Chapter 2: Off to sleep.
(7 years ago)
Rin rubbed at his eyes furiously as he ran, trying his best not to cry.
It wasn't fair!
The other boy had started it, throwing insults at him that were so hard to ignore, pushing and pushing until Rin had to push back, or rather, punch back. He was just so angry, the things that boy was saying about Yukio and his family, so he hit the boy, and then hit the teacher by accident in his anger.
And the teachers had blamed it all on him, not listening to Rin when he tried to explain, telling him that he shouldn't resort to violence over 'harmless teasing'. The boy got out of it without even a scolding while Rin got suspended again and sent home on his own because his father was away.
Frustrated, angry at the world, and fearful at how his father would react to him being suspended again, Rin did the only thing his young mind could think of and ran. He had no direction in mind, all he knew was that he needed to get away, to try and outrun his problems.
Eventually, Rin came to a stop, exhausted and still upset, he slumped down where he stood and sobbed into his hands.
"It's not fair." He sobbed into his hands. "They never understand!"
So wrapped up in his misery, he gave no notice to what approached him from the shadows.
Rin moaned as he came to, rubbing his eyes as he tried to make sense of what happened. The last he remembered was breaking down, and then nothing. Apparently, he'd fallen asleep or something.
But what he woke up to was certainly not where he last remembered.
The ground beneath him was overgrown, coming up from beneath cracked pavement and crawling up the walls of buildings, the buildings themselves in various states of disrepair, windows smashed, and some buildings caved in in areas, cars sat abandoned on the road, rusted with plants also growing over them. And it was quiet, Rin couldn't hear a single other person, not even any animals.
"Where am I?" Rin questioned as he stood up and began walking through the ruined streets. "Hello!" He called out.
There was no answer.
"Hello!" He called again desperately.
Still, no one came.
Rin's eyes began to burn as more tears came, he was alone in this strange place, he didn't recognise anything. The dilapidated buildings were unfamiliar, he didn't recognise the faded shop signs, and he couldn't see any sign of the clock tower his father had told him to head to if he or Yukio ever got lost.
Rin began running desperately, turning random corners, hoping to catch sight of something familiar that would lead him back home.
From the distance, he was watched by a set of eyes.
"Hello! Please, someone!" Rin cried as he continued to run, until he found himself exhausted. "Where am I?"
Suddenly, there was a rustling sound nearby and something flashed in the corner of Rin's vision.
"Hello?" He asked hopefully.
There was more rustling.
He turned a corner and spotted a human-shaped figure not far away.
Rin let out a breath of relief. "Can you help me, I'm lost and don't know where…" He trailed off as he finally got a good look at who he was talking to.
What was a more accurate word. The figure was skeletal, wearing no clothes to hide its emaciated body, it had long arms with long fingers tipped with long claws, it was completely bald, and its belly stuck far out from the rest of its body like a melon. When it turned to face him, Rin could only register fear, its eyes were sunken in and wide like it had no eyelids, and its teeth were on display with no lips covering them.
The thing turned to face Rin fully, gnashing its teeth together.
Rin began stepping back nervously and the thing opened its mouth and let out an inhuman screech.
Rin screamed in fear, turning and running, hearing the pounding of feet behind him. Around him, more of the creatures emerged from the shadows, creeping out from between building, screeching and giving chase.
Rin ran until he found himself backed into a corner, the creatures advancing towards him.
"Hey!" A voice suddenly called out.
Rin looked up to see someone leap down from above him, landing between him and the creatures, brandishing a jagged metal pipe. Said pipe was then lodged in the chest of one of the creatures, which gave a screech of pain and fell over, the pipe was pulled out of its body and swung at another creature, striking it across the face. The creatures back away in fear and pain, wary of the pipe but also testing their way forward, only kept at bay when the jagged metal was swung their way.
Rin's saviour then reached into their bag and threw something on the floor, smoke quickly spewing out of it, obscuring everything from sight.
