Beginning of Carnage

It was several years ago.

I was invited to a friend’s birthday party. I came to his house with several other friends and we enjoyed ourselves by playing basketball on the nearby court.

Around 1 pm in the afternoon, I received a text message from the girl I had a crush on. She asked me if I wanted to come over to her house and help her with her school project.

Being the idiot I was, I immediately agreed and ditched my friend’s birthday party. I told them where I was going and they teased me to no end.

I was dense back then so I didn’t mind it, I thought it was just our usual banter.

And then I made my way to her house. After the half an hour journey to get there, I finally arrived and knocked on her door.

No one answered. I tried knocking again and calling her name but no one answered.

Eventually a shirtless boy from the house next to hers told me that she wasn’t home. I was confused and frustrated as I reluctantly left and went to the mall not knowing what to do next.

I loitered in front of the mall as I didn’t know what to do. After a few minutes of thinking I went back to my friend’s house.

As I arrived in the street his house was located in I saw **** along with my other friends walking towards his house, but just before I could call out to them.

**** ran leaving the rest of the group behind and then suddenly a car appeared from the other street. Eventually, as the car was steadily driving and **** running towards his house.

They collided.

His body flew towards me as the car immediately stopped. A few moments later his body landed right next to me and blood gushed out from him.

As the pool of blood that was forming under him reached my own feet.

I just stood there.

I didn’t move as my other friends ran over to him.

***

I woke up and slowly opened my eyes as I heard the birds chirp away as I felt the weight of my heart.

I breathed in and out as I recalled that dream… that memory.

I hate it…

Why? Why am I still dreaming of the past?

It hurts…

I deeply breathed in and out until my mind calmed down as the sunlight seeps through the curtains of the window. I turned to the other side of the bed only to see no one there.

Did Lumi already wake up? I thought as I got out of the bed and walked out of the room.

I stepped into the narrow corridor.

Oh yeah… I was dragged and brought to her room ever since I arrived here. I never really got a chance to look around yesterday.

I opened the door across her room and walked in.

It was the living room.

Oh, there she is… I thought as I spotted Lumi sleeping on the couch and in the corner of my eye, I saw it.

Pancakes! It smells good.

I should probably wake her up. “Lumi… wake up.” I said and in the next moment her eyes twitch slightly and she slowly opens it.

“You’re awake.” She responded.

“Yeah, I just woke up.”

“I see… well, I cooked some pancakes for breakfast.”

“Thanks.”

“It’s no problem, it’s the least I could do since you’re my partner and all.” She said as she smiled.

“No… I’m the one intruding on your house, so yeah…”

“Anyways let’s go eat, I was feeling a little bit tired earlier so I fell asleep as soon as I finished cooking the pancakes.”

“Sure, but could you tell me where the bathroom is?”

“It’s the door facing the entrance.”

“I see, thanks.” I added as I walked out of the living room and went to the bathroom. It’s a bit cramped… I thought as I stepped inside the bathroom.

Well, no matter, as long as I can do my business it’s fine. It’s actually quite clean too. After doing my usual wake-up routine, I returned to the living room.

“Sit here.” She said as she tapped the stool next to her.

I nodded and sat beside her. “I already got everything ready while you’re in the bathroom, so just feel free to eat.” She mentioned as she handed me a silver fork.

“Thanks, I’ll do the dishes later.” I voiced as I sliced a piece of the pancake with the pork and brought it to my mouth.

“How is it?” She asked me.

“It’s good.” I replied.

“Thanks.” She added.

We then silently ate breakfast.

***

I washed the dishes and then sat down on a chair across the couch Lumi was sitting on as she was sipping on her tea. “So, what’s our plan?”

“Hmm… not really sure yet. All we can do now is just try to investigate at night.”

“Then shouldn’t we have started last night?”

“We could’ve but you fell sick when we arrived here right? So if possible I want us to investigate and catch this killer when we can do our best, it’d be more efficient that way.”

“I see, then have you collected any info on this killer before we formed the contract?”

“It’s really hard to catch him you know… so I didn’t get much information that the public wouldn’t already know.”

