"You seem to care a lot," I blurted from behind Johnny, completely forgetting what I was meant to ask him.
His hand held a loofah and a water scooper, splashing water onto the dead infant like an ablution.
I really didn't mean to say it up front but he had unexpectedly responded:
"Not in particular," said Johnny, who had begun drying the child with a towel.
He pressed his hands on the dead infant's chest.
"It's only my opinion so don't be too hung up on it but…" I said as Johnny blew air into the corpse's mouth. "It's so clearly dead and yet you are still trying your best to revive it."
Johnny pressed rhythmically on the infant's chest, attempting to ignite the monster child's heart.
He told me:
"It doesn't matter if the child is defected or not. Everyone deserves a proper burial."
For once, there was a silence that was actually serene and peaceful.
He's not like me at all.
There was a sound of a crunch that was puny but Johnny immediately noticed.
He groaned in annoyance as he raised his shoe. There was a splatter of a cockroach.
"Fuck! I've got two to bury now!"
—————
User
↳ Reverie Vickroy Schneider
Attributes
↳ Nurse (Uncommon)
Sayings
↳
Anomaly
↳
Skills
↳ Strength Level 5
↳ Agility Level 3
↳ Endurance Level 6
↳ Word Level 7
—————
On our way to the hospital's lobby as per Jame's instructions to meet some officials, Johnny and I walked side by side.
Johnny was rather cranky after a cop took care of the monster child ("If you want to call him a monster child, then I shall call you a murderer," the imaginary Johnny said in my mind).
Beside me, he was cracking his joints, biting his whole bottom lip, and scratching his wrists uncontrollably.
I heard him mutter:
"...a screen…in front of me…that shouldn't…count…right…"
As we walked, Johnny looked down; I watched our surroundings. The lights were shut and the fluorescent tubes were falling off from the ceiling, barely hanging. Only the greenish lighting from the plants outside and the sun illuminated the hospital.
Some of the doors were broken, cliffhanging. The screw that once secured the doors was pierced into the eye of a patient who lay motionlessly on the floor.
I hissed at the gruesome sight.
It had barely been an hour since the "rounds" began. And yet, there are more casualties than a war in minutes.
There was a working television where the news stated:
…just in! East America as a whole had sunk deep into the ocean. Could this be the start of an apocalypse? There are no survivors in East America. I repeat, there are no…
"Ah…"
"Hm?"
Johnny tripped on a body and fell straight to the ground.
He seemed to be unaware of the situation we were in until then, for he finally looked around and screamed hysterically.
"Wha—What the fuck happened?"
"That's the scenarios to you," said an ambiguous voice that was a short distance from us.
I turned to look at it.
A man or a woman, I couldn't tell. I can only say that his person had a straight platinum blonde bob cut. Her eyes were milky white, and I had the realization that she may be blind. Still, it felt like she was staring right at me. Which was odd, for people never really took notice of me. After adulthood, it had improved a little, but I could never get used to it.
Behind her, a man who was shorter than me but held more of a presence than I ever could. He boasted black hair that was once short but had overgrown into shoulder-length.
Unlike the blonde girl, he wore clothes that were more familiar to me: a black suit and tie.
She continued, "...I guess it's called rounds here."
He whispered something in her ear.
An unsettling silence enveloped us.
Dead bodies circulated among us. One lay flat on my shoe and I kicked the head away.
I looked at the entrance—or an exit to the ones who were inside—and I could just tell that it smelled of burning, blood, gore—it began raining—and rain.
"It's terrifying, that is true," said the dark-haired man, following my gaze. "It wasn't like this in our world. Ours—it just happened. We didn't even have a choice to die, so, in truth, you people are lucky."
Johnny had begun to shake. I touched his tense shoulders and it dropped like I had given him ease.
"The doctor is off to…somewhere. I didn't listen." He chuckled. "But we are here to take you. We'll speak of the situation on the way."
The dark-haired man moved his eyes to me then to Johnny.
He cocked an assault rifle towards us.
Johnny and I jumped and immediately backed up. I raised both my hands in the air, feigning fear.
"Now," began the man, "to kill once or to continue killing? Make your choice."
My mind was faster than the trigger.
"You have to understand this, people of Earth-73. Once you join the rounds, you will have to kill, kill, and kill. There is no stopping it, even if you finish the rounds so—!"
Finish the rounds? So there was an end to this?
I pushed Johnny away from me, his eyes showing confusion as he thudded to the floor dyed with dried blood.
I said, "It's me. I was the one who killed the monster child and become the first to join this 'rounds.'"
It felt unfamiliar on my tongue, this fierceness. I, who was quiet and feeble as a child; I, who made no friends during junior high; and I, who only experienced the dramaturgy of adolescence after facing tragedy.
The man lowered his gun gradually. His and the girl's gazes met, likely thinking that it wasn't too difficult.
"Brilliant," said the man in relief, aiming the scope in my direction. "Just know that we are saving you from the horrors of—"
"Just know that," I interrupted, mimicking the fellow, "Johnny killed someone too. He has the screen."
What little respect Johnny had for me had surely deteriorated by then.