Chapter 19 Quoth the Raven “Nevermore” Part 6

“Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore-

Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore;-

’Tis the wind and nothing more!””

Ranpo spent his days in quiet contemplation.

On the nature of his existence.

On the extent of his capability.

On the purpose, he was made to fulfil.

“Some cripple can’t be a hero,” the man snorted derisively.

Aiden had a smile plastered on his face. Fake, yet he pulled it off well.

“Think of the PR,” the other interviewer said, “disability inclusiveness. His face doesn’t look that good but you guys wear masks for a reason don’t you?”

Ranpo watched, as the two debated as if Aiden was not there. Measuring his creator not as a person, but as one might a slab of meat at the market.

“A sidekick can’t be disabled,” the hero said, “they’re meant to be innocent tramps who give the teenagers a goal to achieve and the pedo’s a reason to buy merchandise. They can be dim in the head but it can’t affect their physical appearance.”

Ranpo’s attention turned back to Aiden, whose face was unmoved. As if stuck in that smile, but he saw his hand close into a fist.

Yet Aiden still did nothing.

When asked by the other interviewer, he gave platitudes. Of how it was his childhood dream to be a hero, to save and help people. Aiden said all this with a fake smile, as if a moment ago he wasn’t just insulted for missing a hand.

The smile held until they left the agency. Where it simply fell off, leaving only an utterly neutral face. He strode away, silent as Ranpo shadowed him.

“Will you do nothing about that?” the crow probed, landing on his shoulder.

“There’s no point,” Aiden answered. “What will I do? Lash out and attack them like a kid? Or maybe I scream and strike a child.”

He almost seemed to spit the next words out, “Immature things that only make a person feel better. I don’t have the energy to waste being angry.”

There was genuine venom in those words. More than he ever heard Aiden speak.

They stopped at a cafe. Ordering a cup of coffee for himself, Aiden liberally poured sugar and milk, until the brew was almost white, then drank.

The bags under his eyes were visible to all to see.

It has been two days since the school’s orientation’s end. Every day he woke up looking slightly worse for wear. Yesterday he awoke screaming, today his own remaining arm turned grey and tried to choke him.

Judging by the casualness in which he reabsorbed the monster tattoo, it was not the first time this occurred.

Tormented by dreams he refused to share, his own power acting out against him when he slept. It was perhaps no surprise that over the past two days Aiden developed an ever-growing addiction to coffee.

“At least the other applications went better,” Ranpo murmured.

Aiden nodded. Half of the other resumes he sent received a response, two-thirds of that were looking to schedule an interview. He spoke as he nursed his cup, “I only expected maybe two or three.”

The man was visibly shocked and confused for a while when the responses began to pile in via mail and text, but it took only a bit of consideration for them to figure out why.

“You’re from M.I.A,” the crow answered. That was not difficult to pinpoint as the cause, as it was quite literally the only noteworthy thing on the resume. The man was too afraid to reveal any inkling that he had ‘reincarnated’ after all.

“So I lucked into a privileged upper-class while being considered a crippled loser by said upper-class,” Aiden answered with a small smile.

Ranpo didn’t believe it was as reductive as he so said. The city they lived in was a relatively safe and peaceful place.

Relatively.

There were plenty of suddenly missing persons, holes in positions and entire neighbourhoods lost overnight. When people continued to die or disappear, Ranpo figured the jobs they were doing needed refilling, and Aiden, a person who can’t die or become comatose to Bleed would be a rather useful and constant employee.

But he didn’t speak this thought.

When Aiden finished his cup, he sighed, a sound well worn and used. “Still, none of them pay enough.”

They were still mundane jobs, expected for a supposed teenager with little to no experience in the workforce. Gifted he may be, he cannot use his power to earn money.

Legally at least.

Both of them knew where this was all headed, neither of the two were fools after all. The problem was when Aiden decided to admit it.

“I have another interview tomorrow… I’ll check in after class,” he murmured as he rose to return home.

And so another day passed. Another day where Ranpo's questions remained unanswered.

When Aiden returned, he first checked for things and tasks to do, but finding little, he decided to meditate.

His wasn’t just the basic sort of mediation, simply focusing on the breath, but one he thought of to train his ability. Quickly generating and reabsorbing tattoos, he got the skill down easily, it was just an act of creating and returning after all.

After a day, he got good enough to complete other simple tasks, such as practising his handwriting. With only his left, his writing appeared like wide scrawls and scratches on paper. Barely eligible, but he would improve. He was already getting used to eating with the hand, but chopsticks continued to elude him.