“Meaning you do have some.”

“Yes, but not much, all I know is that there are multiple animals.”

“That’s pretty much useless, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, but that’s all I’ve got.”

The killer using multiple animals is really easy to deduce but it’s useless to try and use it to find him… “How many are we talking about here?”

“Around a couple dozen.”

“That’s a lot, then shouldn’t it be easy to track him down since he’s keeping a lot of them.”

“In theory yes, but remember our killer isn’t ordinary, this guy has his own access to the 2nd dimension.”

“So, you mean he could be using some ability?”

“Yes, I don’t exactly know what his ability is but I’m guessing it has something to do with wild animals.”

“Wild animals huh…” It reminds me of a certain novel I’ve read.

“Have you encountered anyone with spatial storage?”

“I have them.”

“What?”

“I have spatial storage… didn’t I already show it to you?”

“You did?” I recall back to when she killed my male body. She had pulled out that crystal sword from seemingly out of nowhere…

“Yeah, I think I remember now.”

“Spatial storage are off the list.”

“Why?”

“Because spatial storage is something that’s unique to me, the closest anyone can get is something similar like spatial transportation.”

“Unique to you?”

“Yes, to tell you the truth, my connection to the 2nd dimension is completely artificial. So, every time that I want to use it, I have to speak a specific voice command.” Come to think of it, I did hear her say something whenever she attacked.

“Aren’t you a few centuries old? How could something like that be invented back then?”

“I don’t know, I just happened to find it by chance. Although I can’t exactly remember when or how I found it.”

“I see… but couldn’t this killer also, have it?”

“It’s certainly possible but, I don’t know, I just feel like that the chances of it are really low.”

“Hmm…”

Ugh… there’s just so much I don’t know, I’m not good at investigating things either, so I’m out of ideas.

Multiple animals, possible spatial ability. Those two are the only things we have now. I searched up reports and articles about this, but the info on them is nearly all the same.

They’ve also censored the victims identity, so we can’t use it to find out what connections they have with each other.

Oh dear, we’re going to have to break into a police station, aren’t we? I really want to avoid that at all costs so, I’m going to keep that as a last resort for now all we can do is just patrol during the night.

“Let’s stop here for now. We barely have any information to work with, so we can’t get any further.” Lumi said.

“Yeah, it’s probably for the best that we just wait until tonight.” I replied.

I sighed… It’s still morning and I already feel tired…

What do I even do now until tonight? Before all this I used to just laze around and read books whenever I had free time.

I can’t even use my phone now because it’s broken. “Do you want to go out today?” Lumi asked.

“We can but… I want to save as much energy as possible for tonight.” I responded.

“I see… then do you just want to be night already?” She added.

“Huh? You can turn day into night?”

“Yeah, all I have to do is this…” She put down her tea and stood up.

She walked towards me as I got a bad feeling.

“On second thought I- “Just before I could finish my sentence, she pressed her lips onto mine.

I couldn’t resist as I stood frozen and felt the softness of her lips…

It tastes like the pancakes from earlier. I thought as my heart beats louder than ever.

It was like my heart was the only thing I could hear.

Everything else around me was silent as I felt her lips, and the drowsiness creep up from behind me. A few seconds later, she stepped back and our lips had parted.

I was too stunned to move.

But then suddenly everything blacked out as If I passed out.

My consciousness once again faded into darkness…

***

I opened my eyes as I heard the clock ticking.

“What happened?” I muttered as I scratched my eyes as I sat up straight on the bed.

I then stretched my arms and yawned. “What time is it?” I looked at the clock on the wall, it was currently 6:07 PM in the evening. I was confused.

Huh? I remember waking up in the morning… Then I had pancakes with Lumi and after that we discussed our plans then… I can’t remember.

Though I feel lighter than usual. It feels like a heavy weight was lifted from my back. I wonder what happened. I thought as someone knocked on the door. “Eden, are you awake?” Lumi asked.

“Yeah, I’m awake now.” I responded and in the next moment Lumi entered the room.

“What happened this morning? Why is it already evening?” I asked.

