Please sit back, und ENJOY.
"This is a waste of time…" the blond sighed, shaking his head.
"Please, have patience. I know it was here somewhere. It was near a twisted stop sign…" a dark-haired man replied.
The blond rolled his eyes. "Oh, and there can't be that many stop signs in a city, right?"
The second person seemed offended, as his cheeks flushed a bit red in embarrassment. "I remember because it was twisted in a peculiar way, and it was near the remains of a statue of some sort."
"That's more like it." The first person hummed.
They had been desperately in need of new ammunition, supplies and medicines. Earlier that day they had found the medicines and various cans in a forgotten broken fridge somewhere, but they were having a tough time finding the ammunition, which the dark-haired person had located somehow on their earlier scouts. They had been searching all day, and dusk was nearing. It had rained, and the clouds were still high in the sky, but the sun was hovering just over the horizon without clouds covering it. The blond's grip on the wheel of the jeep tightened.
"I hope you find that place soon, because the night is coming. Fast." Ludwig, the blond, said while driving the jeep they through city's rubble.
The second man, called Kiku, strained his dark eyes and neck in search for that damn stop sign and statue. "I have noticed that, Ludwig-san. The sun is setting quicker than expected." He commented, a small frown on his face. He then spotted the mass of destroyed and bent metal that had once been a bronze statue of a probably important man. "There! And I see the stop sign too, quick, make haste!"
Ludwig's foot stepped on the accelerator and in no time they were off the vehicle, searching through the rubble to find an entrance of some sort. They found it, and they were satisfied with what they got. A dozen knives of all sizes, two guns, one rifles and two boxes of ammunition. They even found a metal tank of fuel for the car. "Wunderbar," the blond German smirked. "Now we won't have to worry for the jeep for a while." He started carrying everything to the back of the jeep, the red light of the dying sun tinting the clouds orange and stretching to infinity the many shadows.
Then, they both heard something move somewhere. A couple of moving pebbles, nothing more. But that was more than enough for a warning: the Nightmares were beginning to stir, because the night was approaching. Kiku walked faster, carrying one of the boxes. They still had some minutes, but he didn't want to be unlucky enough to encounter the ones that woke up earlier than normal.
After quickly putting the last box in the back, he swiftly jumped in the already running car, Ludwig sitting behind the wheel. Then, suddenly, a Nightmare appeared on their right, moving the piece of concrete under which it had been hiding.
"Move!" Kiku shouted, before going into a stream of Japanese muttered words that Ludwig didn't understand. He guessed those were curse words, but did not argue with the man. He was more preoccupied trying to escape from the monster. Its glowing spots were toxic green, Ludwig noticed, so that meant it was a fresh one. A fresh one, a newbie, whatever you may call it. Light green glow meant weak. But that didn't mean it walked around wearing a smile and wanting free hugs.
Ludwig floored the accelerator, and the jeep took off with screeching tires through the bumpy and torn-up leftovers of a main road.
Almost immediately the Nightmare was left behind, probably still a bit groggy for having just woken up.
However, Kiku then heard someone yelling. "What is that?" he asked the German while glancing around.
"What." The man grumbled, his eyes glued on the road, looking for eventual Nightmares that were already waking.
"That noise. It is someone screaming, we must go help him or her!" the Japanese turned in his seat to face the blond.
Ludwig strained his ears, and indeed, there was someone yelling somewhere to their right. However, he couldn't make out if it was a man or a woman. The voice was too high-pitched, so it probably was a woman.
"Alright, let's go." the German said, turning the jeep to the right.
"VEEEEE! Somebody help meeee! Aiutoooo! HEEELP!" Feliciano screamed at the top of his lungs. The thing, the monster was still following him, jumping or scrambling over the rubble with its black paws.
Feli's head and right hand hurt, he could feel the blood pounding painfully in those areas, and at the same time he felt nauseous. He must have been wounded pretty badly, but he could not recollect why. And it was getting pretty dark too, the sun had appeared from behind the clouds but it was already setting! Feliciano was terrified.
"Heeeeeelp! Somebodyyyy!" he screamed again, a tear escaping from the corner of his left eye. He had very little hope finding anybody in this dead city.
