Houses of Ice - VIII

[celestos]

Gore, etc warning.

If Shou said something as she screamed, then Rei did not hear it, and she did not hear anything else that came after.

Everything - everything was a mess. There were knives in hands and a corpse on the ground, and blood that dripped still, not just from the knife or Shou’s hands as they shook, clutching the weapon.

There was blood where there should not have been blood.

Judai. Judai?

Rei’s mind scrambled to put together the pieces. Her vision was far from stable. Her heart threatened to stop the moment she heard the clattering of the knife on the ground, or Shou’s footsteps as he ran towards her, calling her name. What stood out was that Judai was still. Her eyes were on him, and only on him as the pieces of the broken-up jigsaw pushed and clicked and came together inside, as much as she wished that what she was seeing could not be the truth.

Judai. The corpse.

He’s turned, hasn’t he - or, no, when - when did he -

“You’re… you’re like he said, he - “ The scream erupted like fire from her throat.  “You - you’re…”

“Rei! Wait!” Shou cried, throwing the knife in his hands to the ground. It clattered, the sudden noise making Rei wince. “Wait, it’s not - it’s not what you - “

He tried to step forward towards her, but she stepped away. Her heart could not stay still inside of her. She was going to scream, or be sick - which one of the two would come first, she didn’t know, and couldn’t begin to guess, not after what she had seen, and what she was still seeing. Judai, in front of her, was still on his knees, hands on the ground, mouth and chin a bright, bloody red.

He ate him. He ate him.

He’s not human, Rei knew. He’s not - he never has, all this time…

“You lied! You… you monster! You monster!”

Her hands trembled, longing to grab at Judai’s neck and snap it, or choke him, force him to suffocate and drown in blood, like he deserved. He deserved all of the pain - all of it, for lying to her, for keeping her thinking that she had been cared for. They had all lied. Shou had stood by and watched him cut open a corpse, and sink his teeth into it, and she had been lied to.

“You monster,” she repeated. “You… I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you…”

She had nothing but air in her hands. Fists clenched, blood rushing through her and the voice in her head telling her to fight, or else. She was going to die at his hands, she realised. The others had all deceived her, and it made sense why.

We’ll look after you. We care about you…

You cared for me because I was human. Because I have flesh. Because you just wanted to… to use me…

“I’ll kill you. I’ll kill you. You want to eat me too, right?” She called, stepping back again as Shou tried to step closer. Her eyes were fixed on Judai alone. How he was still on the ground, and not springing at her like the beast he had become, with blood on his hands and teeth, she could not imagine, but he was dangerous even when he was down on the ground. Every breath he had taken, every word he had said - all of it had been oozing with lies and deception, and Shou and Asuka had lied to her alongside him…

“I’ll kill you. I won’t… I won’t…”

“Rei, listen, stop. I - I promise, I can explain everything - “

“You lied!” Rei lashed out, arm swinging out. Shou’s face was just out of reach. “You lied to me. You made me think you all cared for me. And you did. You just… you just wanted fresh meat.”

“He’s not like that. I promise.”

“He’s not like that? He’s like that, don’t lie!” Her hand pointed at Judai, still a bloody mess on his knees. “He’s just like that. You lied. You just… you wanted him to eat me, that’s why! Or you’d eat me, I understand, you’re all monsters…”

Her feet wouldn’t move, but she wanted to run, wherever she could. It didn’t matter where she would end up. Anywhere would be safer, anywhere - anywhere but where she was, next to a liar and a monster who would have eaten her had she stayed clueless any longer. Anywhere would be better, the thoughts rang out clear in her mind. Anywhere - even out there, back in her cold, empty house, without so much as a mouthful of food left.

I should have died. I should have died way back then, but I thought - I thought…

“Rei.”

She froze. Judai was heaving himself up from the ground. Red hands rested on the blue of his jeans. Stains remained. One sleeve was wiping at his mouth, the gore and stains smearing.

“Rei,” he said again as he stood, his eyes looking up to meet hers. “I… I’m sorry.”

They were the same eyes she had known - but eyes she could no longer trust. Lying eyes. Monster eyes. The eyes of a dead man walking, of one who had consumed human flesh.

Behind the eyes, Rei knew, could only be madness.

“You’re one of them,” she screamed. “You’re one of them. You’ve been - all along! You’re a monster. You lied. And…” She paused, trying to muster enough poison to spit. Her throat ached from within. Her saliva was bitter. “…and for everything. I… I hope…”

The words were stuck on her tongue.

“…I hope…”

“Rei?”

“I hope you choke!”

She turned and ran.

It was too much. Tears clouded her vision. Heavy, tired feet beat against the pavement, heart rushing. Where she was going, she did not know, wherever her feet would take her would do - and she couldn’t stop, not for her own sanity, not to stop the pain in her throat stabbing her through her breathing.