“Uh well… I transferred some nanomachines into your body earlier and then you passed out.”

“Nanomachines?”

“Things that make you stronger, don’t you feel lighter now?”

“Yeah, I kind of do… so um, thanks I guess.”

“No worries, it’d be a problem if you can't stand on your own in a fight so this just works well…”

“Ah-huh… though when you said you can turn day to night, I didn’t imagine it’d involve drugging me asleep.”

“Well sorry, on the positive side of things, you’re now somewhat physically stronger than before.”

“I guess so…” Before this entire mess happened, I was really weak in terms of athletics because of the sloppy lifestyle that I lived where I didn’t get much exercise at all. I’m surprised about being confident in fighting supernatural beings when I forgot how weak I was physically. “But, I’m stronger by how much exactly?” I asked.

“That’s the thing, we’ll just have to find out, anyways, while you were passed out and asleep, I bought you dinner.” She mentioned as she held up a plastic bag.

“Thanks, I’ll get up now, so if you don't mind, can you put it on the kitchen countertop we ate at earlier?”

“Sure…” She then left the room. Wasn’t she acting a little weird earlier? But then again, she’s always weird so maybe not? I don’t know. I thought as I got out of the bed and went to the bathroom.

After doing my business inside the bathroom I went to the living room.

“Oh, you got Johlebee.” I commented.

“Yeah, I don’t really know what you’d like to eat so I went for the safest option.”

“I see, thanks again.”

“No need to thank me over and over again. We’re partners remember?”

“Yeah, then I suppose after this we’ll start our patrol?”

“Yes.” I sat down on the stool next to her and then we both started eating.

Should I talk to her while we’re eating? But what should I talk to her about? We could go over our plans for tonight again… but I have a feeling that won’t work.

As I munch into my burger, I took a quick glance at Lumi who’s eating beside me.

That long white hair of hers, that pale skin, and those icy blue eyes… At the time that we first met I was really scared of it.

But now that we have interacted it doesn’t feel that scary anymore, does it? In fact, it seems captivating… no no no, I shouldn’t think like that.

It’ll just lead me to more dangerous thoughts that could hurt her…

Though I wonder… Why does she actually trust me this much when we’ve only met a few days ago?

Wait, the real question should be why am I trusting her? She killed me, brought me back to life in a girl’s body, taught me about my ability, and allowed me to stay here.

But is that reason enough? I don’t know.

I’ve been betrayed by those who I trusted plenty of times so I should be distrustful of people but why have I been blindly trusting her this entire time.

For all I know, she could just kill me on the spot right now but I guess I just didn’t care anymore whether she betrays me or not.

After all, I’m doing this because I just want to do something that can be seen as good before I pull my own plug.

She’s kind, unlike me.

I’ll think about this another time, for now I’ll just try and focus on helping her as much as I can.

***

After we both finished eating, I threw out the trash on the garbage and washed my hands… “Before we go out, could you let me take a shower first? I haven’t had a chance to do it the entire day because I passed out earlier when you enhanced my body with your nano-something.” I said as I wiped my hands with a towel.

“Sure, make it quick though, we don’t know when this killer would make his move.” She replied.

“Okay, thanks.” I added. Just before I left the living room, I noticed something outside the window. “Do you see that?” I asked as I pointed out a white dot that’s seemingly getting closer and closer.

“See what?” Lumi responded.

“On the window, there’s some-sort of white dot that’s getting bigger and bigger.” I said then Lumi went over to the window and looked.

“That’s!” She exclaimed.

“That’s what?”

“Hurry and get behind me!” she shouted then suddenly a large explosion had blown up the wall and I was knocked back.

“Damn it!” I grumbled as I tried to stand up.

Once the dust had settled, I saw Lumi once again in her white dress while holding a shield, blocking a spear of light.

“Lightning!?” I exclaimed as I saw the tiny arcs of electricity on it.

“Yaaaaa!” She loudly screamed as she held her crystal shield against it.

As she was steadily being pushed back, the spear of light had burst into an explosion, knocking me and her back even further.

“Lumi!!” I shouted.

