It’s cold…

So unbearably cold…

Over the centuries, Earth’s greenhouse gasses and electromagnetic field have been depleted, replenished, and manipulated all the same. By Cloud Seeding and Dehumidification, the Humans thought to bend Mother Nature to their will, and for a time, they did…

That is… until a terror attack on one of the major Weather Control Spires irreparably changed the world. Seasons shift and merge together, often, and without warning. The only consistency in this world is that of the grey sky, although I have been told it was once deep blue like the ocean so many years ago.

At some point during the dwindling hours seeping into the night, the temperature dropped somewhere below freezing as Revi, and I huddled for warmth beneath the Bakery’s central countertop, just below an automated registry.

For some time now, Revi had been endeavoring to stifle his shivering as the massive horde continued to migrate just under four meters from our position.

“E-Else, I-I can’t f-feel my fingers…” He whispered before glancing at his fingertips before stuffing them back in his armpits. “If t-this horde doesn’t l-let-up soon, w-we’re gonna have t-to make a b-break for that survival-tent. I c-can't f-feel any-thin-anymore...”

Keeping silent, I already had the idea in mind, save for going it alone.

“I k-know what you’re t-thinkin… your plan-nen on ditchin me, h-huh?”

“Just shut-up already and give me your hands.”

Rolling my eyes, Revi hesitated, then blinked.

“W-Wha?”

“Just give me your hands…” I reiterated, guiding his palms beneath my underarms only for Revi’s timidity to get the better of him.

“E-Else...”

“My Oni blood runs hotter... or so I'm told... Just put up with it.”

That was a lie, but I’ve grown accustomed to dawning the paper mask of normality.

On the surface of Revi’s armband, the digital display registered the ambient temperature a bone-chilling -2*C. Immediate worries aside, I noticed a small prompt cautioning Revi had been past due for his D.N.A Stabilizing Medication by a full week.

Given another three weeks, his skin will begin to blister and distort in a manner akin to leprosy. For all intents in purposes, he will become indistinguishable from the undead shambling just outside the storefront given less than a month’s time.

*CRUNCH*

The sound of broken glass rung out, signaling the beginning of a far greater clamor as the translucent barrier shielding the storefront fell inward. From a small cable-filled hole beneath the countertop, I kept my eyes glued to the Undead beginning to permeate the guest floor like a liquid pool of bodies.

“Revi…” I whispered, almost imperceptibly.

Nodding in response, it appeared written in Revi’s expression that he had already formulated a plan of his own.

Taking into his hands the radio and his handgun, he utilized his teeth to turn the gain dial, creating an abrasive burst of static loud enough to draw the attention of Undead both near and far. In the next moment, he flung himself upon the countertop, crying out in fear as he drew his pistol from its holster. After unleashing five rounds in quick succession, he turned to me.

“RUN!!!”

By his command, I did not hesitate, scrambling to regain my footing along the floor slick with bodily fluids seeping from the Undead that had yet to stand.

But where was I to go? The broken glass that once functioned as a wall remained mostly intact laying inward, making the leap impossible without ensnaring my foot in a collar of vicious shards.

*BANG!* *BANG!*

Time did not appear to slow as it did in similar circumstances, all I could think to do was to push over the bulky wire trays filled with moldy bread in the hopes that I might spare a minute to think.

*BANG!*

Just then, blinding light of a muzzle-flash exploded right in front of me, soon followed by Revi leaping the entire length of the glass lying flat across the floor out into the-

Snow…?

That’s it!

Taking the last of the wire shelves into my grasps, I pushed with all my strength until the bread cart tumbled onto its side over the bed of broken glass. Hurriedly, I placed my foot on the narrow shelves only to fall flat-footed back onto the floor.

“Else! C’ mon, just jump through it!” Revi pleaded as he tackled a Zombie threatening to tear out his throat.

*BANG*

“I’m running out of ammo!”

Again, I pressed my luck at balancing the length of the shelves only to make it about halfway before touching down on the fragments jutting up from below.

“Shit!” I cried out, falling down to my knees which struck the cart in an awkward painful manner. “My foot- it’s caught!?”

