Prologue Ch. 1: Class Dismissed, Forever
'Curse that Tsunoda! Curse that Shido! Those double-teaming snakes!'
As dusk was hours away from settling in, running across the blood-splattered parking lot that's littered with the walking dead was the last surviving male student named Kiri, Kato Kiri. And his quickest escape out of his high school has just left the premises at the moment he was spotted, leaving him behind for some odd reason…
"Crud crud crud crud crud! Anybody!? Somebody!? Please!" Kato screamed as he ran for his life while dodging the grappling zombified classmates around the place, keeping his satchel and short bow-quiver set from the dojo close to his body. 'Why on earth does this have to happen?! Why?!'
A FEW HOURS AGO…
It was just on another mundane school morning, with an ongoing class under the devious snake for a teacher Mr. Shido. It's best to just flunk it, but it's necessary to pass it—even if you hate it...
'Oi, Kato, you better listen. Shido's like watching you with eyes behind his head…!' says his seatmate with a tone of warning.
"Why bother? I'll get penalized either way," Kiri yawned while stretching his arms before leaning on the window and looking outside.
"...Kato-san, would you like to help continue our reading?" Shido smirked with evil intent as he turned around and glared at Kiri.
"Ummm, what page are we on again, Shido-sensei?" Kiri shrugged as skimmed through his textbook.
"Oh nevermind. Reflect on what you could learn later—when you come back here in ten minutes…!" Shido scowled, showing him the door.
"There's another door nearby, thank you," Kiri joked as he saw himself out of the class, angering Shido and making Tsunoda huff proudly.
"Wimp," Tsunoda jeered while breaking a smile and reclining on his desk with dumb confidence.
As he quietly left the classroom and then strolled down the hallway, he saw a fellow schoolmate who's close with his acquaintance Morita, leaning on the fence by the stairway with a depressed look on his face while staring into nowhere.
'Wait, that's Takashi, isn't it? It's not even Shido's class and he's already out here? Well...hope he's doing better, better than me at least,' Kiri sighed before making his way to the nearest male's restroom, located at the other end of the hallway.
He enters the restroom and then turns the faucet before splashing his face with the water flowing out of it and stares at his reflection in deep thought, trying to forget the events that have transpired a year ago…
'It's all in the past...it's all in the past…,' Kiri mumbled to himself before walking, wiping his face clean with a paper towel and throwing it into the bin.
With more time to spare before being back to the classroom, he decides to kill it by heading to the dojo to release some steam with some shots—after joining the Kyudo club (commonly known and referred to as Japanese Archery). However, as he was walking towards the stairs, he saw Takashi bolting out of the stairs looking frantic and slightly pale faced before watching him run up the stairs towards where his ongoing class is located.
"Ookay, weird," Kiri shrugged before going down the stairs and found the dojo where the kyudo club members train.
After entering the dojo and leaving his shoes by the door, he stretches his arms and warms himself up before picking out a hankyu (or shortbow) that's stood upright and aligned with the other shortbows and tugs on its string to check its condition.
"This will have to do," Kiri thought out loud.
He walks to the shooting area and then grabs an arrow from a nearby quiver before taking aim at a target, focusing his eyes on the prize while wearing his contacts for good measure.
"At least the wind's gone," Kiri thought to himself before releasing the arrow and letting it fly to hit the target, just three inches away from the bullseye. "Maan, I suck…"
He then tries for another shot, trying to block out all distractions until bad memories from last year resurface—memories involving Tsunoda and Shido...
"..." He clenched his teeth while trying to keep his shaky bow arm stable, only to launch his shot too early and hit the target farther away from his first arrow. "Urgh!"
Out of frustration and stress, he sighed and then just sat on the smooth wooden floor while clutching onto his bow hard before shedding a tear and looking up to the sky.
"O-Kami-sama, please...tell me...can I make things right again...please…" Kiri cried out before wiping his face clean with his sleeve and then sitting up straight to stare at the shooting range.
