Stripped tunnels, the death was another on their count. They didn't bother thinking, it was hurting their head trying to think. With all plans derailed, they decided to call the day off.
"How long have you been here?" Dairue opened the door of their motel room, it was night outside, nobody was on the streets and they all went silent.
"5 hours-? It's 8:00 pm... You guys have been gone for 5 hours, Max was gone for about 3?" Kenji was wondering why he was asking.
"All of it, it's non-Euclidean, time does not work relative to one thing on that place... Maybe it's not that but I don't fucking know a thing." he clutched his stomach, the pain was amplified by stress. His voice was even deeper than normal, Max was questioning himself on what he knew and what he read about.
"It felt like an hour, we just walked around a singular highway with lights on the side..." Dairue was packing his things, he wants to leave as soon as possible.
"Where the hell are you going?" confusion, it felt like Dairue was in spirals with his words, Kenji didn't know why he had the sudden urge to leave.
"What are we debating here? It's either we get trapped here or not, people stay indoors for a reason, it can't be a coincidence that they all wear black!" he was no longer rational, he saw what he saw and never wanted anything to do with it again. For him, the day was done; they did what they could, and no single option remains.
Do something, anything, why are you still standing? Sometimes you must walk for yourself, other people won't take the next step for you, they may even take the step from you. Was it right to waste all of your bullets on one target? Why were you drawn to violence when you stand against it? Perhaps it was, to shoot a ghost bullet into the unknown.
Regardless of intention, why do you look to other people for help? They don't wanna help you, you don't know who's there. Behind the wall of the door, is a stranger, your house is your head, your door, is your decision. It's time to leave this behind, the fireworks must be beautiful right? The colors that splatter on the sky, a perfect storm for something else.
"Tomorrow, the fireworks festival, we can't go out, we must go now or get caught up with people." Dairue was not planning to stay, regardless of how much they spent on the place, he wanted to leave before the people start to mug them from within.
Kenji was frustrated, Dairue was acting like a child who got the bitter end of the stick. His patience was drained, there was no turning back after they leave yet he still insisted not to stay. They step down the stairs, and the town had no lights left after going outside. Streets were left to pitch-black shadows of houses that were lit by the little light the sky emitted.
Crickets never chirped, there were no sounds other than heartbeats, and the wind was not present. Fatigued and sore, Yuari was not feeling the night, he felt an ominous presence. Window Town had changed, the windows were cracked and marked, and the modernity of the town had disappeared. The streets shifted, the signs were rusted, blue paint turned to a dim chalky surface.
"Call somebody, it's not safe, we can't trust a place that shifts around..." Kenji took his phone and dialed Raiden's number, but to his lack of luck, nobody bothered to take the call.
"Is nobody bothered by this?! Why are you all acting like this is so normal..." Yasu never got over the fact that they were all unphased, almost like they'd seen worse.
Kenji turns the lobby's light switch off, he goes up another floor and turns the hallway light off, then another, until he reached the final floor. He turned off the lights of their room and the lights of many other rooms present on the floors. Everybody else in the lobby sat inside, shrouded in nothing but the flashlight they bought with them.
They sat on the lobby couch, Yuari took his phone out, the bright light illuminating the back of the chair. He called Xavier, the loud ringing echoed in the hall, he turned his volume to two and put his phone next to his ears.
"What? We playing a game, let's go! What are we doing?" Xavier was eager to play another round in their favorite game but instead got Yuari's face on the camera.
"Look at these 3 idiots... Hahaha..." Yuari pointed his phone's camera at Dairue, Max, and Yasu, they were leaning outside the door of the lobby, waiting for something to pass by and keeping an eye out for any intruders.
"Hahaahah! Yasu what the hell is that face, what's the matter? Why do you look so scared?!" Xavier couldn't help but laugh at their defeated expressions. He then asked where they were and Yuari could only mention "Window Town", Xavier didn't know what it was or where it existed, he googled the place and found nothing on the map.
"Xavier, you should come with us, we're going back the day after tomorrow, you're brave enough right, let's go." Yasu walked up to the camera and dared him to join the operation in a joking manner.
"Nah, am good at home, you guys go have a fun time whimpering, hahaha!" Xavier giggled even more at how folded he looked, Yasu was more than done with the entire operation, he wanted nothing to do with it anymore.
Dairue took his lighter out and another pack of Mevius cigarettes, he lit one away from Max and Yasu, walking just far enough to see the alleyway. The lighter made a dim glow next to his face, he looked behind him at a short angle.
Something ran away, he couldn't make out what it was.
He threw the cigarettes and went back indoors, Max was still keeping watch when he tapped his shoulder and told him about the alleyway. The boy walked over, cushioning his feet on fabric he threw on the ground, he peeked and saw nothing except a trashcan with a glint of light.
"Something was there..." Dairue whispered inside the lobby, his footsteps were mimicking Max's slow movement, avoiding as much noise as possible.
"It's no surprise we're not alone out here. Most of the time, this is the part we run and trip on something, but don't be idiots..." Max went back inside after hearing what Dairue said, he wasn't planning to get caught outside by something he couldn't see, hear or even understand.