As he wrote, his skin flashing with images of great and tiny fauna in the acts of life, he contemplated his situation.

The problem, in the end, wasn’t the lack of options, but the lack of time. He had eight weeks to muster up a plausible solution to his financial situation, but he had numerous roadblocks. His apparent age, lack of job experience, the need for meta abilities to be licensed and the need for him to attend school. Working normal part-time hours whilst he attended school didn’t earn him enough money to keep up with all the weekly costs.

Simply finding a full-time job would mean he would have to sacrifice his education, which was a worthwhile short term solution, but it meant his future became uncertain, he would have little way to acquire the needed qualifications that’ll even let him consider buying his sister’s needed cures. Fifteen million was the baseline needed to be paid upfront for even the chance to see a bottle of Nectar©.

This solution was doable, there were plenty of systems meant to help people who awakened in the later stages of their life, but they were less developed and used. The systems meant to accommodate geneline metas like M.I.A had significantly better funding and turnover.

Then there was the piece of paper Rick gave him. He had planted the thing in a spare pot, but he had more or less memorised the contents. The illegal way had plenty of options to consistently make good money. But a few hours of research in the school library painted a more risky conclusion. No matter how much heroes or police pretended to not be able to grab villains, the simple fact that unlicensed meta work was illegal created a Sword of Damocles hanging over every cowl. If the military police even suspected someone was planning or have committed a crime that toed the line, they could at any time and without any proof of the suspected crime, arrest the suspect in their own home under the charge of unlicensed power usage.

This option was risky, but it had significant benefits if handled correctly. The major crime gangs were all rather well established and wealthy. The risk of their operations made them pay better wages or search for more desperate people. Both of which applied to Aiden.

And the third and final solution… Simply abandon that slab of meat in the hospital. Simply abandon that near-corpse he latched onto simply because it had the same face as Jaiden. Live a comfortable, easy life as a meta who would be guaranteed a good and sustainable career path. All it would cost was a life.

The sounds of writing stopped, for a brief moment the tattoos on Aiden’s skin ceased moving. Ranpo stopped his action of eating some bird seeds and silently glanced towards him.

“My options are to gamble my future, abandon my morals or watch a girl die.”

On his wrist, Oros let go of its tail and turned to Aiden, but he didn’t see that. He looked outside, past his balcony, seeing people going about their day, the trees stirring in the wind, the clouds moving in the sky and the sun shining brightly as it always did.

No matter his decision, it would not affect the world at large. His choice didn’t matter, and few would disparage him for making any of them.

Aiden shook his head, the bags under his eyes doing little to snuff out the light they held, however dim that light may be, “No, I don’t need that to be the ultimatum, I still have two months, maybe I’ll find something different.”

And the practice resumed, the tattoos of animals great and small resumed their dance upon Aiden’s skin. Oros once again coiled into a circle, biting its tail as it slept peacefully.

The next morning, on Aiden’s first day of school, he woke up to banging on his door.

Constant, loud, jarring him out of sleep. He groggily fell out of bed. Face unwashed, teeth unbrushed, he hurriedly put on a pair of pants.

It was too early, and something in the air felt wrong, but his half-sleeping mind couldn’t quite pinpoint it. So he walked towards the door, rubbing his eyes and yawning as he did so. The sound of banging growing increasingly more frantic. “I’m coming, I'm coming!”

The banging didn’t cease, nor did they slow.

Aiden finally reached the door, his eyes still half-closed as he opened it, “Good morning how may I help-”

A figure leapt through the open doorway, slamming into Aiden. They fell to the ground, the assailant a storm of scratches and punches and kicks. Aiden barely registered it, his body reacting instinctively to cover his face. When his mind finally caught up to the events, he kicked the figure above him, hard. Throwing it off him, barely a moment to breathe as he got on his side.

The assailant rushed him again and Aiden met him with a backhanded fist, slamming into the face of the unknown figure.

“What the hell!?” he yelled. Adrenaline rushed through his veins as the unknown assailant fell out the door.

He left his glasses behind, so the attacker was inscrutable, but as he brought his left fist back, he found a single tooth stuck on it.

A tooth covered in rotting and dead flesh.

It was then he registered the smell of rot, a feeling of something wrong only sensed around something not of this world.

The assailant groaned, the sound animalistic and guttural. Aiden rushed to close the door but the attacker was faster, jumping through it before Aiden could reach.

Closer now, Aiden saw the rotting gums, the cuts and bloated bruises, the grey skin and ancient rags as the zombie scrambled forward on all fours towards him.

