After some time of strolling around aimlessly away from the house, the four friends finally stopped.
"What's up dude, just wanted to say sorry-" Bene apologetically said.
"Yeah, yeah I forgive you. Now just, leave me alone for now because I have a lot of things I need to do today alright?" Brylle replied as if he was low on time.
"Oh, let's eat first at your house and chill!" Sayaka suggests enthusiastically.
"Oh, not right now ple-"
"Let's play some games as well!" Paul butted in.
"Im gonna beat you in Taken, you did a number on me last time-" Bene adds.
At this point, everyone was talking at their own pace without listening to Brylle.
He, who's five senses were amplified was at the middle of 3 people who were talking and laughing constantly.
He, who wanted some peace at that time was hearing them joke about the him liking the Twister Virus.
He, who at the time was infected by it.
The second stage of the five stages of grief- Anger.
"JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP AND LEAVE! I TOLD YOU GUYS I FORGIVE YOU ALREADY, OKAY!" he shouted, silencing everyone present including the random passersby.
His breathing was hard, and the beating of his heart was fast. The whispers of the crowd were completely audible to him that it started to sound like mocks.
While covering his ears with his fingers and his eyes with his palms, he ran away as fast as he could towards anywhere that there wasn't a single person. His friends just watched him zoom out through the crowd, still frozen and speechless from his shout.
Eventually, he stopped at an old abandoned building. Inside, the empty, large and messy area greeted him, making him feel small. He sat at the crooked, cold wall in order to calm himself down.
"Everything's pretty rough lately huh." a random woman's voice talked to him. It was another homeless person wearing a dirty jacket and a red bonnet. She was looking at him as if she was looking at herself in the mirror.
"You don't need to say anything, I can tell right away. That look you have right now, that's the exact same look I had before I became like this- just not caring about anything." she added.
Brylle's face was a mess. Troubled, confused, in need of help. He's being forced to live a reality that's new to him, a reality he doesn't want. He didn't listen to the woman, it fact she annoyed him. Hobos doesn't have the best of impressions in his mind right now, maybe not ever. He went further upstairs to avoid the female hobo, who took a glance at him secretly as he walks up the stairs.
At a small room with a shabby wooden door, presumably once a closet, he locked himself in and drowned himself with thoughts. But, one thought surfaced above everything else-
"What do I do now?" he asks himself while sitting in a fetal position, eating the chicken nuggets he bought earlier. To his surprise however, the nuggets tasted bland and bleak like paper. So he frustratingly threw it away.
All of a sudden, he heard the hobo from earlier scream, accompanied by a strong stench of blood. His instincts were screaming, telling him of the danger that lies ahead. He knows it's another one of those Twisters.
Slowly, he walks out of the tiny, cramped room he was just in and peeped downstairs. He was right, it was another twister. It paused from eating and looks at Brylle, who was terrified of the sight of gore.
The twister had the appearance of a 25 year old man in a hoodie with tattoos and piercings all over it's face. He smiled at him, gesturing him to come and eat the meat with him. However, he just threw up and ran back upstairs instead.
Brylle returned to the room he was previously in to hide. His enhanced hearing was able to pick up the slow, consecutively footsteps of the Twister as it comes to the upper floor he's currently in. Panic and anxiety was taking over Brylle once again.
'What went wrong with my life? What exactly did I do wrong? Because I made fun of a single person? I'm sorry! Fuuuck!'
As the footsteps come closer and closer to his location, Brylle silently cries more and more in a compact room with a bunch of other rotten out and dusted out cleaning tools.
Finally, the footsteps stopped and the door opened in front of him. What greeted him was a man with a cheerful smile, in his hand is a large chunk of meat, supposedly of that woman downstairs.
"Want some?" the man asked him with a smile.
"N-no tha-"
The human meat's smell began to arouse something inside Ken. Seconds later, he found himself staring intently at the meat with drool flowing all over his face.
"Go, eat it. I know it's hard the first time but, we've got to do this to live from now on." the man sincerely explained to him.