Kenji sat on the edge of the rooftop, overlooking the alleyway, something was walking among the trash bags. Tangled wires were wrapped around its body, an odd shape was inside. The reception was terrible, the higher elevation did not provide any added benefits to signal towers nearby.
He opened settings and found he had no data left, the signal was present yet his persistent search for it was meaningless. Yuari went upstairs, opened the hatch, and he took a sip of his water bottle on the way through. Kenji was observing the object, watching closely as it travels around.
"Ah! You startled me, why did you go up here?"
"Dairue told me to go up here and help you, he said to call Raiden or we'll die."
"He's being dramatic again, nobody is dying tonight."
"Except that uh, thing in the tunnel..."
Below them, in a low corridor, Max chased the lurking shadow. Gunfire was heard throughout the town, Man was trailing the object that ran from him, Kenji looked from all sides, the town had surrounded their motel, which slowly changed in shape, the building was shifting from a peach-colored paint to an ashy gray.
"What are you doing?!" Kenji shouted from the rooftop, he took his rifle out, turning his safety notch off. He took aim at the figures surrounding the building, Yuari was rushing down the stairs, telling Dairue to stay alert and keep the doors open. Kenji took his phone before he went down, dialing Raiden for a second time, successfully so.
"Raiden, listen, we need you to come here, they've surrounded us, they have lighters in place and now we need help, we might have to cross the neighboring rooftop from here. Just remember, WIndow Town, Kenji out."
"Max! Get back inside, we're moving, they plan to burn the building down, everybody, take your stuff and get up here!" Dairue was shouting on the front part of the roof, looking over the railing underneath.
Max's eyes were looking down on the road, he wanted to make a run for the car. Nothing was working in his mind, he gave their position away, one of the figures bled on the floor. He pointed and leaped over the rooftop. Max landed on the metallic structure next to the motel, he continued trying to gun down the flood of figures that doused their building in gasoline.
Kenji followed suit, taking his bag and throwing it to the next building, soon their motel was lit in flames. Yasu went the other way, trying to make as much noise on the roof to attract the attention of the figures, they were split in two. Oozing black goo was creeping into the building, soon the figure lit themselves on fire.
They threw flowers into the roof and set the wilting flowers to gas, Max denied inhaling the wilted particles. Goo wrapped its arm around the window panel, crawling through the roof at an alarming speed. The glass broke in pieces, the concrete was crumbling, and the mass grew like a vine that molded itself through an abandoned building.
Infinite tendrils, black and oozing consistently a reddish black fluid, viscous. The smell was rotten, the air had been poisoned by the mass. Max kept running, putting his gun away and prioritizing creating distance. On rooftops, It created figures that resembled humans, its form dissolved into bloodied shadows.
Yasu found a low point, jumping down to the street, attempting to regroup with the rest. It was spreading around the road, streets cracked under its weight the burning motel was engulfed in black flame.
Max broke gutters, cuts filled underneath his arm, injuries never hurt, blood never stopped his dizziness. Adrenaline was flowing in his blood, he was scared, angry, fueled by the desire to live.
It chases you, what will you do when its tendrils carry your leg and turn you to stone? When Its mouth petrifies your face, it fears you more, you fear it more? The vein in your eye, it stays red, infection pioneers your will to live. What is it? What are you looking at, what is the black mass?
It was walking tar, its voice was not heard from the ears, yet in the mind, it speaks. Your eyes cannot take staring at it, feeling as if you want to throw up the contents of your stomach, the body of yours, to lay it on the ground and surrender. Its fingers were all over its arm, the rebar couldn't pierce its bloody, loose, and damp skin.
Magnificence, its beauty was distracting, its persistence is unveiling underneath a chasm of pure oil. Why was it on fire? Why did it burn itself to run? What does it know, that you don't? The mass stared with no eyes, heard with no ears, and spoke with no mouth. It called to the living, wanting to communicate.
Afraid, your eyes bawl at the thought of something, you think you're close but it had no form. What is form? No, keep running, but what if it's close? But it's always behind, you feel a sense of dread as if the rooftops were no longer enough, and the stinging pain was intoxicating the will.
Descriptions never matched, there was nothing to describe, as if there was nothing there to chase you, what was its color? What was it...
Max couldn't think, he ran past the road where the car was parked, the buildings were no longer countable, and they shifted sides. The town looked desolate as it was, their cards stacking up against their favor. Yasu was lost, Kenji was missing, and Dairue made it.
He looked pale, like blood was drained from his body, his soul has been emptied of its organs. His injuries bled relentlessly, gashes all over his knees, unable to take hold of himself, he wanted to stab his chest, he pointed the gun at Max.
"You! Huff... Why?! Why did you break away from us?!" Dairue was irrational, unable to be reasoned with, all his eyes saw, was evil, that Max had done him wrong and now they must pay the price.
"I bought us time! I got us out of there, so why the fuck do you wanna kill me for it?!" Max was just as pale, vomiting at the side of the road, his headache was throbbing, trying to crawl up to the grass. He wanted to tear his eyes out, to unsee, to unhear everything it said.
"No! We shouldn't be doing this, I don't wanna do this anymore, I quit Max. We shouldn't have burned that church! We shouldn't have gone here, we should've let it be, am sorry..." Dairue surrendered.
They fell to the ground...