Chapter 14 The First Outbreak

“Shiro Shiro over here!”

Amidst the crowded grand halls filled to the brim with people walking past each other non stops, booth displaying various games from companies that shows off their new technicsl prowess and detials. Realistic holographic that shows above the cieling display taking most by awe.

Somehow Shiro was able to squeeze past all the crowds thanks to her small size to meet up with thr person calling out to her.

A girl who’s slighty taller than Shiro, with her medium long brown hair, golden eye and a bright smile.

“Sorry Hana, it was more crowded than i thought…”

“Mhm… it’s alright! But now that we are here, let's not waste anymore time and go!”

Hana grabs her friends hand and quickly drags her, step by step excitement keeps building up for both of them. Each stops by the booth creates unparalleled amount of wonderness as they talks about and try out each of the newly release game.

Before they even knew it, more than an hour has already passed by and they only barely touched half of the booth in the area.

“H-hana.. Can we take abit of a break…” Shiro slumps on to her companion shoulder.

“Sure thing! How about we go to the 2nd floor to get something to eat, i heard they are creating flavours we’ve never tasted before!” Hana replies.

“Ohhhh… let’s go th-” before Shiro could finish her words the bright light that illuminated the whole halls suddenly turned dark.

Panic immediately ensues from all direction as people scrambles their phone for flashlights. Including the 2 girls.

“Shiro! H-hang on to me!” Hana said bravely

“W-what’s… going on… Shiro is scared….”

“Probably just a power outage…b-but we shouldn't really go anywhere n-now…”

Without much thoughts, hugging her friend does brings her a much comforts and security.

All of sudden, screams of people reach through every single part of the halls as sounds of rumble cascade everywhere.

“What is that?!?”

“RUN!!!”

“Get out of the way!!”

Appearing out of nowhere, monsters that could only be described as abomination of melting collection of creatures resembling real life animal emerges from thin air, forming from small particles that seeps out of every single electronic equipment presented there.

They start breaking through everything in its path including people who stood in their way. Tossed asides like feathers, the strength these monsters held are supernatural unlike anything anyone ever seen.

“H-hang on, Shiro!!!” With the remaining courage, Hana grasped Shiro’s hand as tightly as she could and makes a full sprint away from the chaos as possible. Trying their best to slip under the crowds of panic people running the same way.

Until the ground below them shooked violently causing both to stumble down to the ground, followed by cracks that keeps getting bigger and bigger in front of their eyes.

The floor shatters, a giant tree like pillars sprouts from underneath followed by more tentacles sprouting around it like a root of a giant tree.

Shiro felt like all her muscles is frozen solid, never has she felt this amount of fear panic in just a few span of moments. She had never been good at dealing with crowds anyway so this string of supernatural dieaster has completely shutter her mind.

However, Hana being the last link to reality for her, she still was able to act despite tremble resonating in all parts of their bodies.

“Shiro?! Shiro!? Are injured anywhere? Can you still stand up?” Hana asks, with fear yet brimming with adamant caring.

“I-I… n-no…” even words struggle to maifest out of Shiro’s mouth.

“No? That’s great, the fire exit should be not far from here le…”

“W-WATCH OUT, BEHIND YOU!!” Shiro shouted, yet there wasn’t any voices that came out of her mouth. It was but an only thoughts in her mind, her vocal chords wasn’t able to produce any sound to warn her friend.

Hana screamed as her leg crushed beneath the crushing jaws of the creature that stood towering above shiro’s sight. A bipedal dinosaur with a skin that melts away, revealing its skeleton structure.

Everything around Shiro went silent, screech of Hana was the only the sound Shiro’s mind are willing to take in.

She reaches her hand out, in a futile attempt to reach towards Hana.

“Please help…” she pleaded.

Suddenly, something appoarches at a speed faster than the eye can detect, ripping through the monster’s eye causing it to flinch and dropping Hana onto the ground.

Shiro eye’s was forced to take in the scene of her friend lying unconscious in front of her, left leg decapitated in a pool of red.

But even before she can crawl towards her dying friend, a hawk like creature made up of pure white energy and bright cyan eyes appear in front of the girl.

“Shiro Furutaka, The Phantasm System has determined that you are suitable to become a Linker, ” it calls to her.

With a soulless eye hiding her insurmountable rage and despair, she raises her head up to meet the hawk eye to eye.

“So… does that mean you’ll help me…”

“Yes.. that’s the purpose of us, Phantasm, to eradicate every last remaining Phantom from this world”

“Heh… those are called Phantom huh? And what a stupid question in the first place…”

“Hana… it’s my turn to prot- no… I’ll kill every single “Phantom” for even daring to hurt you like this” she thought as she glances over Hana.

“Are you prepared?” It askes one more time.

“Yeah… damn right I am”

“And now we are here” during the whole time Shiro was talking, her facial expression didnt change whatsoever, her voice monotone like always. The numbness towards this memories has over taken her long ago.

“Shiro…” Haru eyes started to water up, she couldn’t handle it, the images of desperation and hopeless that conjured up in Haru’s own mind.

“You know… if you wanna become a rescuer… you’ll face stuff like this alot”It surprised Shiro to say the least, the loud yet caring powerhouse that is Haru is tearing up right in front of her from even just words.

“I-I know… but… for you two to experience something like that is just…” Haru quickly wipes her tears but the voice still stutters.

“In the end, the casualties were in the thousands…. Wounded even more…” Shiro places her small pale hand upon Hana’ owns, the other grasping tightly at the tattered scarf arounds her neck. “And that’s also how many Phantasm linker came first to be too”

“Is that so…”

“The best you… we can do now is to protect the rest of the people in this city, no?” Shiro turns towards Haru.

“That’s… you’re right…yea…”

“You’re a good person Haru, let’s keep it that way yea?”

“…”

“And don’t worry that much… Hana conditions are still stable to say the least…” Shiro sighs as she glances over Hana’s most injured part. “All i can hope is a cure is coming her way soon”

“Hope she can get better soon too” Haru smiles softly, trusting in Shiro’s words.

Haru then gets a soft returning smile as well, its warm, different from the usually teasing nature of her friend's smile.

“Oh… Shiro complety forgot that I wanted to show around the city today… hehe…”

“...I’ll be waiting outside then, just take your time alright” Haru firmly responses.

As Haru stepped outside, an unnerving sense of dread starts creeping into her mind. She saw it, those empty and pure white eyes. Haru felt bad almost, knowing now the reason why Shiro never wanted to tell about her past a linker.

Although that begs the questions, what about Lin and Riku? Have they been fighting for this long as well? Why did they become a linker in the first place.

Once again, her mind was stormed with questions and fews answers to guide a way out.

“The first outbreak? Phantasm Linker?”