(no subject)
Greatest apologies for being so cruel to your character, Bel. But I can't help it; Cillian Murphy set the precedent first.
“Back away, man,” one of the others said from behind him. “Something ain’t right about this.”
Yuugao ignored him. It had only been a week. Had it even been that long? Since he’d woken, sick and feverish and half-alive himself, to find her dead in bed beside him? So newly dead he could still feel the heat of her skin? Had it only been a week since he’d let them take her body away, to dump it in a pile alongside the hundreds, the thousands of others who had died that day? Or had it been a month, a year, a century of time spent alone in a sickbed with all of that time left to think of her, to dream of her? Had it only been yesterday that they’d pulled him out of recovery and put a gun in his hands because there weren’t enough National Guardsmen healthy enough to do it in his place?
“Hayako,” he whispered.
She bit the hand he offered to her.
She bit him, and locked gazes with him, and he did not know what he saw. He saw Hayako, as she looked in the days before she died, her eyes sunken and dark with exhaustion, her skin pale, the over-large nightshirt she loved slipped off one shoulder. And he saw a stranger, with leaves in her hair and dirt on her skin, blood on her mouth, eyes wild and empty. She bit him, and looked at him, and for a moment that stretched forever Yuugao was certain he’d just gone insane.
The moment broke. Action exploded around him. Hayako’s hands scrabbled at his arm, fingers locking like a vise around his wrist. He suddenly couldn’t feel anything from his elbow down. One of his comrades grabbed him from behind, tried to pull him away; another - was that Sotan? - grabbed Hayako by the hair to try and pull her off. Almost compulsively he tried to defend her, but his mouth would not work. He couldn’t breath.
“Get her off get her off get her off!”
“Goddamnit it let go you bitch!”
“Just fucking shoot her!”
“Not yet not yet!”
She wouldn’t let go. She wouldn’t stop staring at him. Somewhere behind the mouthful of flesh and glove she made a noise that sounded like keening.
Sotan raised his rifle and smashed the butt into her face. She wouldn’t let go. She wouldn’t stop staring at him. Sotan raised his rifle again, and again, and on the third try she slipped. Her nose was smashed, and her face covered in blood. With nothing in her mouth the noise she made turned into a scream - full of fury, full of pain. Sotan struck her again and she lost her grip entirely, falling back a step, still screaming, still staring. Someone started dragging Yuugao away.
No! he screamed back, but he still couldn’t breath. His hand was dripping blood - he could see the trail it left on the asphalt as he was dragged away - but he still couldn’t feel the pain. He couldn’t fight back. He could only watch as Hayako lunged next at Sotan, hands scrabbling at his face, fighting to latch on and bite him, too. Sotan twisted free and shot her in the chest at point blank range.
The screaming stopped. She fell and lay still.
Someone somewhere else started screaming. Were they his own screams, only silent, only in his own head? He couldn’t tell. He thought maybe they were. But then another person started screaming, and then another, too many to all be in his head, and far down the road shadows started running through the streetlights.
“Jesus there’s more of them!”
“Get him out of here!”
“Come on, Yuugao, work with me here,” grunted a voice by his ear, and Yuugao realized it was Asuka. Automatically he complied, tried to get his feet back under him, to stumble backwards on his own, but he couldn’t look away from Hayako, crumpled on the road. She was dead. Again? Had she even died in the first place? Had she come back to punish him for consigning her to an unmarked grave when she hadn’t yet taken her last breath? Did he just kill her?
A gunshot echoed down the empty street. One of the shadows stumbled, but did not fall; it got back up and plowed into Sotan before he could raise his rifle again. It was an elderly man, wrinkled and white and frail, howling and shrieking and covered in blood, but Sotan could not fight him off; someone else put a bullet in the old man’s head, but not before he’d gouged out Sotan’s eyes.
Sotan was shrieking now, too. Two more people screamed out of the shadows and fell on him before anyone else could get to his side. By now Yuugao had almost stumbled through the gates, and as those two fell from more gunshots, ten more people replaced them. All of them attacked Sotan as though they were starving wolves and he the wounded deer. Sotan wasn’t screaming for much longer.
“Holy shit! Holy shit they just killed Shunji!”
“Shoot the motherfuckers, just fucking shoot them!”
“Oh my fucking god there’s more of them!”
“Fall back! Fall back! Get back inside the gates!”