Aiden jumped back, retreating with his eyes on the zombie. His tattoo armour already appearing. He needed to destroy its head somehow, but how?

He turned right, into the kitchen, just as the zombie sped through the small corridor, slamming into the living room. Aiden rushed to grab an implement, but the zombie leapt over the counter, slamming him into the fridge as it scratched and pounded at him. It bit his shoulder as he tried to push the thing off of him, its teeth barely stopped by the crocodile tattoo he manifested.

Finally, he kicked it off, the zombie tearing a bite out of his shirt as it did so. It slammed into the counter, knocking down the knife holder. The blades clanging onto the floor. Aiden’s eyes fixed on the largest glinting blur of metal before he jumped forward, grabbing the cleaver and slamming its blade into the zombie’s skull. Pinning the creature to the bench with his other arm.

And he kept slamming the blade into the creature, all the while it clawed and punched ineffectively at him. Until the splatter of dead and old blood covered Aiden’s face and soaked his clothes, until chips of shattered skull and grey matter flew in the air, until the zombie finally stopped moving.

Aiden fell back, panting breathlessly as he leant against the fridge. Breathing heavily, surrounded by a pool of blood and grey matter. The blade of the cleaver still stuck halfway through the skull of the thing killed twice.

“Are you alright?” Ranpo asked, as flustered by the event as Aiden was.

“Skulls are tougher than I thought they would be,” Aiden murmured when he finally caught his breath. He shook his head, wiping some gore off his face, “I’m fine. Gah, how do I even begin cleaning blood?”

“Lots of detergent?”

“Was that sarcastic?” Aiden asked as he stood back up. Groaning as he rubbed his back. There was still a tooth wedged in his knuckle, which he popped off like a bottle cap with the bench.

“God my shirt’s ruined,” he muttered, glancing at his bare shoulder peeking out of the hole the zombie ripped. Shallow teeth shaped indents were still in his skin.

“I feel like that’s the least of our problems currently,” Ranpo spoke, his eyes staring outside the window.

Aiden took a tentative step towards the balcony and saw what Ranpo saw.

A massive Gate in the sky, an endless stream of grey falling onto the ground. At first he thought it a massive amount of liquid, but upon further consideration, and Ranpo bringing him his glasses, he realised the tides of grey spilling out into the streets were hundreds, perhaps even thousands of zombies, their falls broken by the numerous corpses already underneath them.

And upon looking towards the sides, he saw more of these Gates in the sky, each like a portal to the sea itself, letting in an endless stream of walking dead. He could see half a dozen Gates just from his balcony, and something told him there were far more than that.

Aiden shook his head, sighing, “It’s zombie season.”

“Should we be worried?”

He frowned at the question, “Yes? Probably? I’m not sure why but I’m not worried about this…”

It was strange, hordes of thousands of zombies were breaking through the fabric of reality to invade and feast on living flesh… but for some reason his body and mind was calm even if his mind acknowledged the danger. It was a different kind of calm he felt, genuine calm, not one born of killing panic.

“I don’t know I’m just-”

Suddenly there was a crash beneath them, Aiden barely recognised the sound as a door getting smashed open. “Shit!” he glanced down, seeing the horde of zombies already swarming the car park below, rushing into the apartment entrance. “My neighbors!”

He rushed back into the kitchen, wrenching the cleaver from the dead zombie. The blade had a circular dent in it, it wouldn’t be used for cooking anytime soon but it was a serviceable weapon. Aiden leapt out of his apartment, finding the outer corridor empty. Ranpo rushed out from the side, diving down the stairs, Aiden a single step behind the crow. They soon reached the floor beneath, finding a group of zombies rushing into an opened door.

He recognised whose door that was, “Mrs Jemina!”

The lady was old and decrepit, how could she defend-

There was a shattering boom as blood and gore flew out of the door. Pieces of rotting flesh and meat went spraying out like a water hose for a brief moment.

“YOU COME INTO MY HOUSE!” Aiden heard a voice yell, as suddenly, the ‘old’ and ‘decrepit’ Mrs Jemina, whose wrinkled and leathery skin seemed to hung off her, whose arms and legs were thin to the point a slight bit of force might snap them, who was wildy slamming the butt of a pump-action shotgun into the skull of a zombie as if the zombie owed her money.

“What?” Ranpo asked, his face an expression of sheer bewilderment.

Mrs Jemina slammed her knee into the liver of a zombie, then with a twirl slammed the barrel of the shotgun into two more. It was then Aiden finally remembered.

