Chapter 1: Life in this City

It flopped on the ground violently. Blood gushed out from the head of the body. The crowd that surrounded the woman jumped back in panic and started to run away. From the dead woman a thing approached upwards and took the mantle as the most powerful. It looked around as if it was a king looking at his cattle. The blood from the woman soaked the thing from head to toe. Nothing was natural about this one. My footsteps got louder as I walked through the panicked crowd, facing the way that everyone was against. I grabbed my iPod and changed my music to a better song. Keeping calm I approached the disgusting, vile, creature. I grabbed my sword off of my back and readied my stance against the fowl beast. It looked down at me like I was an insect trying to defend itself. A strand of my hair fell over my eye but my attention was still on this creature. Monster would be a better word for it but the people of this world have given it a name, Devour. This one was more human like than others, yet its skin was still strange like the other Devours. This humanoid one had metal over its head protruding between the eyes. It’s arms were longer than normal having giant claws as fingers attached to its hand.

I pulled back my foot and angled my sword to the Devour’s throat, pulling my left hand towards the creature and made a gun symbol. The creature stopped and stood motionless, comingto its senses. It’s eyes darted towards me, blood shot and insane. The feet of the creature started to move, then to a dash, and finally a full on sprint at me. My left arm went back to my headphones as I turned up the volume to the max. My mind now became blank as I pulled my sword forward with both hands at the Devour. Blood gushed out from its stomach Still mobile it’s arms flung towards me with increasing velocity trying to grab my skull. I ripped the sword downwards as I slid underneath the beast until me and my sword were behind it. I quickly pulled my sword out from the back and turned to face the blood covered vermin. The floor was a dark red with chunks of guts spilling downwards from the beast. The Devour’s body slowly jerked all its limbed around till it’s body faced me.

I looked just as bad as the monster in front of me, my head was covered in blood and you could see the drops of it coming off the edge of my hair. The crowd of people were far away by now, but I still felt the feeling of uneasiness. The song stopped. My head went spiraling as I remembered what this vermin did to my life. I let out a creepy smile as I started to laugh in disgust.

The devour grabbed onto me while I was busy in my thoughts. Its arms scratched my back, going right through my hoodie.

I screamed in pain as I curled backwards. That was enough for my mind to snap out of it. I flung my sword through it’s arms. I fell down to the ground with its arms as the blood gushed everywhere. The monster finally throws some emotions into its life as it lets out a screeching noise from its deformed mouth. The Devour rushed at me with pure rage as it’s mouth opened wide with intent of eating me whole. I took my sword and swung my body upwards as my sword sliced right through its head, metal included.

As the vermin was finally cut into two pieces I could rest easy. I fell back to the floor and let go of my sword. Reluctantly I pulled out my iPod and pressed the circular play button. My now red earbud played the music loudly as I lay flat in the center of the rectangular shopping center, to catch my breath. My body was still sore from yesterday so right now I felt like hell. It didn’t help that I now had some wounds on my stomach from when it attacked me.

I heard some clapping from my other ear, as I focused my sight I saw my close companion, girlfriend, friend, and partner (let’s just say our relationship status hasn’t been established yet) looking over me. She let down her hand towards me, gesturing to get up, I grabbed her hand as she pulled me up.

“What a sight you are,” she said while taking a good long look at me, “Sorry I couldn’t make it in time, Ito. I had something I needed to do.”

“What could have possibly be more important than peoples’ lives?” I replied sarcastically, but because of my anger it didn’t come off that way.

“Well. You, see- There was this- New store.” She stumbled as her words came out of her lips.

“You know what? I don’t care, I was able to take care of it this time.” I reached down to grab my sword as I said these words. I pushed it slowly in my sheath on my back.

I started to walk back to our apartment which was just a small, crappy motel room that I bought.

“Hey! you coming?” I said while looking back at Fuko.

She was just standing over the dead vermin. Examining it. This is one of the few times where she actually looks serious. While still looking at the vermin she asked, “Say, Ito?”

“Yeah”

“This doesn’t look like any of the Devours we’ve killed.” She locked her eyes dead onto me.

“Well, yeah. Now that you mention it, the filth does look more like a human than others.”

Most Devours emerge from people randomly with some warning and stoppages. You can stop the devour while it is in the person by cutting the bump and then sending them to the hospital, but many of the people in the crowd ran away in shock as if they never saw any of the signs. The Devour breaks through the skin spewing blood everywhere, this causes the host to have a hole in them depending on the size of the Devour, but the one I fought was much bigger than the hole it emerged from. I walked to the dead woman to see a bloodied hole in her face.

“Dang.” I. Muttered under my breath.

“What do you say we go get something to eat?” Fuko asks while jumping on me. Her arms wrapped around me making me feel awkward.

“Sure why not,” I replied while walking towards a fast food joint. She clung to me like an annoying animal. The thin white crop top she was wearing was now stained with blood. She had a big hoodie on over this with baggy jeans, this complimented my hoodie and pants.

While walking through the crowd of people to get some burgers we were faced with many weird stares, but it didn’t bother me. Fuko was chatting through the entire walk, talking about random stuff like how she found some cool jewelry or something like that.