A few moments later, the dust had once again settled, the living room was destroyed, the electricity was out, and there was nothing left but debris.

In the middle of it all, Lumi was breathing heavily. She was still standing after shielding the both of us from that explosion.

The crystal shield soon faded away, and Lumi had recovered from that sudden attack.

“Are you okay?” I asked as I stood up and walked towards her.

“Yeah, my regenerations kicked in slightly late but I’m fine.”

“But what was that?”

“I think it was a rod made entirely of lightning.”

“Then where did it come from?” The only other person that can possibly do something like this is that killer we were going to investigate because from what I heard from Lumi is that this guy also has access to the 2nd dimension.

Then in the next moment, we both felt an enormous pressure come from behind and turned around to its source, sitting atop the broken roof.

“Who are you?” I asked.

This person… no, this beast is not human. That hairy body, that shape, those jaws… I’ve seen this before.

This is a beastman!

“Speak, you feral beast!” Lumi shouted as she also emitted her own pressure.

“My name…Sameal” It spoke in a deep, gruff voice befitting someone of high power.

“What are you doing here? What’s your objective!” Lumi asked the beastman.

“I merely launched that spear of lightning as a signal, I have no other objectives.” Sameal declared.

“A signal?” Lumi muttered.

A signal for what? I have bad feeling about this.

As we were deep in our thoughts, the beastman silently he jumped away.

That beastman named Sameal launched a spear of lightning for signal… in the plots of the novels I’ve read launching a signal means… oh no. I thought as I quickly ran to the edge and looked at the subdivision.

Hordes of beasts attacking each house one after another. This is bad!
“Lumi!”

“I know, here take this.” She said as she threw me a crystal knife the size of a combat knife.

“Thanks… now let’s go.” I voiced as I grabbed hold of the knife.

“Wait, I need to seal this entire subdivision first. You go first. I need to minimize the damage as much as I can. I’ll catch up to you.”

“Got it…” Then I turned around and started to run as fast as I could towards the bottom of this building.

“Where are you going?! Just jump down, I’ve already given you the nanomachines needed for this kind of thing!”

“Fine…” I turn back around and run towards the edge again.

I breathed in as I looked at the ground from above.

“I know you haven’t done any of this before but just trust me you’ll be fine. Take a leap of faith!” She shouted to encourage me…

A leap of faith huh… haven’t I heard that somewhere before? No, this isn’t the time for that. I just have to do it!

Then I jumped down…

As I was falling towards the ground, I felt the wind push against my entire body.

This feels new…

Then a few moments later I reached the ground as I landed on my feet.

I imagined that a fall from that height would hurt but I didn’t feel anything of the sort.

“Right now, I’ve got to run!” I said as I started running towards the streets where the beasts were.

I think I’m starting to see the effects of those nanomachines. I thought as I ran faster than what any normal human could do.

“Right there!” I spot several beasts surrounding a few people right in front of the white building I jumped down from. “Oi get away from there!” I shouted.

These wolf-like creatures then turn away from the people and start to run towards me all at once.

Can I handle these?

I have absolutely no experience in fighting before so, I don’t know.

All I have now is the nanomachines that she gave to me. It'd be useful if I can use my own ability but I just inherently suck at it.

As they run towards me, I start moving towards them as well…

I readied my knife as one jumped at me.

I can do this! I thought to myself as I quickly aligned the positions of the knife and the beast’s mouth. In the next moment, the beast and my knife make contact as I cut from its mouth all the way to its tail.

Woah, this thing is sharp! I thought as I turned around to look at its corpse.

Wait, there’s more, I need to stay alert.

Another one jumps at me from the side but I quickly stab it through its eye and kick it away. Then the next moment, I stabbed then elbowed another beast that was coming from behind…

That makes three, I think there’s another one but where did it go… I thought as I felt a suspicious feeling.

From above!

The beast growled as it opened its mouth.

I reached out for it with my knife in hand but instead of cutting, the dog bit down on my hand holding the knife as it entered its mouth.

Damn it!

I tried to shake it off but it was no use…

But I had an idea.