Far away down the road, where puddles of streetlights lit up the darkness, dozens more were racing towards them. Dozens more poured in from the alleys and side streets that were connected. All of them were screaming. A cacophonous, ecstatic, awful shriek echoed by the empty city around them.
“Come on come on come on,” commanded Asuka, back to dragging him again, urging him to pick up the pace. The remains of their patrol followed behind, jogging backwards, guns wavering at the crowd closing in on them. The iron gates clanged shut; the horde broke against the fence like a wave at shore, fighting each other to be the one on the inside, pressed against the bars, trying to squeeze through a space too small for even a child to slip through. All of them reaching through the tiny spaces, clawing furiously at empty air. All of them screaming.
And there were still more coming behind them.
More Guardsmen came up to join them, filing alongside the patrol that just barely made it inside in time, rifles up but uncertain just which target to aim at. None of them fired.
“Jesus Christ I hope the gate holds,” Yuugao heard one of them say. And then he was pulled through the infirmary bay doors. The doors did nothing to muffle the screaming.
The white tile floor with its single green stripe flowed under his feet. Someone came and gathered him up, relieved Asuka of her burden; she ran back outside to join the other Guardsmen. He didn’t say anything to her when she left; he couldn’t think of anything to say. Everything flowed stilted and out-of-sync, like a horrible dream he could only watch and not interact with. Just a horrible, horrible dream.
The nurses found a cot for him, crammed in with all the others still caught in the grip of the fever; they cut off his glove and clucked over the state of his hand, but he could see how their hands shook and their eyes kept darting towards the windows and doors that led outside. The one stitching up his hand jerked as though she’d been shot herself when the gunfire started. Another dropped the IV bag twice before hooking it up to him properly. Then they pumped him full of antibiotics and pain killers hurried back to tending to the sick and dying.
In spite of the walls that separated them from the outside, he could still hear the eerie ululations of the horde, unabated by the punctuation of erratic gunshots. They all could. The nurses, with new panic stricken on their exhausted faces, pulled doors closed and turns up all the desk fans they could find to try and bury the sound in white noise. Their efforts did nothing. Somewhere, someone else in the infirmary started crying.
This must be what insanity sounds like.
Yuugao closed his eyes.
Click to view“Back away, man,” one of the others said from behind him. “Something ain’t right about this.”
Yuugao ignored him. It had only been a week. Had it even been that long? Since he’d woken, sick and feverish and half-alive himself, to find her dead in bed beside him? So newly dead he could still feel the heat of her skin? Had it only been a week since he’d let them take her body away, to dump it in a pile alongside the hundreds, the thousands of others who had died that day? Or had it been a month, a year, a century of time spent alone in a sickbed with all of that time left to think of her, to dream of her? Had it only been yesterday that they’d pulled him out of recovery and put a gun in his hands because there weren’t enough National Guardsmen healthy enough to do it in his place?
“Hayako,” he whispered.
She bit the hand he offered to her.
She bit him, and locked gazes with him, and he did not know what he saw. He saw Hayako, as she looked in the days before she died, her eyes sunken and dark with exhaustion, her skin pale, the over-large nightshirt she loved slipped off one shoulder. And he saw a stranger, with leaves in her hair and dirt on her skin, blood on her mouth, eyes wild and empty. She bit him, and looked at him, and for a moment that stretched forever Yuugao was certain he’d just gone insane.
The moment broke. Action exploded around him. Hayako’s hands scrabbled at his arm, fingers locking like a vise around his wrist. He suddenly couldn’t feel anything from his elbow down. One of his comrades grabbed him from behind, tried to pull him away; another - was that Sotan? - grabbed Hayako by the hair to try and pull her off. Almost compulsively he tried to defend her, but his mouth would not work. He couldn’t breath.
“Get her off get her off get her off!”
“Goddamnit it let go you bitch!”
“Just fucking shoot her!”
“Not yet not yet!”
She wouldn’t let go. She wouldn’t stop staring at him. Somewhere behind the mouthful of flesh and glove she made a noise that sounded like keening.
Sotan raised his rifle and smashed the butt into her face. She wouldn’t let go. She wouldn’t stop staring at him. Sotan raised his rifle again, and again, and on the third try she slipped. Her nose was smashed, and her face covered in blood. With nothing in her mouth the noise she made turned into a scream - full of fury, full of pain. Sotan struck her again and she lost her grip entirely, falling back a step, still screaming, still staring. Someone started dragging Yuugao away.
