Edited, These early chapters were so rough, :/

1000 Suns

Chapter 2
Footsteps of the DEAD

What does it take to be a good leader? If someone had asked me that question before this whole mess started I would have looked at them like they were crazy. I would have laughed in their face and said 'who cares'.
I didn't care about much back then. Ironic isn't it, that I never knew how lucky I was until everything was already gone.

҉

The entire group gathered in Saya's suite an hour or so after sunrise. The diminutive genius regaled Komuro with a small frown as he entered her room, as if to say 'what are all of you doing here?' He just smiled apologetically for interrupting her rest, but planning their next move took precedence over a day of relaxation. Moments of safety and relative peace, when Komuro and company were far away from them, occurred rarely in the hectic and chaotic world. These moments needed to be used to plan for the future, how to survive, how to find food, how to get from point A to point B, as many things a humanly possible.

And they all had to meet in Saya's room because she didn't want to move.

"Khota, how are we doing with ammo?" Takashi asked as soon as everyone was settle around the suite.

Hirano shrugged and replied, "We still have more than enough, though if we get into another major conflict that'll change. The only one who's even close to running low on ammo is Saya, since she only had one barrel clip to begin with. Shizuka's friend must have been planning for a war or something with all the rounds she had in her appartment."

Komuro nodded as he leaned back against a wall. "Well," He began. "We barely have any food or water, since we weren't planning on leaving on such short notice. So we have to go looting for supplies before we can do anything else. No point in going off half starved. That's the first thing we'll do today" Around him others nodded in agreement. "Next, Saya, do you know what effect the" He paused for a moment to recover the word, "'HANE' could have on us?"

Pushing up her glasses Saya mentally sorted through all the information she knew on the subject and framed a reply, "Other than what I've already told you, all electronic devices shorting out, the other effects depend on where the bomb was detonated, which will also affect the range of he blackout."

"For example, there will quite possible be radioactive fallout, albeit much less than would be present if a nuclear warhead was detonated on the ground. But unless Shizuka-sensei has anti-rad pills in that bag of hers, there isn't anything we can do to protect ourselves from it." tilting her head to the side she continued, "Of course, considering the fact that we only experienced the effects of the blast and no one actually saw the explosion itself, the H.A.N.E. probable took place some distance away, either over the ocean or another one of the islands. So if the winds blow the right way we might never see any fallout at all, and hopfully if we do it won't be enough to harm us." She grimaced, "One way or another we probably won't know until it's too late" Takashi frowned, he had been hoping for better news than this, but Saya wasn't finished yet. "Next is the problem of water." She continued, "If the EMP blast hit the water treatment plants then we're royally screwed as the water in the pipes may not be potable. Also, unless there are still workers at the facilities the water pressure will fail in a few days regardless, and there isn't exactly an abundance of alternative water sources around here."

"What about the river?" Saeko asked, "Is their some reason why it would become unusable?"

"We'll sure we can use the river," Saya shot back "if you don't mind setting up right next to it and spending the better part of everyday carrying water back to our hideout. Not to mention that we'd have to boil it so we don't die of cholera or some other ironically fatal disease, and if the water has been contaminated by them we have no idea if just boiling the water will purify it. Though it would be morbidly amusing to die from water of all things."

Saeko nodded, unperturbed by Saya's tone; However, it was Komuro who picked up the questioning again, "If your right," He began, "And the water supply fails, what do you propose we do?"

"If things get that far," Saya replied, "We'll have no choice but to search for another usable water source, either a river or a lake of some sort. It would be best if we could find a water supply far enough away from major cities to avoid detection, but it would still need to be close enough so we could scavenge food." She didn't want to lay down this last piece of bad news after everything else she had just said, but it was necessary. "And, as it stands right now, I have no idea where the H.A.N.E. originated from..."

"So if we do decide to move out, we have no idea which direction will take us out of the EMP's radius." Komuro finished. Saya simply nodded, confirming his statement.

