บท 20: 20
Chapter 9 - 2, H.O.T.D FINAL
It was a common story.
It was eight years ago when my life was abruptly changed.
That day, a family of four were coming back from a family vacation.
A Father
Mother,
Daughter
And... A Son.
On the drive back home, the father was sleepy and his reflexs were dulled when the accident happened. A drunk driver came around a curve and slammed into the family of four's car. The result... Was death.
The Father and Mother died instantly on impact. The two children and the drunk driver survived the initial impact were rushed to the hospital, but of the three, two of them passed away in the following hours.
The drunk driver who had alcohol in his system had complications during his emergency surgery and passed away. No one ever came for him, so he died alone whether deserved it or not, which he did.
And of the two children that survived, the older sister of the boy was pronounced brain dead.
She had the least physical injuries, but she hit her head in a very bad way in the crash and the doctors said there was no possibility of her ever waking up despite her body being technically alive.
Then a few weeks later, as stated per prearranged family decisions, and the will of the lone son who survived the accident and distant realities, the sister was allowed to pass away.
Then there was the sole survivor of the incident. The son... Me.
I don't really remember much of that time, but I recalled enough of it the sad event that I would rather not. With no where to go and having no direct family, I was taken in by distant relatives.
It was a family of three.
A Father.
Mother.
And a daughter that was a year younger then me.
They... They were nice enough family that I was lucky to end up with. There really were worse places to end up. I still remember that afoul group home I had to stay in temporarily before any family members were found by social services , yet... They still weren't family.
I am thankful for them taking me in, but I distanced myself from them whenever I could. It was around this time that I discovered manga, anime and games.
And of course, as a kid I was already into it, yet my passion for it transformed from causal into full blown otaku syndrome that allowed me to escape reality.
My passion for manga, anime, games and novels would then become stronger and stronger over the years, but I believe what really set it off was a chapter from a certain detective manga.
The protagonist who had a even harsher childhood then mine, said that even his back story was common place tragedy in this large and wide world we live in and that there was no point in getting to overly upset over it.
Common?
Those words really stuck with me.
If like the protagonist, if having ones family die in a terrorist bombing was ordinary when you looked all over the world... What was my own personal tragedy?
With how many people die around the world in car accidents, it had to be more common then even common. For my family to die and to be left alone... For that tragedy to be common place... I began to hate that word, and from then on I sought out the uncommon and unique.
This obsession is the core of my interest for manga and my desire to become something more, like the main characters from my favorite mangas... But then reality set in.
Unless one has talent, real talent it isn't possible become really special and stand out from the crowd. This was the truth that I learned after trying many things and failing despite my abnormal desire to succeed at something.
I then recalled what a certain female soldier told her young pupil.
That if you can run fast in elementary school you will be popular, in middle school if you can fight you will be popular and in high school if you can read you will be popular. If you can do all three you can be popular, special sure, but that is only school.
Then what about after high school? What would it take to stay popular past school and into adult life?
Become a politician, a movie start or make some great discovery that gets written in textbooks for future generations to read?
I could never come up with a real answer to what it meant to become special... Which lead to my recent depression.
Then one day, I received a message on my laptop computer.
- Want to know the meaning of life? Want to live... A real life
Shin: Huh? Like it could be that easily. If it was that easily... If I could be one of them if only a little, I would have done so already and not be here. Whatever the cost. Tch, whatever. What is the harm in clicking YES? The laptop is already infected with one thing or another.
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Ah, I remember.
Shin: I remembered what I said before I hit YES. Who knew it would be like this. Dying. All alone in someone else's apartment... But it was worth it in a way. I got to play the MC for a while, gained comrades, saved some girls and even experience an increase in "stats". So worth-, *Cough*, *Cough*, *Cough*, *Cough*, *Cough*, *Cough*, *Cough*, *Cough*, *Cough*, *Cough*, *Cough*, *Cough*, *Cough*, *Cough*, *Cough*, *Cough*!!!
For the last ten minutes, or what I believe to be ten minutes I have been having on and off coughing fits.
It remember it starting a few minutes after Hikari and Misaki escaped to the roof.
It began with a small cough that didn't stand out, and then every other minute or so I would begin to cough again.
Then came my first uncontrollablecoughing fit... It was the worse.
I felt a great pain in my chest and started coughing non stop for a full five minutes. When I coincidentally checked my arm I used to cover my mouth ( Hands are out of the question )... I saw blood.
Blood that I had spat up.
Who knows how much time after that passed, but it couldn't have been a lot.