*BANG* *BANG*

*CLICK*

My heart sank at that very moment as I witnessed the Undead flounder over one another, tearing at my ankle caught in the gaps between the wire. Then, suddenly, a black streak sailed by my head, striking the foremost Zombie square in the jaw.

Wh-what!?

That’s Revi’s pistol!?

He threw it?!

“C’mon, damn it!” He urged, pulling the fabric from my shoulders with such force, the seams of my top began to separate all the while he balanced on the other end of the bread-cart.

Out in the open air, the snowflakes danced in all directions, blanketing the street in a watery slurry. Slowly but surely, we used the slick nature of the ground to our advantage, utilizing our weight and momentum to topple the Undead, dancing on a knives edge between dodging and buying precious seconds in order to make a break for it.

“This way!” I halted mid-sprint, nudging Revi in the direction of the orange parachute fluttering between buildings from far within the inner city.

“I’m not about to go down a dark alley, Else! It’s a labyrinth back there, fat chance on not getting lost.”

“Then here, let me see your Radio.”

“What why?” He shrugged away my advances to no avail.

Again, with the gain set on high, the feedback began to attract the bulk of the Undead, but not before I could throw the device far into the distance.

“W-What the fuck did you do that for?! That was our only means of communicating with the others!”

As I guided Revi’s sight with my index finger, I plotted out the path to a fire-escape outfitted with a retractable ladder.

“I don’t know about you, but I don’t think your friends will give a shit if we’re dead. Let’s climb that ladder! If the parachute is near where we met, I know we’re close! We can use the rooftops to locate Izumi… I think…”

“You think!?” He bellowed, only to find himself at the end of my grasp, in tow towards arterial gas lines etched throughout the side of the nearest brick alleyway.

After a fleet-footed ascent through the pipes, we found ourselves just out of arm’s reach of the ladder’s ratcheting mechanism.

“One of us is going to have to ju~mp!”

Before the words could leave Revi’s mouth, I threw myself towards the handlebars, latching on to the icy bars against a surge of pain in my wrist from the injury I had sustained nights ago. Then, without warning, the locking mechanism holding the ladder in place snapped, sending the ladder down its rails with myself along for the ride.

*GONG!* The ladder slammed into place, granting Revi an opening to clamber above my position.

Once we had situated ourselves upon the rooftop, we caught our breath and examined the carnage below.

Bodies, bodies everywhere… Not an inch to breathe.

A sea of glowing eyes, and teeth, both yellow, putrid, gnashing with a hunger that could no longer be satiated. Not too far off in the distance over the moans of the Undead, I could make out the distorted voices emanating from the discarded radio.

For reasons only known to myself, I pushed Revi towards the first gap in between rooftops in the hopes that he would not overhear the voices crying out his name through the static.

“H-Hey, Else, hold on a second! Let’s take a minute to rest- your ankle, it’s bleeding!”

“I’m not about to sit on my ass! Not when I can practically see the top of the PEEDS Tent! Let me go! I promised Izumi I-!”

“You’d what!?” Revi retorted. “You gonna carry your friend all the way back to camp!? What exactly do you plan to do without the rest of us- without me!? Stop acting on impulse before you get us both killed!”

As I gauged the gap between buildings, I kept my eyes drawn away from Revi’s livid glare. He was right, that part was obvious, but…

Well, there are no ‘buts.’ I honestly did not care if I died trying. A portion of me already decided on a suspicion that Izumi had already died the very night I left… but…

There is just but one ‘but’- err, or perhaps two; on the off chance that she is still alive… I’d give it my all! I’d try my damnedest to save her, knowing full well that one good deed wouldn’t undo all the wrong, the things inflicted upon me... and... all the pain I’ve caused in my pitiful existence.

Just one less regret, even though the underlying reason is so incredibly selfish, maybe then I can taste a sliver of peace… even if it is for just a moment… with the very tip of my tongue.

“You’re right...” I sighed in defeat, turning around to finally face him.

*CRACK!*

Suddenly, a sharp impact clouded my vision with stars and sprites. Shortly after, when I regained focus, I couldn’t help but to raise a hand to my swollen cheek.

