughter was a little bit strained. Corpse didn’t know how close he was to the possible truth. Somehow, hearing the zombie theories just made him uncomfortable. He had joked about it with his siblings, but hearing Jimmy’s last lead just cemented that joke into possibility and he was honestly floundering at another possibility that it could be real. Of course, it was something so far-fetched, but once they had eliminated the impossible then whatever remained, however improbable, must be the answers.

“How’s the treatment, Corpse?” Janet asked, slipping her fingers through Toast’s. He grasped them tightly, and she smiled at him, understanding that the matter must have been weighing more on his mind than he let on.

“It’s going well,” Corpse answered, an awed tone in his voice. “My new doctor, he’s really gentle and patient. Kind of cold at times, but all doctors are like that. I have new treatments, and they’re working well, too. It’s really amazing, honestly. He said that they’re developing a new treatment, and I’m one of the first to try it. There’s a whole load of paperwork to get my consent, but honestly, I’m willing to try anything at this point.”

Corpse’s sickness was debilitating and it had been going on long enough that he almost never experienced life without pain. It saddened them, that they were helpless in helping his condition. All they could do was to encourage him and be there for him. But even that was hard with their own schedules. To hear that there was a brighter light to the end of his tunnel was relieving.

“What’s the doctor’s name?” Leslie asked. “I mean, if this treatment is working, then he must be really good. Maybe I can commend him to my cousin.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Corpse said, a little bit flustered even through his mask. Corpse had a terrible self-esteem about his appearance, and it took them a long time before he was used to going out in public without going into panic. He still wore his mask all the time, but he was less anxious about being around people. The first time they had been able to get Corpse into a bar and a club comfortably had been an experience they all still remembered to this day. “Everyone just calls him Sykkuno, and he introduced himself as that, too. It’s a funny name, but since there’s nothing else I can call him with, I just call him that.”

“I’ve never heard of a doctor called that,” Janet said. She worked as a nurse in a hospital, and was closely connected to a lot of names thanks to her gentle, amiable personality. “Does he work on the hospital you’re having treatments in?”

“Not really,” he said. “He’s a specialist, they told me. He only comes sometimes when there’s a specific case they have difficulty in handling, and ones he’s interested in. He’s very particular about the chosen cases. He’s- he’s really understanding, too. He talks to me as I’m going through the treatment, he’s nice, if a bit distant. He’s really mysterious, too. No one really knows him, and no one is actually his friend. I just know that everyone respects him. He’s, uh, he’s really pretty, too.”

Leslie and Tina exchanged devious glances amongst each other, and they went in like a predator stalking a prey the moment Corpse ran his mouth. Corpse could go on tangent about things he liked, but he mostly kept to himself. He was a man of few words, not only because of his medical condition, but also because he found himself floundering on social interactions, too. Hearing him talking so much about this doctor, not to mention the private opinion about the so-called Sykkuno, just made it very clear that he was helplessly developing a crush. It was endearing, Toast thought with a grin.

“Oh?” Tina said, eyes crinkling from how hard she was trying not to laugh. “Do tell us more about this mysterious Sykkuno.”

“Leslie yells at me every morning, and here you are meeting prince charming in the hospital,” Edison sighed, laughing when Leslie yelled at him and swatted his arm. “It’s almost like an ominous fairy tale.”

“It’s actually quite ominous,” Corpse said through the blush that crept down to his neck. “He’s like suddenly there, out of nowhere, and disappears as sudden as he comes. I’ve never seen him actually going in or out of the hospital. I always lost him.”

“Lost him on your quest to ask him out for lunch?” Toast teased; an eyebrow raised. Corpse was one of their younger friends, and it was just so fun teasing him sometimes. He reacted wonderfully. He would stutter and tried to hide his blush by making indecipherable noises.

“Uh,” Corpse said, then focused on the drink he’d been nursing for the past thirty minutes. His eyes did crinkle when they all laughed, understanding that they were just teasing him because they cared. “His voice is so nice,” he sighed wistfully. “It’s very melodious. I asked him once if he wanted to be in one of my tracks, and he just laughed. Like- it’s like. Like he can say anything, and anyone would do everything he wants.”

“Okay, lover boy, you’re obviously down bad for this guy,” Leslie said, grinning coyly.

