Downtown Ouran was in complete chaos. Traffic was bumper to bumper, barely moving at all. Hikaru stared out the window, watching crowds flood by on the small sidewalk. The noise of it all was almost unbearable: the thick sirens, the shouts of the people, and the cries of those in despair. And through all of it, Hikaru kept hearing Kaoru's thick coughs.
He turned to his brother as he went into another coughing fit. Hikaru frowned; Kaoru's cold should be almost gone, right? Kaoru was coughing into his mask and it looked like he wasn't getting much air from the thing, so Hikaru quickly yanked the thing off, knowing Kaoru was immune.
"What are you doing?" His mother hissed, flickering her gaze between Hikaru and her youngest son who was still coughing, but was breathing a little easier.
"He's immune, mom." Hikaru glared at her.
"Yes, but we can't let anyone see him without his mask. He could be mistaken as one of the infected," she said, her voice a little higher in the overbearing stress.
Hikaru looked away but immediately picked up Kaoru's mask again. He leaned close to his brother, resting a steady hand on his back. "You got to put this on again, okay Kao?"
Kaoru looked up, forcing back his coughs and nodded. "First let me see your hands," Hikaru demanded, grabbing Kaoru's wrists. They were clean, no blood. Hikaru sighed in relief but his heart continued to thump rapidly.
Kaoru yanked his hands away. "I'm fine Hikaru." He grabbed the mask and stung it over his face again, looking away.
"Just making sure," Hikaru assured his little brother.
They stared outside at the moving crowds. People were rolling suitcases behind them, carrying children, and every person were carrying their government papers. Hikaru wondered how many of these people would get into the sanctuaries. If your papers even held a faint sign of having the Red Plague, you would be disqualified from receiving shelter. Essentially, you were going to be left for dead outside.
Hikaru thought back to the drills they had in school recently. Always stay with your family. Report to the correct shelter. Always carry your government papers. There were so many rules; it was hard to think of them all. But one thing they've never been told was how long the shutdown would last. The teachers always told them that it was up to the government and how widespread the disease was.
"Shit!" their father cursed. Hikaru quickly snapped to attention; it wasn't very often that their father swore.
"What is it?" Kaoru questioned, leaning forward in his seat to peer out the windshield of their car.
"Traffic stopped," their father grumbled. People were abandoning their cars, leaving them on the road. The crowds were now streaming through the street, weaving between the cars. "Great."
"Well, let's go," mother said nervously. "We have to get there soon." She looked down, checking the time on her watch. Hikaru grimaced. From the time the first siren sounds, everyone only had an hour until the sanctuaries shut their doors, accepting no stragglers.
Father leaned forward, grabbing his wife before she opened the door and pulled her into a short kiss. Hikaru's heart thudded uneasily.
"All right," their father said, pulling away from the kiss and glancing at his twin sons. "We stick together. Hold on to each other." His eyebrows were pulled together in a tight-knit frown, worry emanating from his eyes.
Kaoru and Hikaru nodded simultaneously before latching onto each other's arm. Hikaru was determined to hold on to Kaoru for dear life. His little brother was the one person he knew he could never live without.
Hikaru pulled his little brother through his door, grasping his government papers. He glanced back at Kaoru to check that Kaoru had his. Thankfully, he did.
Their parents stood before them holding each other's hands. Mother grabbed onto Hikaru's wrist, pulling him forward. And soon they were walking, just more faces in a vast crowd. Hikaru was bumped and jostled by the rushing people around him.
They walked around the cars quickly. Hikaru supposed they only had about 20 minutes left. He looked behind him, noticing how the crowd thinned out further back. That's when he realized that they had wasted too much time by trying to drive to the sanctuaries. They were going to be some of the last inside.
Hikaru was pulled around a corner onto a new street. A harsh, pungent smell hit Hikaru, making him gag reflexively. It was the smell of the dead. Hikaru and Kaoru stepped over the body that was causing the smell. The woman's skin was yellowish with purple and red blotches. Blood stained her lips. In short, the woman looked absolutely awful.
Kaoru flinched, looking away, and pulled himself closer to Hikaru. He looked pale; Kaoru never had been able to stomach much.
The crowds bustled until they came to stop in a line. Hikaru stood on his toes, peering further up the line and noticed the Military personnel patrolling the sides, keeping everyone in line. To Hikaru's horror, an officer grabbed a man from the front of the line and pulled him away from the cowering people. The man was screaming, crying, but that wouldn't help him. He was covered in lesions—obvious side effects of the Red Plague. A little girl was screaming, she ran towards the man in the street, but she was snatched up by another guard and forcibly brought into the sanctuary.
Hikaru flopped back down on his feet, averting his eyes. The line moved steadily but slowly. Each person was thoroughly checked and rechecked before allowed inside. As the Hitachiins approached the front of the line, Hikaru got a good glimpse of what they were heading for.
