After Days - Chapter 4: Part 1

Route 9. Route 8. Route 7. The boys ran as hard as they could back towards the hideout, all the while hoping that Ueda could protect them once they got there. Their bodies were exhausted, but they were too concerned with the monster pursuing them to notice. It was out of sight yet it kept its presence known with wrenching howls.

This world was hell. Leon’s world. He had remembered a time, so long ago that it felt like a dream to him, when he used to wake in the morning and his beautiful mother would be watching over him. The fresh smell of her long, brunette hair was still fresh in his mind, and her perfect straight smile often brought a smile to his own face. She would make him feel safe when the lights went off at night and help him feel loved when the older children called him ‘freak’. Then she was gone. Everything he had known and trusted vanished before him on a morning that seemed like any other.

Yes, after a while of searching he found Ueda, but she was never a mother to him. She never tucked him in at night and told him ‘Everything is okay, I already checked for monsters’. Instead she warned him to beware of monsters, and if one were to show itself, to kill it before it killed him. She had hardened him for the place the world was becoming, and she prepared him well.

Then one day, they found a sailor and the few children he had taken under his wing, a couple of them just babies. That was the day that Russell, Grace, Vicky and Elliott had joined the group, after proving that they met Ueda’s strict criteria of course. Now Russell, he was the closest thing to a father Leon had ever known. He wasn’t afraid to admit that there were terrors in the night, but he always swore to protect his family from them.

They hunted together, trained together, even played together, that was until the Whispers returned and Russell decided that their hideout at the time, an office building on Route 28, wasn’t safe anymore. He had promised Leon that, as soon as he found them a new place to live, they would go and try to catch some fish. Leon had never tasted fish, he still had never tasted fish.

Why was he bothering to run? What he had said to Laza in the sewers, he knew he was right. They ran and fought and survived and it never amounted to anything but a chance to lose more than they gained. Could he stop? Could he really just stand still and let the darkness swallow him whole? At least he would be with Russell again, right? Back with the man who cared for him, even as a stranger.

Leon noticed his sprint had slowed to a comfortable jog. Even his subconscious wanted him to give up, stop running. ‘This is all my life is now. But I don’t want it. If I can’t change it, why bother?’ He let his legs come to a stop, the ache flooding his tense muscles.

“What are you doing?!” Laza cried as he shuffled to a stop, the jerking of his body wanting him to keep going. “It’s still coming, you have to come, now!”

“It’s alright, Laza.” He promised with a smile, the first genuine one in years. “I want this.” He stood without fear in the middle of the road as bubbling tar began to boil around the corner, a prelude to the beast itself.

“Like hell you do.” Laza leant into his sprint as he bound on the balls of his feet, but he was stopped, his body refusing to continue as the massive, swollen beast stormed onto the street. Its eyes were still wide and empty, but its mouth grinned with a cruel appetite. The long serpentine body slithered furiously as the Whisper’s pillars acted like sprawling legs, dragging a bundle of black limbs close to its end, Russell’s original body.

Leon turned to face the savage, his knife in hand, determined. Ueda had been sure to plant the values of the warriors of old into his head from a very young age. He knew respect, he knew loyalty, but this hell had broken him, stripped him of the man he could have been, and as he stared into his demise, he accepted that.

He lowered to his knees, forcing his feet to point backwards despite the tough leather of his boots. He sat on his heels. He looked down to his dagger, his weapon, the extension of himself, so he had been taught, though he no longer had any need for its protection. Carefully, he placed it down on the ground in front of him at arm’s length, resting it amidst a cushion of sprouting weeds, the cutting edge pointing in towards himself.

Laza was stiff as he watched his brother cup his hands on the ground, his finger and thumb tips pressed together as he bowed before the definition of horror. He tried to force himself to grab Leon, but the will to flee was just as strong, conflict keeping him frozen.

Bowing and awaiting his end, Leon felt the ground tremble as Russell drew closer. His eyes closed easily, he was calm, at peace. This was the one thing in his life that had been his choice, which in itself brought him a sense of normality and control. He enjoyed the sensation as the rumbling became so close his hands began to bounce.

In a sudden explosion of sound, it was dark, still, the sounds of rushing water caressing his ears like a soothing lullaby. So this is what it meant to be dead, to be nothing? He felt cold, but he had expected that much from death. An ache spread through his ankles which was odd, but a small price to pay for eternal sleep. What if the dead could breathe? He opened his lungs and inhaled deeply, though the scorch of decay burnt his throat. Uncomfortable, choking and cold. This was no way to be for the rest of time! His stomach immediately packed with regret. What had he done?

He tried to focus on what he could see. Of course, black. Emptiness and nothing else. “Why is it always dark?” The realisation of his entrapment soaked though, and at first, he could have taken it as punishment for taking the coward’s way out, not taking each day and a challenge and surpassing it.

“Leon?” whispered a calm voice, close but distant. “I think it’s time we went home.”

“Take me where you like, just don’t leave me in this place.” He pleaded to his friendly advisor. A tight but steady vice seized him by the wrist, and he felt his back straighten as the ache in his feet fizzed away. A relief, though all was still black. “Thank you, my angel.” Assuming that the title he gave was suitable.

“Pretty damn sure that right now, you’re closer to a God than I am.”

What? What sort of divine being talks that way? It was a statement more acceptable from Laza than God. But, wait, Laza? Leon eyes had still been closed! They peeled open as he turned to see the blurred image supporting him. His vision cleared as his eyes adjusted to a glorious light. It was Laza!

He held Leon tightly, with an arm resting across his strong shoulders. His face was painted with awe, a look of wonder in his wide, shimmering eyes. It was so bright. Had Laza been killed too? Were they both in heaven? Perhaps.

Leon had to see what had captured his brother in a trance for himself, he had to squeeze his eyes tighter as he looked into the light before him, a lifetime of darkness amplifying the brightness. This was far from heaven. The oily black mass seemed to crash against a wall of air, like frothing waves climbing the side of a tall cliff. Streams of light rushed up beyond the rooftops, entangled with the darkness as it was forced back, being refused passage.

The tainted creature tried time after time, and never failed to find itself being rejected as it splashed and toppled with the light. Everything was the same, the buildings, the rubble, the stench, the cold, the clouds, the ash, he hadn’t even been touched by the beast.

Fury stirred with relief in Leon’s gut as he staggered away from his brother’s support. His knees twitched and almost buckled as his head swirled with every emotion. “Why won’t you let me in?” He choked, glaring at the rocking eyes, fixated on him from behind his shielding wall. “Why will you not take me?!”

He blamed himself. This was his punishment, his purgatory, he had failed in his duty to protect so many people that he held so dear, and even in his twisted, warped form, Russell was laughing at him.