But amongst the banter and the teasing, Toast’s mind was going a mile a minute. He knew that he was just being paranoid, that he was focusing too much on the kidnapping case that he started connecting everything to it. Much like the way Jimmy latched onto something once he had a mind on it, that was the way Toast was, too. He was just better at navigating his mouth and thoughts than his brother.

He was reminded of what Jimmy said, about how the man that had been seen with the last victim talked to them and had them willingly following him. As if they weren’t about to get swindled into a horror story where they could find no form of escape from their nightmare.

“How come you don’t even know about the guy’s real name?” Tina asked. “Were you too busy staring at his face or something, huh?”

Corpse elbowed her lightly on her side, and shook his head. “Nah, it’s just- he has no nametag.”

Toast’s heart plummeted down to his stomach. No nametag, no symbol of institution, all we have is the shape of his eyes. His breath was heaving out quicker, and Janet threw him a puzzled look when he suddenly grasped Corpse’s hand, eyes widened and nearly manic. “What does he look like, this Sykkuno of yours?”

“Uh,” Corpse stuttered, surprised by the sudden question and the intensity in Toast’s eyes. “B-black hair, brown eyes, long nose, nice lips, high cheekbones.”

“How about the shape of his eyes? His height?” Toast pressed, already pulling out his phone to dial Jimmy.

Corpse’s brows were furrowed in confusion, but Toast rarely ever get this serious when they were out like this. He knew how to differentiate his work and his private time. So to see him like this was alarming them all. “Shorter than me, about… about five eight or five nine, I guess? Eyes… soft-slanted, heavy lids—”

He was cut short when Toast held up a finger, putting his phone on his ear and sighed in relief when Jimmy picked up on the second ring. His friends were all looking at each other, puzzled by the sudden change of behavior. “What’s the hospital you’re in right, Corpse?”

“Cedars-Sinai Medical Center,” Corpse answered promptly, only now catching up with the urgency of the situation.

“Jeremy?” Jimmy said, voice ladened with worry. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

“I’m okay,” he answered quickly. “Listen, I found someone that matches your guy’s profile. Doctor with no nametag, black hair, same shape of eyes, same height. He’s called Sykkuno, a specialist, works in Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.”

“…Are you sure?” Jimmy asked. This was too sudden, and there were tons of guys who could be their main suspect. But it was all too specific to pass up. “You can’t just accuse anyone, Jeremy. And we have to get specific warranty to investigate a medical center.”

“I’m sure, I’m sure,” Toast said, impatient now. “Listen, remember when you said that the last victim just followed the guy after he talked to them? This might be the same guy. Corpse just told me that he has a specific way of talking, very persuasive, and no one in the hospital actually knows where he comes from. What kind of doctor has no nametag, Jimmy? That’s against the regulation. I have a hunch on this, okay? Trust me.”

“Okay,” Jimmy said, and Toast knew that he believed him. Toast wasn’t the type to say something before he thoroughly thought about it, wouldn’t present a possibility before he dissected every last bit of variable. “Okay, we’ll look into this as fast as we can. Tell your friends to be careful, and ask Corpse about his next appointment.”

He said his goodbyes, and turned to Corpse. He was tense, they all were. “When’s your next appointment?”

“Two weeks from now,” the younger man said. “What happened, Toast?”

“Corpse, you’re going to be accompanied by someone in your next appointment, and it’s for your own security,” Toast said, solemn and grave as he relayed the news. “It seems that your doctor is connected to the kidnapping cases, as the main suspect.”

The lighthearted chatters they had were now shattered into shock and horror as they realized just how close to danger Corpse was all this time. The man himself had his eyes wide open, fingers trembling around his drink. They were left stewing in silence as they reflected upon what had just happened. Janet grasped Toast’s fingers tightly; Edison and Tina had their arms around Corpse. He must be in absolute disbelief that the man he adored turned out to be the kidnapper that had taken the state by a chaos so dizzying that no one was able to tell up and down anymore.

Toast knew that this was only a possibility, but there were just too many red flags to chalk it up to mere coincidence. If they were wrong, about this, then at least they knew that Corpse could still continue his treatments with Sykkuno, considering that it was doing him loads of good. If they were right… then this madness would stop, and Jimmy could finally rest, have that camping trip they were talking about.

