Normal sunny day in the beginning of autumn with people talking, chatting, laughing at some silly jokes or the jokes that weren’t funny at all, or people doing their own activity had turned into a nightmare where people screamed in horror, shouted in panic for help, ran and fought for their life, police and soldiers did their best to protect the innocents, guns blazing to the threats that they didn’t know whether it’s friends, family or enemies. That line had sort of blurred when the reality was like how a horror movie was. They didn’t even know whether they would live another day to see what’s going to happen next. Not just Japan, the world was in the mess, coming from the news that somehow still managed to be reported through the big screen, radio and TV. The power and water still worked for now but soon, it would be cut off. People knew that deep down, especially the ones that had time to think as they were still safe, hiding or still at home, not knowing one bit of what was happening outside before falling as victim the moment they opened the door, or the ones who knew through the news or a phone call and decided to barricade themselves through possible threat. For the first time, people felt that nowhere was safe as threat could be lurking anywhere, anytime.

Forces were divided, some to keep the threats at bay, some to move people to safety, to the base camps set up, some to keep the base camps safe and also the important people, to stop a country from going down. Yuki and her squad were assigned to keep the threats at bay as their other comrades moved people to the trucks to bring them somewhere safe.

After about an hour or so they tried to keep the threats at bay, Yuki tried to contact the headquarters but it seemed that they’ve lost the connection or the headquarters had fallen. She just hoped not the second option. It seemed that now what’s left was for her to lead what was left of her squad.

“Guys, if we got separated, meet up on the border of the city, heading to Nagoya since we didn’t hear about an attack or outbreak there. We’ll wait for a day. Then, we’ll figure out something together, either leaving or staying.” Yuki told them, knowing sooner or later they would spread out, when everything had turned so chaotic. They did try to safe as many people as they could throughout the mess. They saved a lot and lost a lot too. Yuki had given everyone a chance to call their friends and family to warn them of what happening, like how she had warned her parents, Mayu and her friends. She just hoped they would be okay. She would find Mayu once things had calmed down by a lot. She needed to do her duty first before anything else.

“Yes, Captain.” They shouted in sync, bringing up the morale of the team at the same time, despite the hopeless situation they had, facing with endless threat which was flesh eating living dead in front of them.

“Alright. Now, focus and make sure not to get bitten.” Yuki managed to say before resuming pressing the trigger of her gun, killing the dead on a perfect headshot, trying not to let it affect her that the dead was still alive a day ago, or some even a few minutes ago, not to mention some were friends and comrades.

Looking back and saw that all the rescue trucks had gone to their own destination, she ordered her comrades to go to the trucks provided for them and headed off to where their family were in team of four. The trucks headed for different direction, trying to look for their friends and family, and helped the survivors along the way.

***

Today Mayu woke up after her three-hour-sleep from how busy she was in the hospital after the whole heartbreaking incident that was happening. She wasn’t a forensic but still in a huge scale of problem like this, she was asked to help around which she gladly did so. She loved to help in every single way possible.

However, things were different today. The apartment building where she and Yuki stayed in, suddenly was so silent. It’s as if no one was staying in that building other than her. At first, she thought it’s only her feelings, that maybe she was lonely because Yuki wasn’t around, which was understandable with the situation they had at the moment, a more urgent matter than their relationship. When she the TV and saw the news on what was happening. The dead were coming alive and the first outbreaks were on the hospitals where the victims were brought into. The TV showed how people were being moved out to safety, glimpse of soldiers and police, some were being crowded or chased by the dead or had become food for the dead. She was just going to start worrying over Yuki and tried to stay calm on waking up to an apocalypse. Her phone suddenly rang with a familiar ringtone, almost making her jump on her seat. Rushing to the table where her phone was, she quickly pressed the green button to accept the call.

“Mayu, stay at home and lock the door. Make no sound. I’ll be there soon.” Yuki quickly said over the phone, among the chaos. Mayu literally could hear people screaming and guns shooting from her phone.

“Okay. Be here fast.” Mayu answered trying not to sound worrying over Yuki, because she didn’t want to ruin Yuki’s concentration, especially when they knew how to read one another so easily. She pressed her phone to her ear as she went to lock her door, closing the windows and turned off the TV.