Rin coughed and tried to clear the smoke from his eyes when he felt a hand latch onto his arm.
"Come on." It was his rescuer.
With no other options, Rin allowed himself to be pulled along through the smoke, until they had cleared it. None of the creatures were in sight, but they kept running until his rescuer deemed them a safe distance.
Now that they had stopped, Rin was finally able to get a good look at who had rescued him. It was a girl, much older than him, her hair was brown and tied in a ponytail with a tattered bow, she wore a high school uniform that was slightly dirty and tattered as well.
"Are you alright?" She asked.
"Yes, thank you." Rin said, coughing slightly.
The girl frowned slightly. "Given that you were loudly proclaiming your location, I'm guessing that you're new here." She said.
"I guess so." Rin said. "Where is here?"
"That's a bit hard to explain." The girl said.
She then looked up at the sky.
"Darkness is falling, we need to get to the hideout quickly." She said.
She turned and began walking, Rin quickly following.
"Why?" He questioned.
"Those creatures you encountered are much more active during the night, it's incredibly dangerous." The girl answered.
"Oh. I'm Rin, by the way."
The girl turned her head towards him as she continued to walk.
"Well, Rin, you can call me Mami." She said.
Mami's hide out was in some random building, she knocked on the door in a pattern and it opened. With one last scan of the area around them, she went inside, Rin following.
Inside the building, there were more children, gathered around in a room doing their own activities. They were all young like him, some slightly older and some younger, Mami seemed to be the oldest of their group by quite a few years.
"Children." Mami called for attention. "This is Rin, the newest member of our family."
"Hey." Everyone gave their own variations of greeting.
Mami began to introduce all of the children. "Here we have Akiko, Yamato, Chiro, Isamu, Kagami, Ken and-"
Rin let out an 'oof' as something impacted him in the stomach, looking down he saw that is was a girl about half his age.
"That's Suzy." Mami finished with a laugh. "She's very affectionate."
"Hi." Suzie greeted smiling up at him.
"Hi." Rin smiled back.
Mami guided Rin over to a chair where he sat down, giving an exhaust smile, beside them a fire burned, providing warmth to the room, a few of the children were gathered around it, sitting on the floor in order to be closer. Mami sat down next to him and quickly found herself with a lapful of Suzy.
"Now that we have time to rest, I guess it's time to explain, as best as I can at least." Mami said, absentmindedly stroking Suzy's head. "The truth is that none of us know where we are or even how we came to be here, we all just woke up here. And haven't been able to find a way back home, so far."
"What about those monsters?" Rin asked, eyeing the window.
One of the children, Ken, walked over to the window and drew the curtain across it, as if the creatures would be summoned to the window my mention of them.
Mami shook her head. "All we know is that they usually come out at night and want to…hurt us."
"You mean kill us!" One of the children exclaimed.
"Yamato!" Mami scolded. "He's new here, don't lay something like that on him."
"Why not? It's what happens to all the others, he should know." Yamato protested.
"They're going to kill us?" Rin asked fearfully.
He already knew that, the way the creatures had attacked him, but that didn't mean he had to like hearing the confirmation.
Mami sighed. "They try to, and sometimes they will catch one of us off guard."
"But Oneesan keeps us safe." Suzy interrupted this time. "She fights off the monsters." She swung around her hand like she was holding a sword.
"I do my best." Mami laughed. "I keep everyone safe her, and we scavenge for supplies during the day. Thankfully, whatever happened to this place left the shops mostly untouched."
"What did happen here? Where's all the other people?" Rin asked, remembering the empty and overgrown streets.
He was met with shrugs.
"We know as much as you." Chiro shrugged.
"This city isn't any we belong to." Mami agreed. "Thankfully, I've been around long enough to know where all the best places to scavenge in the city are."
"Mami-san's been here longer than any of us." Akiko told Rin. "She found all of us and brought us here to be safe."
"Thank you." Rin said, thanking Mami again for his rescue.