Across the nation, the government had rapidly built "sanctuaries" for disease emergencies within the past month. They resembled, in a way, the shelters designed for nuclear fallouts. The one that stood before Hikaru was a large silver door, built directly onto the government building. It looked like it was made of steel maybe, Hikaru didn't know for sure. But what he did know was that the inside of the door led directly down under ground. And below would be rooms for family, food, facilities for daily life. It would be like a normal society, only smaller scale and underground. These sanctuaries were built to last a lifetime if necessary, but Hikaru knew they wouldn't be in there that long. This was just a lockdown until disease control was taken care of.
They moved forward until they were directly in front of the door. "Disease papers and identification," the nearest guard demanded, thrusting his hand forward.
The twins' parents presented their first. Hikaru fidgeted as he watched his parents being patted down and scanned with a hand-held metal detector. "Clear," the guard with their papers droned.
"Clear," the other two guards responded, finishing their body inspection.
"Proceed," the first guard said, waving the two through. Hikaru watched his parents walk into the open of the door of the sanctuary. They descended a few stairs and stopped to wait for their sons.
"Disease papers and identification," the guard said, turning to the two red-heads as he threw their parents' papers into the bin of cleared civilians.
Hikaru grabbed Kaoru's out of his hand and handed both of theirs to the man. Slowly, Hikaru dropped his brother's hand as they stepped forward to be inspected. Kaoru gave him a small reassuring smile.
The pat down was extremely uncomfortable. Hikaru struggled to remain still as he was patted down in the most uncomfortable of places. He just watched his brother, wondering how Kaoru was staying so calm when Hikaru was freaking out mentally.
He sucked in a shaky breath, when he heard the first guard call, "clear."
The other two guards stepped away from the brothers. "Clear."
"Proceed."
Hikaru stepped forward, eager to see the inside of the sanctuary. His parents were smiling warmly, glad both had passed. Hikaru stepped through the door with Kaoru close on his heels.
But then Kaoru suddenly coughed, roughly and loudly. Hikaru turned quickly to catch the guard grab Kaoru's shoulder to hold him back. "Hold on," the guard with the metal detector said.
Kaoru didn't respond; he was too busy coughing. "Hey!" Hikaru shouted, coming back up the stairs. "He just has a cold."
Hikaru reached out to grab his younger brother and Kaoru did the same; panic was written across both twins' faces. But just as Hikaru's hand almost touched Kaoru, he was pushed away by the other guard. "Step back!" he growled in Hikaru's face.
"He just has a cold!" Hikaru bellowed into the man's face.
Kaoru coughed again and the crowd in line jumped back as if he would kill them. "Kaoru!" Hikaru cried, struggling against the guard, but the man only tightened his grip on Hikaru's shoulders.
"What's going on?" his mother asked, coming back up the stairs followed by father. "Kaoru? Hikaru?" Her eyes flashed from one twin to the other.
"Let go of them," Hikaru heard his father growl from behind him.
The first officer peered down at the four Hitachiins before bending down and grabbing Kaoru's papers from the bin. He straightened, leafing through the stapled pages.
"He's immune," Hikaru spat, going still as Kaoru stopped coughing. His amber eyes were barely visible under his orange hair, but he could see the fear on Kaoru's face.
"Immune?" The officer laughed. "I've never heard of such a thing." He halted his rustling of the papers to look up with a glare. "I bet this kid had the Red Plague and you three were just trying to smuggle him in."
"No, he's immune!" Hikaru cried.
"He's done nothing wrong. He just has a cold!" mom cried.
The guard didn't listen; he just pulled Kaoru by the collar towards him and away from the rest of the family. "Hikaru!" Kaoru cried, reaching out.
Hikaru lurched forward, freeing one hand and tried to grab Kaoru but he was thrown backward by the guard once again. "Kaoru!"
"Get them inside!" the first guard ordered, waving at the sanctuary door.
"Hikaru!" Kaoru yelled once again. But he was shoved out of Hikaru's sight and away from the door while Hikaru was dragged into the door. "Kaoru!" he yelled back. He fought with all his might, thrashing and kicking against the man holding him.
But he was thrown inside the dark stairwell nonetheless and the door was slammed behind him. His parents were yelling behind and he looked down to see a fresh new set of guards from the inside dragging the two away.
Hikaru turned back to the door and flung himself at the door with all his might. "Kaoru! Kaoru!" he cried. And on the other side he heard a distant, "Hikaru!" He heard it even through the alarms, the yells, the echoing of the stairs.
But he was forced away from the door, wrenched away by strong hands. And all the way down the endless stairs, Hikaru screamed for his little brother.
Oh no! Our poor little Kao! And Hikaru, what will he do? haha Well, I guess you'll just find out. This is my longest chapter that I've ever written on this site. I usually like to write in short chapters but in often updates... but this chapter came out non-stop. Don't forget to tell me what you think!