The moon above gazed down like a searchlight from a still helicopter - and how she wished it would move. All that shifted around her was the sights ahead, left and right, and her shadow, dull and stark in alternation as she ran from darkness into light into darkness again. Squeezing her eyes shut, she wished for everything to have been a dream. She prayed to wake up.

I can’t. I’m awake. I saw everything. They lied, they all lied to me, he’s not human, he’s one of them, and I saw it, I saw everything…

The memory, vision stark-red as blood in her head, made her stomach turn. She was going to be sick.

Throat dry, gasping for air, she stumbled over. Her hands reached out, hitting back against the cold of a lamp-post. Rei’s knees buckled beneath her. She let out a cry as she hit the ground. The concrete scraped at her knees, through her jeans. Teeth gritted, she let out only gasps.

She couldn’t breathe. Whatever was twisting her stomach was at work in her chest, pressing and pressing. Tears streamed from her eyes. Thoughts came together and broke apart, all at once.

He’s not human. He’s a monster. He eats human flesh. He can’t be human. He lied, they lied, they said they cared, but they didn’t - that’s why, isn’t it?

She dreaded the thought, but swallowed it down with the dread. It made sense.

They were breaking in. They were looking for people to eat. And they took me in… he was there… they were waiting… and when I died…

Rei let out a wail.

Her body was screaming with pain. The pain in her throat felt like a stab. She could not cry or even breathe without pain, but her body moved on its own, still and broken, clinging on to the useless lamppost above like a friend, or a lover, too cold and too dead to touch her back. Nobody could comfort her. She was alone. She had been lied to, and she was alone.

Run. I have to -

Her limbs would not listen. They clung, fingers sticking to the metal shaft of the light. It was cold, but her chest was wild with heat, and it brought a strange sense of comfort through the thick of her hoodie. It was cold and she hated it; it was still and bitter and unloving, but it was better, she decided, to freeze alone than to be consumed by a traitor, a monster, or whatever she had left behind, and would not come back to.

Still, let me run…

She heaved, but her knees would not lift off the ground. Groaning, she fell back down, forehead against the pole. Her hands scratched on the pavement. Rei winced. Skin scraped.

No… they’ll come… they’ll eat me… what if…

Her thoughts were fuzzy. She could not move, and it hurt her to breathe. There was no sound in her ears, only pain and harsh breathing.

All of them… what if… what if all of them…

That’s it, Rei realised. That’s how I’ll die.

She would sleep out here, and they would find her alone, and put her out of her misery. She would be food for the morning, nothing more than blood and flesh and something that had once been the remains of a human.

I’m dying, she thought, shutting her eyes, her hands faltering and the pole slipping out of her reach.  I’m dying. They’ll kill me. Maybe then I’ll be home…

“Rei!”

They’re coming. I’m dying. I’m going to die.

“Rei!”

Come on then, kill me, like you wanted me to die all along…

“Rei!”

Warm, strong arms wrapped themselves around her waist. Rei let out a scream. Desperately, she thrashed in the grasp, arms and legs pushing and shoving. One leg hit something, and the gasp made Rei jump. Blood rushing through every inch of her being, she turned around, still almost flat on the concrete.

“Rei…”

Asuka breathed out, stumbling onto all fours. If it hurt, then Rei did not see it. Long hair, washed out into white by the moon, trailed past the folds of her clothes, nestling in the hood of her coat. Her hands were still clad in gloves. She could not see her face, hidden behind a curtain of hair.

Monster - monster, Rei thought with a bolt, just like him…

“Rei. Stop, please,” Asuka choked out. Her own breaths were heavy, chest moving up and down with the strain of her sprint. One hand reached to move her hair out of her eyes, and the look that met Rei’s own mirrored hers. The eyes that stared back were the same as she had known, just as troubled, just as lost and shattered, alone on the streets in the dark.

“Please,” she said, heaving. “Please, don’t run. Please, listen.”

“…No,” Rei replied. “I… I can’t.”

She wanted to shout, to hit her and beat her until she begged, until she admitted the truth, but her hands would not come into fists. Skin stung, the scraped bleeding red on her palms. Her heart was still racing.

“Rei, I… I’m sorry. About everything.”

“You better be,” she spat, a beastly growl mixing in with the spit in her words. “You better be. You’re a liar. You… you all lied.”

“Rei.”

“You’re a liar. I thought I could trust you.”

“I - I swear…”

“Swear what?”

Rei turned around with a swerve. Asuka was still on the ground, as if pleading. Her eyes were locked on to hers, still as anxious, still as confused, and as confusing. The sick feeling that swirled in her stomach ebbed and flowed still.

“I… I swear, we did it to save you.”