“I promise, I will. Until then, don’t go anywhere.” Yuki tried to sound calm although a glimpse of helplessness could be heard through the hint of her voice, swallowing up the bile that was growing to , not liking the idea if she didn’t make it to Mayu. However, she didn’t say it out loud, knowing what Mayu would say. Both of them wanted to make it through the day.

“I’ll wait for you, no matter what. I won’t be opening the door unless it’s you.” Yuki wanted to tell Mayu to just go if she didn’t go there to save her cause most likely she wouldn’t make it but knowing Mayu really well, the latter wouldn’t accept that idea at all, which was hinted with what she had said.

“I know. But just in case…” But before Yuki could continue, Mayu had cut her off.

“No, just in case. The Yuki I know wouldn’t give up that easily and she would come back to me, no matter what. So, I don’t want you to be pessimistic. I need you to be my Yuki who would do her best to bring the mood up. Like you always said to me, morale in the battlefield is what deciding whether we’ll win the fight or not. Stay optimist and I’ll wait for you to come back to me, no matter how long it takes. And I’ll do my best to survive this.” Mayu assured Yuki after she gave Yuki a wake-up call.

“Okay. I’ll turn off the call now. See you soon.” A smile came upon Yuki’s lips. She was always grateful to have Mayu around. Somehow, the younger woman always knew what to say to bring the best in Yuki. Maybe it’s just Mayu’s trait, which always sees the best in a person, something that made her fall in love with Mayu at the first place.

Mayu listened to Yuki turning off the call, until she could hear nothing coming from the line. Mayu sighed softly but deep inside of her heart, she was hopeful. She did what was needed to survive. If her girlfriend was being brave and always thought of serving her country and people first, being the person on the front line to make sure everyone was safe, she would be the backup. She would prepare everything needed, packing up food, drinks, some clothes, medicine and her basic med-kit and placed it near the door so she could carry it directly the moment the time comes.

Meanwhile, she looked out from the balcony, to see the damage done. Smoke came from a few places, sound of gunshots could be heard although it was something clear which meant it happened in a distance, her neighbours were none to be seen. It’s sort of ironic, the view. She still remembered of doing her best to save lives, just a day before. Now, it had turned into doing her best not to die and survive to meet up with her love ones. After a moment of thinking and making sure not to forget the used to beautiful city, she stepped back and locked the sliding door and closed the curtain.

She went to take a baseball bat from the corner of their bedroom, and sat down on the couch while hugging the bat and at the same time staring at the door. The bat was something that Yuki prepared in case if there’s a thief or intruder coming into their apartment. She smiled remembering when she told Yuki that they wouldn’t need them as there was security for their apartment building but Yuki insisted, saying that you never knew and maybe they would need it, one day. It seemed that it’s finally time to use it. She really needed to thank Yuki for this, although somehow she already could picture Yuki’s smiled in a playful and teasing way and said ‘I told you so.’

***

Annin, that’s how Iriyama Anna was called by the people close to her, was working on her project that was handled down by the previous professor after he was deceased. She was working on the cyborg female who had turned into her friend and sister after all this time. She worked on the circuit on Takamina’s arms as she installed the newest tech, adding some melee weapon, requested by Takamina herself, saying that there should be a backup weapon or sort if she ran out of ammos with the guns that was installed in her robotic arms and legs. Takamina was under sedation as the scientist worked on her arms, main reason was they afraid there might be some side effect like possible electrical shock or some other detrimental issue that might surface if the latter was awake but main reason was for convenient issue, physically or mentally, just like how people didn’t want to be awake when surgeons cut into their body.

Annin raised her head and looked out of the glass wall that separated her lab from outside, taking a short break as her eyes grew a bit tired from looking at the small intricate cables and circuits that were becoming Takamina’s veins and muscles now. When she was just going to go back to work on Takamina’s arms, she noticed slight discomfort from the guards outside her laboratory. It’s like they were restless and that’s something rare to be seen. Maybe it was all because of what happened yesterday.

