Chapter 2: Hole in the sky

Kawasuki was scared for the first time in awhile. He was scared that he would die a short meaningless death like his classmates and teacher. Part of him hoped they weren’t dead but he couldn’t check, these creatures with their asymmetrical body parts and their heads that looked like they were filled with tumors approaching him. More emerged from the pod that sat in the wreckage of the school bus; Kawasuki had to think of something fast if he wanted to live another day. These things looked threatening, like they wanted to kill him. He had a gut feeling that if he didn’t run right then and there, it would have been the last mistake he ever made.

He began to look around him and saw a chain link fence, a short one. Kawasuki ran over and began to climb it. Within a few seconds he made it over the fence, the creatures still approaching him.

“Oh god, I really hope those things can’t climb. Or worse, rip through the fence,” Kawasuki thought to himself.

Kawasuki ran for what felt like an eternity, but was in reality only about thirty seconds before finding his savior, the mangled corpse of a police officer. Sure enough, the cop had a gun on him. Kawasuki felt bad stealing from a corpse but he had no other option at this point.

“Sorry officer, but I need your pistol,” Kawasuki said quietly, picking up the pistol along with the three extra magazines from the officer’s belt. “Not my first choice in terms of a gun, but it’ll have to do for now,” Kawasuki thought.

He checked the pistol’s magazine and it was just about half full. Before he could get acquainted with the weapon, more deformed creatures began to approach him. He raised his gun, turned the safety off, and fired at the monster’s chest, to no avail; he fired again and still, no effect. Finally, Kawasuki fired a third time, now aiming at the creature’s head. The bullet hit and the beast went limp and collapsed.

He didn’t want to waste any more ammunition on the other creatures, so he decided to run again. They were slow so he didn’t have much trouble escaping.

“The dock, the dock, where is the dock? I need a boat to get home,” Kawasuki said out loud. He briefly looked up to see more pods crashing down on the other side of the island. More and more rained down like there was a hole in the sky.

* * *

Tsuri couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Were these actual aliens? “This can’t be real,” she thought “I have to be dreaming.”

Ishiro burst through the door, screaming, “What’s going on?”

“Our clan has been under attack for the first time in 300 years,” Emiko said.

“That’s impossible. Where the hell are the other students, we must prepare to fight back!” Ishiro cried.

“They were on the beach by the base of the cliff eating their lunch,” Tsuri said.

“Both of you, go grab your swords. I’ll meet you over there, I’m going to help the other students fight them off,” Ishiro said, running over to the beach.

Ishiro, Tsuri, and Emiko were the only ones who lived directly in the dojo while all of the other students lived in other areas around the island. Most of them chose to eat their lunch at the base of the cliff every day.

Tsuri and Emiko sprinted to their rooms and grabbed their swords. They made it outside on the beach just in time to see another alien pod hit the cliff. The impact was so great, the cliff began to collapse. Massive rocks and boulders began to fall towards the students. Time seemed to slow as rocks fell one by one, splattering each of the students as it fell. Their screams of terror were silenced as quickly as they came. Ishiro barely even had time to look up. One particularly large boulder landed directly on top of his head, crushing him under the weight of gravity.

“NO!” Tsuri cried.

“Oh my god, we gotta get out of here,” Emiko said to Tsuri, who was now in tears. “We can’t avenge them if we’re dead, we gotta run!” The two girls ran around the dojo and made their way to the street. They were now in the center of a three way intersection, but before they could decide where to go, a small horde of the beasts started to approach. “Looks like we’re going to have to fight.”

Tsuri had tears in her eyes, with the memory of having watched her father die still lingering. “You killed my father, and our fellow students. Prepare to die, monsters!” Tsuri screamed, enraged at the beasts.

Within seconds of drawing her sword, Tsuri had already cut down one of the aliens. She proceeded to slice two more before aiding Emiko, who seemed to really hold her own against them.

“We should get to the docks, Tsuri, we need to find a boat so we can get to the mainland.”