She looked desperate as she said it, a drop of either sweat or a tear streaking down one cheek.

Rei stopped. Crocodile tears, liar, liar, the voice in her head repeated at her, but it was harder to stomach this time. Trying hard not to cry herself, she shut off the sounds in her mind. It hurt to think; it hurt to do anything, even to breathe.

“Save… me?”

“Yes. I promise. We… we didn’t want to alarm you. We thought you would never find out. We were wrong, and I know that. I know now,” Asuka mumbled, losing sounds under what Rei knew now were tears, “I know. I know, but believe me, we tried…”

Tried. For what?

I’m not a child, Rei thought. You kept things quiet, because of me - but you kept him around. You kept a flesh-eating monster around. He could have killed and eaten you. He could have killed and eaten me - no…

The thoughts all came flooding back; the memories, a grey, stony ceiling above, scattered bags, a cold floor below. She thought back to the day they had found her, and she had woken up in the back room of the grocery store. Judai had been next to her, kneeling over her body.

She had been wanting to die for days. She had been starving. She had collapsed.

What if - what if -

“You… you wanted me to die, didn’t you?”

It made sense, all of a sudden - why he had been there, closest of all, and why they had brought her into the room. He had kneeled over her. He had been so alarmed when she had turned out to have lived.

He had been waiting for prey.

“Rei - no, I promise, we didn’t - “

“No. That’s why he was there. Back then - you brought me in so you’d have a fresh corpse for him to eat, if I died… That’s all I was. That’s all I am, right?”

Groaning, she pushed herself up. Her leg urged to kick, to beat Asuka for every lie, every bit of deception she and the others had been feeding her for weeks on end, hoping she would die soon. They had fed her and clothed her as part of the lie; if she died then, she would have died a little less dirty and a little less thin, even better to be eaten, torn apart like all she was good for.

“I’m just food to him. For a monster, aren’t I?”

Asuka stayed down. Now, the little voice said in Rei’s mind. She’s helpless. She lied. You can kill her if you like, beat her to death…

“No.”

Asuka was choking on tears, but she was not silent. Rei paused. Small as she was, she towered above. On her knees, the older girl was helpless; broken, alone. Rei knew she had power. Power was all that she had, and all that she needed to show her what she was. Her hands longed to ball into fists and her feet longed to kick. Mixed in with the spit on her lips was a thirst for revenge. She wanted blood.

She saw in her mind the blood of a liar dripping down on the floor. Judai can eat you, then. It’s what you deserve.

Her limbs would not move. They wanted to move. She stood, paralysed.

No. Why? Why can’t -

“No. I… I promise, Rei. I promise. You were family. You’re family to all of us, to Shou and Judai and me. You’re… you’re not food. You aren’t. That’s not - that’s not why, and I swear…”

“But you lied.”

“I… I know. I’m sorry, but…”

“He’s a monster,” Rei said. Why none of her could move, she did not know; but she heard the voice in her mind screaming, louder and louder, and winced, wishing it would shut up for once. She wanted to hear Asuka beg, before she left her to die - if she could let her - but the voice in her mind was too much, and there was reason screaming at her, and madness, and something else, as soft and caring as an old memory…

“He isn’t."

Asuka looked up. One hand swept her fringe from her eyes. The skin around them was vivid under the light. She didn’t move, still on her knees, as if submitting. Rei could not move either.

The pain deep inside was too much, the screams in her head too messed-up to be made sense of. Hopeless, she fell to her knees again. If it hurt, then she did not feel it.

Amongst the pain and the mess, some part of her wanted to listen.

Rei leaned in. Asuka took a breath in, bracing herself. Softly, her sobs seemed to grow quieter.

“Judai isn’t a monster, I-I promise,” she said, still sniffing weakly. “And… he’s not like the turned. I know he’s still human, or as human as possible. I don’t really know how or why, but… he’s both human, and not.”

Rei’s eyes widened. “…What?”

Never had she heard of both living and dead coexisting as one.

“Judai is both turned and still human at once. I don’t understand it myself. Maybe - maybe he’s neither now. We don’t know. Not even he does.”

“What do you mean?”

Asuka leaned in. A gentle hand caressed the back of Rei’s hair. Rei’s spine chilled at the touch. She wanted to pull back. Asuka stayed. The voice that came from her lips was a little cool - and somewhat severe. “You know what the symptoms are like.”

Wordlessly, Rei gave a nod.

She had seen many herself, and what she did not want to, or could not recall with her own eyes, she could think back to. She could remember words still; she could still hear, if she closed her eyes and focused enough, the terror of the days before the sickness had surged, the listing of horrors across every channel, and the voices of every announcer, trying and failing to veil their own panic.

Death out on the streets. No conscious thought. No memories. No chance for recovery. No cure, only death.