They had to take this chance, before the madness enveloped them completely.

In the days leading to Corpse’s appointment, Jimmy had sent guards to his apartment, and they had searched the whole hospital for Sykkuno's whereabout. The thing was, no one knew where he lived, what was his real name, from which institution he came from, no one knew anything about him and that was puzzling enough. The information that the head of Cedars-Sinai had provided was nothing but a bunch of fake information when they really got down to it.

There was a Thomas Allen from John Hopkins, who specialized in neuro-surgeon, who lived near the residence, who had been recommended to Cedars-Sinai four years ago. But when they investigated, Thomas Allen was another man entirely, and he had been dead for eight years. It wasn’t only a case of fabricated information, but also cemented the suspicion that Sykkuno was indeed the same man in the recording of the CCTV.

The thing was, no one knew where he was right now. No one talked to him aside from work, and accounts reported that he always redirected the conversation into another one when he was prodded for his private life. When his phone number was called, it was always busy; when they tracked, it led them back to the apartment near the residence, with no one inside but a bunch of unused furniture that had gathered dust. There was search of his fingerprint, but the ones they found weren’t registered in the database. They had nothing but his face and the upcoming appointment in less than a week.

Jimmy had talked to Toast, to thank him about his quick thinking. Toast brushed him off with a bitter smile.

“This is just some fucking dumb luck, Jim,” he said, because it was. “Imagine if we didn’t hear about this doctor from Corpse.” Thinking about how Sykkuno would have escaped their watch, and Corpse being the next victim of kidnapping, made him shudder. He cared a great deal about his friends, and knowing that Corpse barely escaped danger still made him agitated. He couldn’t imagine if it was his own family. Something that he initially didn’t care about because it wasn’t connected to him, now bit him back in the ass because everything was ridiculously connected in a fucked-up line.

“That’s true,” Jimmy nodded. “Cedars-Sinai is in for a dent in their reputation. Toast, listen. We searched for every case that Sykkuno had taken, and fifty-six of his patients are on the list of missing persons.”

Toast blinked, goosebumps breaking all over his skin. “What the fuck?”

“I know,” his brother sighed, leaning on his chair. They were at home, with Mom and Jenny cooking in the kitchen, providing a calming background noise for such a grave situation they were talking about. “Wanna know what’s worse?”

Toast was almost afraid to hear it, but he nodded nonetheless.

“Every single one of his patients, all of them, were treated with new, experimental methods, and all of them got better at the end of it. Do you remember what Jenny said about the kidnapped victims being experimented on? There might be some truth to it.”

This was all some sort of a dark cosmic joke, this must be. He nearly laughed hysterically as he listened to Jimmy. It was just a joke—it was just some sort of stupid theory Jenny spewed out because she watched too much of those weird YouTube channels. How did it become this real, this terrifying? Toast didn’t know, but he had a hunch that this wasn’t the end of it, that this was just a beginning of something even more terrifying.

Because Jimmy continued on to tell him that on top of the missing person cases, there had been another case that the police forces all over the state was in panic about. There were murders appearing everywhere, all with the same result in their death: drainage of blood, mutilation of flesh, and the specific disappearance of hearts. It was bloody, grotesque, and inhumane. Jimmy had seen the pictures and he had thrown up promptly. There were a lot of things he had seen in his line of work, but this definitely took the cake as the worst of them all.

“What kind of human could do it all, Toast?” he mused out loud. “Maybe Jenny is also right about the zombie theory. Maybe all this homicide is the result of the experiment.”

Toast didn’t want to believe it, wanted to tell Jimmy to rest and ease his mind a little so he wouldn’t be so caught up in this ridiculous fantasy. But Toast also knew that the impossible had become the only probability at this point. He wasn’t one to believe in such things, but even his hands were forced now. He knew the insiders’ information from Jimmy, and no matter how much he worked his mind, even he had to admit that this could be what they had speculated, what they had joked about two months prior.

“Wouldn’t they be seen by now if they’re really zombies?” he asked, still trying to rationalize the situation.