We opened the door to the bustling burger joint. Each step we took amplified the silence of the place as we slowly closed the distance between us and the cashier. Both of us reached the counter, “Could I have two burgers with no tomatoes.” I said while taking out my wallet. Fuko immediately interjected, “And a large fire please!”

“We don’t have that money Fuko.”

Her face slowly looked downwards as she did her best “please” face.

“Fine” I sighed in frustration and defeat. Fuko started pumping her fists in the air to show her victory over me.

I pulled out the exact amount needed to buy the food but as I looked at the cashier I noticed something. He was in shock. Why? His lip started to quiver as he looked towards me.

Just then it came to me. My appearance! I’m covered in blood! I’ve been walking around with blood all over me.

The cashier slowly points his finger at us and asked, “Please- can you two- get out-“

“Okay” I replied while signaling Fuko that we were going, but she was too busy messing around with the soda machine.

We walked out of the place very shortly after the cashier told us to leave, but without food both of us were starving. We both decide on going to another place to eat but we were so hungry we kept bumping into people. Our energy was drained to the fullest.

In hindsight Fuko shouldn’t be this tired because she hasn’t done anything, so why is she so tired? Maybe I’m over thinking it, but something didn’t feel right.

Just then my stomach rumbled louder than an airplane landing into the airport. Fuko looked up at me while having a very concerned expression on her face. It was harder to tell her expressions because of the way she styles her hair. Fuko likes having her hair flow straight downwards over the left side of her face while the other side is pushed back over her ear. Why she decides to do this? I don’t have a clue, but it certainly is a cool hairstyle. Speaking of looks she has a heart tattoo right under her eye that isn’t covered, and wears lots of earrings.

Having Fuko around helps me keep calm. There is something nice about staying next to someone you like all day, we may argue sometimes but even those arguments are playful and fun. You see I almost always have to be distracted or listening to something or else- my mind goes towards things I don’t want to think about. Things I want to forget.

Fuko glances up at me while asking, “Why don’t we go get your hair cleaned then find another place?”

“Sure that sounds like a plan.” We continued to walk in the same direction. Thankfully our room was in that direction of this prefecture. This city is split up into independent sections called prefectures. Each prefecture has a ruler who reports back to the head king in the middle. Right now me and Fuko live in the 5th prefecture.

My head looks to the side to admire the site. This area has many run down buildings and almost all of the population is in poverty. Every street is like an alleyway and there isn’t a straightforward grid system instead the roads are interconnecting in random ways. At night the place lights up and street signs advertising dirty things fill up the sight of many. Bars and shops lined the roads, along with many farmer market areas. Wires and cables strung throughout the roofs creating a unforgettable site that is Prefecture 5.

Our steps lined the road as many beggars reached their arms out towards us, but this situation was normal here. Until one man grabbed onto Fuko’s arm begging for food and booze. She quickly threw his arm off her with such strength that the man fell backwards on the ground. My arm was on Fuko’s reassuring her I was right next to her.

“Don’t worry Ito, I can deal with trash like this by myself,” Fuko stated as she started walking forward down the street. My feelings became mixed as I stopped for a second to look at the now hurt man. His clothes tattered and his face unkempt, but I turned back to Fuko and walked with her before I changed my mind.

Our walk came to an end as we turned to a door at a motel. I say motel but it really is a motel turned into an apartment because the owner needed to make more money since nobody stayed at this place. They just haven’t removed the big motel sign in the small parking lot. Me and Fuko saw a paper ad for it and knew it was the perfect place, because it was cheep. A metal plate on the door read room 384. The key pushed into the knob and unlocked the door. We both walked into the room smelling disgusting and feeling awful.

“I call shower first!” Fuko called out as she walked into the bathroom and closed the door behind her.

I walked through the hallway at the front of the door, looking left I saw the bathroom door that Fuko just closed. I took a couple more steps to find the big room containing the two king size beds on the right and a small lounge area to the left. I walked towards the couch and fell onto it. I looked around to see the trash on the floor, filling up to the point of a hoarders house. I grabbed a half drunken water bottle and downed the rest of it. Once finished I threw it into the pile with the rest of the trash. I grabbed my I pod from my pocket and plugged it in to charge it.

I leaned backwards and my eye met with the ceiling. My thoughts were empty for a second as I heard the water of the shower behind me. My headphone fell out of my ear as I was entranced by the sounds of the water hitting the floor. My face was relaxed and emotionless.

The wall to my left started to rumble. Cracks started forming. Then in a big rush the wall burst open revealing a giant mouth with four legs sprawling from it. The bloodied black vermin flew straight at me opening its mouth wider as it reached the couch.

In a flash a bullet penetrated the side of the devours head. The trash landed in a fitting pile of trash while blood spewed from the head and onto the carpet. I turned around quickly to see a bullet sized hole from the wall of the bathroom. From the closed door I hear Fuko yell, “You’re welcome,”

I sat back down on the couch and watched the creatures blood soak into the carpet turning it red. I leaned my head back to stare back at the ceiling letting my mind wander.

In the next room lied a dead man with many bite marks around his body along with a massive hole in his back.

I let out a long sigh.

“The trash is getting more feisty.” I mumbled to myself.