Headache, dry skin, nausea. After a few hours: spasms, vomiting, eventual loss of consciousness. Trials with antibiotics have proven unsuccessful. The final state is inevitable. No, not death, but mental and physical damage, irritation leading to cracked skin and bleeding, acidic saliva, and the same state of mind seen in other infected mammals…

“You see… it’s complicated. Not even he knows exactly what happened. He has symptoms, Rei. He got bitten.” Asuka said. “He got bitten, but he didn’t turn. Not properly. He doesn’t have all of the symptoms. There’s only a couple.”

Rei shook her head, trying to process all that was coming to her. “…A couple?”

“Yes,” Asuka nodded, sighing. “He doesn’t know why, but… he needs to do what he does. It’s not that he wants to. He remembers everything. He thinks. He’s alive, and he’s conscious, very much so.”

Conscious. It was not something Rei had considered. She thought of her parents. She had not heard a single voice through the thick of the wooden door, only groaning, and sounds that she did not want to think about - inhuman sounds, that the sight of Judai with blood on his mouth had only made her remember.  Conscious. He thinks.

Marty, she thought. Was that what Marty had been thinking, when he had gone into the living room? Had he thought of somehow bringing their parents back, only to fail?

Marty. I’m sorry.

She choked back the beginnings of tears.

“Rei, are you all right?” Asuka leaned in. “It’s all right. You can talk to me - “

“No,” Rei insisted. “I’m all right. I just started thinking.”

“About?”

“About my parents. They weren’t conscious, were they? When… when he killed them?”

It took effort for her to think back without crying. The glimpse she had gotten from the keyhole had become a scar in her brain. The reach of a hand, shadowed silhouette against the light from the window. Terrible sounds. Fingers that curled and uncurled, and reached deep into the body that lat on the ground.

Blood everywhere. Groaning. Lifeless, trailing - broken glass, knocked-over picture frames, some brown lilies from the anniversary of the week before, dead on the ground…

Marty. Oh my God, Marty…

It took a while before Asuka sighed, and gently, shook her head. “No. I’m sorry.”

It was becoming harder to think. What Asuka said had been clear to her, even before Rei had asked her the question, but knowing the answer - for definite, or as definite as anyone could make it, limited as they were - only made the feeling pressing down in her chest hurt that little bit harder. Her heart squeezed as she sat there, frozen in place, feeling nothing, thinking of nothing other than death, and what had happened to her parents.

When had they died? When the infection - airborne , she remembered the words from the television - had spread? When they had taken their first bite of flesh, and tasted the blood of their own child, screaming, only slowly coming to die on the ground? When the knives had gone into them? When they could not move any more, no matter how much was done?

Airborne, she thought. It was airborne, but Marty and I didn’t die… but if they bite us, it’s over, even if they don’t eat us…

It confused her, enough to make her stomach turn. Groaning, she tried to fight off the feeling. There were not enough answers.

Rei looked up. “Asuka?” She spoke only faintly, voice trembling.

“Yes?”

“How did it happen? I mean… was it just that? A bite?”

Rei looked down at her hands, hesitating. Judai’s existence - in his state, whatever he was, bright and alive and at once, one with the dead - made no sense, and it frightened her. Her arms were dotted with goosebumps under her sleeves, and they were not warm enough to stop her shuddering.

Asuka took a breath in. Her shoulders had drooped, far from the confident guardian she had appeared like, halfway through a fight, or standing, prepared, ready to jump if she saw a single thing move through her vision. She was scared, and for the first time in weeks, Rei felt the old feeling of something in her stomach stir, wallowing in her own worry.

“I don’t know,” Asuka breathed out, fingers trembling, locked together. “I wasn’t there when it happened. I only met with him and Shou after it. Shou told me. That’s all I know about it. It was just the two of them at the time. Something happened - some turned attacked them or something - and Judai got bitten. He got bitten, but he didn’t tell Shou about it.”

“But - isn’t that dangerous?”

Rei thought back to how frantic Shou had been, desperately hoping that she was unharmed and unbitten, and how Asuka had gotten him to calm down. It made sense, she realised. He had seen the effects of a bite - one that had not gone the way any of them had expected - but he was still anxious, still frightened.

If they bite you, you’ll turn. I promise. I’m going to be careful . It was what Marty had said, just before he had opened the door.

“I know. He… he’d have turned. He just didn’t. I don’t know how exactly it happened, or why. I wasn’t with them at the time.”

“Did Judai know? That he’d turn into… whatever he is now?”

Asuka shook her head. “I doubt it. He told me he didn’t know what went on. He said he didn’t think it had happened. There wasn’t much difference, and when we look at him now, there still isn’t.”

“What does he have?” Rei asked, trying hard to phrase it exactly. “I mean, what’s different between him and a human?”