“The thing is, it’s almost the same as the kidnapping case,” his brother relayed. “Yes, there are evidence of the victims, but there is no witness, no recording, no traces of the killer either. There is literally no proof despite the murder being so loud and clear like this. We’re thinking that they might be backed up, that they’re not working alone. Because it’s impossible for so many murders to appear all over the state, almost at the same time. This is systemized and planned very thoroughly.”

And that was the scariest thing, wasn’t it? Something so sporadic that turned out to be part of a masterplan, something so random that people initially didn’t think of anything, before they were swept up in a storm and be torn to shreds without a hope of ever surviving. Toast’s own workload was piling up high because of how much the media wanted to give as much exposure as they could give to the recent case of kidnapping and brutal homicide all over the state. They questioned the credibility of the police force, the silence of the government.

Secret experiments were thrown around in the media so often that Toast was sick of it. Now, with the new murder cases, they had started talking about possible connection to the kidnapping case. Was it really zombie invasion, did those people really get experimented on to become a monster? But then, there were talks about how the victims were drained of blood completely.

“It could be vampires,” he remembered one of the hosts on a talk-show said, pretty face looking ridiculous in all her solemnity. Toast knew she was trying hard not to burst out laughing at the possibility. Wasn’t that funny, though? How human invented stories and spun tales out of thin air, and seemed to love them a lot that it kept going, yet the moment it became reality, they rejected it so thoroughly? Wasn’t that how those horror stories always started? With rejection of probabilities?

“Were the bodies eaten or something?” another said. “The bodies looked so… grotesque. And the hearts are always missing. The ribs are broken apart, and there are witnesses saying that the edges are jagged. Could it be possible that they were broken with bare hands? What kind of monster do we have on our hands?”

Not even two weeks before their supposed meeting with Sykkuno, and already the task force got another whole load of shits they had to take care of. It was unending, and even Jimmy, a private detective, someone who wasn’t supposed to be so busy considering his actual position, got roped into this so thoroughly. Sykkuno was their only clue, and they waited in apprehension with each day.

Four days before the supposed appointment, however, Corpse’s phone rang, an unknown number appeared as the caller. At first, it was static, before rustles and sound of someone running was heard. And then, there was Sykkuno, sounding terrified out of his wits as he asked for Corpse to please meet him earlier on the appointment, at Cedars-Sinai, maybe tomorrow?

Corpse had asked where he had gotten the number, where was he right now, and what happened to him. But Sykkuno couldn’t even say anything past his harsh breathing. He was running from something, and he couldn’t seem to tell them about his location. He seemed almost desperate in having the appointment early. When there were other footsteps heard, voices that sounded like a lot of men, Sykkuno whispered to the phone, “help me, Corpse,” and the call clicked off.

It was another puzzle piece that they didn’t know where to put. The fear in Sykkuno's voice was too genuine for it to be fabricated, the way he was running from something, the way he had asked to be found, to be helped—Jimmy had speculated that maybe Sykkuno waved to the camera on that day, and intentionally got himself recorded so the police force could notice him.

“It could be also be an act,” Jenny pointed out. “You told me that he’s very persuasive. It won’t be so far off the mark if he’s just pretending to be scared. I don’t know Jimmy; this all could be a trap. I’m worried about you.”

“Yeah, I know,” Jimmy said tiredly. “But there’s nothing else we can do at this point. All we have is Sykkuno, and he’s giving us another lead tomorrow.”

“Be careful,” Toast said. “Whatever happened tomorrow, just be careful.”

But what happened the next day, the day where they thought they could get more lead, something, anything to shed a light to this case, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center was burned in a devastating fire, and Thomas Allen’s apartment was ransacked into a ruin. In the midst of the chaos, as the sirens blared loudly, the screams of people still trapped inside echoed loudly into the night, the firefighters trying their best to combat a losing battle; in the midst of the breath that caught in Toast’s and Corpse’s throat as they could only stand there and watch the tragedy happening in front of them, Corpse’s phone rang again.

There was the sound of sirens, of people’s screams, of a car being started up, of people’s voices and the clicks of something that they recognized as guns. And then there was Sykkuno's voice, quiet and solemn, as if to twist further the knife that had been plunged into the society.

“Run,” he said, calm and serene, and then there was silence so deafening that their ears were ringing with it.

