Dairue leaves the door open, after leaving the apartment, he sees the mass, the conglomerate of hands, arms, and detached flesh. Burns, cuts, its ribs were not present, yet it could move. He knew he couldn't escape from it, something he had to face, he tried to call Raiden, but the response was quick.
"This is it, this it..." Dairue was not ready to face it, yet he had to. He never knew that his most loyal companion was behind all that transpired.
"The end? Haha, I think not, maybe the beginning of something worse." Raiden could not believe his eyes, it was all real, the public was there. He rode to Dairue's house, only minutes away from his own.
He left the car, seeing it up close, its tendrils from the back, it tried to crawl to the next dome. The military had contained it, a long drawn-out excursion, barely a battle.
"We should get Max, staying here will get us killed," Raiden remarked, pulling Dairue to the car, they admired a bit more, yet left immediately. The broken roads, trails of dirt, and crushed concrete. The government was quick to close specific sectors.
Soon, there were little roads that led to his house, the uphill rise was their only option, yet his home was no longer there.
The house was torn in half, the second floor vanished, and the bathroom looked as if it was an origin point.
"No... This can't be, he can't be dead, right? It was just in his path." Raiden was in disbelief, assuming that Max had died.
They left the car and checked the house, there was nobody, yet there were no further paths behind the house.
"Looks as if, he's alive, maybe it just chose to emerge from his house..." Raiden was unable to find any answers, nothing made sense, nothing was lining up to truth.
"Blood, must've been the blood of that thing. Bullets, a pistol..." Dairue pointed at the creature, it was far-ridden yet still visible from their spot.
"No... Please, no, not you too Max, not you too." Raiden kept looking around, trying to search for his remains, but nothing was there.
"We have no time to waste, we have to go, if he's alive, he'll show up." Raiden fled the scene, knowing there was no point in searching any longer.
They had no clue where to go, the bunkers were risky and unorthodox. Blind, there was nowhere for them anymore. Everything was too late, everything was on the brink of nothingness, and the routes lead nowhere. A bleak demise, a slow painful death.
Having nowhere else to go, they decide to camp in an abandoned house.
"I am going to get both our names placed on the list, if this entire place gets leveled, we won't live." Raiden went back to the car and started the engine. He left as quickly as he got there, leaving Dairue alone with a singular lighter, with his belongings scattered on the floor.
The red lights of the car, the tailgating cart behind. Maybe everything was falling apart, maybe to him, it was a matter of coincidence. Yet the thought of Max's house, the thought of having no corpse, the beast. An unsolvable puzzle that jumbled itself, the iterations, the chaos, it was all coming in a neatly tight package.
Dairue took his phone and charged it on a power bank, waiting patiently next to the overgrown house. Niko was available, he called her, trying to calm himself down, the panic was too much to bear alone.
"Hey, have you seen Max recently, the news anything at all?!" his voice was shaking heavily, the smoke from his cigarette, blowing past the wind as he puffed violently.
"Huh?! Why, no?! I have no idea, am not updated..." Niko responded she had no clue where Max's whereabouts were.
"News? Anything in there lately?" Dairue's desperation led him to question all sorts of things, from outlets and social media to obscurity.
"God, am in a car, lemme just check my phone. Okay it says here, there was a boy on the back of the thing, I don't know if that's him, is it?!" Niko was panicking, a small zoom was enough to make out familiar details, yet she was still unsure. She sent the live news, he tried to cover his eyes, the blood was flooding the streets, yet it looked familiar.
"His house was the first place that got destroyed, nobody, nothing. Just a gun and some blood on the floor, which might've been someone else..." he sat down and stood up and sat down, repeating the same pattern of speech, he was not convinced it was Max.
"Dark maroon hair, yeah, that's him, that's him!" Niko kept jumping around her seat, pointing her hands at the phone even though Dairue wasn't with her, he saw the aftermath, Max was rushed to a nearby hospital.
Dairue ended call, his eyes were drawn to the sky, it was the only place that could answer his questions. The smoke created a foggy night, the visibility was low, yet everything felt like it calmed down. Chaos was followed by silence, a time to mourn.
Soon, Raiden returned, and they've finally gotten a safe spot. The bunker had housing capable of taking them in. Dairue had a smile, one that kept a comforting glow for Raiden, they had nothing left to lose. The packages get stuffed at the back, and the rest of their things end up with their chairs.
"Max is the monster," Dairue exclaimed his findings, hoping to think nothing more of the situation. He wished to forget, but his very own companion had become the source of all his problems.
"I know, it wasn't very hard to find that out," Raiden said in a colder tone, knowing how everything goes, nobody expects anything normal to happen.
"How are you not phased?! This is Max, the last person who found out, yet why do these things keep happening to him?!" Dairue was no longer holding back, he wanted to know, as much as he wanted nothing to do with anything.
"Well, am just saying, out of everyone here, he would be the first one to find out about everything," Raiden said calmly, trying to get ahead of Dairue's point.
"Is he special? Like actually special? God I feel bad, he's in the hospital right now." Dairue's questions grew more unhinged as he tried to get more from Raiden.
"You sound like a kid, no he's not special, none of us are special. He just observes things with a clearer picture than most of us. Out of everybody, you're the one who should know him best, yet you act like a fool when he's involved." Raiden was tired of their debacle, there was no resolution.