Suddenly, the quiet atmosphere disappears when a panicking teacher enters the room and shuts the door before trying to block it tight with his sasumata (a type of Japanese polearm that is now conventionally used in schools for self-defense) and backs away from the door.
"Sensei? What's wrong?" Kiri wondered as he stood up, getting the teacher's attention and making him stay close beside him. "Sensei, what's going on?"
"Can you use that?!" The teacher hysterically asked.
"Uh, I don't—"
"Can you shoot with that?!" The teacher hysterically asked again.
"Yeah, but why? What's happening? Tell me what's going on!" Kiri glared with an eyebrow raised in question.
After, the door was suddenly making loud banging noises from the outside, scaring the teacher beside him and making Kiri take aim towards the door. Soon, arms start erratically punching through the glass, revealing familiar other teachers from the physical education faculty department…
"Wait a minute, Hayashi-sensei? What is she—?"
"Shoot it!" The teacher urged and tugged on the student's shoulder, scaring and cringing the heck out of Kiri.
"Wait, what!? But she's a teacher and a person, ain't it?! What are you saying!?" Kiri retorted as he pulled his arm away in disgust.
Soon, the sasumata barricading the door slowly bends and gives way to Ms. Hayashi Kyoko, who groans with decaying skin and blood leaking from her eyes, mouth, and a huge bite mark over her neck while limping towards Kiri and the frightened teacher.
"Hayashi-sensei! Is that you!? What are you doing!? Snap out of it! Oi!" Kiri screamed, hesitant to fire an arrow at his teacher.
"What are you waiting for!? Fire! Shoot!" The teacher urged with snot and tears dripping down on his face.
"Why!? Isn't she sick!? Tell me already!" Kiri urged before noticing the rotting teacher getting closer and closer every second.
"Hhhiiih!? Huagh!" The teacher panicked before running away and leaving Kiri behind.
"Hey! Come back here!" Kiri yelled before distancing himself out of fear and aiming his short bow and arrow towards the groaning Hayashi. "Sensei! Don't make me do this! Don't make me hurt you!"
After hearing no response from the empty shell of a teacher, Kiri musters up a bit of courage and then launches an arrow straight through and lodged inside her head, instantly killing her.
"Oh man, oh man oh man, the heck happened!?" Kiri thought to himself out loud as he fell on his rear and backed away from the bloodletting corpse, dazed from killing a teacher—or at least that's what he still thinks to be his teacher.
Suddenly, the megaphones ring, indicating somebody entered the speaker room using it to share an important announcement…
"This announcement is for all the students! An emergency situation is taking place inside the school right now! All students must follow your teachers' instructions and evacuate!"
"Oh shoot," Kiri thought out loud while breaking a sweat. "Now this is getting serious…"
"I repeat, an emergency situation is taking place *scrrech* right now! *Ring* Uaaarrgh!" "Get away from me! Get back! No! Agghuagh! Help! Help! Huaaaaaghhhh!"
The atmosphere suddenly turned quiet at the drop of a chalk, and after that, panic and chaos ensued inside the building. Students and teachers immediately start running, screaming, and injuring each other as they try to flee for their lives. Some have been unfortunate meeting their demise early on, others turned into a similar state that Ms. Hayashi undergone, and few resorted to suicide.
"Shoot, what is this!?" Kiri cried out loud before looking at his surroundings. "Oh no, I gotta check the infirmary, or else—Marikawa-sensei—!"
Banging and opening the doors of the other entrance to the training area, he spots the teacher that abandoned him trying to enter the grounds, only to be pulled back by several rotting arms of infected groaning classmates. The sight of his teacher being ripped and devoured in pieces while screaming in pain was stomach-aching, but it is not enough to disable Kiri from his sanity as he tries to recollect his bearing and aim at his infected schoolmates.
"Stay back, you!" Kiri yelled as he scoots close to the arrow quivers and then starts firing the first arrow at one infected schoolmate, piercing through his head and instantly killing him.