The stress, pain and knowledge that I could turn into one of THEM at any moment... Dulled my perception of time and just made everything seem longer then it was.
Waiting for this mission to end, I could only wait in the dark all alone. It was my own choice and I don't regret it, yet as more and more time passed, my resolve weakened.
Wishing that I had asked Hikari or Misaki to kill me already, or throw myself out the window head first. The latter wouldn't have been a good option since I can barely move and with the sea of THEM out there, I wouldn't even touch the ground before being devoured and then turned.
Both options were out right now.
It was at that moment where I was having all these depressing thoughts when I heard a ringing sound in the room. It was the communicator phone that Aqua left us. Misaki must have left it behind in his hurry to escape to the roof with Hikari.
Shin: Wh-what could she want at this time? Damm, my hands are basically done for right now! Do you really expect me answer!? I am on death's door, you know!
The ringing would not stop even after a minute, so by myself, and in great pain dragged myself over to where the phone was. I didn't even have the strength to walk up right, so I really was dragging my body over. Then with my slightly better, non-bitten hand that was just broken and swelled up, answered the phone in great pain ( Yeah, I said it again ).
Shin: He-, hello. This is Shin speaking. How may I be of service today, my dear ojou-sama? Today I am feeling under the weather, but I am more then happy to do my best for your sake... Like answering a damm phone when death is about to invite by for cookies and tea on the other side of a fancy, yet eerie looking door!
Aqua: ...If you have the energy to be a smart ass, and an imaginative smart ass at that then you can hang in there for another twenty minutes. I'll be there soon hopefully. These damm THEM keep getting in my way.
- *Bang*, *Bang*,*Bang*,*Bang*,*Bang*!!!
It sounded like Aqua was really having difficulties getting here, but that wasn't what was on my mind. The time till the mission was over was.
Shin: Tw-twenty minutes? There... There is still that much time left? What did you want?
Aqua: Your attitude is getting on my nerves. Put Hikari or Misaki on the...
Shin: They're not here.
Aqua: ...Where did they go? Escaped alone? Dead?
Shin: No, they followed your advice and went to the roof.
Aqua: And you didn't go with them? Or was that you weren't allowed to?
Shin: It was my choice that I didn't go with them. It was too dan-, *Cough*, *Cough*, *Cough*, *Cough*, *Cough*, *Cough*, *Cough*, *Cough*, *Cough*, *Cough*, *Cough*, *Cough*, *Cough*, *Cough*, *Cough*, *Cough*, *Cough*, *Cough*, *Cough*, *Cough*, *Cough*, *Cough*, *Cough*, *Cough*, *Cough*, *Cough*, *Cough*, *Cough*, *Cough*, *Cough*!!!
Aqua: Shin!
Shin: I, I just choose to stay behind, okay? Just to... Wait this all out in peace, and alone.
Aqua: Didn't want to in endanger the others?
Shin: That, and I didn't want them think that it would be better to put me out of my misery. I can't see what I look like now ( Can barley see at that ), but I could imagine that I look so bad that they would be taking pity on me by ending it all.
Aqua: You don't regret your choice?
Shin: ...It would be a lie to say otherwise, but at best I feel that it is 70/30 for, for taking my chances and not ending my seventeen years of life now.
Aqua: Do you want to live that badly? It... You might be better for you to end it here. There should be guns and some bullets left somwwhere if you look ( To weak to bother looking ).
Shin: I, I still want to live. That... Is my decision. If this world has taught me one thing- *Cough*, *Cough*, *Cough*, *Cough*, *Cough*, *Cough*, *Cough*, *Cough*... It is that there are still somethings for me to achieve. Both here and our original world. I-I have yet to take my very first step in the real world. Like hell I am- *Cough*, *Cough*, *Cough*, *Cough*, *Cough*, *Cough*, *Cough*, *Cough*!!!
For a full minute my coughing fit continued.
And this time I didn't cough up, but threw up blood and bit of internal organs. I-It was unlikely that I was going to make it. I knew that from the beginning, yet evwe so I said it in a teary voice...
Shin: I... I don't want to die.
Aqua: ...
Straight from the heart and not saying it to anyone in particular, yet those were the truest words I have said in my entire life.
Aqua, who had stayed on the phone through the entire coughing fit heard my desperate plea and spoke up at last. Compared to her aloof or scary usual self, her words carried both conviction and compassion.
Aqua: It, it is taking me much longer then I hope to return and it is unlikely that I will get there in time, but... There is a way! I am not sure, but it is our only shot. Shin, find a corner of the room to hide in and stay away from the doors. If you don't die from this then it will be a miracle. I am coming for you now!
