A Question Better Left Unasked
After we decided to change locations, the three of us (plus our captive) found ourselves back within the confines of the old school building. The reason being was quite simple, currently, if you take into account our current predicant, the old school building was the safest location available to us.
Up until a week ago, this portion of the school was left undisturbed by most of the students that took up space within the main building, so I figured they’d be sowhat apprehensive about venturing into this location. And as an after thought, even if they did approach our location, and we were sohow dragged into a fight, we would have the undeniable advantage, considering the fact that our group was much more familiar with the location.
“...”
Currently, we were in an old chemistry lab that was located near the skyway that connected the old and main buildings together. This chemistry lab was rundown, and broken. With the desks trashed, the blood splattered and the corpses ever present, it was just like every other room in within this half destroyed edifice.
As I thought about our current situation while surveying this grueso room, I couldn’t help but outwardly mutter,
“If that slanty eyed kid really did go and report us to his boss… then by now, they should probably be searching the hallways for us.”
“....”
“They’ll probably start by looking for us around the place where we ran into the others...”
“....”
“ If they keep searching, then in all likelihoods-”
“Hey, Hide?” My self indulgent muttering was abruptly stopped by a sudden voice towards my left.
“Huh?” I turned my head towards the noise, only to see Hina. She was looking down with an absent minded face that could not mask the worries she had. She was sitting on the floor, her knees brought close to her chest as she stared directly at the ground.
Without turning to face , she once again spoke, “Hide…” She muttered. Her face was a bit colder than usual. Truthfully, the gap between her usual facade and the current her was quite a sight to see.
I couldn't help but stare at her, waiting for her to continue speaking.
After a quick intake of breath and a slight pause, Hina finally spoke and said, “”Hide… are you prepared….”
I looked at her questioningly. “Prepared?”
“No, I an-” For the first ti in a while, she turned to look at . “-Can you kill people?”
I wordlessly looked at her for a mont before I broke eye contact and my gaze naturally floated up onto the ceiling. One second quickly turned to one minute, one turned to two, and so on. After quite so ti had passed, I outwardly sighed.
While my gaze still fixated on that one splotch of red above , I replied back, “I’m not sure…”
The question she asked was rather… difficult. At least it wasn’t sothing that I could just answer carelessly. “Killing people is… Killing people is sothing I haven’t put a lot of thought into.”
That was a lie.
Killing people is sothing I’ve thought greatly about. Morals and such, the things our society has ingrained into us since birth… the taboos of killing- of murder… it’s obvious I’d have so hesitation, yet, in my current situation, the possibility where I might have to end a life- not a monster’s life, but an actual human’s…
Since I didn’t want to lapse into silence again, I continued speaking. While giving of a bitter smile, I turned back to look at Hina. Her face was stern, while her eyes stared directly back at .
For a mont I hesitated. For a mont, I thought about not replying, about just brushing off this whole conversation, but as expected… after seeing the type of expression she was making…
“While I haven’t thought about it… there’s no use brooding too much.” I wanted to give her an answer that would comfort her. Not the truth to my real thoughts. “If however… if however a ti ca where I- no, what I an to say is… I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.”
My response was kind of weak and vague. Nevertheless, my words had so layer of truth to it. The only ti when I’m certain I can kill a person, is when it actually happens. Other than that, they were just worries and trouble which I would rather not distract myself with.
Even after I said my peace, Hina still stared at . Her eyes still fixated on my own, as if she wanted to ascertain the validity of my words.
After a while, in a sowhat downcasted voice, she finally spoke. “If you can help it… I hope you don’t kill anyone.”
“....”
“I-it’s not that I don’t understand, I an with the current situation, a ti where you- where we will ha-have to kill is…” She bit down on her lip, enough so that it caused a trickle of blood to flow down her small lips, travel along her pale chin and stain the floor below. “I understand, I understand, really I do, but it’s just…”
I sowhat understand too. The aning behind Hina’s words, her troubles. I understand a bit of what she wanted to convey. I nodded, sowhat halfheartedly, “Yeah, I kind of get it….”
Upon my vague response, Hina helplessly shook her head. As if she was trying to say ‘You don’t understand at all’, the corners of her mouth creased until they ford a frown. “No, it’s not about understanding, I just- I feel that… if you really do kill, if a ti really does co where you’ll have to kill soone… I feel that…. I feel that you’ll lose sothing… sothing important.”
She paused for a minute, and in doing so, broke of the eye contact she had maintained. As an after thought to her previous words, she spoke again, this ti in a quiet, almost imperceptible voice, “... at least that’s what I think…”
-I’ll lose sothing important huh?
I couldn’t help but sigh upon hearing those words.