"Well, I wasn't just going to leave you to wander the streets alone with the monsters, it's my job as big sister to protect all of you." Mami said, pulling Rin into a one-armed hug.
"Big sister?" Rin questioned.
"Well, that's what the children started calling me?" Mami smiled as she explained.
"I've never had a big sister?" Rin said.
"Well, now you do. Along with plenty other brothers and sisters." Mami told him. "We're all a family here, and family stick together."
"Yeah." The other children agreed.
"A family." Rin tested the word. "But I already have one." He thought of his father and brother, who were no doubt looking for him by now.
"We all did." Kagami told him. "But some of us have been here for a long time, so we've made a new family here."
"There's no way out." Yamato added. "A fog surrounds this city."
"Ans no one's ever come out from it after going in." Finished Isamu.
"Alright, stop scaring him." Mami interrupted, seeing that Rin was starting to become upset. "And you never know, we may find a way back one day. There was a way into this place after all, so there has to be a way out." She added comfortingly.
"I hope so." Rin said.
"But, until then, it's time for bed." Mami said, standing up and positioning Suzy onto her hip.
"Aww." The children groaned.
"None of that now." Mami chastised with a gentle smile. "We need to be bright eyed for the morning."
There were some more grumbles of complaint, but everyone got up and made their way to the door, a few trying to hide their yawning.
"What about the fire?" Rin asked, looking back at the fireplace where the embers continued to glow.
Though the monastery had a burning stove instead of actual fireplaces to keep it warm during winter, he knew enough about fire safety from school that you weren't supposed to leave open flames unsupervised.
"It's alright." Mami assured him, moving a grate in front of the fire. "I'll be coming back once you're all to bed, and it's almost out anyway." She gave a yawn herself.
'Bed' turned out to be a collection of futons pushed together, everyone grabbed a pillow and blanket from the pile of them next to it and chose a random spot to lie down on, thankfully there was a pillow and blanket each left over for Rin.
Mami set Suzy down and sat on the futon with her back leaning against the wall, the youngest quickly shuffled up so that her head could rest on the older girl's legs, the other children had also migrated towards Mami once she had sat down, seeming unbothered by having so little space, in fact they seemed to cuddle up to each other. It left Rin with plenty of space at the other end of the futon.
"Lullaby" Suzy yawned.
Mami smiled down at her fondly, and then began to hum. The tune was gentle, and the children relaxed at the sound of it. Then she began to sing.
"~Watashi was asa no yume wo miru
Made dame yo
Made dame yo
Nani iro no asa ga kuru
Made dame yo
Made dame you
Mada yoru was tabekake you
Nemutteru ko wa doko ni iru?
Saa ohayou Nightmare
Warui oyume wa korekkiri~"
Rin's eyes quickly grew heavy as Mami sang, in his doze he could almost hear more than one singer.
As he began to drift off, he was aware of Mami carefully extracting herself from the pile of children cuddled up to her, and then make her way over to him.
"Now what are you doing here by yourself?" He heard Mami ask quietly.
He then felt himself being lifted slightly and gently deposited next to someone, causing him to stir slightly.
"You'll be happier with everyone else." Mami said.
Rin cracked open an eye to look at Mami and then let out a whimper when he heard the screech of the creatures outside.
Mami frowned. "Usually everyone's asleep when they start making their racket." She said. "It's alright, sweetie." She sat down next to Rin to comfort him.
"Will they get in while we sleep?" Rin asked fearfully.
"No." Mami assured him. "I'll stay up and keep watch, so you have nothing to worry about. Big sister will protect you."
Rin continued to shake, but then the person he was lying beside turned and an arm was draped over him.
"See, we're all here for each other, Isamu will keep you safe too." Mami told him. "Now, my child, the fire has died, and night is dark and deep. Close your eyes, let go, and drift off to sleep."
Rin smiled as he closed his eyes.
"You got that from a story book." He yawned before dropping off.
Mami's humming of her lullaby carried him off to sleep.