Misfile of the dead

Initial drafter, genesis of certain original characters, plot elements for chapters 1 – 3 and creative editing by jim89

Author, extensive rewrites, restructuring, additional plot, re-plotting and editing by GR138Legend

The "Misfile" web-comic, and its characters and situations are copyright Chris Hazelton. The "High School of the Dead" manga, anime, characters and situations are, likewise, copyright of their respective rights holders, whomever they may be. They may not be used or reproduced commercially without permission. The use of these characters and situations is not to be construed as challenge to said copyright. They are merely adapted for this work of derivative non-commercial fan-fiction, from which the author derives no financial benefit.

Set the Monday of Misfile Volume 9 circa page 25

Author's Note:

I know, I know. Why is this at the start, not at the end? Let us get to the story! Well you'll be there soon; it's just further down the page. But first:

The basic plots from Chapters One, Two, Three and the prologue are originally by jim89.

However the Missi section, the Emily section from Chapter Two are exclusively mine, put in to bridge a gap when jim89's characters teleported all over the place.

Similarly the Sheriff's Department and Angie's sections, from Chapter Three, are also mine.

And the Ash, Saeko and Missi sections, from Chapter Three, are so different that they almost have no resemblance to their original, a lot of re-plotting here.

However onwards from Chapter Four it's all mine. I had Chapters 3 – 11 of jim89's version to see if there was any plot lines that I wanted to pull into this story, without breaking anything that was already written, nothing made the grade.

Structurally the first three chapters (and prologue) bear no resemblance to the original two chapters that their plots are taken from. Look and compare them if you don't believe me, if you dare.

Never tried the cocktail described in chapter two…

Originally there were links throughout the various sections involving the Misfile cast that pointed towards Chris Hazelton's excellent art, I haven't put them back in due to not knowing how on .

A note on formatting

Normal text is italicised for emphasis;

All thoughts are in italics, thoughts with more emphasis are bolded as well.

Ash's arguing with herself is the exception to this rule: (there's always got to be one)

One side is in italics with bolding for emphasis;

The other is bolded and then italicised for emphasis.

Thanks:

To jim89 – for annoying me with the original premise, until I just rolled with it. And then for not getting in touch initially when it became obvious that I could no longer just clean it into a readable state! Hopefully you've enjoyed reading this story as much as I've enjoyed coming up with new parts to fit in to it, or replace what already existed.

To ShadowDragon8685 – for showing what is possible within the misfile-verse, providing inspiration and many nights curled up reading a good story.

To the patience of my little sister – cracking the female teenage psyche would have been impossible without you. The realism I brought to Missi, Emily and Rei is all thanks to you. …though you'll probably never read this.

And finally to Peacecraft, for creating an entire universe that I keep returning to and imaging stories within, you have my eternal gratitude.

A Prologue to the Madness

Celestial Filling Depository

In a small office, sitting in the fifth division of the heavenly filing department, was the office of the Angel Samuel, who considered himself director of the division, the notice on his door reads: Relax, the universe keeps track of everything.

Samuel though, was having a bad day. A very bad day indeed.

There's another problem in Japan.

He had, of course, found a possible way to fix it. His preferred method was to add to a Person's file. They had free will, or choice, which meant their decisions, belonged to them alone. But, equally, by carefully crafting or altering a personality you could change the direction of the decisions they had been inclined to. However, there were limits to the effectiveness of either option. Hopefully that wouldn't be the case with this series of events, which, while it could cause the end of the world, had a pitifully minor point of origin.

Typical, he thought, all it took to cause such a mess was two teenage girls changing their relationship.

But with Rumisiel on administrative leave, Samuel had been landed with the task of checking everything. To make it even worse, with Cassiel on leave, the intra-departmental overflow from the files was causing even more problems than usual, leaving him exhausted thanks to his vastly increased workload.

It was bad enough when I had to cover every file for the people in Asia and Africa. Japan alone would have caused a migraine, in anything less than the superior being that I am, but to be 'asked' to cover both America and Europe as well? If things worked the way they should it would be so much easier.

But his plan was simple in its elegance: change the two girl's attraction values into the male range; that in turn changes their relationship, which affect their actions towards one another along with their actions to those that they associate with; which, in turn, prevents the apocalypse from happening.

God had only one, known, policy: That earth and its inhabitants must survive. It doesn't mean the humans on earth can't suffer in the meantime, but they have to be preserved.

Everything else is just a learning experience.

Thus, God does not like apocalypses; at least not the unscheduled ones. He especially does not like zombie apocalypses, which can never be anything other than unscheduled.

But for now though, almost all that is left to do is for Samuel to put the files back and let the system adjust. For the moment though, the files for 'Rei Miyamoto' and 'Saeko Busujima' remain in his desk out-tray, waiting for his gopher to collect and return.

With any luck, this could mean that I can clock-out. Maybe even for a few hours… or do some departmental admin. It's starting to pile up alarmingly.

Wearing a happy smile, he reaches across his desk and drains the last his coffee and started chewing on the doughnut that had been on the small plate besides it, both of which had been on his desk for the past two weeks. He gave no reaction to the taste or texture of either.

That reminds me; what's-his-name applied for vacation time. I'll let him know that we're too short handed for now. Bernard? Bob? Squeak, rustle, swish, clunk, a hum which was outside of even an Angels hearing range; a drawer being opened, a file being returned to its rightful place, the drawer closing, the system recalibrating and adjusting. Something beginning with a B. Squeak, rustle, swish, clunk. Need to get a call into maintenance to fix that squeak.

And with that inconsequential thought, a light shivers down from heaven, hitting – of all places – Tempest, USA.