I gave of another bittersmile, my only response to Hina’s heartfelt worries, as my mind mulled over her words.
-In the end… maybe it might be better of if I do lose that sothing… if its for the sake of surviving…
In truth, I felt that, for a while now, life had lost a lot of what made it special. After seeing so many corpses, imagining how quickly those corpses -those people lost their lives, life’s radiance… or sothing similar to that… isn’t it a bit tainted at this point? Surely, taking another person’s life at this point… isn’t sothing so important…at least, not anymore.
While Hina once again turned silent and her gaze drifted off towards the floor once more, and while her receding thoughts caused the gears in my mind to start turning, an unexpected person suddenly interjected.
“...n.”
It was quiet. A quiet, faint, almost imperceptible voice. So soft it was next to impossible to make out what she had said. Although, such a thing was natural by this point, after all the speaker was soone with such a habit.
I turned towards the source of the “whisper”.
The jet black ss of hair was a familiar sight, but the determination in her eyes that laid behind that ss of hair was sowhat surprising.
At first, her words had been so soft that it was almost as if she hadn’t spoken at all, but Cielle’s voice unexpectedly grew as they repeated themselves and once again spoke.
“I will…”
Her words were incomplete, but obviously conveyed sothing important.
Even Hina knew this, although from the frown in her face, it looked as if she didn’t acknowledge the weight behind those simple words.
As if testing her own sister, in a sowhat grave tone, Hina asked, “ You will what?”
It was a challenging sort of voice, as if it goaded Cielle not to respond. But in the end, Cielle didn’t back down. While looking directly into Hina’s own eyes, from under that curtain of black hair, Cielle solemnly stated 4 words that conveyed more aning than it should.
“I will kill people.”
“...”
“...”
Hearing such a declaration, of course anyone would be shocked. Such heavy weighted words to co from such a small figure. The proportionate weight on her back would be comparable to Atlas carrying the Earth.
Hina in this regard was probably the most shocked. Despite the fact that she might have already interpreted Cielle’s earlier implications, to have them idealized in such a resolved speech… The little sister could only stare wide eyed at the determined older sister in front of her.
While maintaining that sa eye contact, Cielle abruptly broke it after 2 seconds, before she shot a brief glance in my direction.
It was only for an instant, only for a ti fra of less than one second, but sothing in her eyes were…breath taking...
Before I could think about what those eyes were trying to convey, Cielle had already turned back around to look at Hina.
In a louder than usual voice that gave of the simultaneous feeling of wanting to be heard, yet at the sa ti, wanting to be ignored, she spoke out once more.
“If… If it’s for the sake of living…” She paused, and in an even quieter voice continued, “... or for protecting…” Her tone once again picked up, and in a voice incomparable to her usual self, she stated almost defiantly, “... then I can kill.”
“....”
As if to convince herself, she repeated, “I can kill.”
As if to convince her sister, she repeated, “I can kill”.
As if to convince the very people she was prepared to kill, she once again repeated,
“I can kill.”
“....”
I helplessly sighed. Except for a rather awkward smile, I couldn’t really respond to such a declaration.
Before my mind could think about it any further, sothing quickly brought my attention towards the supply closet located towards the back of the classroom.
For a mont, I just stared at that beaten door fra before I lethargically stood up. While dusting of the dirt and gri that had collected on my pants, I said, “ We can talk about all this later… but for now, it seems like our guest is waking up.”
****
(Perspective Change)
“Ugh….”
An involuntary groan escaped from the throat of a single girl. That girl was of course, Cher.
At first she felt groggy. A similar feeling to that of jet lag, the feeling of lethargy consud every ounce of muscle in her body.
Additionally, her head was a bit fuzzy, but not because she just woke up. No, this feeling was imnsely different from the sa type of grogginess one feels upon waking up from an afternoon nap.
It stems purely from the fact that she hadn’t eaten anything at all in 3 days. The fuzziness of starvation.
As the girl slowly regained consciousness, the first thing she noticed was the feeling of slight pain in her abdon. In the face of such pain, she couldn’t do much but simply grunt through it until she quickly realized that it was a bit a bit hard for her to breath.
Panic at first consud her, before she eventually cald down. Although it was difficult, sothing like dying from lack of air was currently impossible.
Not minding the pain and obvious discomfort, with hazy eyes, she looked around the room and frowned.
-Where is this?-
That’s the first thing that flashed through her mind as she further inspected the room.
A room filled to the brim with equipnt she was once familiar with. From flasks, beakers, a small heater, Cher quickly recognized and identified each and every piece of equipnt that entered her gaze. From the ones stacked on the shelves, to the ones that poked out of discarded boxes, the sense of familiarity she felt was indistinguishable.