No matter what, he’s still not one of us, she thought. He’s not human. He eats human flesh. That’s enough to make him a monster. If he got bitten, something else had to have changed.

What she had seen of him hadn’t quite made sense. Never, before today, had she ever imagined him as anything but human. Now, the truth had come out, and she knew she could never consider him the same as her, or Asuka and Shou, if they were just as human as her, never again.

Asuka paused, caught up in thoughts. “There isn’t much.”

“What is there?”

“I’m not sure. I think he told me his saliva’s a little acidic. It tastes weird, he said, but it’s not like the turned. Not strong enough. Sometimes, his skin gets dry, too, but… he’s human. At least, on the outside. I don’t know how much it could have changed him on the inside.”

“Does he go crazy? Like them?”

“…I… I don’t know how best to say that.”

Uncertain, Asuka bit her lip. Rei shivered, trying to sort out the thousand other questions swarming her mind.

“How did you find out? About it?”

“Shou told me,” Asuka sighed. “Judai didn’t know what had happened for a while. He tried to treat it like a normal injury. The mark’s healing, but it can’t go away.”

“Where is it?"

“His leg. About here.” Asuka gestured. Rei swallowed. She had never seen Judai in anything but jeans, just like she had never seen Shou without a shirt on.

“Judai isn’t like them, because he’s conscious. He told me he doesn’t want to - to eat,” she said the word with a shudder. Rei could feel the same discomfort creeping down through her veins, like a thousand small centipedes. “It’s like an instinct to him. Like… like laughing or crying. Or not wanting to die.”

Rei thought back to the days in her house. Her instincts had shut off by then, she thought. She had not wanted to eat, or to drink, and she knew that she stank, but she had not wanted to wash or to sleep. She had wanted to die, and the pain still tugged at her, at her belly and chest, and more than that sometimes. She had been fighting it. At Asuka’s house, sometimes, the feelings could shut up to be silent, but they would tug nonetheless.

“Not wanting to die?” Rei echoed back, trying not to think back to death any more. “Does he have to?”

“I think so. I don’t know why he would eat flesh if he didn’t have to. He hates it. He hates everything. Shou told me he used to break into houses with him all the time before he got bitten,” Asuka sighed. “He has to do it now. He has to do the killing himself. He can’t eat it if something’s rotten. He’s tried to avoid it, but… sometimes, I’ve had to remind him…”

There was something awful about the way Asuka spoke. It was a guilty voice, one that cared for a friend as much as it could force. That voice was shaken, and broken, and full of self-hatred.

“I… I don’t want him to die. Shou doesn’t either. And… sometimes, we have to do things we don’t like. Judai doesn’t like it, but it isn’t his fault. He never asked for it. He still doesn’t.”

“Does he get… hungry, then?” Rei said, the word tasting like bile on her tongue. Everything about it felt cruel, animalistic - inhuman.

“Yes. He doesn’t always tell us when he is, but… there’s signs. And we’d rather have him alive. He’s a friend to us. And I know he’s human, deep down. He doesn’t eat because he wants to. And I shouldn’t have - “

Her voice was beginning to tremble. Rei saw a gleam in her eyes.

“Asuka?”

She shook her head, hanging with guilt. “I shouldn’t have.”

“But - “ Rei looked back, confused.

“I made him,” Asuka confessed, spitting out tears. “I made him, but I had to. When we killed your parents. He needed to eat. He wasn’t in a good state. I was scared. I was scared… and I made him…”

“Wait, you - “

“If you want to be angry at him, then be angry at me. If he’s a monster, then so am I, because I let him live. But I know he’s human. I know.”

She looked back up, and suddenly, the pleading was no longer there. Insistence had replaced it. She was crying, but she looked so much stronger, so much more determined, and Rei found it harder to fight. Her hands clung, both begging for her to understand and to show her who she was. She was broken, but undefeated.

“We didn’t want you to die back then, so we helped you out. That’s what we wanted to do. Judai isn’t like that, but… he’s still important to us. He’s still human.”

The feeling set in. It felt strange, to think of Asuka as anything like Judai. She had seen Judai with blood on his hands, and blood where it should not have been. For Asuka to blame herself, it seemed almost wrong, as if it had been her there, picking at the dead man’s body. It was wrong. Rei did not want to think about it - but the way her voice tugged at her, as if begging for forgiveness, made her tense and pause.

He might be human…

“Will he die if he doesn’t?”

Asuka paused. “I don’t know, and I don’t want to find out. But we shouldn’t starve him. Things already went bad once.”

“Don’t tell me…” Rei backed off, instincts firing.

“There’s proof he’s still human. He isn’t contagious. It’s how Shou found out. Judai tried to hide it from him, and he… he didn’t eat. And things happened.”

