Entry 0 - Eclipse

My Everyday Life in Hell - Entry 0

"Eclipse"

I had kept marching down the dark hallway, followed by the four classmates accompanying me. Every step I took echoed from the walls back into my ears as the paranoia welling up in my heart tore at me.

The boy in my group broke the eerie silence in the nearly pitch-black corridor as he grasped his surgical knife, and waved it around carelessly. "You know… This is actually reminding me of that one anime I watched! Honestly, this is pretty exciting."

...He had laughed, trying to make the best of this horrible situation we were in, since we could barely see what was in front of us in this darkness. But this wasn’t just a casual nightly stroll at all.

I made a deep sigh, and checked back to see if the others were still keeping up. As I looked back, in the corner of my eye, behind the boy, I saw a group of the flesh creatures we had wanted to avoid quickly advance on us. Not only that, they were faster than the ones I had seen before. As the boy was waving around his knife, I reflexively called out a warning to him, since he was behind. Before he could respond or I could act however, he was ambushed by multiple of them. 

...It was much too late now for me to be able to do anything. I watched as he was swallowed by the horde, his screams slowly dying out. In the commotion, I knew I had to use the fact they were busy devouring him to get the hell out of there. I knew very well the two of the three girls I was with couldn't do anything but run, seeing this gruesome sight. I had to protect the girls I was with now. I signaled the other three to bolt, and followed suit.

This wasn’t some fantasy. This really was hell—and I had to adapt fast. 

This was nowhere near like what I was expecting, nor what any of us were expecting. 

...

A spring morning, not unlike any other. The usual routine- wake up my younger brother, eat breakfast, make coffee for my brother and mom. I left the house, bag slung over my shoulder. The morning dew blanketing the leaves of the trees fell one by one, sprinkling onto the sidewalk I followed. A rainy night had made way for a beautiful sunrise as I made my way to start another day of my last year of high school. I stepped onto campus, immediately making my way to the club room I spent my school days in.

"You're here early, Shin."

Sitting at the center table, I was greeted by the diligent vice president of the club, and my best friend, Mathieu. Once a reserved boy I had met in my first year, he slowly became less withdrawn thanks to the club we had started. Back then, I found we both had a deep interest in various fantastical anime, books, video games, and the like. After a short discussion with the school faculty, we formed a fantasy role-playing club. Officially, however, it's called the High-Fiction Book Club by the school, to make it sound academic for reasons that weren't exactly explained to me. But I could infer.

As I sat down, I returned the greeting and set my school bag on the floor. Impulsively leaning back in my chair, I planned out the after school activities for our club with Mathieu. While most days we discussed our interests as a group, read light novels, or played tabletop RPGs, today we had prepared to mess around with props and act out our tabletop game session. A fun idea me and Mathieu had for the club, I managed to sneak my antique sword to school, provided I didn't take it out of the room. Mathieu had brought his two hunting knives he owned, and we hid them and my sword in a box in the corner of the room. As we waited for the other five of our club friends to arrive, I checked the time. The clock read 6:37, twenty-three minutes before my first class started. The moment I glanced at the time, my attention was grabbed by the club room door swinging open.

"Heyyyyyy! Shin, we brought our stuff!"

Energetically skipping into the room, Lila plopped her spear into the table, shortly followed by Lena and Lukas, seemingly exhausted.

"Quiet down.." Lena commented. "probably best we don't draw that much attention today..."

"Can't... keep... up..." Lukas moaned as he crumbled to the ground in front of me.

Lila looked at Lukas, confused how he had fallen, as Lena shut the door behind them and plopped right onto a chair to catch her breath.

"Man, Lila. You know we can't keep up with you, you know we don't have that kind of endless energy you have. I thought I was going to die chasing after you." Lena said from her spot.

"I wasn't even sprinting..." Lila replied.

Lukas gazed bewildered at Lila before picking himself up and digging through his bag for the longsword he brought.

"You are really something, you know."

"Lukas, I think you have to exercise more."

"I literally took track two years ago!"

"Run more then!"

"Give me a break! You know I hurt my leg last week!"

Lukas and Lila bickered back and forth for a few minutes as Lena pulled me aside to hand me the claymore she kept in a guitar case. As I shoved the case towards the back of the room, the final two members casually entered the room.

"Ah, there you are. Mai, Izz, set your gear in the corner, class will start pretty soon."

I pointed them to the stash of weapons the club assembled. Izz set his axe down next to Mai's katana and both of them sat down at the table. Lukas and Lena quickly stopped their quarrel when they saw everyone else seated and took their seats awkwardly. Everyone continued their side conversations, kicking back before the school day.

"God, I just wanna skip my classes today." Lukas turned on his phone and flipped through it.

"Lukas, your grades are already piss-poor right now, you're going to dig yourself into a hole at this rate!" Izz adjusted his glasses as he scolded Lukas.

"Got to agree with Izz, you are really falling behind in your studies, don't cause yourself trouble," Mathieu said in agreement. In response to seeing Izz and Mathieu gang up on Lukas, Lena tried to intervene.

"These classes are pointless anyway. What are they teaching that's worthwhile anyway? Not gonna save you from the crap the real world throws at you."

"Word."

Lukas shrugged, and Izz and Mathieu resigned themselves. Lena gestured to Lila to pull out a can of coffee from her bag and pass it to her, which she drank victoriously in light of her comeback.