“W-What the hell was that for, Revi?! Did I not just come to my senses!?” I whimpered, trying to flatten out the pins and needles traveling throughout the length of my jaw.

“Goddamn it Else! Just goddamn it!”

Between the snowflakes tumbling through the air, glistening teardrops fell from Revi’s eyes as he stood there with his hand throbbing.

“You were fucking right all along, okay!? I fuckin lied!”

As he continued to choke on his words, I took a step back as the air in my lungs fled in an instant.

“I used my damn Drone- to see where your friend’s at- SHE’S DEAD!! You were right- you were right not to trust us- you were right not to trust- ME!”

Calmly, and without any blood left in my veins, I uttered a single question. “Why…?”

“Because we need the supplies!!! You were right to suspect us!! And now- I have no right to ask you to believe me, but you were always welcome from the beginning! It was the group’s consensus not to tell you… because we knew you’d run off on your own!”

Heh…

Here we are again…

Didn’t I say things would end up this way?

They always fucking do.

Now that it’s all out in the open, all I can see is a red veil of static eating away at my vision.

“Else…” Revi sobbed impotently as he motioned for my hand, but I was having none of it. “Else… please… I’m sorry… I didn’t want things to end up this way.”

“Unhand me.” I murmured, drawing back sharply, inadvertently bumping my injured ankle against the roof’s gable.

“Else… I’m sorry… I needed that radio to signal the all-clear for the others… I don’t know what else to do… I’m sorry!”

By now, the anger and malice boiled into an amalgam of futility and resentment against the cold biting my bare skin. I didn’t realize how hard I had been clenching my fists until I rolled my knuckles to the sensation of blood dripping from my fingers.

At this point, I wanted nothing to do with Revi and the others. I had half the inclination to sink my teeth into his jugular, but I quickly found a much better use of this inferno raging within.

I’ll be the one who decides if Izumi is dead or alive…

If that damn grim reaper, God or what-have-you lays a finger on her before I get there-!

*CRACK*

With a punch far more explosive than I anticipated, Revi doubled over, promptly falling to his side, choking and wheezing in shock and agony.

Now that I was confident he would be wholly unable to stop me, I floored my feet, pressing all my strength to leap the gap between buildings. Again and again, I threw all my momentum into the icy wind, sometimes catching myself on a subsequent ledge or falling flat upon the tar and gravel.

Nothing could stop me now.

Not even when the derelict structures threatened to give way beneath my feet. Not even when my teeth slammed together in my latest miscalculation on a large, angular gutter. My resolve; indestructible. Each time, I would pull myself back upon the rooftop until the top of the Tent Liger erected stood on the rooftop adjacent to me.

“Just one more- just you wait, Izumi! I’M COMING FOR YA!!”

Howling at the top of my lungs, I longed for Izumi’s button-mug to just pop over the ledge to give me the encouragement to work my aching muscles.

“Shit… That building is a bit taller than I anticipated. There’s no way I can jump the gap on top of the height discrepancy. Fuck I wish I had me a pair of moon-shoes.”

As I scanned the edifices of the building for a suitable foothold, I found a thick patch of vines threatening to reclaim the structure, fusing it to a nearby power mast.

“That’s still a pretty big leap… and I’m not sure those vines will hold… Damn, my ankle and wrist fuckin hurt. I’d kill for one of those pills Liger’s stash'n right about now.”

Continuing my search for a means to ascend the gap, I found the door the lower portion of the building still open from the time I had initially fled.

“Bet that’s crawling with Undead… and I don’t see a way down… Damn it~!”

Unable to find any other alternative, I swallowed hard in preparation for my final ascent.

*WOOSH!*

Free…

For a few moments of weightlessness, I felt ‘Free.’

“GAH-ACK-PEHTEW!”

That is; until I got a mouth full of spindly leaves and flecks of briar lodged between my teeth.

“W-Whoa-whaaa!”

Under the additional weight, the vines creaked and snapped, lowering me a meter below my original position. Thankfully, the sensation of falling cut short as the thicker creepers caught the transformer units bolted securely to the mast.

“C’mon!” I grunted, throwing one hand above the other, slowly dragging myself along the thorny patch until my fingers wrapped around an iron peg embedded in the wooden electrical pole.

