A week and a half has left his watch.
You sit on the stairs, wondering why you could barely lift your weight, wondering why your arms are too heavy to raise. Are you wondering why you're wasting away slowly? You must be able to be there tonight, without you, they are nothing but flies on rotting food.
Max tried thinking of something motivational, flames, an adventurer, a knight that lived through those flames, the power of will. Willpower was the single fuel he was able to burn without the need for people. The ability to push forward regardless of fear and struggle, the ability to push the presence of evil out in the open field.
The boy grabs his phone and calls his mother.
"Mom, I'll be going out today, am taking a sick leave off work, don't know when I'll come back, it'll be after dark."
"Where are you going?" she let him roam freely, so long as she knew where he was headed.
"Window town, a few hours away... Goodbye" Max set the phone down into his bag, and the gun remained still ready. He took his second phone and called the rest of the team, asking where they should meet to start the operation.
"We're going to stay over at a motel in Window Town since there are only five of us, one room will be enough." Dairue pitched at a stay in the densely populated area, the motel had no marked windows, no looming threats that could turn their ideas awry.
"Are you sure we have a place to stay tonight already? Also who's with us? You never told me anything except an overnight, what even is "Window town"?" Yasu could not help himself, there were too many blank questions that he wanted answers for, too many hidden details and loose ends to account for.
"I was allowed to stay, why won't you guys tell me what we're doing there? Man I was gonna take care of my siblings, my dad will probably be pissed at me again" Yuari had chores and caretaking duties to take care of, yet for once he chose his friends over family for one day. He wanted to spend at least another day before things went downhill.
Max left the call, they were busy about something he didn't wanna hear about. He wore his earphones again, riding his bike to the road that lead downhill, a shortcut from his usual route that wasn't accessible during the rain. The sun was shining brightly, and the blue sky was at its peak, afternoons gave a good view of the towns below the layer his house sat on.
"The sun looks like a lemon from down here hehe... Wow, everything looks so pastel-ly-ish..." the boy did not know how to describe beauty, the barebones of his eyes felt like a guitar strumming lightly in the background. Music was enlightening the gloom, doomed by the sounds of drums as he pedaled down the road.
Overgrowth was a common sight, left behind by society to get taken back by nature. An unforgiving sight? A garden growing on the walls? What was so compelling about the leaves that gave way to flowers growing from nowhere but rotting wood and concrete?
"Those houses look like they're in desperate need of a renovation, one could only wonder how it would feel to live in one. Hehe, ghosts... Hehehehe..."
"Sometimes I find it weird, but I guess we all fear the same thing, tensions were enough to make people leave entire houses behind"
"Come to think of it, maybe we should leave... Will mom even recover financially from such an expensive idea?"
Talking to yourself as always, conversations that never burn out your energy. You live as if you're alone, you're not, you live as if people don't exist, they do. Are contradictions the only thing you're good for? You continue riding down the hill, dreading the day you must move out, sometimes the day is just a little too good to think about something negative.
What is your goal there? Why did you volunteer to risk your life just to find out a tiny scrap, what if you die? Death doesn't scare you, living does, living life regularly without a purpose scares you more.
Cult of unknown origins, a towering pole of light, the cult of markings. The cult that knows, a cult that you don't know. What are the chances you find something more than what you're capable of handling, what are the chances of taking care of yourself within a moment's notice when all things that humans think about, crumble to the floor of the unknown?
The boy thinks about the unknowable, trying to fit the puzzle of what's known, yet nothing fits together, because there are only two pieces. An existential puzzle where the number of pieces is unknown. Beginning to explain the unknown is like trying to speak English with a spider, the spider does not understand, and the speaker cannot begin to think like the spider, desperate to scuttle away.
Max reaches the foot of the hill, he rides over the station which was relatively close by, he dumped the bike on the grass and ran up the station. The clunky metal steps on which his foot was stepping, were unsafe and rusted from below, covered in gray paint. The station was foggy, the ash still present in the air.
Yasu came from the other side of the stairs, confused with his headphones on and his eyes glued to his phone.
"Hey, how much money did you bring?" Yasu was smiling at Max, thinking they were going out to eat somewhere like a mall or a town grocery center. He kept persuading Max to tell him even a tiny inch-ling of detail
"Just enough to go, I don't count but maybe 1-thousand?" Max was checking his wallet, rambling over receipts and other such useless pieces of refined paper.
"What are we even doing there? Like arcade? More games? Is Maragi there?" Yasu was excited, it was obvious in his jumpy attitude, like a child who got his first toy. He put his headset back, the train doors opened with a swish.
