To Max, something felt missing, something was lost in his transfiguration, it had taken away something from him.
"It's eerie to know that no one is fazed, even mildly unsettled by knowing how I survived... I don't even know how I survived. Perhaps the potency of subjectivity is at play, that we can't determine what people will find surprising."
Max took his stolen pencil and wrote down some notes about what he saw.
"Look son, I am fazed, but what help will that give both of us? The only thing I care about is whether you're okay now. I don't think you're a monster, there are too many things we can't understand yet. Don't worry about the public, it'll be buried in obscurity as quickly as it came." Raiden expressed his concern, the comforting allure was enough to leave Max, in peace.
The car takes a right turn, the streets seem more and more empty as the meters go by. Countless speakers constantly bleed into the ears of innocent civilians, taking control of what they should do. Houses are being turned into bunkers, corpses are dumped into a pile. Nagoya was in ruin, yet the people still maintained their resilience.
Raiden turns the radio up, trying to distract both of them from the sight. Bodies grab into each other, arms trying to reach from the corpse on top. They were held together firmly by grasping fingers.
The sight felt surreal, rigor-mortis setting in the muscle. Each finger dug deeply into the other, the legs, the crushed arms. Ribs sticking out in some of the corpses.
Max heaves at the sight, barely able to contain his vomit.
"They... No, I can only imagine the smell, I can only imagine their families. Why do they hold each other so... Ominously?" Max questioned the sight, making use of his time, trying not to blame himself.
"Don't look too much Max, some of them might be... Recognizable for you." Raiden only fed his ominous sight. Kept the cool to the conversation, yet there was something so cruel about the moment.
Max continues to stare, trying to recognize some of them, some lying on the open roads.
"Max, stop." Raiden's tone turned cold, almost stoned in his words.
"I will, but I will also ask why?" Max turned his eyes away, trying not to create a fuss about his terrible mannerisms.
"In my time, they stare back if you stare long enough into their eyes. Whether it's an illusion of the mind, it's not a good addition to all the unknown things we've yet to find." Raiden could not help but express his experience. There was nothing redeemable about the sights he saw.
"Hm... Some of them probably stared back." Max replied, trying to pay respect but barely expending a cent.
They arrive at the bunker, Max wears his hood up, and Raiden keeps him behind. There were no guards in the area, and sirens were everywhere. The elevator goes down, Max admires the place, and the modernity of the design keeps him in awe. He stared all over the hallways, to him, it was a hotel.
Dairue was on the bed, doing nothing, he stared at Max. Confused? No, he simply asked whether they were okay, trying not to think much of what happened. The man did not believe that Max was the culprit who destroyed two domes, still reluctant to take his word for it.
Max did not know a thing, he could not explain what he felt, he could only see what he did through a small screen.
"Why are you smiling, Raiden?" Max asked, almost as if it slipped out of his mouth, he didn't want to say a word.
"Sachibana gave me a message, I can sleep tonight. You should rest Kiddo, you might have to hide yourself for the coming days."
"Hm, that was to be expected. I don't think am welcome anywhere right now." Max could not sleep, he could not shake the thought of corpses moving their eyes. He felt like he was being watched by something else.
His grayscale mind was monotone during the day, for he had no freedom to talk or think. The world turned against him, but Dairue wanted to question him either way. Raiden left them be, he went to the living room to watch television in peace.
"You're okay, right? Are you still you? I don't have to worry about you becoming something else, yes?" Dairue held his hand on the gun, he was ready to pull it from his belt. Max had taken the time to reassure him, to ensure nothing violent happened.
"If you're really Max, name someone, name anybody you know."
"Akemi, you are Dairue, my name is Honomura, Rexymax. My mother's name is Honomura, Nagomi, and my father's name is Honomura, Byugo" He was able to mention enough names to suffice the suspicion Dairue had.
"Okay, yeah, Akemi huh? I am glad you're okay. I think we have to resume operations, your incident is blank. Nobody knows what happened, how it happened, and what else could happen. We need to fill that space with information, something we can use. I am returning to the operation"
Dairue had mixed feelings for their goal, he didn't want to see it again. He didn't want to see Arc Maderu, he didn't want to see anything.
"I don't know if I am in the condition to do such a thing, but I will try to help. We have to find a way to unite everyone, we can't do this with such little numbers." Max had no plan, and no intention of trying again, but was still pushing forward with what he had to get done.
"Random thing, I saw they replaced the New Year's Eve countdown with "Final hours". It was a war symbol on it, I left it behind cause Raiden told me to stop staring at random things." The text the boy had found was crucial. It was a sign of an expected warhead, something that would level Nagoya, a sight all too well for their culture.
"Man man man, That will slow us down by a lot, it's gonna make reuniting you, me, and everybody else, a lot harder." Dairue was saddened, knowing time was running out. The surface is becoming less and less habitable.
"Hehe, we'll forget about it. If I catch you smoking, you won't get another pack ever again. I care, enough times at least." Max patted him on the back and left.
"Bitch, you wish you could do anything!" Dairue shouted, Max kept walking without turning back.
You don't wanna think, but all you do is think about it. Sometimes do you feel ingenuine? When you'd rather lie, trying to be bearable just to look nice. It's all a lie, a facade you wish to invoke on those who meet you because it is how you hold back.