Then, without warning, it seemed as if the world tilted on its axis. Only when the movement ceased could I comprehend what had happened. The pole’s rotten base dislodged, swiveling outward away from the building suspended by the bulk of the vines that had impregnated the mortar both intertwined with the top of the mast.

“SHIT-SHIT-SHIT!” I cried out, now faced with a 10-meter plunge on top of a nauseating dizzy spell.

Reaching up towards the narrow vines stretched and suspended horizontally in the air, I placed my hand on one particularly thorny chord testing the waters.

“Fuck, I better clamber down before this shit gives out!” I winced in retreat, only to further embed the briar ripping into my thighs.

*Crick-crick-crick-crickkkkk!*

Cracks and pops echoed all around me as the wooden splinters dug into my thighs now speckled with blood. Had I pressed my descent any faster, I fear I would rub myself raw rendering myself unable to walk. Moments after my feet touched the ground, the vines continued to creek until the power mast fell back to Earth, severing its power lines in the process to the effect of hissing blue sparks that traveled along the length of the flailing tendrils.

At the moment of impact, the transformers exploded in a deadly shower slinging blisteringly hot oil, flames and sparks in all directions.

*TiSSSS-TiSSSS!*

Having been unable to seek cover within the building’s open entry in time, my clothes became speckled with embers.

“AH-SHIT!?” I cried out, patting off the licking flames and swaths of material now fused to my smoldering skin. As if to add insult to injury; I found myself face to face with three upright bodies impeding a flight of stairs the second I entered the building.

At one point, to my left there had been a wall-mount for a fire-axe, though its display had been busted long ago, its contents replaced with crusty bloodstains and cobwebs. What remained were mere shards of glass no bigger than a few centimeters.

With my goal directly overhead and given all that has happened on this horribly frigid night, my mind snapped to a solution. Between my knuckles, I stuffed a piece of cloth from my outfit along with the fragments of safety glass pointed outwards as if they were makeshift knuckle-dusters. Knowing full well they may only hold for a single strike, I lunged forward crying out ferociously.

Three bodies became two, then two became one. Even when the glass bit through the cloth into my knuckles, the force in my blows did not waver. Now that one remained, I kicked off its face in a powerful lunge consuming the remains of my energy, ascending the first switchback in the set of stairs.

As I cast the crumbling remnants of my makeshift weapon aside, I pulled myself up the handrail taking notice of the irony of how the smoke emanated from my clothing. I’ve been running on fumes, and I have been for quite some time, so when I hesitated before the door to the rooftop, my brain finally found permission to catch up with the rest of my body.

Dead or alive, I will have upheld my promise to return… Up until now, the ambiguity of her well-being has been driving me beyond limits I thought otherwise impossible to surpass. I cannot even remember the last time I found such a reason for my heart to beat- if the answer is unfavorable, will I be able to continue living?

Would I even deserve to continue living?

Or… Will I finally be able to let go? This world, and every miserable thing it contains?

As I placed my hand on the doorknob, my heart murmured out of sync, and my vision threatened to collapse momentarily. I’ll be damned if my body gives out now, so in a final act of desperation, I rammed my shoulder with every last shred of will.

But the door… having been previously barricaded by none other than Liger and my own two hands wouldn’t budge.

“GOD DAMN IT!” I roared, slamming the full weight of my body repeatedly into the metal barrier. “IZUMI!!! I’M HERE! IT’S ELSE!!! GOD…!! *BAM* FUCKING…!!

*BAM*

DAMN IT

*BAM-BAM-BAM*!!!”

*BAM-BAM-BAM!*

*BAM-BAM!*

*BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM!*

*BAAAM!*

*BAAMAAAM!*

*BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM!*

*BAMMM!*

*BAM!*

*BAM!*

*bam*

*bam*

*bam*

*thud*…

.

..

...

Sliding to my rear, I took in a deep and ragged breath of sickly black despair.

“Why…? Haven’t I given it my all, my everything? This isn’t how it’s supposed to be.” I grunted, hammering my fist weakly into the doorframe, rattling its hinges.