Cedars-Sinai Medical Center was burned into a husk, Thomas Allen was a mask of questions and dead ends, and Sykkuno was gone before any of them could even comprehend what the fuck was happening in their lives. The number that he had called Corpse with could no longer go through, the kidnapping stopped altogether, and the brutal murder tripled in turn.

“This is madness,” Jimmy whispered one night, exhausted and mourning. There were too many lives taken from that night of the fire, from the homicide cases. “What has the world gone into?”

“I don’t know,” Toast replied, quiet. His thoughts were in jumble. There wasn’t anything to work with, everything always led back to Sykkuno, but he himself was a dead end with no path to walk upon. They still didn’t know whether that man was a perpetrator, or he was another victim, held hostage by the unknown organization that had orchestrated this chaos.

But if he were another one of their agents, why would he be that afraid when he called Corpse? Why would he even run away from them? Why would Thomas Allen’s place be ransacked when it was clear that Sykkuno didn’t even live there? Why did he bother to warn them to run? Run from what, exactly? What in the actual fuck was happening?

There were too many questions, too many dead people holding the answers, and they were chasing after a man who had gone into the wind with all of the explanations about this madness. Toast remembered about their joke, how this all started, and how it evolved into something so ominous, something terrifying. He wondered if his gut feeling was right—that this was only the beginning, and everything would be much, much worse afterwards.

He wondered, not for the first time since he called Jimmy that night, how much longer they had before their lives turned into a living hell.

For a few months after that, the state was gripped in mind-numbing fear. The incident of the fire of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center was still at the forefront of their mind; the brutal murders that seemed to pile up every single day made everyone afraid to even go out anymore. It was as if they all had been plagued by fear of the unknown. They conjured monsters out of their imagination, and speculated about it everywhere; in the media, the coffee shop, at their houses, when they met with their friends, even when they walked cautiously along the crowded streets.

Toast was worked to the ground, as did Jimmy. Jenny decided to take a month off her work to take care of their mother. She was stressed that her sons were out there while it was dangerous, especially Jimmy, and her illnesses had been acting out more often. There were curfews that had been effective since two months ago; the government was finally pressed into doing something after a lot of riots. No one was allowed to be out after ten pm, and the streets were gripped in paranoia and suspicion.

The news tirelessly reported about new murder each day, multiple murders, in the same fashion as it started with. The more these cases happened, the more grotesque the victims became. On some cases, there was no mutilation or loss of hearts. They were simply drained of blood, every single drop of it. The talks of vampires rose through the social media like the buzz of wasps. Somehow, fantasy had twisted itself onto reality when people couldn’t wrap their head around the issue; they started wondering, blaming about made-up monsters when they couldn’t reconcile the truth with themselves. There was no way a human could do that, they said, forgetting that there were cases where humans had done much, much worse things to one another.

Corpse now lived with Tina and Peter. The three of them lived alone, and had decided to stick together for safety, not to mention that Corpse’s new treatments had been stopped since no one knew how to conduct it but Sykkuno. There was no call from the man anymore, and understandably, Corpse was the most shocked of them all since he was closely related to Sykkuno beforehand. Tina had been accompanying him to another hospital for treatments ever since. Though the kidnapping had stopped at this point, and further proving the possibility that Sykkuno might really be connected to it, they didn’t want to risk their chances.

Somehow, it was the simplest thing that put the last nail into the coffin. Leslie’s and Edison’s marriage was cancelled due to current circumstances, and Toast would sit on Janet’s apartment, thinking of how fast their lives changed in only a few months. She would make him a cup of herbal tea, and sit in silence with him, letting him stew in his thought. His family might be in danger now due to Jimmy’s work, and the indiscriminating choice of victims in the murdering spree that happened these past few months. Anyone could be the next victim.

For some reason, the police force decided to keep information about Sykkuno to themselves. Toast was confused about it.

“Wouldn’t it make the search easier? Whether he’s held hostage or the actual criminal, we can get answers if we can find him,” Toast asked.

Jimmy shrugged, though he seemed a little bit resigned about it. “That’s the official mandate from the higher-ups. I don’t know what they were thinking when they issued the command, but there’s nothing we can do about it now. The information should be kept as confidential.”

