An itch of anger
The boy woke to insistent shaking and panicked murmurs. Amid the darkness of the shared room, big blue eyes stared down at him, wide, streaked with burst vessels.
"Yoshino. Yoshino, open your eyes." Ayame attempted to whisper, too desperate to properly lower his volume.
The one called Yoshino blinked wearily, processing the noises around him, the potent fear weighting on the atmosphere, the confused sounds of trailing feet, and then sat up on the bed, taking a glimpse of Ayame's disheveled clothes. He must have dressed in a hurry, was the first thought he had, still a little disoriented from being woken so abruptly.
"What is going on?" he asked even as his head swiftly turned towards the open door. His ears stung, a foreboding shiver raised goose bumps on his naked arms.
Something was coming. Something dangerous.
As he pushed the blankets entwined around his legs, Ayame shook his head frantically, "We don't know. Headmaster came, Yoshino. Woke some us. Said we had to hide. Said to s-spread the message." His teeth chattered, his sentences came out short and point blank.
Yoshino hummed, grimacing internally at how his fists were shaking. He didn't appreciate his instinctual reaction, too in tune with that of frightened Ayame who couldn't even speak without biting his tongue.
He stood up, and the other kid looked at him as if he had just remembered who he was talking to. Stammering, he said, "Hea-headmaster t-t-told us to go the bo-boi-boiler room," avoiding Yoshino's piercing slits through which glowing intensity could be seen.
"Okay." Yoshino answered simply,
Ayame almost fell on his way to the door, clumsy feet slipping on the futons laid out on the wooden floorboard. Yoshino watched him leave, three other children following close behind.
In the crammed hallway uniformed men went to and fro, cutting through the sea of boys and girls running past them like dulled knives; they harshly shouted into their radios, gestures and tones too aggressive to be assuring, unintentionally revealing how dire the situation was to the observing eye.
More kids rousing some from sleep or ordering the ones that stood idly without a single clue on how to act or what to do around. They kept their distance from Yoshino as if being in his proximity while he was awake would result in disaster. He remained silent, waiting for everyone to leave in the direction of the basement where the boiler room was located.
Nervous glances were thrown his way every now and then, and he reciprocated with a show of teeth that felt more strained and fake than usual. The little hairs on the back of his neck stood on end, the only sign of his growing anxiety.
He drummed a beat on his thigh, willing the rest of them to get out already.
Once they did and he was alone at last, his hand disappeared beneath his mattress, seeking the screwdriver he'd stolen a few days ago from the garage, sweat and a vague thrill like that of getting away with murder (ha) pooling at his temples. Holding it tight in a clammy palm, he used it to pry the screws of the air duct that was conveniently placed next to the foot of his bed loose. Nobody had questioned why he had chosen the worst bed in the room for his own, many of his 'roomates' preferring to sleep on the floor than go anywhere near the larvae dwelling den that was the bed's wooden skeleton and the blood-soaked sheets and piss scented springs and pillows, but Yoshino knew they must have wondered, in the safe spaces where they thought he could never reach, and that most settled on it being just another symptom of whatever inherent meanness made him aloof, as welcome to friendship as a bee sting on a cut and strange in that creeping way gremlins and goblins in stories were. Another item to add to the list of his numerous idiosyncracies, that was what it was as far as clueless infants were concerned. Little did they know that while they dreamed of privilege and played guessing games, he only had in mind scenarios like this. The world falling apart as quickly as it had come together, taken over by the mindlessless of panicked youths and their wobbly screams, and nowhere left to hide. He picked up the screws, moved the screen to the side, and flattened himself on the floor, crawling on his hands and knees to fit in the small opening. When he was inside, his stomach and elbows pressed to the cool material of aluminum, he grabbed the screen and positioned it over the entrance again to give the impression that there was nothing amiss.
The Headmaster was an idiot, telling the children to take refuge in the most obvious example of a default go-to hideout. If whatever or whoever was coming had more than two functioning brain cells, they or it would know immediately where to go to—as long as it was the children, and not anything else, they were after.
He sat far enough to not be seen through the gaps in the screen and he leaned his head back, nursing his hopes, his dreams, his wishes—his fingers twitched at the imaginary touch of his unspoken vows, brushing skin, inciting him to make it out this one alive. His knees bent as they snuck under his chin and his skinny arms went around them.
It wasn't long before the howls tore the night apart, reaching Yoshino through the distance. What could have been a shower of shots exploded, he could almost hear the fumbling of hands as they tried to reload their magazines, the sudden drop of volume mass as soldiers began to succumb, the soft cries of the others down in the basement, unable to process the reality in which menacing violence was being unleashed so close to the lull of their stale, regular, pretty much uneventful way of living. Like lambs being shown their underbelly was meant to be pierced by the sharp tools in their caretakers hands.
Yoshino thought he would have liked to witness the carnage, given the chance, if it hadn't been deeply intertwined with the current uncertainty of his own fate.