She did not hesitate. Seeing Rei’s eyes widen, Asuka’s hand drifted up to her shoulder. Rei had seen Asuka without her sweater once, and knew there were no wounds. There had been nothing that had alarmed her then. There had been nothing to mark it out as any different from the rest of her skin, but it was not Asuka that Rei began to think of.

She thought of Shou and what she knew had been under his sleeve.

“Things… got bad.”

Rei shook her head, realising. The image grew, wild and blood-red. She wished it was not true, but she could envisage it clearly; white teeth sinking into muscle, scraping on bone. She could almost see acid burn as it seeped into the cut. The scream in the back of her mind felt disembodied, and she could not tell if it was her memory or her imagination: a scream from Marty - or Shou.

She knew, but spoke with such hesitation that she wished it was a lie. “You don’t mean…?”

“Yes. Only once. He’s been honest with us ever since. Even… even if it hurts to.”

Her eyes squeezed shut with the horror.

“Is… is Shou all right now?”

“Yes. He hasn’t been infected. At worst, Judai isn’t contagious.”

Rei gave a sigh, half-relieved and half-scared still. He could not infect anyone, if Asuka had been right, or Shou had not been an anomaly - but she did not want to know any more. The last thing she wanted was to fall, like Marty had.

“But why did you lie? About… about the break-ins. About Judai. About… about so many things?”

This time, she could see the guilt in the gloss of Asuka’s eyes. “We didn’t tell you because we didn’t want you to be frightened. We didn’t want you to be scared of us. We only wanted to help you, to protect you. If you found out, it would have scared you. And… and it did. I’m so sorry all of this happened.”

In the silence, she could hear her crying, hands moving up to conceal it. “Asuka -“

“Hurt me if you want. I’m not going to fight you. I said we wouldn’t harm you. And I’m keeping that promise. I won’t.”

“But… but you…”

She looked back suddenly, halfway through a sob.

“We won’t let you be harmed. We’re going to protect you, just like we promised. You’re our sister. Almost a daughter. You’re our junior. You’re young. You didn’t deserve this. We’re not going to let any harm come to you, and that includes from ourselves. And… and Judai knows that. That’s why we’re here.”

“But… you brought me out here… why? Don’t you want to use me to - ”

“No,” she almost shouted, voice breaking. “Trust me. We picked you up because we wanted to help you. Because we - we couldn’t let you be alone. We couldn’t let you die. You’re younger than us. And you’re a survivor. I know you’ve lost your family. We have, too. None of us have anyone left. And we want to help you, too. We couldn’t bear to leave you alone.”

“Shou said he had a brother,” Rei remembered.

“So did I. So did I…”

“They’re both dead, aren’t they? Shou told me his brother never came back.”

She never got a reply. The street was quiet, silence broken only by Asuka’s sobbing, and it was this time that Rei reached out. Her hands could not stay still. Her heart was tugging, tugging at her head to act, and she could not stop herself leaning in and wrapping her arm around Asuka’s back, just like she had done days ago, in the room with the bed.

Rei remembered what she had told her of Fubuki, and what Shou had said about Ryou. There were only four of them in the house - three living, one neither living nor dead - and there had been no other contact. All had gone quiet. The houses around them were empty, or reeking of death.

They were not coming back. Shou’s hope was probably empty, Rei realised.

She could do nothing. There was nothing but quiet. There was nothing out on the streets after dark, not even stray animals, if any of them had survived. It was only her and Asuka out there, for what felt like miles.

“Come… come on. Let’s go back,” Asuka finally spoke again.

Her eyes were still damp with tears, and her sleeve was no better. She was still hurting, Rei saw as she stood and her hand slipped from Asuka’s back, but she stood up all the same.

She was not sure if she wanted to. She did not want to see the sight of the corpse again. Whatever had happened to it after she had run was not something she wanted to think about.

Saying nothing, she gave a nod, and stood up with her.

The house was not far. When Rei had been running, she had felt like miles were behind her. The dark surroundings had been a flash. Walking through, she felt the roads become more familiar, and she realised how small everything was. The distance had not been long. Familiar railings gleamed in the moonlight. Leaves rustled gently in the evening wind.

The body was no longer there by the time they returned.

The curtains were shut in the house. What was beyond them, Rei could not see. When Shou was awake in the evenings, he would light candles, but the curtains were too thick to make out even faint light.

Asuka opened the door. Rei went inside after her, without so much as a word. She saw Asuka head into the kitchen, and thought of following. Her mouth was dry. The last thing she had eaten were barely edible crackers. She would take something, she decided, then sleep.

Her shoulder brushed against the doorframe to the living room, and she stopped. There was a little light coming from the gap between door and frame.