“These are Gates to Necrada,” he murmured, “the Bleed effect of this Gate is that the closer to death something is, the more powerful they are.”

“How old is she?” Ranpo asked as Mrs Jemina fly kicked a zombie past them.

“Definitely older than eighty.”

“Ah! I feel like a girl again!” the lady yelled as she twirled around a pile of zombie corpses. “And watch that tongue young man! I may be pushing ninety but I ain’t pushing daisies any time soon!”

“Her personality has completely changed.”

“So this is what power does to a person,” Ranpo murmured in response. “How frightening.”

“I’m old, not deaf magpie!” she yelled as she jammed the shotgun barrels into the last zombie’s mouth and fired.

The lady whose old figure could be mistaken for a gnarled tree branch turned towards them. Upon her face was a bright smile like that of a young girl, surrounded by a canvas of blood and gore.

“I see you have it handled Mrs,” Aiden politely said.

She blinked. “Oh dear where are my-” she shook her head, “ah fuck it I’m too old for that shit now, you need something young man?”

“Just thought you needed some help.”

She chuckled, “Ever the sweet one love, where are your shoes?”

It was then Aiden noticed his feet were bare. “Was in a hurry.”

She nodded in understanding, “You better wash up, don’t you have school today?”

Aiden blinked, “What time is it?”

Mrs Jemina glanced at her wrist, only then noticing she didn’t have her watch on. “Uhh…”

“7:46,” Ranpo said, his eyes glancing at a clock in the hallway.

“Barely enough time,” he muttered, his mind already going through all the steps he needed to take, “I need to wash up, change my shirt…”

He glanced outside, to the horde of zombies that seemed to blot out the ground beneath, “How am I going to get through all that…”

Mrs Jemina chuckled, “Oh don’t worry love.” She pulled out her phone, “Get dressed up, I have a few calls to make.”

Aiden nodded, already rushing back into his apartment.

He washed up in record time, making sure to throw the body off the balcony and soak the bloody clothes in cold water before he made his way to his parents’ room. Well, Bu’s parents.

He pushed open the closet, finding to the side a small rack of weapons. One assault rifle, two sawed-off shotguns, a fireman’s axe, a metal bat, two short-ranged pistols, four multi-purpose knives and enough kevlar for two adults and two children.

Taking out the assault rifle, he felt the weight of it, the heaviness of the weapon, before he shook his head, “Too shortsighted for that,” and just took out the bat and a knife, strapping the latter to his leg.

Grabbing his bag, Aiden threw in the dented cleaver, which he had hurriedly cleaned. It might’ve been unusable but he could sell it at a metal recycling centre for a few cents. His one hand holding the bat, he left and closed the apartment door behind him.

“Ready?” Mrs Jemina asked, her face bright as a school girl.

“Ready,” Aiden answered in affirmative.

They arrived at ground floor, where the emergency doors had locked out the majority of the horde, but still they scratched and smashed at the reinforced glass.

“They should be coming now,” Mrs Jemina said as she glanced at the clock, 8:14.

And barely a moment later, a bus slammed through the horde at the front. Chuckling, Mrs Jemina opened the door and stepped out, Aiden following behind with Ranpo on his shoulder.

The bus doors slammed open. “Yo Jemmy! How’s the kids been?” an old man yelled from behind the wheel.

“You know he’s dead, asshole!” she yelled as she got on the bus.

“What?” the old man yelled back.

“Stop pretending to be deaf!”

Inside it looked like the entire retirement home had upped and got into the bus. Aiden settled next to an old white man on a mobility scooter who offered him salted licorice, which he politely took a few, and a small lady who was knitting a small sweater.

“I was worried you guys wouldn’t come!” Mrs Jemina yelled to the assembled crowd.

“What?” someone yelled back.

“I swear to- Oh wait Jessie you actually are deaf.”

“What?” Jessie repeated.

“We wouldn’t miss this day for the world!” the man beside Aiden yelled.

“Where to?” the driver asked.

“Valhalla!” the small lady knitting beside Aiden yelled, which was echoed by the entire bus a breath later.

“Calm down, first let's drive Aiden to school!”

He very quietly gave the bus a wave.

“Which school then?” the driver asked.

“M.I.A!” Mrs Jemina replied.

The entire bus roared as suddenly the driver slammed the accelerator. The whiplash knocked Aiden into his seat, but the entire bus was cheering as they ploughed through a horde of zombies. Literally driving through a sea of corpses, the splatter of blood covered every window. Pieces of intestine were plastered on the window right next to Aiden.