Annin sighed and went back to focus on Takamina’s arms, connecting the small pieces and soldering the parts before putting back the metallic plate and the part that was imitating the skin tone before she sighed a bit in relief. She needed to ask Takamina to try the new specification when she woke up because new things tend to need a lot of adjustment. Hopefully she broke nothing during the improvement. The last thing she wanted was Takamina couldn’t use her arms and she would end up in tedious work with possibility of no sleeping.

Annin took off the mask covering Takamina’s face and closed the door to Takamina’s glass chamber. All she needed to do now was waiting for Takamina to wake up. She walked to her working table and sat down, jutting down some notes, arranging it to the files before placing them neatly by the corner of her table about her research.

***

Yui was sitting on the office of her headquarter. Her hand was against her forehead as she stared at the screens, scanning the last footages of every single CCTV camera in the location of yesterday’s incident. Restlessness had been growing, gnawing on her insides at the knowledge of NOX’s part in this. Whenever it was related to the so called company, they had been a sworn enemy, which traced back to even the early days of their organization. Too many unknown histories of their organization and NOX, there were files and documents but a lot were sealed as the one who read it would be the one who wrote it which would be the previous generals before her and another person that no one knew whom. The ones that the next generation had access of were the ones, the previous generals made public, cropping off the essential parts of the discovery or invention. She asked her previous general of the reason why and the answer would be they could trust no one and she should have that mind-set too if one day she sat on the position she had now. Now she had found her own reason for those generals. Knowing too much wasn’t really that great. She would totally appreciate the words of the less you know the better, like how she wished she could erase the images that she saw through the screen and knew it would haunt her and became her nightmare once it ended because this was like her greatest failure. In each repeat of the footages reminded of how she didn’t discover about this plan of NOX, and how she couldn’t have prevented it. She should later make a record of this although she still didn’t need to make any official news.

Every general had their entries, which was recorded every single day whether it’s about improvement of certain project or if there’s incident like this. In the past it’s written but now they used recording system, following the advancement of technology. Lately, Yui often used it as something to tell her thoughts out loud, since some secrets couldn’t be shared with others. She always felt relieved once she did that, counting it as she talked to the other someone, whom she didn’t know. She wondered if the previous general also did what she did, talking to a recording machine while thinking that they talked to the other person. Right now, Yui wished that she knew that other person who knew every secret of this organization to ask her every question she had and maybe through that she could have found something or a way to detect NOX’s agenda.

“General…” One of the guards who was watching the CCTV cameras of the city suddenly called Yui, dread could be heard in his voice.

Yui looked towards the live footage the camera as the guard zoomed it up. Yui gulped as she could feel fear crept up her spine. She had never thought of this, not even once, that NOX would pull up a zombie apocalypse card.

“What the hell is happening…” Yui could hear the low mumble of the guards in the room, definitely knowing that tone of worry so much as they must have thought of their family.

Yui’s phone soon rang, destroying the silence growing in the room. Yamamoto. Yui saw the caller id, knowing it wasn’t something that she could choose not to listen. More thing to know about this, the better. It’s not like she had a plan for this. Bombing, acts of terror, war or the sort, she would have a plan or if not she could form one quickly. Bioweapon and mutation, she didn’t have one to plan for it. All she knew was kill with a shot on the head, thanks to the movies around.

“General, have you seen the latest footage?” A question soon was asked the moment Yui picked the call up.

“Yes. What do you know?” Yui’s voice was stern, didn’t show any weakness at all, although deep inside of her, fear had taken over. Her gaze remained on the screens which showed how things unfold, escalating pretty quickly as people were caught by surprise or having nothing to protect themselves with.

“Nothing much. You see… they go back to life. At least, they’re not rotten… yet. A shot to the head is a great way to kill them, I’ve proven it. They’re attracted to light and voice. It seems that they retain their previous memories, although a small part of it before their need to feed comes back as I saw them slightly slowed down to the people they know before attacking them.” Yamamoto Sayaka, the person on the line, told Yui of what she had known.

“Where are you?” Yui asked, definitely didn’t want to lose a good intel at this moment, knowing Sayaka’s skill would be good to have around. “I’ll send a retraction team for you.”

“you don’t need to worry about me. I’ll survive just fine. Save the others to safe the ones who really need it.” Sayaka answered nonchalantly before turning quiet, as a soft rasping voice could be heard through the call. From that Yui knew Sayaka was probably hiding somewhere.