Rei stopped. A little anxious, she pushed it open. Inside was dark, lit up by two candles. Both stood on the small table, on either side. The light drew warm lines down fabrics and smooth wood, fuzzed over plump cushions and things left on the floor from the day.

She gasped as she saw the shape on the couch. Judai was sat there, head in his hands.

“I’m sorry,” she squeaked, as politely as she could. Her heart was beginning to race. Slowly, Judai looked up.

“…Rei?”

There was no blood on his face, nor anything on his hands but warm light. He had taken his jacket off, but she could not see much of his shirt. Creeping closer, unable to stop herself, Rei tiptoed in. The door creaked behind her, until she was left in the room with the candles, and Judai, and the rest of the darkness.

Her foot hit a cushion on the floor. Seeing it, she sat down, hands in her lap. He was almost above her as he kept his place on the couch.

“What are you doing here?”

“…Thinking,” he groaned.

It was not quite enough. Rei knew it was madness, but she could not stop herself standing up again, taking the cushion with her for comfort. There was space on the couch, next to him, and she took it. The feeling of someone else on the couch made Judai look up. In the light of the candles, his face was barren, the only thing filling it something like shock.

She was sitting next to a monster. Rei swallowed, but did not move any more.

“Think, then.”

It was the only thing she could say. She knew it was selfish. Saying nothing, she waited for some kind of answer. It did not come for a long time.

The clock ticked on, the air cooling with silence.

“…I’m sorry. I’m sorry you had to see that.” Judai finally spoke up. Seeing no response, he backed off a little. His voice quietened. “Sorry for bringing it up again.”

“It’s fine,” she replied, bitterness still on her tongue. It was not so much the memory as it was the feeling of being next to him, to a creature she knew was neither human nor monster. His hands were clean, she saw, looking down - but blood covering them no longer seemed like such an alien sight, and it made her feel sick looking down any longer. “They… got you, right? That’s why.”

“Yeah,” he sighed. “Down here.”

One hand reached down, settling on his left shin. He lifted up the fabric of his jeans, and it was then that Rei saw the thick bandage. Like a white warning band, lit up in gold, it marked out what she knew was the place, the spread of the bandage blanking out any rash or reddening from the bite.

“Does it hurt?”

“Not any more.”

Sighing, Judai pulled the fabric back down, and he sat back as he had before. He did not say anything. His head sank into his hands, as if fighting a headache.

The questions Rei had still swum in her mind. There were too many to ask all at once, and they mixed with the rest of her thoughts, flashes of blood and screams and Marty’s innocent eyes before he had come to his end.

She had to stay strong. It hurt, but there was no choice.

“I heard it,” she spoke up, breaking the silence. “When you put my parents out of their misery. That evening, after you finished them, I… I heard someone being sick. That was you, wasn’t it?”

Judai didn’t look up. “…Yeah.”

“Was there poison in them? When you ate them?”

The wide eyes and shocked mouth she had expected from him never came. Judai’s head did not move out of his hands. If he was shaken at all by what she had said, then he was hiding it, and hiding it well - but after all of the deceit, Rei did not want to believe him. He was hurt - and he had to be, she decided - then he was probably suffering, deep down, under the weight of the lies, and whatever sanity still lay in his head and what was left of his heart.

His voice came out hoarse, cracking under the strain of things she could not see. “No. But maybe it would have been better if it had killed me.”

“Were you thinking of that when you ate them?”

His voice suddenly lashed out, breaking halfway. Rei drew back a score. She had not expected it.

“I… I wasn’t thinking of anything. I never wanted to do anything, but I had to. You weren’t there for a reason, Rei. We tried to protect you…” He shuddered halfway through the sentence. For a second, Rei swore she heard sobbing under his breath. “We tried to protect you. We… we put them down, and… I understand. I know what I did. I killed your parents.”

I know you did, Rei thought of saying - but there was no time.

“I know I killed them. But… we did it that way to protect you. We didn’t want you involved with anything else. Not with the cleaning. And damn it, if I ever see corpses again - and I know I will, I know that I have to - I swear, I’ll consider all that you’re saying. I’ll think about killing myself. I know. I know I lied. I know what I did, but I swear. I swear, it was all to protect you.”

Rei thought of standing up and punching him for an instant. She did not need protecting. She could fight, and she had shown that already. Her arms and hands were scored with incisions, but the glass had not killed her. She could stay up as long as she needed to. She could fight, with her bat or a shovel, or anything, and she could fight if she wanted to, blue belt or not. Rei knew all she needed. She was strong, and she was sure of that, she swore under her breath, fighting against the way her own hands and arms and legs shook, her own body betraying her in that instant.

“I don’t need protecting,” she quaked. “I’m an adult. I’m just like you guys.”