I moved my hand that was inside it and stabbed its tongue with the knife.

The beast then let go and backed away.

I used that chance to rush it and kill it by slicing it horizontally…

“Haah… haah…” I stood still as I heavily breathed.

I killed four but I’m already tired… Did I already reach the limit of the nanomachines?

I’m sure there’s more in other streets but I can’t keep up.

If I knew I was going to be involved in something like this then I would’ve actually put effort into exercising for goodness’ sake.

“Umm… ma’m?” Someone called out to me.

I turned back around to see the people that were surrounded earlier…

Among one of them was…

“Blaargh.” I vomited the contents of my stomach on the concrete road.

“Are you okay?” ****** asks.

“Yeah… it’s just that.” I didn’t expect that you’d still be here.

“Just that?” She tilts her head in confusion.

“It’s nothing, just go somewhere safe.”

“But what about you?”

“I’ll be fine, so go.” I said, then with the hesitation showing on her face, she runs and then the other people soon follow.

She didn’t recognize me huh…

Well… I guess she wouldn’t expect that one creepy boy from a few years ago to turn up a girl.

Anyways, I need to get running again. If I remember right, I saw at least four hordes of them in four different areas. I’ve dispatched one of the hordes so there’s now just three of them. I thought as I started to run again but I turned back to where she was just a moment ago.

With this… can I call It even? Probably not, Hurting the mind actually hurts more than hurting the body.

I sighed… never mind that, I need to go. I thought as I started running again.

***

A few minutes later, I came across another horde of them.

“Come at me!” I shouted as I dashed towards them.

There’s seven of them this time… Then right now… I need to.

The beast nearest to me, jumped at me with its mouth wide open. “Sorry but… I have no plans with being your meal today!” I shouted as I stabbed it from under.

“One…”

After that I jumped at the second nearest and stabbed it from above.

“Two…”

I then quickly turned around and dashed through the third one and cut it’s body in half in the process.

“Three…”

The last four all jumped at me at the same time.

Crap, I can’t handle all of them at once.

What should I do? Should I just dodge them? Probably not since they jumped while surrounding nearly every direction I can escape too. Did the nanomachines also increase my jumping power?

I guess there’s only one way to find out! I thought as I directed all my strength into my legs and jumped as high as I could.

Woah! It worked!

I jumped as high as a one-story house. As I descended, I readied my knife pointing downwards.

The tip of the knife pierced its head as I landed.

“There we go… that’s four now.” I quietly muttered as I turned back to the remaining tree.

Now then, how should I go about this? Should I just keep on targeting them one by one or will a horizontal slash work?

This knife’s blade isn’t that long so I doubt it will work but if I keep going on like this, I’ll eventually exhaust all my strength.

I have no choice! I lunged at the one on the right and kicked the beast in the middle.

While they’re being knocked away, I use this chance to stab the one that was on the left through its eye.

Once it was dead, I pulled the knife and started going for the beast that was in the middle but before I could even kill it. “Aaargh!” The one that I lunged at first bit down on my right leg.

It hurts, it really hurts…! Do the nanomachines stop functioning once they’ve reached their limit?

I don’t know.

As it was biting down on my leg, I quickly waved my arm and stabbed it from above and into its skull as it had bit down on my leg.

After it stopped moving. I kicked it away while feeling the pain and blood gushing out from my right leg.

This was the second time I felt this kind of pain. When I was killed by Lumi, and now this. The closest that could come to these would be getting injected by a syringe but there’s a huge gap between them.

There should be one more… Where is it!?

I turn my head from left to right, looking for the last remaining beast of this horde while remaining still.

Did it run away?

I don’t see it anymore.

Anyways, I need to move.

There’s still more of them out there.

My right leg hurts a lot when I move it but I need to keep moving or else I’ll just end up being the bad guy. I thought as I tried to walk but.

Ouch, ouch, ouch…. Come on move!

I fell to the ground.

I still need to fight them off, I want to do something good before I kick the bucket.

It’s really selfish of me to do this, but just this once.

I want to be seen as someone kind, not as a horrible person.