This was an obvious feeling that stemd from the fact that Cher used to be an avid Chemistry student. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say Chemistry was her best subject.
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As she looked around the room, her attention was drawn by one familiar looking object to her right.
It’s a flask, one that had been left unused even before the apocalypse. A small, yet visible crack was apparent on the see through container. The crack ran down from the top end of the flask and traveled all the way down its neck.
Seeing this crack, Cher’s dry lips parted into a small smile.
This crack was sothing she made… she was certain of it. At the ti, a similar break had occurred... It was a small incident, but she was quickly reminded of a certain day in a certain class where she had dropped a certain object, causing a certain crack to occur.
While it was a distant, and fading mory, her body moved almost automatically, as she couldn’t help but lean over in an attempt to better inspect the solitary flask.
thud
Unfortunately, as she leaned closer towards the flask on the shelf, her body naturally lost balance and her chin landed squarely on the tiled floor, causing the bitter taste of blood to spread through out the inside of her mouth.
It was then that she finally noticed she was currently restrained.
More specifically, Cher’s hands were tied behind her back. From what it felt like, the restraints used were probably old strips of cloth, which, albeit weak, was enough to fully restrain her weakened self. In addition, her legs were also tied together, probably by the sa type of cloth her hands were restrained with.
Whether it be a stroke of good luck, or whether it was intentional, her captor had left her mouth unrestrained, although it wasn’t like she had the strength to yell. And even if she did, it's not like anyone would co save her.
As such an idle thought passed through her mind, Cher couldn’t help but crack a self deprecating smile.
She sighed and stared aimlessly at the ground.
By this point, so bit of ti had passed since she regained consciousness, and slowly, the mories of what transpired earlier in the day ca back.
The first thing she can recall was the matter for her earlier distress. It was a faint mory of her BOSS.
The image of the black haired, seemingly harmless looking youth as he ceremoniously devoured the last bit of food their group had for himself. When she saw such selfish actions transpire, the rage and frustration she felt at the ti wasn’t a joke. But in the face of the youth’s unchallenged strength and his equally as frightening lack of regard for life, Cher could only grit her teeth and rub her stomach as the youth consud the last morsels of nutrition.
If that already wasn’t bad enough, she along with the other three, had been ordered to retrieve the
stashed food that their group had hidden away earlier.
Really, it was such a sudden declaration, that she didn’t even have ti to protest before they were kicked out of the base. In the end, for Cher, it was the sa old thing.
Being ordered around, trampled on, being treated as nothing more than a gopher… such treatnt was the norm for her, ever since the countdown ended… No, saying such a thing would be a lie.
In truth, her terrible life style of a good for nothing gopher had truly started the mont she joined with BOSS.
Back before there were two groups within the main building, originally, there had been only one, giant group which took up stock within the cafeteria.
After a major skirmish occurred, a faction of the students broke off from the original group. This group was of course, led by BOSS, and before they completely separated, they had taken the opportunity to steal more than 2/3rds of the original food supply that the cafeteria had.
At the ti, Cher, who was stuck in the middle of the crossfire, had decided to part with the original group as well, and join up with the BOSS.
Lanting over it now, that may have been the worst decision she made in her entire life. But at the ti, it couldn’t really be helped.
After all, the temptations were too great.
The BOSS’s group only consisted of at most, 20 people, while the Cafeteria had close to 50. Normally, it would have been much more favorable to join up with the much larger group, after all, there is safety in numbers. But the factor that tipped the scale was food. After the skirmish, the BOSS had managed to secure close to 2/3rds of the total reserves with in the cafeteria.
Naturally, anyone remotely intelligent would see the imdiate benefits in joining up with the smaller group.
Although, in the end, the results were… less than favorable.
For one thing, the Boss was terrible at pacing. Although their group was smaller, their consumption rate was a bit too high. In addition, the Boss himself was a terrible example of a human.
It was common fact within their group that the Boss hogged most of the food for himself, and threatened anyone who opposed. Although in truth, to Cher and to many of the people in her group, the Boss’s actions just gave him a reason to attack others. After all, the Boss loved to kill. Whether it be monsters or humans, he loved to killing anything and everything.
As these dark mories encircled Cher’s thoughts, translucent droplets of liquid began forming near her eyes. Just thinking about everything was too much for her, and she couldn’t help but sniffle at her miserable life.
If only she had been brave enough to steal from the boss, she wouldn’t be so hungry. If only she had even a tiny bit of courage, she wouldn’t be so miserable.
Despite that though, there really was no helping it. Cher was a cowardly woman. The type to grovel and lick another person’s feet if it ant living for another day. The type to abandon their pride and purity for survival.