Aqua said so with resolution in her voice and hung up. I still felt that it was unlikely that I could make it, either THEM will break down the door or I would join THEM, yet I wish I could still talk to someone in this last moments.
How funny is it?
That a guy who sought the uncommon and pushed away normal, yet still potential friends now wants human contact at the end? How, how pitiful it was.
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Minutes, maybe even ten minutes have passed since the call with Aqua ended.
The mission shouldn't last much longer, so long as the the door to the apartment held these last few minutes, I have a real shot at surviving this or I would have if not for the unholy, undead turning virus course through my veins.
My skin has turned pale, if not lifeless white color and the throwing up blood has stopped. Either because I had no more to throw up or this virus had decided that the pool of blood that I was drowning in the corner of the room was enough. Pick your choice, but the reality was that I was dying.
My vision was blurred and all but gone, I can't move any part of my body anymore, and I don't even have the energy to bat an eyelid. My body was failing me and maybe within a minute from now, I would be dead.
I would die.
I would really die here.
Die, and become a undead.
Die and join THEM.
As one of THEM, I would forever roam the earth and devour others in one large cycle of undead life.
One of THEM... As one of THEM... In other words, I would be just like them. One amongst many. A face within the crowd for all eternity.
Ordinary.
I would be ordinary for all of time... Like hell I will die that way!
I don't to die! Not here! I don't want to die! I don't want to die ordinary! I want to be special! I don't care what I have to kill or destroy! I don't want to die like this Father!
Like hell I will die that way! I don't to die. Not here! I don't want to die! I don't want to die ordinary! I want to be special! I don't care what I have to kill or destroy! I won't die like this Mother!
Like hell I will die that way! I don't to die! Not here! I don't want to die! I don't want to die ordinary! I want to be special! I don't care what I have to kill or destroy! I won't die like this Midori!
I, I, I won't die here! And so, before I knew it I was trying to stand.
For what purpose I didn't know, but maybe, I believed that staying down would lead to death. Just waiting for death on my ass in a pool of my own blood, scared out of my mind at the terror of THEM, the rioters, the world, God and above all my own shortcomings... Doing notning was not the right choice for me, Shin Kazama, to take.
And so on shaky legs I stood up.
Even if I still had to lean against the wall to stay up, this was far better then where I was before. I wasn't going to die and had no such thoughts anymore, but if I ever were going to die, I was not going to be caught sitting down. Whether life or death, I would face it head on!
Shin: He-hear that God, *Cough*, *Cough*, devil or whatever you are up there running this hell hole! This, this isn't enough to kill me!
It was at the moment as if response to my provocation, I heard that voice again in my head. It was God leaving another message.
- LONGEVITY REALM LIMIT BROKEN!
REWARDED 500 POINTS, CELL VITALITY INCREASED BY 10 POINTS AND IMMUNIZATION STRENGTH INCREASED BY 50 POINTS!
Longevity Realm.
It was the perfect present just for this situation.
The plus fifty in Immunization Strength and ten in Cell Vitality could be felt right away. Energy was returning to my body and my breathing became at ease. I was by no means healed, I still felt like shit, but it was better then nothing and when you HAD NOTHING, even a little could go a long way.
Whatever it was that was killing me seemed to have been stopped temporarily, and it looked like my second, third, most likely my last wind wind wasn't over yet.
- HIDDEN GOD'S QUEST COMPLETE!
AS A NEW PLAYER, YOU HAVE REALIZED THE THREE BREAKTHROUGHS IN THE FACE OF HORROR AND LIVED, COMING EVER SO CLOSER TO THE NEXT STEP IN THE EVOLUTION OF MAN.
REWARDED 3000 POINTS, RANK B REWARD AND AN UPGRADE CERTIFICATE!
- UPGRAD CERTIFICATE!
A RARE CERTIFICATE GIVEN TO PLAYERS BY GOD.
ALLOWS FOR THE UPGRADE OF A LOW OR INTERMEDIATE LEVEL NON-GENETIC ENHANCEMENT, IGNORING POINTS AND REWARD REQUIREMENTS. CONSUMABLE: ( 3 ).
Shin: ...Ha, Hahahahahahaha! I can't tell which one of these words are making me feel better anymore! Still, Longevity Realm, 3000 points and whatever the Upgrade Certificate is... You won't fool me with your sexy, sexy rewards God! I know you have a sick sense of humor, so what is about to-
- *CRASH*!!!
Was I too full of myself just now?