His eyes closed. His head smashed into the protruding bones of his knees and he forced himself to release the strenuous hold he had on his consciousness. Eventually it slipped, and floated away, like a balloon—far above it went and in a breath or two he was under.
He dreamt of cotton candy, barren lands that were more trash than land, living corpses climbing piles of waste, and a faceless boy wearing a kimono, hair and skirt billowing in the wind.
While he slept he didn't sense the soundless and gentle padding of shoes that soon followed the creeping quiet that bled inside from the decimated outside.
What woke Yoshino for the second time that night was the pungent scent of blood. It was thick, heavy, and invasive; he felt, for a torturous and blissful second, that he had fallen asleep inside a butcher shop instead of Sunshine-Valley House. It also blocked his breathing pathways and he nearly returned to consciousness coughing, scrambling not to choke on the deathly fume.
His eyes opened to complete darkness. The light-bulbs in the hallways must have had finally gone out. Or someone must have taken them out on purpose. This thought cleared his head, and had him swallowing, almost shyly, fearing that the tiniest of movements might trigger an unfavorable reaction; his ears strained in search of signs of foreign breaths, or life in general, but came up with nothing. Absolutely nothing. Only silence. The maddening bumps of his heart. The rush of blood that chilled within his veins. Too loud.
He crawled to the mouth of the vent, screwdriver in hand, counting his breaths, pupils dilated in the now much more ominous lack of illumination, cursing the telltale dragging sounds his limbs couldn't help but produce as he slid forwards.
Heart at his throat, he watched with acute concentration as his fingers slipped maddeningly slow in between the cracks of the screen that kept him apart from the looming threat which had summoned the quiet, that which clung to the footsteps of the lifeless.
Swallowing. Sweating. The screen fell to carpeted floor with a muted thud. Yoshino's breaths stammered as he peeked outside his haven.
Brightness surged with enough violence to submerge him in a sea of fulminating white. As fatal shock overtook him, so did the gripe of cold biting fingers above his elbows, forcing him out swiftly from his hiding place. All he could do was gasp, screams pooling inside his chest, unable to escape, vocal chords just as helpless as he was, and his knees grappled across the vent, the skin screeching due to the friction that was ignited by the futile pull of his resistance.
His arm moved quicker than the incoherent mess of thoughts he failed to string together.
Like a carefully practiced succession of events, a squelching, meaty sound echoed as the screwdriver in his hand sunk into something thick. Yoshino, almost unconsciously, drove further pressure into his wrist, the screwdriver yielded further down, and he felt as his fingers were coated in a sticky wet substance.
His ears stung and rang, he thought he was fainting, he was cold, colder than ever. A horrible and yet enticing dread, or a sensation akin to it, enclosed the atmosphere, drained it from air, and it was now taking Yosino's shivering and sweaty form captive.
He realized he was being held above ground level; his legs were swinging like broken mind-wills, and if he struggled he would find nothing in the immediate surroundings that could offer them support.
How was he still alive?
His eyes fluttered, seeking to accommodate to the abrupt exposure to illumination. The bright spots in his sight started to vanish, sinking into the pale grays that composed the color scheme of the room. Taking what he assumed to be his last breath, he blinked, torturously slow, and looked finally at his captor.
Recognition hit him like a bus at full speed.
The man from the park stared listlessly back at him. The eyes that chased him as he made his rounds were the same— circular beacons of ink from which light bounced off, as they were filled with nothing and reflected nothing in return. The perfect porcelain crafted face that emoted aloofness alone was the same too. His long hair was braided, kept away from obstructing his view, and it slithered down his silhouette like a lazy reptile. The purple fabric of the man's long sleeved shirt vomited small bursts of blood from his right shoulder, where Yoshino had stabbed him. He seemed to be unaware of this, holding the confused eyes in front of him like he would a hand in a sign of camaraderie.
He should have avoided it. Such a clumsy attempt shouldn't have even grazed him, it occurred to Yoshino harshly, for no reason at all, his fingers loosening their grasp on the screwdriver as what he now knew was blood made the task of holding on increasingly difficult. A strange flare of annoyance burst within him, and was quickly turning into a different emotion altogether.
"Did you think that I would not find you?" the man said in the calm and composed monotone that had haunted Yoshino's dreams, the dead-tuned melody that had slowly clawed at the feeble string of his sanity for weeks, "Did you think you could hide from me?"
Yoshino's head ached; his blood was rushing upwards faster than he could take. The grim, unfeeling mouth of this monstrosity of a man turned at the edges, forming a mechanical, unnatural smile.
"Well, I found you, Hisoka. Just like I promised."
The dam broke at once and the waters of his rage overflowed. The boy let out an irate howl, incensed, possessed by a wrath he would never be able to explain in this lifetime, and his fingers were again driving the screwdriver hard into flesh, willing it to tear open.
The man didn't even react. Didn't even flinch. The dark twist to his smile, however, amplified as the boy in his arms lashed out in a maddening ire and the confusion in those narrow eyes dimmed until all that was left was the most voracious of infernos.