The Awakening Unknown - Chapter 2

That articulate voice behind me was my closest, and the most precious friend in my life, Alec.

Ever since I lost my mother, it felt as if I was fated to lose everyone dear to me. I lost my father, sister, and brother, and was stuck with an abusive alcoholic of a step-father.

I always thought to myself when going to sleep. “Why us?” and would pray every night to a god whom we didn’t know truly existed.

But then, suddenly, on my ninth birthday. A new family moved next door to us. A soldier and an ordinary housewife, they had two children, one being a ten-year-old Alec.

At first, I didn’t like Alec, he was pushy, loud, annoying, and spoiled. But after I got to know him that all changed.

He was smart, outgoing, courageous, self-aware, social, and popular. It was always so easy for him to make friends. He could talk to anyone and instantly gain their respect.

That’s why I never understood why he was always hanging out with me, and not the other popular kids. Besides being “smart” there was nothing special about me.

I wasn’t funny, outgoing, or social. I couldn’t hold a proper conversation, and I suffered from depression and PTSD during my youth.

But that’s probably why I became so attached to him. With no one besides my sister in my life, I chose someone who was completely different than myself. And that was why he was so hard to read and so mysterious.

“Can I come with you? There are some shoes I want to get before heading back to the dorms.”

I nodded my head and walked towards the class exit. From the corner of my eye, I could see him glaring at the students when he walked by.

“Alec, you don’t have to threaten everyone who picks on me. It’s fine, I’m an adult at this point.”

He let out his usual sigh, and will later disregard everything I just said moments ago. In his mind, he thought I was being too much of a pushover, and that I should fight back. And in a sense, he was right.

“I—I just never understood, how wherever you go someone will always find a reason to hate you. This is our fourth school since junior high, and it always happens.”

“What can I do about it? Change their minds? They decided to not like me for their reasons, I don’t care either way!”

“That’s what I mean! I remember back in Junior High, they beat you so badly that you were admitted to the hospital. You were covered in blood, bruises, and cigarette burns, and all I or anyone else could do was see what they had done to you. And what makes it worse, they didn’t even get into trouble.

If that were to happen again, I would probably lash out.”

I could say nothing. I was his best friend and yet, he always felt as if he was responsible for what happened in the past. He was right, I couldn’t just let people pick on me.

As a child, I wrote off my brother and sister disappearing as nothing more than a misunderstanding. Until I reached high school, I pretended as if I only had one sibling and that I had never seen what happened to them.

The doctors passed it off as childhood trauma, and that my brain developed an “escape” to ease my mind. My past has always been blurry, however, and I just wish that all the traumatic events would just fly away. But it didn’t.

I used to praise my step-father and view him as a hero. But as time went on, I saw how much of a rotten, filthy bastard he truly was.

Just the thought of that sick, alcoholic piece of shit makes me nauseous. A sick man who got a thrill off of molesting women and little girls. He never deserved to live or have a normal life.

I wanted to kill him. There were so many times that I wanted to kill that man, but couldn’t.

I mean, what could I have done?

He was a soldier. Not only was protected by the government and seventh document, but he has those damn abilities that allowed him to crush me and my sister alive at any time.

And honestly, if not for Alec and his family; there is no doubt in my mind that I would have been dead much sooner.

Alec lived right next to us. So I would usually go over to his house to sleep or eat dinner. Alec’s father was a high-ranking soldier, so my step-father never tried getting me from there.

My older sister on the other hand was in a much different situation. She was older than me and had aspirations of becoming a doctor someday. Her goal was to be admitted into the medical field early, and move me and her out of that house for good.

So she was barely home.

Alec’s dream was to someday become a high-ranked soldier like dad. In his mind, there was nothing his father couldn’t do, so he wanted to be just like him.

And since his father had so much authority, he had me and Alec paired to share a dorm room with each other. It was no surprise to me, he did things like that all the time.

“Have you tried Burton’s pasta yet? It’s pretty good!” he said.

“Are you telling me that Timothy is selling food?” I asked.

“Huh, you didn’t know? His family owns a restaurant, so he’s planning on taking over the family business.”

“….”

Honestly, I was speechless. Timothy is another friend that I met through Alec. He was a gamer so me and him got along pretty well. He was also quite popular, being one of the funniest people I know.

“Well if you say it’s good, then it must be really good. You critique everyone else’s food who isn’t your mom.”

“Not everyone. I don’t critique your cooking.”