She would have never been able to pull of sothing such as betraying the boss or stealing the food for herself. After all, every ti she even began to harbor such thoughts, the ntal image of the Boss- of the long haired, glasses wearing youth, who killed people in such a nonchalant matter would surface, and she couldn’t help but quake in fear.
She reluctantly sighed, and inwardly whispered, “In the end, this is the type of situation I end up in…”
Taking captive by a frightening, “monster”. Normally, she’d be a damsel in distress, and there would undeniably be a prince to co rescue her. But unfortunately, her life wasn’t so smooth.
Giving of a bitter laugh, she lanted.
Now that she had ti to think, she wasn’t so scatter brained (crazy) anymore. Back then, intense fear and constant gnawing hunger had driven her close to the breaking point, but after her little nap, much of her rationale had co back, resurfaced like the shoreline after a high tide.
In the end, despite how she interpreted it, this was still quite a bad situation for her.
Having been captured by so unknown person whom she had never ever seen before…
Cher dejectedly sighed, but despite her darkening thoughts, tried to look at the bright side of things.
“At the very least, its not BOSS…”
While these almost comforting words escaped her throat, at the sa ti, she began reevaluating her earlier thinking.
-Co to think of it, the one who attacked us… he was pretty strong too...
Before anymore dark thoughts about her captor could surface, the slight rattling of a doorknob consud her attention.
Within the next second, the door casually opened and a boy- the sa boy whom she was just thinking about, walked into the room.
Cher couldn’t help but gulp as she focused in on the new person.
In the boy’s right hand was a paint bucket, which contained a liquid that sloshed with each step he took. Although it was hard to tell, but the liquid was black.
-Black paint?
As to why the boy would bring along a bucket of black paint, she didn’t know, but before she could think any deeper on the matter, the object in the boy’s other hand drew her attention.
A black, almost glistening long sword with a rather thin handle. It was undeniably her friend’s cherished long sword, which he had gotten after a monster had coincidentally dropped it.
She frowned at its appearance, but she wasn’t stupid enough to bring the topic up.
Watching his every step, Cher observed the youth approach, until he was directly in front of her.
The boy looked down with an ice cold, indifferent expression. For a mont, he just stood there and stared at her. Cher did the sa, maintaining eye contact as every second passed. Truth be told, the reason why Cher managed to hold the youth’s stare wasn’t due to so false bravado, but rather, she was simply too frightened to look away.
Frozen in fear, like a deer in the headlights, she couldn’t do anything but stare.
FInally, after a while, the boy broke his glare first, as he then carefully placed the liquid down in front of her.
From this distance, she could fully see the contents of the bucket. She stared directly into its depths and… shivered.
The shiver in her spine, the tingling in her feet, even the goosebumps that had ford wasn’t due to fear, but rather, because they sohow reminded her of the night sky. A mass of pure black with dots and specs of the occasional white.
Truly it was as if the contents of the bucket itself were the sky.
-Its been awhile since I properly looked at the night sky…
As such a thought floated harmlessly through her head, the youth suddenly pulled out a tallic object from behind him.
Upon closer inspection, the object was a sort of ladle like item.
Cher recognized that item. It was sothing she was quite familiar with. The ladle was sothing similar to what her Chemistry class had used during one chemistry lab. The event had happened about three weeks ago, but to the current her, it seed like a lifeti ago.
As the boy carefully dipped the ladle into the bucket, Cher instinctively squird back. She pushed against the tiled floor and backed away until her spine collided with the cold surface of the wall. The reason why she moved wasn’t because of the youth’s sudden action, but because of his face.
In an instant, a smiling face occupied the boy’s own, but from Cher’s perspective, that face was frightening. The eyes which he looked at her with were lifeless, empty, almost devoid of emotion.
Without uttering a single word, the boy slowly pulled the ladle out from the black bucket, carrying with it, a portion of its contents. The smaller portion jiggled from atop the spoon. Although it was hard to tell, the liquid wasn’t as smooth flowing as water, rather, it had a consistency akin to syrup… or jello.
Slowly, carefully, the boy raised the ladle up until it was directly over her exposed thigh. The ladle hanged ominously until her captor slowly tilted the ladle over, causing the mass of black to slowly drip down.
As the darkness approached her exposed flesh, Cher could do nothing but stare, wondering what exactly the dark liquid was. Slowly, ever so slowly, it approached, it drew closer and closer, until...
-She entered a world of pain.
****
Author's Note:
Hopefully, things are picking up at this point, and a big conclusion towards the whole school arc will co soti in the near future. I plan on wrapping up this "1st Book" pretty soon, so just heads up.
Also, please comnt, follow, favorite, rate, and review, if you like this story. Thanks, as an author, its one of the driving things that push , that and of course, the pure urge to write this story. >_
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