Yui always amazed at how Sayaka could stay calm even in this kind of situation. She thought that maybe it’s because of Sayaka’s job, gathering intel, even in the most dangerous situation, so Sayaka must have gotten used to it through time. Knowing that Sayaka was in a dangerous situation, she decided to end the call. “Text me the rest of the info that you’ve gathered. Hopefully we’ll meet again.” Yui said before she pressed the disconnect button.

Yui was just going to sit down to think on how to deal with this. It’s a lot to be processed. She knew that the government must have taken action and it was only a matter of time before a phone call from the president. However, it seemed that one problem came after another without stopping. Yui heard people screaming and she turned to look out of the office as all the wall in the facility was made of bulletproof glass and the safest place she thought in the whole country had been breached as one of the guards standing outside had their flesh bitten off from whom used to be their friends. Some of the people in the room had went to the door to run away. Yui was stood frozen at first, not understand how the outbreak could reach the facility, then her mind shouted at herself asking her to move. So she did and went to press the red emergency button on the wall. She would think of the rest later. Surviving and did her duty were coming first to mind.

“Activate the emergency protocol.” Yui shouted among the crowd, hoping her command reached the lab at the certain level of the institution before going back to control the situation, shouting command for evacuation. She knew at least she could rely on three extraordinary people in the facility as they might be the beacon of hope in this whole ordeal. One guard stopped to make a call towards the lab and picked up by a female, relaying the info before escaping, avoiding the dead.

Yui took her gun out of the holster. She aimed at the dead and made the shot as she made her way out towards the emergency exit that bring them to the landing pad. The escape plan that was made so far back in the day in case if the base was attacked in a way.

***

“Miss Iriyama, we gotta go.” One of the guards told the scientist who was picking up the phone as the news on what’s going on the upper level had been heard. His face was indeed showing terror, despite that he still tried to stay calm and not fleeing and leaving the lady alone.

“Wait a moment.” Anna said, as she rushed to Takamina and pushed the button of the keypad that was located on the glass panel of a huge glass chamber, pressing the password before the ‘enter’ button. The glass chamber opened up and freed the woman inside of it.

“Get out fast. They’ll reach here soon.” The guard shouted in panic to the scientist who was waiting for her project to wake up, still trying not to let the panic affect her.

“My priority is you. If she isn’t going to wake up, we should leave.” The guard gave Anna a warning.

When Anna was going to turn around and gave a retort to the guard, Takamina opened her eyes and got out of the chamber.

“It’s been a while…” Takamina said, rather cheerfully, clearly clueless of what was happening at the moment.

“Talk later, for now we gotta go.” Anna cut off the words that the female going to say and ran towards the table and gather all the files to place it on her backpack before dragging Takamina out as they made a run towards the emergency purpose elevator with guards following behind them, stalling the incoming.

“What’s happening?” Takamina asked as they ran while clenched and unclenched her fingers, familiarizing herself with her ‘new’ hands, to make sure that at least it worked right for now.

“Why don’t you look behind you?” Anna said slightly breathless as both of them stopped in front of the elevator and pressed on the keypad before the door opened and they stepped in. That moment, Takamina saw what happened that the guards were shooting at the zombies.

“Oh… My… God…” Takamina’s jaw was hung opened at surprised, blinking a few times before shaking her head. “Get in quick.” She shouted for the rest of the guards to get to the elevator after her mind sort of registering what was happening.

One of the guards was bitten and that sort of stalled the dead to advance towards the elevator as the dead tried to get a piece of him. That moment the elevator door closed as Anna, Takamina and five more guards escaped to the surface.

***

Yuko was bobbing her head according to the music she was listening while she did her reading, legs were placed against her wooden table. Across her was Rena sitting on a chair, looking at Jurina. Her look was solemn, as always, ever since Jurina made her decision, asleep for everyone’s good.

The telephone on Yuko’s table had been ringing for quite some time. Rena heard it and thought Yuko would pick it up but apparently the latter didn’t, earning a glare from Rena before she sighed and decided to pick it up for the midget that was too serious on her reading. Yuko almost fell from her seat when she saw Rena stood in front of her table with eyebrows creased, clearly annoyed by the noisy ringing that Yuko didn’t notice.