The timing was too perfect to be a coincidence. So much so that I didn't know whether to laugh or cry because of my constant good and bad fortune. From the broken door and my only form of protection being ripped from its hinges and lying on the floor, they finally broke in. The undead, THEM were now flooding into the apartment and I had no means of protecting myself.
I also didn't even have the strength to run away for my life and try to join up with the others on the roof. I was feeling better, but not that better. This... Was the end of the line... Or I would have thought so. As the light from the sun was just beginning to visibly show, not yet risen over the horizon, a single sound reverberated throughout the world.
- *HOWL*!!!
A frightening howl filled with bloodlust was heard by all, including THEM who should of had no intelligence left in them.
No one moved are dared even to breathe. All living and nonliving beings who heard that howl were overwhelmed by a feeling of death, and it was well understandable from what happened next.
It started from outside.
From what little I could see through the window while pushed up against a corner of the room, I saw a white, no a silver light flash by. The sliver light sprinted straight through the crowd of THEM outside the apartment complex as if they were wet tissue paper and they all torn apart. Whatever it was, it didn't neee to do anything more then run through the crowd of undead to tear all of THEM to shreds.
- *HOWL*!!!
It's howl echoed throughout the complex, telling all those inside that it has arrived and made this place its territory. Also... That no one, living or otherwise was going to be leaving this place in one piece.
Whatever it was, it was now heading towards this apartment. I couldn't see it, but the undead and myself sensed as much, like prey instinctively knowing that they were about to be preyed upon.
Luckily, the first victims were THEM that had broken in and were closest to the open broken down door.
A beast of unknown origin slowly walked through the door and all too quickly began devouring and slashing apart the undead. Despite THEM receiving a boost in strength and speed thanks to God's quest event, they were nothing before the beast.
It was only after the three seconds it needed from entering the apartment and killing the undead, that I could register the true form of the beast that both saved my life and now looked towards me as its new prey.
The true form of the beast was a wolf. A wolf, but not just any kind of wolf.
Ten feet long with a tail at tall as me, yellow, if not golden eyes, dripping silva that has mixed with the dirty blood of the undead onto the floor. Metallic and sharp claws and fang, and along with its most distinguished feature...
Shin: Silver fur..... A giant, silver monster wolf. Your kidding me! This is a zombie genre story, right!?
The silver wolf cared nothing for my complaints about the genre.
It now looked at me with pure madness in it's eyes that were devoid of all light and emotion. I was neither its equal or food in it's eyes. I was only something to be killed. To be ripped apart by its claws and fangs. It was already a miracle that it hadn't done so already, yet it looked like my luck had come to an end, if I ever had any to start with.
- *HOWL*!!!,
The SilverWolf howled loudly as it was about to kill me.
In a panic I pointed the police baton that I had on me all this time, yet forgot about at the monster wolf. Not only was it a worthless weapon in the face of this foe, my right hand could barley hold onto the thing being broken and all.
It was the world's worst bluff in all of history, but if I hadn't done at least that I would have gone mad from the enormous bloodlust directed at me. I still might...
Shin: Aaahhhh!!
Then, with what I could only see as a savage smile, the large monster wold with silver fur jumped towards the cornering I was cowering in. At the very least I should be proud that I was still standing, right?
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GOD'S MISSION
HIGH SCHOOL OF THE DEAD, 8 MAN MISSION
STORY PLOT, SURVIVED!
MAIN QUEST:
Objective 1 - Complete!
Objective 2 - Complete!
Base Survival Reward: 1000 Points.
SIDE QUEST: Bonus Points.
1. Kill the Zombies - 1 Point = 20 Zombies.
2. Kill the Rioter - 5 Points = 1 Rioter.
3. Orientation - The first player to explain to the New Players the inner workings of Missions, Exchanges and how to return home. 100 Points.
PENALTIES: Negative Points/Death.
1. New Players - Negative 1000 points for killing a New Player.
2. Spoiler - Negative 10 points per Sentence.
3. D-ZERO - Any player with 0 or negative points at the end of a mission after all calculations are finished, will be killed, no exception.
TOTAL SCORE: Shin Kazama
Base Survival Reward 1000 Points +
Sixty-five Undead Kills 3 Points +
Seventeen Rioters Kills 85 Points +
Savings Igou Hisashi 2500 Points and Two C rank reward +
Saving Alice Marezato 2000 Points and C rank reward +
Physical Realm Breakthrough 500 Points +
Mental Realm Breakthrough 500 Points +
Longevity Realm Breakthrough 500 Points +
God's Quest Triple Breakthrough 3000 Points and B rank reward
FINAL SCORE = 10,088 Points, 2B rank rewards!
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