“It’s hinges? They’re on the inside…”

Weakly, I pried at the metal plates binding the door to the frame with my fingernails uncovering a slight hint of play.

“Izumi… You wouldn’t believe all that has happened since the day I left to find help…” I mumbled to myself, exhaling a congealment of hopelessness and misery as I continued to fiddle and pry at the hinge. “I met some soldiers… they were a bunch of pricks, *huff* but I bet you coulda’ guessed that on the account of Liger’s *huff* blowhard attitude… What was I thinking?”

Intangibly flickering like a reel of film, broken memories played back to me from the time I had been placed into the School Headmaster's custody, up until this very moment, the accumulation of it all brought me to tears.

“I-I’m not trying to make excuses… ya know?” I choked, struggling to breathe under the intensity of emotional tidal waves as I pressed my nails deeper into the hinge. “I tried really-really hard… Y-You said you’d be my friend, right? You… you can forgive me for fucking this all up… right…?”

Pressing my nails further, I dug in deeply.

“I’m sorry for being such a shitty fuckin’ friend… I wish you would have listened to me… I told you I was no good- I’ve never been any good for anybody!”

By now, the pressure exerted by my nails threatened to tear them from their nail-beds, but just as I was about to do so, the lowest hinge popped loudly, then clattered to the floor.

Suddenly, I found myself overwhelmed by the success that in leaping to my feet, my inane ramblings became fraught as I pressed myself for the energy to wage war against the second hinge.

“Vivian never listened to me… Revi never listened to me… YOU never listened to me!! Why can’t anyone ever listen to me!!! I’m a bad fucking seed, don’t you get it!? As soon as you humans made me, you put out a fucking recall notice! If Oni were so defective, why was I allowed to live?!”

*POP-PING!*

Frantically, I pulled back from the bloody splotch I had left on the doorframe nearest the central hinge. My nails bent backward and distorted like that of a monster.

“When Alistar came, and rescued me from the orphanage, I thought I was saved... but then he made me a Virtual Doll, yet I wasn’t even good enough to be a whore. So what am I left to do other than to resigned myself to being defective, a broken plaything? My friends hated me because they thought I was somehow special, special enough to be sold to some Prince from a different galaxy!”

“Mars is in the same Solar-System, lil Frill, didn’t'cha know?”

As I looked up in disbelief, my heart contorted into a knot too tight to be physically possible. Standing before me was Vivian, dressed in her timeless maid outfit with an expression alluding to something between a scowl and a smile.

“Vi-?!” I stammered helplessly. Confusion did not even begin to describe my state of lucidity.

“Silky~ ya get it? What did I tell you about using my real name!?”

With a flick of her wrist, the mirage bopped me with a feather duster seemingly pulled from thin air.

“I-I’m… h-hallucinating… I-I must be!”

“Yeah, you’re probably right.” She huffed in a half-shrug, carrying on with her casual mannerisms. “Let’s not dwell on the details! C’ mon, up to your feet. Lemme take a good look at ya!”

To add another layer to my confusion, Vivian's hands managed to yank me from the floor in one swift move.

“H-How is this possible? How c-can you... touch me?”

“Don’t worry your dainty little head about it.” She hummed, looking me over to a scowl of dissatisfaction. “Gee- Lil Frill, you’re all beat n’ burnt up! Did someone do this to you? If I find them I’ll be sure to give them a-!”

“Vi… I’ve done this all to myself… I need to save my friend who’s trapped on the other side of this door. Please…”

“Oh alright. You never use my name twice unless you’re serious. Now, what did I tell you when you get all mopey? Chin up, Princess!” She snatched me by the jaw, lifting my head enough to meet the embers flickering in her eyes. “If not, the crown falls!”

Just then, I felt a bolt of electricity course from her fingers, running the length of my throat and into my left arm. Reflexively, I swung forward clear through Silky’s visage and into the door with such force that I dislodged the final hinge in its entirely.

“Heh… Hehehh… AHAHAH!”

Laughing manically, I dove headfirst into the small gap between the doorframe, kicking off the ground using the balls of my feet to gain enough traction to wedge myself through to the other side.

“Izumi!” I cried as I scrambled towards the small survival tent swaying gently in the bitter breeze.