No! he screamed back, but he still couldn’t breath. His hand was dripping blood - he could see the trail it left on the asphalt as he was dragged away - but he still couldn’t feel the pain. He couldn’t fight back. He could only watch as Hayako lunged next at Sotan, hands scrabbling at his face, fighting to latch on and bite him, too. Sotan twisted free and shot her in the chest at point blank range.
The screaming stopped. She fell and lay still.
Someone somewhere else started screaming. Were they his own screams, only silent, only in his own head? He couldn’t tell. He thought maybe they were. But then another person started screaming, and then another, too many to all be in his head, and far down the road shadows started running through the streetlights.
“Jesus there’s more of them!”
“Get him out of here!”
“Come on, Yuugao, work with me here,” grunted a voice by his ear, and Yuugao realized it was Asuka. Automatically he complied, tried to get his feet back under him, to stumble backwards on his own, but he couldn’t look away from Hayako, crumpled on the road. She was dead. Again? Had she even died in the first place? Had she come back to punish him for consigning her to an unmarked grave when she hadn’t yet taken her last breath? Did he just kill her?
A gunshot echoed down the empty street. One of the shadows stumbled, but did not fall; it got back up and plowed into Sotan before he could raise his rifle again. It was an elderly man, wrinkled and white and frail, howling and shrieking and covered in blood, but Sotan could not fight him off; someone else put a bullet in the old man’s head, but not before he’d gouged out Sotan’s eyes.
Sotan was shrieking now, too. Two more people screamed out of the shadows and fell on him before anyone else could get to his side. By now Yuugao had almost stumbled through the gates, and as those two fell from more gunshots, ten more people replaced them. All of them attacked Sotan as though they were starving wolves and he the wounded deer. Sotan wasn’t screaming for much longer.
“Holy shit! Holy shit they just killed Shunji!”
“Shoot the motherfuckers, just fucking shoot them!”
“Oh my fucking god there’s more of them!”
“Fall back! Fall back! Get back inside the gates!”
Far away down the road, where puddles of streetlights lit up the darkness, dozens more were racing towards them. Dozens more poured in from the alleys and side streets that were connected. All of them were screaming. A cacophonous, ecstatic, awful shriek echoed by the empty city around them.
“Come on come on come on,” commanded Asuka, back to dragging him again, urging him to pick up the pace. The remains of their patrol followed behind, jogging backwards, guns wavering at the crowd closing in on them. The iron gates clanged shut; the horde broke against the fence like a wave at shore, fighting each other to be the one on the inside, pressed against the bars, trying to squeeze through a space too small for even a child to slip through. All of them reaching through the tiny spaces, clawing furiously at empty air. All of them screaming.
And there were still more coming behind them.
More Guardsmen came up to join them, filing alongside the patrol that just barely made it inside in time, rifles up but uncertain just which target to aim at. None of them fired.
“Jesus Christ I hope the gate holds,” Yuugao heard one of them say. And then he was pulled through the infirmary bay doors. The doors did nothing to muffle the screaming.
The white tile floor with its single green stripe flowed under his feet. Someone came and gathered him up, relieved Asuka of her burden; she ran back outside to join the other Guardsmen. He didn’t say anything to her when she left; he couldn’t think of anything to say. Everything flowed stilted and out-of-sync, like a horrible dream he could only watch and not interact with. Just a horrible, horrible dream.
The nurses found a cot for him, crammed in with all the others still caught in the grip of the fever; they cut off his glove and clucked over the state of his hand, but he could see how their hands shook and their eyes kept darting towards the windows and doors that led outside. The one stitching up his hand jerked as though she’d been shot herself when the gunfire started. Another dropped the IV bag twice before hooking it up to him properly. Then they pumped him full of antibiotics and pain killers hurried back to tending to the sick and dying.
In spite of the walls that separated them from the outside, he could still hear the eerie ululations of the horde, unabated by the punctuation of erratic gunshots. They all could. The nurses, with new panic stricken on their exhausted faces, pulled doors closed and turns up all the desk fans they could find to try and bury the sound in white noise. Their efforts did nothing. Somewhere, someone else in the infirmary started crying.
This must be what insanity sounds like.
Yuugao closed his eyes.