“This is all seems so fishy for me,” he replied. “You know I’m not one to entertain things like this, Jim. But even you have to admit that this is ridiculous. First, the government doesn’t seem to be too concerned about the kidnapping and homicide cases, and now the higher-ups of the police force just decided to keep the only, and the most important information to themselves? Do they want all of us to die or something?”

“That might be the goal,” Jimmy smiled sadly. “Remember what you told me about what Corpse said? Zombie invasion, Resident Evil style.”

“You think that this is a deliberate decision from the government to eradicate their own citizens?” Toast asked, incredulous. “I know that we’re dealing with the impossible right now, but we’re not desperate enough to be on that conclusion yet.”

“Well,” Jimmy shrugged. “It’s not like it hasn’t been done before. Operation Paperclip and the incident of Kwantung Army should prove as much to us that the government isn’t exactly a saint. Not to mention that we don’t even know anything about these cases, even up until now. We don’t know whether they’re really experimented on, or whether the homicide cases are related to it. There’s no way something on this scale could leave so little trace. This is too clean, Jeremy. Besides, if there really is an organization that backs up this operation, the government would have issued the police force about possible terrorist group.”

It did feel as if they were being attacked by terrorists. A handful of people with extreme belief that held no regard of anyone but their own goal. And if that goal was eradication of humanity, then that would explain why so many people had fallen victim to it. Not to mention if the government really had their hands in this, then there was no stopping this terror, this real-life horror.

“Get out of this case, Jim,” Toast said, almost pleading. “This isn’t safe anymore. You might get killed, either because of the killer or, if your theory about the government is right, because you know too much for a private detective. You’re one of the few that know about Sykkuno's existence.”

Jimmy was quiet. Then, he sighed, and walked over to his room, before coming out with a stack of documents. “I can’t get out of this case, yet. There are too much loose ends, Jeremy. You understand how I am with these things. But in case that I do get killed, these are what I have so far.”

“Are you crazy?” Toast snapped at his brother. “Why wait until you’re dead? Just stop this madness now! Just stay with us, stay with Ma. It’s not worth losing your life over, Jim.”

“It is,” Jimmy said, eyes sharp as he regarded Toast. “Because the more I work on this, the more I can protect you all. All of you can be in danger, too, you know? It’s good enough that none of us get kidnapped, but who knows about the murder, huh? When it really comes to it, we’ll be granted more protection because I’ve worked on this for so long with the police force. They would give us the protection if only as a trade for me.”

Toast snapped his mouth shut at that. He swallowed around nothing, unable to meet Jimmy’s eyes. It was right, of course it was right. But he still didn’t want his brother to just plunge headfirst into the fire if he could help it.

“Jeremy,” Jimmy continued, gently, putting the documents on the table. “I love you, and Jenny, and Ma, you know that. This is the way I can protect you. Don’t worry about me, yeah?”

“You must be dumb or something,” Toast whispered. “How can I not worry about you?”

Jimmy grinned weakly, and clapped Toast’s shoulders firmly. “I’m not dead yet at least, so… yay?”

“You’re fucking dumb,” Toast said, tired and resigned. But he spared Jimmy a small smile. Everyone was afraid, everyone was cautious and suspicious of each other in this time. The least he could do was to provide reassurance for his brother. If anything happened to him, then, well, Toast did promise that he would chase whoever was responsible to the end of the earth.

Toast had asked Janet to live with him in the house, so she didn’t have to be alone. She wanted to, and it’d be good to have someone else to cheer up the mood. Janet seemed to do that easily, and Toast’s mother liked her a lot, too. But she was too busy in the hospital right now. Because of the curfew, whenever she had night shift, she ended up sleeping in the hospital anyway.

It seemed that everyone was in gloomy mood because of the recent events. Peter tried to cheer people up by having sale on his stores, and had given teddy bear plushies for each of his friends. Tina’s graduation was on hold because of the murders, but she was trying to keep herself afloat by playing with Rae and Corpse. The three of them had been playing games together, especially since Corpse could no longer freely go to the studio to record his songs. He could only take so much instruments to Peter’s house. Edison and Leslie kept their marriage funds and instead focused on their work while trying to keep each other safe.

Toast himself had been working nonstop in his department. Sometimes he was sick of what he was doing, spinning the grotesque tales into that of a sensation, an entertainment. But that was the risk of entering this industry, and he had no say in it. He didn’t know how much longer he could keep his cool before he broke down. He might appear as if he was unbothered, but Toast had always been the type to overthink and overanalyze everything around him. His worry over his family and his close friends, his partner, at times rendered him breathless for some moments.