He suddenly stumbled over his own booted feet and fell face-first on the ground with a yelp. He was about to stand up again, but then he heard the thing coming to a stop practically behind him. He gave up on the idea of standing up, he wouldn't be able to escape anyway from this distance. He also refused to turn around and face the monster, since he didn't want that hideous monster to be the last thing he saw before dying. He wanted to remind himself of somebody he cared for before dying, but he didn't remember anything. That was a little depressing. Also, wasn't one's life supposed to flash in front of a dying man's eyes? At least then he'd have faces to concentrate on, but... too bad, it didn't happen. He started trembling, and he covered his head with his arms.
Suddenly, something clicked in his mind. He remembered something. Not a face, but a prayer. He didn't remember from where, or from whom he had heard it, but it felt comforting. He started to half mouth and half whisper it, trembling.
"A-ave Maria, piena di grazia…"
He put his hands together over his head and prayed faster.
"…Il Signore è con te… Tu sei b-benedetta fra le donne, e-e benedetto è il frutto del tuo s-seno, Gesù… S-santa Maria, m-madre di Dio…Prega per noi peccatori…"
The thing made its awful distorted growl, hovering over him. Feliciano saw two of its legs in front of him, and felt thick, warm drool drip on his shoulder.
"O-ora…E n-nell'ora della nostra m-morte. A-amen."
That was it, he was done. He wasn't ready to die, but at least he had remembered something before being killed by whatever this creature was.
That's when he heard something exploding over him. Or rather, someone shot the thing away from over him. Feliciano didn't see the paws of the thing around him anymore, so he lifted his head to see what happened, still trembling and feeling numb and nauseous with fear.
Not too far away, the thing was toppled on its side, long legs moving madly. Then Feliciano heard a click-click of a shotgun being reloaded coming from his right. He turned his head, and saw a blond, rather tall and big man standing on top of some rubble, armed with a rifle.
The blond aimed again at the thing, and one of its glowing spots opened up, green liquid bursting out, for a split second in the form of a blossoming flower.
Was... was that a weak spot? The memory-less man thought. The monster looked pretty good armoured on its whole black body, except those big green spots then. It did make sense. Two of those weak spots had been torn open by the rifle-bearing man.
The thing shrieked with that distorted sound it made, and then its legs stopped moving. They fell limp on the side, as green liquid oozed from its two wounds and started pooling under the corpse.
"Hey, you!" the man with the rifle shouted at him, waving a hand. "Get up here, if you want to live! We're leaving!"
Feliciano never had never felt so happy as when he sprang to his feet and hopped in the jeep. Well, it was also the first time he actually remembered feeling happy since waking up, but that didn't matter.
Someone else was already sitting in the car, and that man helped him in. As soon as he was on board, he bowed his head a little. "Hello, I'm Kiku Honda, a pleasure to meet you." He introduced himself. He had a strange accent, he tended to turn the 'l's into 'r's, but Feliciano didn't voice out this thought. The man, Kiku, also looked a bit strange to him: he was smaller than him, had black short hair and small, deep brown almond-shaped eyes. The man, Kiku, offered his right hand, greeting him.
Feliciano flashed a smile. "Oh, ciao! Piacere! I'm Feliciano Vargas!" he said, taking with both hands the right hand of the little man and shaking it vigorously.
The tall blond man then appeared, throwing the rifle in the back before jumping in the driver's seat. He was concentrated on the car, wanting to take them all out of there as fast as he could, so he forgot or didn't bother introducing himself. So Feliciano asked his name.
"Your name is Feliciano, did I hear right? I'm Ludwig Beilshmidt. Angenehm." He grunted as an answer, steering right and left through the rubble and avoiding more and more waking monsters.
"Bless you!" Feliciano smiled, misunderstanding what the German had said.
"No, Feliciano-kun. He said 'Pleasure to meet you' in German." Kiku corrected him politely with his calm voice.
"Oooh, ok!" the Italian nodded, apologizing. "Sorry, I don't know German." Somehow, he was familiar with the concept of 'German', and he was vaguely aware that he himself was Italian. But for the rest, everything in his head was a bit fuzzy. "Where are you from, Kiku?"
"I'm from Japan." The man answered, nodding politely.
"Really? How cool!" Feliciano replied, the new concept of 'Japan' reappearing into his head, as if it had already been there before.