They sat together, both with their ears plugged into their music. They were deep within themselves, deep in the burrows of escapism. Max leaned on the window while Yasu tried to sleep off the entire trip.
Both of them were similarly trapped in their different ways, taking a trip down the memory of school days. They left together, commuting in groups and feeling as if a united classroom existed. Rooms were less certain, the future never better than the past could ever be, taking the warnings seriously, warnings that tore apart the last hopes they had for a decent day.
Dairue called Yasu, reminding both of them to stay put and head to the house. He rambled for an entire hour about how Kenji's car was coming and he had to stay on call in case the train. Mortified at being caught, he was panicking because they were late.
"Please hurry the fuck up! Like you goofy goober, please!" he was begging in his half-empty neighborhood, pleading with Kenji to hurry up and make sure Max and Yasu come on time.
Eventually, his prolonged panic attack ended as soon as Max and his beloved companion got out of the train station, Yasu was confused why they stopped at an overgrown town with no familiar locations, no familiar houses, or even a single eatery nearby except the outskirts.
"We're headed to Window Town Yasu.." Max said to his ear, trying not to make a fuss out of their current situation.
"What?! What is Window Town??" Yasu was confused, annoyed, and trapped with the rest of them, he saw Dairue holding a firearm and he didn't know what to make of its presence near them.
The disappointed man started walking back to the station, trying to comprehend why he was there, he wanted to go home. Rather than letting go, Max decided to pull his collar back, Dairue came with him and decided to join pulling Yasu back towards the house to wait.
"Just let me go, seriously I don't know why we're here, I still have shit to do at home! Neither of you told me why we have guns, what are we even using that for? Seriously I really wanna leave man, I wasted money on the ticket.."
Yasu exclaimed, his lack of any clue of why was driving him crazy, avoiding was the last thing he could do because they'd always push him back regardless of what he wanted. Max offered to repay his lost money on the train ticket, giving him free benefits, promising of treating him to food and going out with Maragi during the fireworks festival
It's not right to pull your friend into something, the danger is all that's beside you like a shadow guarding your every corner. The closest thing you had to a bodyguard without needing to hire one. You convince him anyway, knowing it's wrong and unjust to bring him into the company of death. However someone was there to disturb your peace, Yuari waits in the corner, trying to surprise them.
"Heey~! Yooo it's Yasu, what are we here for? Hahaha, I finally escaped the house, I didn't wanna step foot outside the door.." Yuari stood at the side of the building, leaning on the brick pattern that has no integrity left. His outfit was gray, decked out with the finest attire he had for rock, he truly had a tinge for rock and metal.
On his back, was a guitar bag, there wasn't any guitar, just valuables that people always bring daily. The obvious lack of interest in going out made him silent and irritable, Yuari didn't wanna be disturbed or touched. A single conversation was enough to make him lash out. He went back to the corner, waiting patiently for Kenji's arrival.
Yasu sat on the sidewalk, he had no choice but to continue, sneaking to run was no longer an option, even listening to music wasn't enough to distract the guilt he had for leaving the house without asking. Yet deep inside, he knew his mother wouldn't mind, he knew his sisters wouldn't care and he didn't care for himself...
"Dairue, check this out, I have your pistol, I didn't know I had it back at the station." Max took the gun out of his black mesh inside the bag, unzipping the "secret" storage that had nothing more than coffee ground jars and warm water. The gun was safely unloaded, and the magazine was apart from the body.
"You didn't tell me, you dumb bitch, why? God, keep it from now on god, it's fine.." even in the face of being robbed, being endangered, and being placed on the spot, Dairue was trying to keep calm. His calm demeanor influenced his friends, they all wanted to run from him but he still maintained composure.
A car shows up on the road behind them, slowly peeking into the horizon.
It was Kenji, with a different car that had more gashes and bruises than his previous red vintage Cadillac. The yellow paint was starting to fall apart yet the inside looked relatively untouched and modern, once again a car that has only been taken off internally.
"The doors are unlocked, don't lock them, they lock themselves once it starts to move forward" Kenji opened the trunk, instructing everybody to put their stuff inside and keep their firearms in a spot they can see and hold without being inspected. The inspection itself was brief yet they all worried about being imprisoned for illegal possession of weapons.
They all went in, the back seat was automatically full, and they all cramped each other without the space fit for more than four people. Max sat in front, and Dairue squished the two others in the back by sitting in the middle. His bigger body frame made the two slim fools feel like tuna packed in a can that was squished under a hydraulic press.