“Hello.” Rena asked short, not in the mood of talking for too long.

“Oshima-san, you need to get out of the facility now.” The moment Rena heard that, the alarm in the entire facility rang loudly, deafening their ears.

Yuko pulled her headphone off her head when she saw the red siren light throughout the hallway, knowing that it was the emergency protocol that once were taught to her, the first time she was recruited working there.

“What’s wrong?” Yuko directly asked the moment she took the phone away from Rena’s hand. Rena didn’t bother much and walked back towards the glass chamber, watching Jurina again.

“Let’s go Rena.” Yuko said, the moment she placed the phone down, taking every research note that she had on her table and shoved it into her bag that she placed under her table. She then slung it over her shoulder.

“You’re not going to activate her?” Rena said, looking at Jurina who was still inside of the glass chamber with the look that no one could comprehend. The sound of shootings could be heard in between of the blaring siren. The females in the room knew by then, they didn’t have much time.

“Better be fast, guys.” The guard told the two females as they were shooting towards the incoming, another fact confirming their deduction earlier.

“We got no time, Rena.” Yuko pulled Rena’s arm but Rena didn’t budge as she was still looking at Jurina. Yuko also knew that she wouldn’t be strong enough to stop Rena if the latter decided not to move. Rena was basically stronger that everyone. The one who could match up with her strength was laying asleep inside of the glass chamber.

“Please, Oshima.” Rena shook her head as if she had just said the wrong words. “No. Please, Yuko. I don’t want her to die here.” Rena’s voice was sad, heartbreaking even. Rena couldn’t imagine what she would do without Jurina around, the female she had known ever since she was a kid, a friend whom her father brought home when she got no one to play with.

“But…” Yuko herself also wasn’t quite sure she wanted to leave Jurina there, knowing that Jurina might be a great help in their situation but it would also be a great danger to the people around if Jurina’s bloodlust came back and the latter couldn’t control it. So far, the one thing that kept Jurina’s alive and in control was Rena’s blood, something that Jurina told her after the whole incident back then. Yuko had been trying to fix Jurina’s bloodlust but Jurina was too hard to understand.

The guards soon pulled the two females out of the laboratory, catching Yuko and Rena by surprised. Rena was going to use all her strength to struggle, to break free and went back to Jurina’s side.

‘I haven’t talked to her yet…’

Rena wanted to shout that out loud to them. However, what she saw stopping her from doing so. She didn’t want to cause unnecessary trouble when the facility was sort of being taken over by the dead. Besides, she was even more certain to stop when she felt Yuko’s hand holding her wrist and when she looked at Yuko, she saw Yuko shaking her head.

“We should trust her.” Yuko referred to Jurina whom they left behind as they were brought into the elevator.

Rena remained quiet as she looked to her feet while the elevator brought them up to the surface. Her heart was heavy as she was getting further away from Jurina. Memories of her and Jurina came back flashing through the back of her mind. Rena then nodded to herself, deciding to trust Yuko on her words. She shouldn’t have doubted Jurina. The younger girl was strong, that was something she knew through experience. Jurina always protects her from anyone and anything. Knowing what their threat was, she decided that she would be the one protecting Yuko and the others, the people she treated as friend and family. She also knew that her decision was something that Jurina wanted.

Blinding light soon came through the elevator door as it opened up. They saw Yui urging people getting into the helicopter. Meanwhile Rena and Yuko saw Takamina and Annin getting into another helicopter provided. The guards escorted them towards the nearest helicopter to them.

Yuko and Rena got into it, strapping the seatbelt before soon enough they were up in the air, leaving the facility. Rena watched Yui getting to the last helicopter before it joined them up in the air. Rena didn’t stop staring at the facility until it was gone from view, the home for everyone she knew.

Yuko held Rena’s hand, giving the latter some comfort, understanding what Rena had decided was extremely hard thing to do, leaving her other half. Rena looked at Yuko for a second, giving a nod to the latter before looking out of the window again.

‘I believe one day we’ll meet up again Jurina...’