“How can you see anything?” Aiden yelled to the driver.

The driver turned around, at which point he noticed the white cataracts covering both the old man’s eyes, “I don’t!”

“This was a mistake,” Ranpo murmured.

Aiden tightened his seat belt just a little bit more.

“Turn on the window wipers! I want to see the white of their eyes!” the small lady knitting beside him yelled.

The wipers were on only a moment later, and Aiden really wished they weren’t, because suddenly he could see the group of zombies with greatly enlarged throats, their mouths bubbling with acid as they spewed the road in front of them. At the same time, another massive mutant zombie slammed into the crossroads before them. It’s muscle bulging and literally ripping its skin.

The driver quickly slammed the brakes, skidding on the road as they halted to a stop just before the mutant zombies. Drops of acid dripped down, having already melted through the roof.

Aiden met eyes with the enlarged mutant, and through his glasses he saw the sheer hate in its eyes. And he realised, just as he could sense Invaders and Bleed due to his nature as an awakened, so could those of other realities. Likely sensing him as something utterly horrific to witness. These mutants were all targeting him, something which grinded against their sensibilities of normality.

Another splash of concentrated acid began to melt through the windows, but at that moment the old man in the mobility scooter whooped and drove his scooter straight through the melting metal and glass, bringing out a shotgun and firing onto the horde of base zombies already gathering around them.

That was the catalyst as all the old folks jumped out of the bus and descended on the dead like hyenas. The small lady who was beside him jumping onto a spitter’s head like a chihuahua and jabbing her knitting needles into its eyes.

Aiden prepared himself as the brute zombie ripped away what was left of the bus's front frame, but Jemina greeted it with a shell to the face, knocking it back a moment before suddenly a small boy lept from a building and dropkicked the brute’s head into the pavement.

The boy was small and skinny, almost emancipated looking and without any eyebrows or hair at all. He wore a beanie and hospital gown and began pummelling the brute into the asphalt.

“What do you have, kid?” Mrs Jemina asked as she fired on the encroaching horde.

“Stage 4 cancer!” the child cheerily yelled back.

Aiden turned his attention to a second group of spitters, but suddenly the air rippled as all of them were blown away. A man who seemed to be wearing the conical parts of tubas around his arms and legs, and one more as a helmet, rushed through, carrying a tuba and pointing its business end like a gun, “Fear not! Heavy Tuba Gunner!” And he began blowing away entire scores of zombies, clearing empty paths all around them.

“I have nothing to do,” Aiden murmured, the lone person still inside the bus.

“Indeed,” Ranpo answered. The crow dropped to the ground, pecking at the grey matter of a shattered skull, before grimacing, “Doesn’t taste as good as it looks.”

“It doesn’t look good at all,” Aiden replied.

“I know what I said.”

He silently looked around him again. “Huh.”

“Huh?” Ranpo asked.

“I realised why I feel weird about this,” Aiden answered. “Back in my old life, I had a coworker who was absolutely obsessed with zombie movies. Enough that he always watched it at work. I sometimes watched a bit of it with him during lunch breaks but…”

He glanced around them, at the crowd of senior citizens, one boy, and a hero wearing a tuba, gleefully slaughtering the ever growing zombie horde around them, “they were always apocalypse scenarios. They always destroyed society, sent people back to the Dark Ages and yet here…”

“They’re not really a threat are they?” Ranpo finished.

“No,” Aiden shook his head, “my body felt calm because Aiden Bu knew this, but I didn’t.”

“The head may err, but never the blood.”

“Something like that,” Aiden answered as he finally stepped out of the bus. Sidestepping zombie corpses all around him.

Aiden looked around him, then at the metal bat he held in his one hand.

Men often worry. Of what there were as many answers as there were stars in the sky, of what to eat tomorrow, of whether or not you said something strange to a friend or of what the future may bring. Worry was a response to uncertainty, of which there were many to suffer in a single lifetime, more than could be reasonably understood. It was a reasonable act, to try to think of how to answer questions, of how to respond to uncertainty.

But sometimes uncertainty gets to a person. Sometimes a person grows bags under their eyes because of nightmares they can’t escape from. Sometimes they look at their bank like a bleeding wound. Sometimes they agonise over their future, of what their next step should be.

So sometimes, a person needs something uncomplicated. Something as uncomplicated as, say, smashing a zombie's skull open.

“The head may err, but never the blood,” Aiden repeated under his breath.

And he shrugged, “When in Rome.”

That day Aiden made it to school on time.