Amidst the hectic working schedule, trying to keep up with the curfew, the increase of danger in Jimmy’s work, they nearly forgot about Sykkuno at all.

It wasn’t until Jimmy came home one night, smile strained and the set of his shoulders tense, that the subject of the unknown doctor came into light once more. He gathered the three of them in the living room after their mother was asleep.

“What happened?” Jenny asked, as worried as Toast over Jimmy’s safety and well-being.

“They’re hunting Sykkuno down,” Jimmy said, and it was clear that he was confused about it. “The command is kept only to specific people, and I’m one of them since I was the one who informed them about Sykkuno's involvement. I don’t understand. One moment they said to keep this down, and they didn’t do anything about him, and now they want him captured. The higher-ups specifically told us to bring him in alive. What’s up with that?”

“But you don’t have to be involved in this one,” Toast said, almost desperate. “You’re a detective, not a police officer, Jimmy. Don’t get too close.”

Jimmy gave him a wry smile. “I think it’s a bit too late for that.”

A few days after that news, a new world of horror shook the state.

Toast wouldn’t really put his thought into it if he were someone else, if he didn’t know about this whirlwind of a case, if he wasn’t one of the few who was aware of the actual horror happening in the state. If he didn’t know about the joke the three of them had uttered months ago. It felt so long ago, when it happened. But the thought resurfaced when Toast heard about the report.

There was a recording of a man, clad in messy attire. He seemed to be dirty all over, he walked in stumbles, and he was silent as well. There was no movement from his mouth whatsoever when the cashier on the gas station where it happened asked him about something. There was a sudden fear, on the cashier’s face, when she took a good look at the customer. Not so long after that, the most horrifying thing happened: the man jumped onto the counter, and yanked her head until it snapped. Her neck was bent in unnatural angle, body limp and hanging from the hold he had on her hair. And then, as if they were living in a cheap horror novel that somehow came to life, he bent down on her neck.

At first, they had thought of it as sexual assault and homicide. Before it was apparent that the man wasn’t moving from his spot on her neck, and her body had turned ashen; her mass thinning, and her skin slowly stuck to her bones from the lack of blood that coursed through it. Only then, that the man let her go. He walked out of the gas station, as if nothing happened, and disappeared around the corner, out of the watch of the CCTV camera.

There was no way, no way in hell, that it was human. No human could do that in a blink of an eye, no human would be capable of literally sucking the blood out of someone so fast. No human would do that as if it was just another lunch to have instead of murder. That was a monster, and of that, Toast was sure.

The thoughts of zombies, of vampires, of every single monster out of the fairy tale now encircled his mind. He felt so mundane, so stereotypical of those people who had done the same much, much earlier than the spread of the record. The brutal murders were still happening all over the state, but the cases like the one on the recording was also starting to pile up in abundance all over.

What made it worse, what made people gasp in horror and be wrapped up in panic and fear, was that almost every victim of the blood-sucking monster was nowhere to be found after that. No one had taken them anywhere, no, it was much worse. A few hours after they were dead, they got up and walked out themselves. They came back to life, just like that.

Toast was almost nauseous. He remembered what Jimmy said on the night of the fire. This is madness. It was indeed a madness. No one could explain it, no one had any answer, and no one was free from the fresh wave of fear that had gripped the state anew. Whatever it was out there, they weren’t human, they were hostile, and they were coming for them.

This wasn’t just a case of kidnapping, wasn’t a case of brutal murder, wasn’t just a confusing case of the unknown doctor. This was chaos; this was an apocalypse waiting to happen at the slightest shift of the wind. Toast thought, that maybe it was already happening. They were hit with the force of it, and there was no escape, no way to fend themselves, none whatsoever.

Hilariously, ironically, ominously, the end of the world started out as a joke. Right now, it was their worst nightmare coming out to life, and no one would be spared from the horror of this tragedy. No one.

#video blogging rpf #shiki writes #from ao3 #toastkkuno #disguisedtoast #sykkuno #chaptered fic #apocalypse #post apocalyptic #discontinued work

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