"Right," Komuro continued. There was nothing left to do but come up with a plan of action. "I live in this neighborhood, so first I'll lead a group to loot some of the smaller food stores. With the lights out, I don't want go into a supermarket unless we have no other options. Rei, your father worked at the East Police Station, right?" Rei nodded, her face part hopeful, part scared, "That's close by, so we'll head in that direction while we're scavenging food and water. With any luck, we can find your dad sometime during the trip. We'll need some of the backpacks to carry everything too."

He slapped his hands on his jeans. "Right, Anything else?" He asked. No one else spoke. "Alright then. Let's get to it before we run out of daylight." Zeke gave a happy little bark, the only one unaffected by the dark tidings that welcomed them this morning.

҉The parking lot was empty, devoid of anything that resembled life, and a small plastic bag skittered across the asphalt as Komuro and company opened the hotel doors. They had decided to leave the humvee in the lot and travel on foot in order to avoid attracting too many of them. Meanwhile, Shizuka, Alice, Zeke remained inside the hotel. Komuro had debated leaving Hirano or even Saya behind to protect them, but in the end he decided the thick wooden doors would be enough to keep them safe.

The five of them (Saeko, Takashi, Rei, Saya, and Khota) moved out in formation. Their footsteps made only a small amount of noise, but even the light tapping seemed comically loud next to the silence around them. One could only hope that distance would be a buffer for the sounds and prevent them from hearing. Takashi and Co. moved slowly out onto the empty streets, their eyes sharp, their ears straining to pick up even the barest into of movement. And each of them hoping that, just for once in their lives, today would come off without a hitch, that the whole trip would end well.

Their wish would go unfulfilled.

Saeko in the lead, they picked a road heading towards the police station. They crossed back and forth over the street to dodge around cars and to avoid the shambling forms that stumbled about with no goal or orientation save moving towards the newest sound. They made quick progress down the street despite their constant detours, soon arriving at a small grocery store, their first stop on the way to the police station. After a quick sweep of the small store, Saeko concluded it was empty and the rest of the group filed inside.

Komuro stood by the door, looking over the bloodstained tiles within. A lone body, its head bashed in, occupied one of the small isles, toward the front several of the shelves had been tipped over and the glass store front had been smashed in, the shattered piece crunching as he walked. A dark mood settled over him as he looked about the trashed interior.

Takashi had know the owners of the shop, and had stopped by often enough to become friendly with all of the clerks who had once stood behind the tiny checkout counter in the corner. It had been a mom and pop shop, with two kids just older than him working there. One was a child of the family, the other just a nice guy who needed some work. By the looks of it, the nice guy was the one lying on the ground, poor bastard.

This store was inextricably tied with Takashi's past; indeed, it had been leaving from this store when he glimpsed walking home from school together. They had been standing on the other side of the train crossing, oblivious to him standing less than ten yards away. They'd crossed the now silent railroad tracks to get to the store not a minute ago, but he hadn't remembered until he stood in the front of 'Sūpāmāketto'. Such a stupid name Komuro reminisced. He remembered trying to get the owners to change the name to something more sensible several times. And now it didn't even matter, the neon sign lay in a burnt out heap of scrap right next to the door.

Takashi's hand clenched, his nails cutting into his palm as he fell deeper into the host of memories surrounding this place, the glittering fragments of a life that will never be again.

A soft hand lightly touched his cheek and Komuro jumped, bringing his shotgun halfway up before he saw who it was. Saeko stood before him wearing a worried expression, the tips of her fingers lightly touching his face. He stumbled slightly, shoulders slumping for a brief instant, before he regained control of himself. Then he flashed her a winning smile, one that made Saeko's heart skip a beat even though she knew it's fake. His eyes were so beautiful when he smiled. "I'm fine," He replied to her unspoken question and gently pushed her hand away. Without another word he moved into the store and struck up a conversation with Khota, nobody but her noticing his slight lapse.