The countdown begins, the markers write "46.8.21", and the hours keep going, yet nobody looks. Doors soon close, and the sustainable bunkers begin lockdown. Intercom speakers announced the closing of gates, no exit points were going to exist. All outside connections will remain cut, the three of them are trapped.
"Whatever you were, it was something not any terrestrial would even dream of. How you escaped, how they mobilized the number of troops so quickly, how everything even happened, I can't tell. Efficiency is not akin to them." Raiden met him at the doorway with a burst of words he could not understand.
"I don't wanna remember it, let the military deal with it." Max covered his ears in reflex, he stood at the door. listening to the small voices outside. Whispers, a quiet conversation that went on for hours, yet he only stood at the door, pinning his ears on the knob.
"Everywhere I go, I hear about myself..." Max said to himself, before sitting on the corner. His fatigue got to him, slowly but surely, he was sinking in himself.
Dairue kept his loud conversations in the room, shouting with their friends, trying to have a fun time together. Max keeps stationary, he still feels betrayed that no one wants to tell him what happened. Being left out, he kept to himself and ate through the whole night.
"The eyes staring, it won't let me sleep, it won't let me think, Raiden. Why does nobody want to tell me anything?" Max with weary eyes, staring into Raiden asked.
"Because even those who saw, never had any answers." Raiden gives a sinister look, almost speaking with his eyes when he tells him that it's better not to know.
"What if it happens again? Everyone here will die!" Max panics, he tries to keep himself calm by putting his hands out. His hands did not shake, they stood still, and he feared even more.
"You'll be okay, just don't hurt yourself. Everything will be fine, just don't, whatever you do, just don't hurt yourself." Raiden's tone was serious, he could not resist the emotion he wanted to give. He was afraid, for once in his life, he feared for something greater than worry.
Max kept still, staying away from sharp objects, and corners, the anxiety just kept creeping in. His paranoia was worsened by the noises, the whispers turned to shouting inside his own head. He wanted to scream, yet they'd find out, he wanted to breathe the air outside, yet they'd find him.
He was being searched, searched by a presence he could not understand, his eyes grew. He felt as if he could see from the back of his head, hear from his arms, his hands feel the vibrations in his hands. He stood in front of the ventilation, lights continued flickering.
The boy felt as if his bones wanted to leave, his muscles wanted to contract and relax, and he wanted to do something. He wiggled his feet around, and he wiggled his arms, jittering over and over again. The ground began to shake, an earthquake. maybe another attack, a missile strike?
They all ducked underneath the chair, deformation of the spine, Max tried to sneak underneath a chair instead. The tremors were inconsistent, they were too far from the normal earthquake, almost like a bomb. Shockwaves, there was a singular wave.
Silence followed the wave, everything else had gone cold.
Raiden looks at his watch, They narrowly avoided the event, catastrophe, he didn't know a thing.
"The countdown has turned 0, it was blown to bits!" Dairue shouted in the room, his voice was tripping over itself.
"We're meters upon meters of concrete, below ground. We'll be fine if anything happens up there." Raiden wanted to comfort them, instead of making them feel trapped inside a box.
Max stood quiet, his pale skin was dead white in the light. He feared, he missed his mother and craved her return, the regret of no longer having her, evident in his eyes. He stood up and walked Dairue, the man was enjoying himself yet Max was more than sick of the sounds, he wanted to do something and soon.
"What happened to our hard work, what will happen now? We're trapped, the outside world is getting closer and closer to death. You and I will be next, if we don't do anything soon, the cult is free to roam."
"Listen, listen, listen... I said listen! We can't do anything, I can't do anything, do you wanna get burned and blown to bits?" Dairue wanted to be heard, yet Max was deaf to his point. To him, hearing Dairue ramble on about himself felt like nothing more than a losing game.
"Why?! Is it cause you won't be involved? Don't be stupid about this, you crave the dramatic lifestyle so much, but you don't do anything about it!" Max kept going, he wasn't planning to stop. The bombs that dropped kept him from calming down, he just wanted to get under his skin.
"Okay! Yeah, will! This guy man, I swear, you always push me to do something..." Dairue was disappointed with Max yet again, they both couldn't see each other's point.
"You act like you've never done that before! You always do that, I just went through it, over and over again! I had to adjust for you dammit!" Max took a step closer to him, getting louder and louder with each word he said.
"I am not you! Am not!" Dairue admitted, that his anger was visible, he couldn't take the judgment any longer.
"Stop, you two! There's no point in arguing, there's no point in doing anything like that. Max, there's nothing we can do, nothing, we tried enough for the whole week." For once, Raiden has finally decided not to hold back. The thought of them being children was dissipating, they were acting like adults now, calling the shots.
The wall fades, edge to edge, drenched in concrete, meters above, the sun no longer shines. They all wait, stuck in time, forever? No, for only as long as the radiation does not die. Waiting for the day the sun shines, but waiting never ends, the wait just stays still.
Eventually, their clock reaches the night, and they sleep in again. Max felt a familiar feeling of silence, he felt at home. Yet home isn't always good, for the house is silent, and so are the bunker halls, waiting for its next prey.
End of Downfall.