“That’s because you don’t know how to cook, so you force me to make it the way your mother does.”

“But I’m surprised… You never complimented Timothy, or admitted he was good at anything, never.” I told him.

“And also learn how to cook! I won’t always be there to cool for you.”

“Gasp, and where do you think you’ll go, die? I doubt that. You may not look like much, but you’re the survivor type, I know and you know it.” He told me. “Also, I’ll just get a girlfriend who can cook.”

“You didn’t need to stop walking to say that!” I said laughing to myself in the school hallway.

***

We arrived at the store. What he excluded from me, was that it was going to be a two-hour walk to get here.

“I wish you told me we were going to be coming here. We could’ve called a cab or something.”

“Sorry, sorry. I completely forgot about cabs!”

The store was quite famous, it was well-known for lots of reasons. Soldiers got discounts, the water scandal they had going on, its name is “Buy Now”. But there was only one reason why people still shopped here.

Cheap good-looking brand clothes.

After the hellions emerged and claimed they were going to kill all of us. Stores were eradicated. A thing of the past. But after creating barriers in every area we reclaimed, we were able to return to what felt like ordinary society.

The government still governed the same, the citizens still sleep the same, we still eat and socialize the same way as before. Cities were rebuilt and technology was brought back to the original condition as if nothing happened.

But once you become a soldier you’ll see the truth, the fear the hellions put into our hearts. It always returns.

After buying some new clothes, and Alec buying his new pair of shoes we left the store. We looked at the sky and noticed the sun was beginning to set.

“It’s starting to get dark, we should hurry up.” He said.

“It’s your fault for bringing us here in the first place! Were those shoes really that important?”

“Yes! These are new, not very many people have them, and they’re comfortable.” He told me.

“Sigh, anyway my feet are beginning to get sore. Let’s get on a train instead of walking.” I said, pointing at the subway.

“Sure, but how long has that been there?”

“Since the beginning, let’s go,”  I said.

We walked into the cold subway waiting for the next train. As expected, there weren’t too many people here, and the benches were empty. The lights flickered, but not enough to bother me. The smell was disgusting, resembling that of a rotten animal.

By the time the train arrived, the sun had already set turning the day into the night. With the train nearly empty, getting seats wasn’t too hard to do.

“Yes, we got seats!” Alec exclaimed.

“Hey Abis, did you finish that game I lent you a few years ago?” He asked.

“The one you gave me two years ago? I thought I gave that back?”

“Well— you did. But I’m not talking about that game.”

“Hmm?”… “Oh, you mean Cement Hunt–”

“Shoosh… you need to be more quiet, what if someone heard you? We’re in college now, they can’t know we play that.”

The cemetery hunter series were games targeted towards kids. But it was so unpopular that not even kids wanted to play it. Alec, got it and fell in love with the game. So to stop playing it so religiously he gave it to me to hide.

“Why did you even bring it up?” I asked.

“I just wanted to know about it. I couldn’t care less.”

He always had that weird habit of bringing things up during inappropriate times and then regretting it later.

“It’s fine, isn’t it? I mean there’s not many people on the same part of the train and we’re talking pretty low.”

“…Even so–” He said checking his surroundings.

When I looked around, I saw two other people in our area. One was a very elderly woman dressed in an all-blue buttoned up trench coat, with the blue earring and a tattoo on the back of her neck.

The other was a bald middle-aged man, he had a long scruffy beard and an even longer trench coat. His hands were tucked into his pockets but I could see that he wore dirty white gloves, with a smartwatch attached to his wrist.

‘…I doubt there’s anyone nearby who even knows what that game is. It’s not popular, even amongst kids.’ I thought.

“Anyway, our first raids are coming up soon. I can’t wait to start.” He said smiling.

We were already getting used to college life. And were waiting for the chance to go unto this raid and complete it. But at the time, I felt as if my hunch could be right.

“Alec, stop talking. Don’t mention another thing about this mission until we get back to the dorms.” I whispered.

He was quick to catch on. I didn’t realize it sooner, but I noticed something off about that old woman. And it was her skin.

Her skin somehow seemed… forced. That her wrinkles weren’t there and that whoever that person was gave themselves wrinkles.

“Listen, saying anything until we get back home is too dangerous. I don’t know who they are but—”

“They? There’s only one.”

When I looked back, I realized that the man had disappeared. “He was standing right there,” I said pointing to the left of us.

But what got even weirder, was the woman disappearing so after; without making a sound.

That was when I knew, something seemed familiar.

「End」