Continuing his journey through this haunted village, Redd felt the whistles of the wind hitting his face more powerfully than before. If that was the indication of something, it was probably that of how empty it all felt, just completely and utterly devoid of any life forms.
This island wasn't what Redd expected and neither what he wanted to see precisely. He was fond of mystical places, places that could make his heart beat faster and his eyes sparkle with joy.
However, that doesn't mean that he didn't find this place interesting. It was indeed captivating how a place could deteriorate to such a degree.
Eventually, Redd's feet brought him to the end of the village from the other side where he was met with a sight he never expected. A sight that rooted him in his very place from shock.
In front of him, in a massive area at least the size of the village were rows upon rows of tombstones or in this case, wooden tombs. Without even counting, Redd could see hundreds upon hundreds of graves neatly placed side by side.
The sight made his face turn from shock to a deep curiosity. The first thing he understood was where everyone went or perhaps, where everyone ended up is the right description.
They were all simply dead.
Dead how? Well, that was what made him curious. Looking around him, Redd spotted something even more interesting in the far distance. Amongst the silent graves was a lone silhouette holding a shovel as he dug into the ground. The person, whoever he was, looked so small and insignificant from Redd's point of view that he could only wonder how he was able to bear standing amongst all these graves, alone, for god knows how long.
Beside this person were two white-colored objects. Redd couldn't see precisely what they were but he could determine what they were from the current situation. They were dead people covered in white blankets.
Silently watching the man for a while, Redd finally took a step forward. Passing beside one of the graves, he took a peek at it. It had no name written on it and instead a number.
'1? No name?' Curiously looking at the next grave, it had predictably the number 2 and then 3 and so on.
As he walked, the numbers grew and along with them the feeling of misfortune this place had faced weighed down on Redd. This wasn't a normal death for sure, it was a total and utter annihilation of a whole village.
Approaching the man, he could finally see his back clearly. He was actually younger than Redd expected, around Limmy's age from the first look. The young man had dark black hair, dirty and messy from lack of attention. His clothes were shredded, dirty, and unsightly. His body was rather skinny but not too skinny. Around his arms and torso were eerie black chains that gave Redd a bad feeling from merely glancing at them.
"Hey, do you need some help?" Redd spoke after a while.
Finally, the sound of shoveling stopped and the young man finally looked up at Redd as if he just realized he was there. Looking into his equally black eyes, Redd could see a rather hint of quirkiness he didn't expect. The man wasn't cold or nice, he just seemed odd.
"Who are you?" The young man said.
"I'm Redd!" He said with a smile.
"I need no help. Just leave." The young man replied as he continued shoveling silently.
However, Redd didn't immediately leave and instead asked. "What happened to this place?"
"Sickness." The young man replied.
"Sickness?"
"I'm the sole survivor. Everyone else is dead." He said.
Looking around him again, Redd could only sigh at the unfortunate end of these people. He never thought it could've been sickness that brought them to their deaths but he was certainly feeling sad.
"How did you survive?"
"Do I look like I know? One day, I just got some fucking weird floating box slapped into my face. I tried to tell everyone that there was something wrong with me but nobody listened." The more the young man spoke the more his tone turned even more angry and desperate.
His shoveling became more and more aggressive too.
"When the pandemic hit, I was the only one that didn't get sick. I didn't understand why at first but I quickly realized that the weird box had something to do with it."
"You got the invitation, didn't you?"
Hearing those words, the young man halted his shoveling and looked at Redd with a shocked look. "You know?"
"Of course I do. I got one myself." Redd said.
"So you do know?"
"Yes."
"For sure?"
"100%."
The young man seemed shocked for a second before tapping his forehead as if he realized something. "So I'm not crazy after all! Hahahahaha! I'm not crazy! Could you believe that, Greenn?! I'm not actually insane!"
"I'm Redd and maybe you are," Redd said with a grin.
The young man chuckled before he threw his shovel to the side and approached Redd before he extended his hand for a handshake.
"The name is Shade. I don't know how you ended up in this place but I'm lucky to meet you, Bluee."
"It's Redd! R-e-d-d!"
"Hmm? I don't know what these letters are." Shade said with a confused expression.
"You… Don't know the Alphabet?"
"My parents died before they could teach me anything and I had to work to stay alive. Education won't put food in my stomach."
"Pfft, hahahahaha! And here I thought I was the dumb one for not liking studying! You're even worse!" Redd exploded into laughter.
"Laugh all you want. The brain doesn't need education to be smart. Sadly, you will never know that."
"Yeah… Wait, hey! That's uncalled for!"
"Quick thinking, friend. Quick thinking." Shade replied with a grin.
"So, those two are the last people in the village?"
"Those are my two best friends." Shade replied as he continued shoveling again.
Redd's eyes shifted instinctively to the two corpses. The fact that Shade casually said they were his best friends made Redd confused.
"Aren't you… feeling sad?"
"Sad? Why?"
"What do you mean why? You lost everyone from your village. Shouldn't you feel sadness?"
"Oh, that, I already grew numb to that feeling. When you start seeing everyone you know die one after the other every other day, you quickly grow immune to feeling sad. Losing my two best friends is like Monday to me." He explained as he finally finished digging the second hole and then walked toward the two dead people before he sat down in front of them.
Redd watched curiously what Shade was going to do.
Shade looked ahead of him before he suddenly slumped forward violently, hitting his head on the ground beneath him.
"Thank you for loving me! You can rest now, Kyliar, Mino."
His tone was as sincere as it could get. There was no wavering in his voice, however. But, Redd was rather surprised at this sight.
'Why did he bow? Is that his way of paying respect to his late friends?'
However, the young man's next words shocked Redd.
"I'm going to follow you soon so don't play cards without me."