As I watched the friendly banter between my classmates and friends, I laughed alongside Mai.

"Same atmosphere as always, Shin."

The laughing was interrupted by the ringing of the school bell. All seven of us picked our bags back up and headed towards the door.

"Alright, guys. See you all after school again."

I called out to the group as Izz swiftly darted past me to get to his class, and Mathieu gave me a salute before following him. Lila and Lena gave me a short wave and headed out to their class. Lukas and Mai followed me. Mai walked with me into the main building before parting with me at the second floor of the school to go to her first period. Lukas caught up a short bit later with me as I made my way to the third floor.

"Went and got a soda, forgot to drink something this morning."

He cracked open his drink, and we went into room 3-2, commencing our daily cycle once more.

Classes started. The teacher gave his boring lectures as he always did, and I fell asleep in class as I always did. The teacher would yell at me and I would answer his question desperately. I had my lunch in solitude while Lukas went off to flirt with girls in the class (to no avail). My last class started before I finished my melon drink. The teacher started his final lesson as I daydreamed and stared out the window.

I was greeted by an unusual sight.

The sky darkened as I saw the moon inching itself over the sun's rays. Why? I don't think there was supposed to be a solar eclipse today. The attention of the classroom shifted to the stellar occurrence.

"Woah! It's an eclipse!"

"I've never seen one in person..."

"Holy crap, Kita, get your phone out!"

"Yeah, yeah. On it, gonna get some good shots."

The voices in the room echoed around me. I had a bad premonition, but I would not find out how true my gut feeling turned out to be yet. Most of the students darted out of their classes into the courtyard while teachers tried to get control of the students. Unsuccessful at reigning in all of the teens, almost all the faculty and student body had gathered in the open courtyard to watch in awe of the unfolding spectacle before them.

I finished drinking my soda, still at my desk. I was not exactly interested in the commotion, so I quickly shot a text to the club group chat, and we decided to convene in the first floor entrance hall. I would buy another soda from a vending machine before my friends caught up to me, and we watched the crowd outside the doors stare in amazement.

"A small divergence from the beaten path." I said, shrugging. "Let's take this opportunity to start our club activities early, shall we?"

We all marched out to the club room in front of the school and turned on the light inside. Lila was ecstatic to brandish her spear again. Meanwhile, Mathieu cautiously shut the blinds so as to not alert the teachers or other students of our reckless (and debatably illegal) activities.

"Haha! We're just like sisters-in-arms!" Lila beamed, as she and Lena posed, their weapons in hand, with glee. Izz took some photos of them with his phone. Lukas dusted off his sword. Mai set the other weapons on our round table. Mathieu and I gave each other a hi-five as we all got pumped to enact our childish fantasies, all during this once-in-a-lifetime day.

I would peer out the window once more to check if any of the teachers had noticed us slip away in the confusion and witnessed what I can only describe as... grotesque and otherworldly.

I had noticed the moon turn a blood-red, before my breath was taken away by the crowd of people metamorphosing into zombie-like creatures beyond my comprehension. I froze in place as some broken words left my mouth.

"This... c-c-can't be real. No way. M-my eyes must be screwing with me... What the hell is this?!"

"Shin, is something up? What's out there?" Mai curiously poked me and looked out the blinds only to see the same disturbing scene I saw. Her reaction only confirmed the fact that what we were seeing wasn't fiction at all. Mai almost hurled as the rest of the group watched the unreal sight unfold right outside. All of us were taken aback, appropriately. Words failed all of us as the moon turned from the ominous color it had back to white, almost like nothing had happened. But what wasn't undone was the horrors that took place under the blood moon. What once were our friends and teachers, now were what looked like a pulsing flood of rotten flesh so unbelievably repulsive, I wanted to gouge my own eyes out on the spot.

We were all fixated on the atrocity in front of us, as the mass of crimson flesh dispersed into humanoid things that closest resemble zombies, if anything. I witnessed other human students who had stayed indoors flee the school, some teachers trying to calm students down inside, and some had even tried to get closer to the zombies for reasons we would never know, because the creatures of flesh would quickly surround them all as they were devoured by the wall of flesh, reduced to nothing.

That was all I could take.

I yelled at all of my friends to barricade the door, even if it ended up being futile against that swarm. Anything it took to put distance between us and that. Izz, Mathieu, and Mai all retreated to the back of the room, away from all the windows and broke down. I can't blame them. Lukas, Lena, and Lila panicked shortly before they shoved the wide chest we kept our supplies in against the door. I shut the blinds again and tried to find whatever I could to seal the door, being the only thing separating us from the thickening red horrors. A dead silence set in.

"What in the name of.." Izz muttered silently.

We all were frozen in place, expressions blank, as we tried desperately to process what none of us could even begin to comprehend.

As we heard terrible screams outside, muffled and drowned out by the walls, it dawned on me that my life as I knew it was over, and never, ever coming back. But before my spirit could break apart entirely, I caught a glimpse of my sword resting against a chair. I remembered everything that brought me to this point.

I picked up my sword firmly, my tired face reflecting off the somewhat dulled blade.

I sighed.

My palms were sweating, my legs were trembling. The voices in my head spoke over each other and filled my head with a billion thoughts. But one single word silenced the sea of words in my conscience.

Survive. That was all we could do. That was what we had to do.

I grasped my sword tighter.

And so began the start of my, no, our new everyday life in hell.