Saeko sighed, a concerned expression on her face. What was that? she mused to herself as she moved back to the shelves, pretending to look for more nonperishable food. For a moment there, I felt pure, uncontrollable hatred rolling off of him. Glancing back towards Takashi she pondered the expression on his face, now only full of determination and wry humor, so different from only a moment ago.

"See something interesting?" Rei asked snarkily as she walked up, grabbing a few more cans of this and that off the shelves.

"I'm concerned for his health," Saeko replied. She tossed Rei a can that the other girl missed before sweeping past her to hold open the door as the entire group returned the street to sort out what they'd gathered. Rei spared Saeko a brief nod, showing the other woman that she, too, was concerned for Takashi. Now though, the tawny eyed teen was fine, and he gestured for his family closer so he could speak.

"We found a lot," He whispered, eliciting a sarcastic snort from Saya, "But there's one more place I want to raid before we head for the police station." Nods of understanding all around, "Let's get all of this into our packs quickly. I don't want to stay in one spot any longer than we have to." Everyone complied, and within a minute they were moving again, falling in step next to each other like they'd been doing it their entire lives. The next place they were heading towards was a small gas station that Komuro knew would have lots of snacks filled with preservatives. After all the shit his family had been through, he felt that some sugar filled junk food would help keep everyone's spirits up.

It's amazing how quickly humans adapt to their new surroundings. Even this, creeping silently down the street and avoiding walking corpses as they went, had become part of a routine. It was something rote, practiced, because humans find comfort in repetition. And ultimately, it is that laxness, that need to reduce the world to a series of patterns, that crushes humanity every single time.

Because when something happens that upsets the pattern, humanity doesn't know how to react.

The Gas Station

Ever seen a man hanged? Saya was staring at one right now as it dangled limply from the ceiling of the convenience store like a filthy rag. The worst part of it all, Saya decided, more awefull than the pallid skin, more terrible the sickly sweet smell of decay filling the air, more horrible than the bloodshot eyes poping out of its skull, was the expression on the corpse's face.

The face (frozen by rigor mortis, the part of her brain that still in shock noted vaguely) bore an insane grin. Stretching from ear to ear, it was a visage of joy, of the sweet release from this nightmare of a world. It stared at her, its rotting eyes peering inter hers, and Saya began to tremble. She wanted to turn away, to flee to run to hid, to put a bullet into her own mouth if that's what it took to escape the dead man's gaze.

The gleeful specter of demise, suicide his savior, seemed to smile benignly at Saya, beckoning her closer into the depths of insanity, drawing her to the edge past which she could never return. Saya wished that she had even enough control of her body to close her eyelids, to look away, to stop seeing was all she asked for. But removing the grotesquery from her sight will not save her from its demented smile. No, that will linger for the rest of her days. Even a glimpse would have done the job, saving forever the dead man's grin in her psyche against all attempts to purge it. She would remember forever, that was her reality.

"We're leaving," Komuro spoke, his voice broken, the sound of one on the verge of abandoning all hope. Yet even his words could not awaken Saya from her trance, so enraptured was she by the face before her, a face so utterly happy. In the end it was Khota, grabbing her gently by the shoulders and steering her out of the store that saved her. Collapsing, as if unable to bare her own weight, Saya slumped into Hirano, her eyes still wide open. No one paused to grab anything off the shelves, Rei barely made it to the front door before throwing up. Komuro went to comfort her and Hirano set Saya down before he began to absently click the magazine in and out of his rifle. Saeko, the last to leave the store, severed the man's makeshift noose, letting the corpse fall to the floor with a wet smack.

Outside the store Saya continued to tremble slightly. She focused on the clicking of Hirano's gun, click-click, in-out, click-click. A meaningless repetitive noise, she allowed the sound to wash over her, to anchor her, and she managed to draw herself together, standing upright just as Rei's heaves quieted.

No one spoke, Komuro knew vaguely that he should say something, anything, to draw his family back together again, to give them enough strength to get back to the hotel. But he was out of words to say, so he did the only thing he could think of. He started walking. In this way, they made for the hotel, nobody had the stomach to explore the police station.