There she was, sprawled out in the open, the snow amassing at her fingertips, her eyes glazed staring towards the stars twinkling in the midnight sky.

“Zoomie- Izumi! H-Hi! It’s me! I’m back!” I chittered, painfully dropping to my knees. “It’s Else! It's me! I’m here!”

Her lips, both chapped and bloodied twitched, sending a massive shiver straight through my core.

She’s alive!

I can’t believe it!

SHE'S FUCKING ALIVE!!!!

I wanted to howl at the moon. I wanted to scream at the tops of my lungs though I haven’t the faintest clue what I would have said. When she rolled her eyes towards me, I felt as if I would vomit, and so I turned away momentarily.

There, lying along the floor stemming between her legs was a long, rope-like chord spanning back towards the opening of the survival tent.

“My…” She gasped, choking on her dried tongue. “My…”

“Don’t worry, Zoomie! I gotcha now!” I gripped her icy palm. “I’ll bet your thirsty! I’m sure Liger has all sorts of neat shit in his damn PEE Tent! Hold on, I’ll only be a meter away!”

Reluctant to part ways, Izumi’s grip tightened in the slightest, but as soon as I patted her crown with a forced smile of reassurance, it then loosened.

In my quick trot towards the tent, I noticed a horrendous smell, but that was quickly overshadowed by a flock of ravens taking flight from within the tent’s interior. As I pressed my way through the zippered door flapping in the wind, I found a scene of utter chaos. The tent’s floor, covered with feathers, blood, and filth resembling something not too far off of a satanic summoning ritual.

That’s when I realized the nature of the chord tracing back to Izumi…

Limbs outstretched, riddled with fulmar marks in the center of a tent lay an infant, picked clean of its flesh. Its hollow eye sockets staring towards the ceiling, its skin stinking of rotten meat and feces. Izumi had given birth in my absence, and it seemed she turned the tent upside down with the last remainder of her strength in desperation.

Even after I rummaged through the remains of ration packaging, I could not find anything remotely of use. It seemed that Izumi long depleted her supplies, owing her very existence up until this moment to her desire of self-preservation and ingenuity.

Holding my head in defeat while carefully avoiding the corpse tracking my movements throughout the tent, I returned to Izumi’s side, and in the next moment, I found myself sobbing, collapsed upon my knees.

“You did good… Zuzu… I’m sorry… soo sorry…”

“E…l…se…”

Although her voice was faint, I was surprised that despite my disheveled appearance, she recognized me and that I could make out my name.

“Ah… Lil Frill, here!”

Again, Silky appeared to me as soon as I looked up from the lake of tears forming in the palms of my hands. In her grasps, a strange plastic ‘tag’ no larger than a credit card flashed red at the corner on one end.

“W-What’s this?” I sniffled.

“Dunno, I mighta broke it, but I still think it can be of use!!” Silky beamed, sitting down beside me, placing a hand on Izumi’s forehead. “This is your friend I’ve heard so much about? She’s adorable!”

Adorable, she says? Silky must genuinely be a hallucination, for she cannot smell the filth Izumi has been stewing in for the past few days. But now… none of that mattered. What Silky had placed in my hands read ‘S.O.S’ property of the Praetorian Private Militia, abbreviated P.P.M in raised reflective letters.

[To Use this Device; Break Internal Chemical Tubes]

[Solid Red Light = Support Request Denied/Invalid]

[Flashing Red Light = S.O.S Signal Active Broadcast]

[Flashing Green Light = EVAC Request Received]

[Solid Green Light = Support Team Evac Underway]

Eyeing the two central tubes of clear chemicals churning together in the center of the card, the flashing red light intensified to an almost blinding degree.

“It’s… G-Green… S-SOLID GREEN!?!?” I shrieked, turning to Silky who had vanished without a trace.

“Keep it down, you’ll attract more than just the undead if you’re shouting after activating that GOOJF Card.”

With enough force to snap my neck, I whipped about to the prismatic outline of a man who melded into reality.

“L-Liger… you.... came...” I whispered. In the very same moment, it felt as if my Soul fled my body. The world, and its entirety became black.