"Heh? Oy, you insisted on this thing, what do you mean?" Dairue was in disbelief at what he received as a "valid" reply.
"Look, arguing with adults again, what is with you and being so prideful? Maybe this is why your friendship isn't doing too well." Raiden was tired of the conversation, he just wanted to get by and save him.
"Bastard! Not arguing with you what?! Mans making stuff up again, like seriously..." Dairue no longer bothered with his point, he just sat down quietly for the rest of the ride.
They arrive at the entrance. cars were everywhere, the whole road was organized but cramped. People were flocking to the gates, multiple lines, and families trying to get by. There were plenty of silent children, the adults were crying.
"We wait in line." Raiden kept him close, making sure they don't go separate lines.
"What's gonna happen to the car?" Dairue was more concerned about their outside belongings than getting to safety, there was no advantage in keeping safe.
"Hehe, it could be months from now, but am hoping it's still here once we leave." Raiden was conscious about his car, everything had been easier ever since it entered his life.
"What about Max? Shouldn't we get him first?" Dairue needed the three of them to stick together.
"Stay silent until we get to our designated area." Raiden didn't want to expose their relationship to Max, the incident was still ongoing, and everything was still unstable.
They reach the end of the line, the interior was freshly designed, and modernity was present in every corner. Elevators, are pristine and reflective with all the metallic surfaces, having no scratches. It was new, something built in preparation for an ominous event.
The bunker entrance was a cylindrical concrete tunnel that lead downwards into the mountain, for a short walk, the lobby housed the elevators that went down into the lower level. There was more than one emergency staircase, each staircase was large and expansive, well lit as well as in top shape.
They went down the elevator, passengers packed full in neatly shaped squares. The doors open, Raiden and Dairue search the tiled hallways for their rooms. Every door was occupied, yet their number finally showed up, the wirings ended through the wall of their bunker door.
After throwing their stuff on the floor, they sit on the bed, the air was heavy, and the ventilation was just strong enough to breathe.
"Max will be gone for a while, interrogations will happen, questions of what happened. We don't even know if he lived, maybe he was special, maybe the cult was responsible." Raiden saw bleak endings for Max, his reputation as a person had become tarnished by a life-threatening event.
"We're done for, I am not going to help with that anymore, besides we're trapped here." Dairue insisted they stop the chase, to give up everything they built because it was ready to crumble.
"Did you take Kenji's jar? Max wrote something there." Raiden had remembered that neither of them took it from the crematorium, the wake was no longer there.
"Yes, it's at my house, I read the note already..." Dairue caught a small memory of taking it home.
"One thing's for sure, he showed the public, now the whole world is our ally. Max is the turning point, something we could've never seen coming." Raiden was confident that they didn't need to do anything about the cult anymore, it was already something the public was aware of the unknown.
"Don't act dumb, they'll cover this up, governments are simple like that." Dairue still disagreed, forever holding onto the matter of holding no power over whatever they do.
"There you go again, they can't, there are videos, there are images. The whole thing can't be covered up, it's trending right now. The internet is a big place, but this event was an even bigger news, no other news is going to replicate this." Raiden was truthful about his response, a destructive means to an end.
Raiden lay down on the bed, and the next minute he was snoring. Dairue went outside the building to take a seat, watching the night go by. Everywhere he looked, Max was the discussion, his dedication to fulfilling a fighting chance against the cult was finally bearing fruits.
He read comics for the rest of the night, to him, his life was like fiction. Many things never felt real, yet happened, witnessed by his own eyes. But he never gave his mind to such thoughts, they felt like a waste of time to think about. The man scrolled, people walked by, but he still scrolled, ignoring every text he receives.
"I've read this already, I've read that too... Man, everything that's trending is so boring, being here is so boring," Dairue's attention span could not fathom the lack of things to do, they had to stay for the sake of safety, the gym was closed, nothing mattered to him.
Dairue decides to play a game by himself
Yuki calls him, his phone rings in the middle of his game.
"What?!" Dairue screamed angrily at his phone
"Ooohmp~ Sorry, this was Hisae's mother calling." The caller was not Yuki, it was her mother.
"Oh, sorry, please, my bad, oh my lord, am-" Dairue tried to take back what he said, to keep things from escalating any longer.
"It's okay, Hisae's just doing something and we were gonna ask if you knew what it was." her mother had called because she had run off, yet they knew she was close by so they figured Dairue would know.
"Uhh, crap, I didn't know what she was doing right now, sorry." Dairue ended the call after apologizing profusely, he couldn't take the embarrassment.
"Fuck! Hisae, so that's what her mother calls her? Yeah, maybe we should start calling her that, right Ma-... Oh yeah, man, he's, he's not here..." Dairue was knocking on his head, the people around were confused yet never questioned his actions.
His embarrassment led him to go back inside, he ran to the elevator and after it got to his floor, ran to his room and locked the doors.
"Huh? Oh, you went out?"
"Shh, don't worry. keep sleeping."
"I'll knock myself out then."
The fun little moment gave him a little escape from his growing concerns about Max. His lack of presence was haunting him. Tonight, his day has been over, a day he will never forget for the rest of his life. To why his whole week had been nothing short of moments, he never had time to mourn.
His body felt like it starting to give in, smoking was starting to take a toll on his health. He noticed he could longer run as often as he used to, there was more drag on everything he tried to do. The man denied himself but still wished he took better care of what he had left, a promise to himself.