At first, Brylle slowly tried to reach out to the meat. He's eaten all kinds of food before going home, yet he felt famished. The human meat that looked disgusting to him began to look like a 200-pound medium-rare steak.
'T-that could use some calamansi(Philippine Lemon)' he thinks to himself while his drool starts to flow out of his mouth.
He snaps out of it, however. His mind was still human and wants to reject it while his body is now a twister's and wants to accept it. Both personalities are starting to fight against each other and he's unable to pick a side.
"Don't you want it? It's okay man, it's good for you- well, atleast for us. Look, I'm gonna eat it it's perfectly safe-" the man said as he took a piece of the meat before gulping it down instantly.
"See? it's all fine." he assured.
"I- I know that i-it's fine okay... I mean, you're once human too right? D-don't you feel sorry for her?" Brylle replies with a sad tone while looking down on the ground instead of staring straight at the Twister.
The Twister sighed and sat with him. His cheerful smile turned into a sad one, almost as if his earlier attitude was all an act.
"I don't like doing this too you know. I just don't have a choice. I've experienced what happened when you don't eat, firsthand. Trust me, you WILL eat whether you want it or not. Better to eat other people than black out one day and wake up with your family's blood on your hands-" he ensues with a bitter sigh. His eyes looked tired and grieving, as if he already accepted everything but with contempt.
Silence filled the environment. Brylle didn't knew what to say. He found someone who had already finished their own hell. He was scared, scared that he's also gonna end up like this man, broken and used to killing innocents without his heart into it. A monster with a heart.
"What's your name my guy?" he tries to break the ice, deflecting the depressing mood surrounding the two of them. Brylle understood that this guy is a cheerful and optimistic person and tried to respond to him earnestly.
"I-I am Brylle. J-Joseph Brylle." he replied with a forced smile, still scared by the man before him. "W-what's yours?"
"Oh, I'm Angelo. James Angelo Martinez. You can call me Jam-" he replied with a smile. "Nice to meet you Brylle. You have a name fit for a tough guy, I like it."
"Likewise." Brylle responds to him while slowly lifting his head up, opening up to Jam. "Did you try to look for a cure?"
"Yeah, I did. It took me months to get it, even travelled the world, researching about the virus as long as I could and trying to find a single scientist infected with a twister virus-"
"Wait, for how long were you infected?" Brylle interrupts him, his face painted in confusion.
"4 years now." Jam replied nonchalantly.
"But the virus was only out of the net for about a week!" Brylle replied, even more confused this time.
"Well, you know the government. Why do you think James Dober's videos and articles keep getting banned?" he asks him rhetorically. Brylle was silenced by the realization. The virus was out for a long time now but the government did it's best to hide it. They were not able to hide it for long though-
"James Dober is my new target now. I formed a group of Twisters as I travelled around the world and they're more than willing to help me find the German." he spoke seriously. Hope began to shine in his eyes.
"He's the only shot we've got left for a cure. The reason why I'm trying to find a scientist infected specifically with the Twister Virus is because we need someone who not only would help us willingly, but also won't get us in trouble. James Dober might not be infected but he's already hunted by the authorities, just like a Twister. We'll give him protection and subjects for his research while he gives us a cure. A win-win, right?" he spoke as if to boast his plan
Brylle also realized something, that he also has hope. He can return back into a human again and live a normal life with his friends!
"C-can I join you? I'll do whatever I can to help!" he asked enthusiastically.
"Oh, so you can be cheerful! HAHAHA!" Jam replies with a cheerful laugh, his teeth still stained with blood. "Of course you can! We'll teach you the basics about controlling your abilities. But first, eat that meat. We don't want you going berserk on us-"
Brylle stared the meat that Jam is handing over to him. It did look oddly delicious, like a steak as mentioned earlier. Slowly, he took a bite and chewed the human meat. All of a sudden, flavors of beef flooded his mouth.
He has never eaten something this good his entire life.