Ludwig shrugged, and kept his eyes on the Nightmare-littered road. He zigzagged expertly between them, keeping the general direction of his destination in mind. Every now and then though, his icy blue eyes would dart to the rear-view mirror and to the reflection of Feliciano. He was obviously Italian, judging by his accent and a few Italian words slipping here and there in his speech. Not that Ludwig didn't do such thing with his own language, or Kiku with his. However, there was something... he didn't know quite what, but he felt that something was... off, of the Italian. He was much too cheerful and carefree for his taste.
He glanced back again at the reflection of the two in the back. They were talking, well, it was more Feliciano ranting about how scary it all had been, and Kiku nodding every now and then. Then Feliciano made an exaggerated gesture with his arms and hands flapping around, making weird faces all the time. That's when Ludwig saw Kiku smiling. Actually smiling. Kiku? He had never known it could be possible.
He shook his head. He still wasn't convinced about the Italian, but decided to postpone that, and concentrated on the road. They had finally left the city, and they were driving back home.
Soon enough, Ludwig saw the rocky mountain they called home. It was once called the "Orphan mountain" because it was set in the middle of a plain rocky desert. It wasn't really that high, and was a little bit flat on top, too. They just plainly called it the Rock. Not very original, but it was functional, as was the Rock itself.
Ludwig sighed. Feliciano hadn't stopped talking all the time. He decided to ask him a question.
"Hey, Feliciano," he exclaimed.
"Sì?" the Italian turned his head away from Kiku, who sighed, happy not to be forced again to listen to the man's continuous ranting.
"What on Earth were you doing out there alone?" the blond asked, glancing through the rear-view mirror at him.
Feliciano pouted, seriously pouted while thinking. "Uh… I must say, honestly, that... I don't remember." He then said, awkwardly rubbing his temple.
The German raised an eyebrow, not buying the lame-sounding excuse. "Is this supposed to be a joke?"
Feliciano seemed offended that he had not believed him. "I'm telling the truth! I just woke up in that creepy city all alone, and then this really ugly and scary monster appeared out of nowhere and started chasing me! I... I think I hit my head somewhere, I don't remember anything beside my name, I swear." The Italian ended the sentence muttering.
"So you don't know what those…monsters are?" Kiku asked, looking beyond baffled.
"Uh... no?" Feliciano said, not really sure himself. Maybe he had known what they were, before, but he obviously didn't right now, thanks to his memory loss.
"Really." The German said dryly, sarcasm dripping off that single word. He didn't believe him the slightest.
"...You don't believe me?" Feliciano asked, wide eyes staring at the back of the blond's head.
"Nein." Ludwig replied. The boy was hiding something, he just knew it. Somehow, he had a feeling he shouldn't trust the Italian, and his instincts were seldom wrong. The German's grip tightened on the steering wheel.
"B-but I'm telling the truth! Kiku, you believe me, right?" the Italian placed both hands on the Japanese's shoulders, staring him in the eyes.
Kiku didn't react at the sudden movement, and waited some moments before answering. He knew he was good at reading the atmosphere, and also at knowing when people were lying. When he looked in Feliciano's brown orbs he didn't see a liar. Rather, he saw an innocent and a disoriented man who had suffered memory loss.
"He's not lying, Ludwig-san. And besides, he seems human enough to me." He stated.
As a reply, Ludwig scoffed. He was aware of the ability of the Japanese, but still, something just didn't feel right. He wouldn't trust him…yet.
"Okay, so you obviously don't trust me for some reason... but if you don't, why did you save me and let me in the jeep?" Feliciano asked, confused. "Why did he shoot the monster down? You could have easily let it eat me..." his eyes turned downwards, to his hands.
"Survivors have to stay together. Every man counts." Ludwig replied almost automatically, like a soldier would do.
Kiku smiled apologetically at Feliciano, glancing at the driving German. "Don't worry, he'll get used to you. He just doesn't like strangers, he's always like that with new people." he whispered.
"Ok…" the Italian nodded slowly, understanding a bit. Then he remembered to ask something. "Uh, but…survivors – ouch! – of what?" Feliciano bumped his head on the window when the road got even bumpier. They were riding up the mountain through narrow, stony and bumpy passages.
Kiku noticed Ludwig rolling his eyes, but decided to ignore it. "Do you know what Nightmares are?" he asked the Italian.
"Of course I do, nightmares are bad dreams." Feliciano replied smiling, feeling happy that he knew something, even if he couldn't really say he had ever experienced a nightmare yet.