Through her teeth, she knew she was lying - but the voice in her head, the same voice that had told her to be responsible, to act alone, to kill herself if she needed to, would not cease talking, and pushed the thoughts onto her. The pandemic, and all of the death, had made her an adult. She had survived the airborne onslaught. She had seen her parents turn, and seen Marty killed, and asked for the others to put down the family she had grown up with and loved.

She was one of the few left - and it made her an adult.

I know. I know I’m thirteen…

“I know,” Judai croaked. “I know. But we’re more adult than you. And… and we all made a promise. We said we’d look after you. Even before we… put down your parents. We couldn’t leave you alone. We’d do all that we could to keep you safe.”

“Safe?”

“Or as safe as we could. We didn’t want you involving yourself with your family’s bodies. We did it for you, and… we could hold up. We’ve seen so much of it out there. And… I just don’t know. I don’t know what it was about them, or you, or… or what we saw in that room,” he borderline choked.

Rei’s mind drifted to Marty. Something in her chest seized at the thought.

“…and it was too much. I’m sorry.”

She did not want things as they were to make sense - but in her head, deep in her heart and in the midst of the terrible feeling in the pit of her stomach, all of it came into place. The sight of blood, and gore, and whatever else was already filling the back of her throat with the taste of sickness. Judai was older, but he was a survivor, all the same: like her, like Shou and like Asuka. The more Rei’s head filled up with images, the worse it became.

She could only imagine feeling corpses with bare hands, fingers twisting in entrails, their tips having to close the lids upon eyes pale as death.

“But you ate them still,” she said.

“I’m sorry. I had to. Asuka said, but… she was right. I thought I was going to faint.”

“When did you eat before that?”

“Four days. That’s as long as I last.”

He said it with desperation, as if he was just as weak at that moment. Rei hesitated, unsure if she could say anything else. Thinking of Judai, knife in hand and hands bloody, she could feel something rise in her throat.

Swallowing down the sick feeling inside, she looked up.

“You were out almost daily. What about then?” She hesitated to ask.

Judai looked back, as earnest as she had ever seen him, and just as grim. “Then we were going out for supplies. Or just looking around. Shou didn’t want to give up hope looking for his brother.”

“He’s dead, isn’t he?”

It was too late to take it back, Rei realised as soon as the words had been said.

“…I don’t want to say it to him,” Judai sighed.

There was nothing but a feeling of terrible emptiness. Rei thought back to Marty for a moment, before her thoughts changed.

“There’s one more thing. With… with what happened to my parents.”

“What is it?”

“I remember. Asuka said it to me. You buried my parents, and Marty,” she said, voice turning to a rough sigh. “You… was that really their remains in the garden?”

His eyes turned away, dipping low to the ground. Rei heard him give out a sigh. He had submitted. Silently, he gave a solemn nod.

“I’m not lying. We really did bury them. And we did it as well as we could. Even if… even if I did things I know I shouldn’t have done.”

“You… you had no choice,” she said, remembering what Asuka had said. It did not feel like a lie.

“I don’t know. I don’t understand how I even work now. I don’t know why things went like this. I just have to have something, or… or I’m scared. It might take over, and there won’t be a way back to being human again.”

He looked down at his hands, and it was then that Rei saw them shaking. “Can you not have anything else?”

“There isn’t anything similar. Not fresh, anyway. That’s why I had to break in and finish off the ones that were alive. They’re already gone, and I’m scared,” Judai cried out, breaking the quiet. “I don’t want to be like this. I don’t want to keep losing myself. I want to be human again. Really human.”

He was warm by her side. The warmth did not feel terrible. It was like Judai had said, and like Asuka had insisted. He was no different from the boy she had played cards against, and no different from the kind but anxious face she had woken up to, hands holding the bottle of water that had almost revived her.

He had called for the others. Asuka and Shou had been there, all along. They had lied - but they had given her a place and a home. They had given her food and water, a towel and clothes, and a warm bed. They had shared conversations and duties around the house. They had been there. Asuka had offered her a hug outside in the cold. Shou had covered her eyes.

They were liars, she knew. They were also her keepers. They felt like kin.

They had survived hell on earth.

She was one of them, and alive.

“I… I know,” she croaked. Her throat needed water, like she had needed it on the day Judai had found her. She hurt, more on the inside than anything else.

Still, what she had by her side was enough. The light that came from the candles lit his skin up with fire. Judai was warm, heart beating against her as she felt him move closer. She could smell sweat on him, and what might have been blood. His hands were a little rougher than Asuka’s, fingertips dry but still warm, still alive.

She could say nothing. She knew she would cry.

All was quiet. Shou and Asuka were both safe and at home, from the steps she heard in the kitchen. Amongst the sound of her heart beating, Rei heard a faint rumble of thunder, and then, the start of a shower outside.

After the rain, she thought as she slept that night in her bed, there would always be hope for the sun.