the end of the world.
Honestly, when a boy yelled in the street “Zombies!”, no one believed him, and I’ll admit with a bit of shame that I didn’t either. But now, looking back, I feel a strange shame creeping up… and imagining myself running to escape them, I don’t know if I should laugh or cry. In the end, I chose the most logical reaction: SCREAM.
“HELP! SOMEBODY HELP ME! I DON’T WANT TO DIE! PLEASE, I’M OUT OF BREATH!”
To be honest, I was kind of an idiot. Causing drama in the middle of all that chaos… not smart. Even if someone had been there, who would risk their life to save some wheezing kid? I was just wasting my breath. So I started crying. The zombies kept advancing, relentless. I wasn’t athletic. If they’d been fast, I would’ve died at least forty-five times. It’s ridiculous, but it’s true. Like I said, I wasn’t the school’s sports prodigy either: just an average guy, a bit above the norm, and in P.E.… let’s just say I was… there.
“Come on, hop on the back!” said a girl, completely covered in clothes and a helmet that hid her whole face.
“Uh… my mom told me not to follow strangers…” I said, a little proud of what my mother had taught me.
“Of course, no problem!” she said, smiling. “I’m just tired… I crawled all the way here with a motorcycle on my back. But you seem like the type who’d rather be followed than follow, so that works…”
“No! I want to go with you… far from those monsters. I’m sorry I said that, please, can I get on?”
“Yeah, sure… And I don’t mind you begging for help like that. Someone will, I’m sure, give you lungs full of fresh air.” She watched me climb onto her motorcycle and started it up.
“You know how to ride?” I asked, holding onto her.
“No… well, I mean… I crawled here with a motorcycle on my back, but of course I know how to ride. Are you an idiot, or just so smart you forget the simple stuff?”
I preferred to ignore her jabs: from the start, all she’d done was criticize me. But I owed her my life, so I put up with it in silence.
We arrived at what looked like an empty warehouse. She opened the door, and I stopped at the threshold. I took a small step forward and murmured “excuse me…”
“Lucky for you, since I told you to!” she said, smiling.
“But why do you criticize me all the time? Is your goal to make me die from your insults?”
“Not at all… You know, the truth doesn’t always feel good.” She had that slightly crazy smile, Joker-style… except I was nowhere near Batman.
She took off her helmet, then her pants and jacket, revealing shorts and a t-shirt. She turned around, looked at me, and said:
“What’s your type of girl?”
“AOI TODO! GET OUT OF THAT BODY! IT’S NOT YOURS! GO PLAY WITH YUJI SOMEWHERE ELSE!”
“Huh? I don’t get it…”
“You don’t need to. For that, you’d have to have watched JJK.”
I hadn’t noticed the stitches on her body.
“What are… all those things on your body?” I stammered.
“That? I’m a zombie, duh!”
“Sorry… I don’t think I understood.”
“Tell me what you do understand instead… I’m a zom-bie.”
“But that’s impossible…”
“Impossible? After running for your life from them, you dare say it’s impossible that zombies exist? You, God really didn’t spoil you… I’m starting to wonder why they were chasing you if there was no brain to eat!”
“No… you’re not a zombie…” I said, completely lost.
“No, I’m not a zombie… I just got hit by a bicycle, ended up in pieces, and they played puzzle with my body. And here I am, back in one piece. So, what do you think?”
“Ahhh… you scared me!”
“I AM A ZOMBIE, YOU MORON!”
“No… this is all far-fetched.”
“Well, long live the buzz cut… is your dream to look like Krillin or what?”
TO BE CONTINUED