He then starts firing more headshots at his infected classmates and schoolmates while clenching his teeth, breaking lots of sweat, and enduring the gruesome scene of blood and gore in the area. After the last of 'them' are taken out, Kiri tries to catch his breath and leans onto the post where the stationary quivers are placed to rest for a moment.
"Agh...O-Kami, what is going on…!? Why is this happening…!?" Kiri yelled while pacing his breath.
After that brief cry, he notices something falling out from the left pocket of his pants and realizes it to be a cheap granola bar that was given away by Ms. Shizuka Marikawa, from his last visit to the infirmary a month ago. While gripping tightly yet gently on the granola bar, he slightly tears up as he reminisces on how the airheaded school nurse is genuine in loving and caring for her students, no matter their past, background, and so on…
"I...gotta keep moving…! I must…live!" Kiri then opens up the bar's wrapping like a banana peel before eating it happily until he finished it all.
After throwing the wrapper away, he gets back up on his feet and then dons the uniform armor pads on his chest and left shoulder for extra protection before strapping his bow arm's wrist with two leather straps overlapping and covering his forearm and then wearing the glove and underglove set. After that, he takes two quivers and then binds them together with leather straps into one quiver for him to store double the arrows before filling them with arrows from the stationary quivers.
Wearing the double-quiver with arrows on his body, he looks at the bloody training area and bows to the area, giving respect to the dojo and the dead that have deceased in the room before putting on his shoes and departing from the dojo.
IN THE CORRIDORS…
As he quietly finds his way around the corridors and avoids confronting undead schoolmates, he notices a huge trail of blood and footsteps leading to the direction of the stairs that leads to the infirmary…
'Oh no, please no…!' Kiri frightfully thinks as he stealthily crawls his way to the stairs and hides behind a sink.
As an act of caution, he peeks out of his hiding spot to notice a small horde of groaning infected walking around.
'Crap!' Kiri curses internally before crouching to hide. 'There's gotta be a way to lead them away. Uhhh...uhhhm…'
At the corner of his eye, he noticed a bloodstained shoe beside him, and thought of a risky gamble that seems to be worth a shot in his mind, literally…
'O-Kami, please don't let my decision kill me,' Kiri prayed internally before throwing the shoe at a nearby locker.
After the shoe hits the locker, it makes a noise that appears to be loud enough to lure the infected towards the epicenter of the noise and open a safe path for him to sneak up the stairway.
'Ogh hooo! O-Kami, thank you!' Kiri praised internally while making his way up the stairs and down to where the infirmary is located as he recalled it.
However, by the time he reaches the infirmary, what was left behind inside are broken windows, piles of corpses that are littered around the place, and a huge blood splatter that erupted from a flattened student's head. The scene almost made him barf, but he endured it to keep his stamina and get his act together…
"Wait, hang on, there seems to be a struggle inside, but then I don't see any of her belongings left inside…" Kiri thought before noticing a condom that is still sealed and unopened and immediately got back into senses.
"Okay, maybe almost all of them. So if Marikawa-sensei isn't here, then she must at least be alive around here! I hope she's alright, please Kami-sama…!" He adds before taking a detour to another round of stairs that leads him to the building that's full of facilities rather than classrooms.
But along the way, he tries to not use his arrows on the infected unless it is retrievable to avoid wasting any of them while desperately trying to gain the element of surprise, focused on his current objective: Marikawa-sensei's safety…
—To be continued
A/N: Thanks for reading my HOTD fic! Hope you guys somehow enjoyed it. Take care and God bless!
OC Name: Kato Kiri:
-male
-barber-cut hair that's dyed blonde (the hairstyle is like Yuuji's from "Baka and Test")
-reformed delinquent
-has a soft spot for the school nurse Shizuka Marikawa and people that treated him well after his reformation
-gained a strange interest in archery
-had bad blood with Tsunoda and Mr. Shido
That's all I could reveal for now. Again, thank you for taking the time to read this fic and my other fics. Take care everyone!