The Japanese shook his head, looking serious. "No, Feliciano-kun. I mean Nightmares, with a capital N."
"No…What are they?" Feliciano's brows furrowed "Wait, the monster that was chasing me... was that a Nightmare?" he then said, making the connection.
"Hai." The Japanese nodded.
The Italian stuck his tongue out in distaste. "Ew, scary! But where do they come from?"
"Did you really lose all your memory?" Kiku asked. Feliciano slowly nodded, wanting to hear more.
"Then I shall tell you the tale of those creatures. Three years ago, some terrible nuclear accident happened in Russia. They didn't classify it as a big deal back then, because almost no damage was made, and they surprisingly didn't find any radioactivity. But after some weeks, things started changing." The Japanese continued.
Feliciano uncomfortably shifted in his seat, feeling as if he were listening to a horror story. This last fact was accentuated by Kiku's monotone, low voice. He actually seemed to be enjoying this.
"The animals started acting strange, attacking people, getting aggressive. Soon after that, they... mutated and deformed into horrible creatures, and started to be referred to as 'Nightmares'. They were bloodthirsty, mindless monsters. But it didn't end there. This is what people call 'The First phase'. The Second phase began as the people who were close to the nuclear plant started to act strangely too, before changing themselves as well and becoming Nightmares. And even if a few ones possessed a strong enough will to still be able to think, most were reduced to mindless killing machines. The infection started spreading like a disease. Mostly because the Nightmares were infected with the radioactivity, and every person or animal they wounded would become infected as well, but the fact that the radioactivity in general had not been detected earlier helped too." Kiku paused, closing his eyes for a moment. He then opened them up again, and continued. "The people who had not been infected soon fled to other countries, but something went wrong, because even with border controls and army interventions, the Nightmares spread all over the place. First Russia, then China at the same time as Europe. Africa and the rest of Asia were infected soon after that. America, Australia and Japan lasted longer, but after a year from the Disaster even those places weren't safe anymore."
Feliciano was now really worried and scared. What if these two had been too late to save him, what if Ludwig had missed? Would he have become a Nightmare too?
"Then, the Third phase came. The radioactivity subdued, and people stopped mutating on their own. The humans started to fight back with more stubbornness, and what was left of the armies was used to exterminate large packs of those monsters. The Nightmares didn't expect it, and were slow to react and mostly unorganized. Then, the few Nightmares which could still think – we call them Sentient Nightmares – struck back, somehow organizing Nightmares a bit, pulverising everything they came across. They targeted cities, airplanes, tanks and factories, so the humans wouldn't be able to strike back, or at least not with enough force. And then, the Fourth phase, the one we are living in. A stalemate."
"…A stalemate?" the Italian repeated, almost afraid to hear what was coming next. What could possibly be worse than the whole of humanity almost wiped out by these monsters?
"Hai. The Nightmares were severely reduced in numbers, but humans were as well. And humans didn't have enough power to inflict big damage anymore, because almost everything had been destroyed by Nightmares... like the city you just saw. So humans started hiding. Just like we do now. The Nightmares are still interested in eating or infecting human beings, filling the cities and the countryside. They mostly wander around aimlessly until they catch sight of a human, or any living being for that matter. But the Sentient Nightmares don't show themselves anymore, or make any move. We do not know where they are, but we know they are a very small number, probably even less than five or so. And that brings the story to us, the survivors. Survivors mostly hide in wide plains, or in our case, in the mountains." Kiku said with a little smile, gesturing to himself, Feliciano and Ludwig. "Our home is this mountain, and we call it the Rock."
Feliciano didn't know if Kiku had planned it, but exactly in that moment they entered everything around them suddenly was plunged into darkness.
The Rock welcomed them back.
Hello there people! This is the second re-edited chapter. I hope you enjoyed it :)
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Wunderbar : (German) Wonderful.
Aiutoooo! : (Italian) Heeeelp!
Ave Maria, piena di grazia, il Signore è con te, Tu sei benedetta fra le donne, e benedetto è il frutto del tuo seno, Gesù. Santa Maria, madre di Dio, prega per noi peccatori, adesso e nell'ora della nostra morte. Amen : (Italian) Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.
Ciao, piacere! : (Italian) Hello, nice to meet you!
Angenehm : (German) A pleasure to meet you.
Sì : (Italian) Yes.
Nein : (German) No.
Hai : (Japanese) Yes.