Even though she knew where they were going Rei did not argue. She had resolved to search the station for her father no matter what when they left the hotel this morning, but now that resolve was shattered into a million pieces. Quietly she fell into step beside Komuro, glad in the end that he had decided to head back to the hotel. That way she wouldn't feel like a coward for running away. She would find her father, she had to, but not today.

Saya's Suite

The door opened silently, only a click betraying the turning of the lock in its hinges, as Saya and the rest of the group damn near collapsed through the entry way. The door slammed shut behind them, no one, not even Saeko, thinking to grab it to prevent the noise. Shizuka Marikawa took one look at them an immediately knew something had gone terribly, terribly wrong.

As the group entered Alice jumped up running towards them to jump into Komuro's arms. "Onii-san!" she chirped happily. Without a word Komuro swept her up into an embrace, spinning her around in the air before collapsing back to the ground. Shizuka noted how he clung to her, like a drowning man clinging to a life preserver, before releasing her so the little girl could go hug the others. Something had happened that left them all shaken, Shizuka could see it written on their faces. They didn't even look scared, or sad. No, they appeared broken, shattered.

Saya was the worst. While the rest of them where still holding onto their facades and fake smiles, she was just standing there, leaning on Khota with a despondent expression on her face. Shizuka stood up. Walking over to the pick haired girl, the nurse enveloped her into an embrace and Saya slid unresponsively into Shizuka's grip. "What happened?" Shizuka asked Komuro quietly.

He stared at her for a second, with Alice sitting happily on his shoulder, before he managed to pull together a reply. "We found a man... who had hanged himself..." He trailed off, not sure how to finish his sentence.

Shizuka nodded. "Come on Takagi-san, let's go," She said, gently steering Saya through the door way to the adjoining suite. As the door shut behind her the rest of the group spread out around the room, lying down on beds or chairs. Rei began sorting out all the supplies they managed to gather as way to distract herself from the fiasco at the convenience store. Slowly she began sorting out the cans into piles of different foods. As she worked Komuro knelt beside her and slowly began helping. They shared a small smile, completing a meaningless task just to alleviate the feeling of depression in the air. In the background Saeko let a small frown touch her lips for an instant before suppressing her anger. It would not do for a Busujima to act so distastefully, she though, even if Komuro was the love of her life. She was confident in her position, but unbeknownst to her, so was Rei.

In the adjoining suite, Shizuka moved Saya to the large leather desk chair sitting in the corner of the room. The pinkett didn't resist, her body obeying docilely. After she sat Saya down Shizuka settled in across from her on the nearest bed. Leaning forward to close the short distance between the bed in the chair Shizuka put her hands on Saya's shoulders.

"Saya," She began, her voice quiet and gentle, "Saya, do you want to tell me what happened?" At first Saya didn't react and continued to stare off into space. But Marikawa patiently sat there, occasionally asking Saya another question. Eventually her strategy worked. Light came back to Saya's eyes and she turned towards the nurse. She blinked slowly, before collapsing into Marikawa-sensei's arms, tears that she could not find at the convenience store now spilling over in excess.

Through her sobs Shizuka, could make out words. Saya was mumbling incoherently as she wept. Eventually, the disjointed syllables became clear. "I can't forget it, I can't forget it, I can't forget it," Four words, repeated over and over again in an endless stream. A plea to forget, a testament to memory.

That was the first time I didn't know what to say. Every time before that I'd have a word, a phrase, anything, to prop us all up until we could pull ourselves back together. But this time? nothing. I couldn't do it, it was all I could do to stand up myself and head back to the hotel. All the way, I prayed that my family would have the strength to carry themselves back. I could barely hold myself upright, let alone anyone else.
But the memory that man's face haunted me every step of the way. Now, I can only hope we don't follow in his footsteps.

Well that's it, I mostly tried to improve the flow of the paragraphs. But there was such a huge formatting error at the end. Now I have to go back and check my other updates too, ha.

In any case, don't forget to read an review :D