Tsuri looked back towards the dojo. “We need to go back and bury them, they deserve that much,” Tsuri said quietly.

“Tsuri,” Emiko said, “we can’t bury them. It’s going to be hard to move the rocks and it’s too risky with all of these enemies about. I’m sorry that they’re dead, but we need to survive. We can’t do that if we go back.”

“Damnit Emiko, how are you so calm right now?” Tsuri screamed.

“If we survive,” said Emiko while holding back tears, “we’ll have time to cry later, but we have to get out of here as quick as we can. Burying them is not what they would want right now, they would slow us down.”

Tsuri, furious at her friend, couldn’t believe that Emiko would say such a thing, but she swallowed her pride and agreed.

“So be it, we shall head to the docks,” Tsuri said.

“I promise we’ll come back to properly mourn them, eventually.”

The two of them ran down the street and got closer to the docks. Tsuri felt tears welling up again. Her friend embraced her as they both began to sob at the thought of their friends being dead. Only a few minutes later, more groups of the creatures began to approach them from all sides. Weak in their body from losing their adrenaline high, they held their swords high, unsure if they would be able to triumph against this many enemies.

* * *

Kawasuki didn’t know where he was. He was in some kind of forest after escaping town but could not figure out where the docks were. He reached for his backpack and pulled off a compass keychain.

“If I remember correctly, they’re to the north-west,” he thought, “Damnit, I hope I’m right.”

Kawasuki heard a hissing sound as a tumor ridden creature emerged from the underbrush. He quickly pulled out his gun, took aim and said, “Eat lead you Lovecraftian reject!” as he planted a bullet in its head.

Kawasuki continued to walk as he thought, “Man, I don’t care if there was no one to watch, I should have said something cooler.”

He continued to walk for about five minutes before finding a few buildings. Kawasuki walked inside one, a tall building that happened to be a convenience store with some apartments above. It loomed over the other apartments. Altogether, the building was three stories tall. He took the stairs straight to the roof.

He looked around for a couple of seconds before spotting the docks. There were a few boats left, some of which he could use. Taking another look around, he spotted two girls fighting off some of the creatures with katanas. It was quite the sight, they were fighting perfectly together, as if they were choreographed dancers. Their weapons sliced through the creatures as a hot knife cuts through butter. Despite the mass amounts of gore being discharged from the fallen beasts, their display of combat was almost beautiful. None of the creatures were able to approach them, let alone lay a finger on them.

“Hey, I recognize them,” he thought, “It's the blonde and blue haired girls from the dojo!”

Mesmerized by their fighting, Kawasuki barely noticed that they seemed to be getting weaker. As the fight went on, their movements slowed. At this rate, the girls may not have been able to last much longer. He pulled out his pistol, dropped the empty magazine and put a new one in. He took aim and fired eight shots, hitting each of the remaining aliens.

“You two looked like you needed some help!” Kawasuki called to the girls.

He ran down the stairs of the building and went into the street to greet the two swordsmen.

“Thanks for the save,” said the blond one.

“You’re welc-”

“We could have handled that without your help!” The blue haired one proclaimed.

“Don’t mind her,” the blond one intervened, “I’m Emiko and she’s Tsuri. Pleased to meet you.”

“I’m Kawasuki Seshita, master of firearms and slayer of aliens!” he claimed, giving a bow remnant of those of performers. He paused for a moment at the lack of response from his audience, “I shouldn’t of said that, it was kinda stupid.”

Tsuri groaned at the sight of the imbecile.

“I thought it was kinda cool,” Emiko noted, making an effort for her friend to appear slightly thankful to the person who just saved her life.

“I don’t trust him, and anyways, he’ll slow down our escape,” she said belligerently.

“Hey, I’m trying to escape too,” Kawasuki snapped, “plus, I know how to drive a boat so I’m of use to you.”

“And from the looks of it, you’re pretty skilled with a gun,” Emiko said.

“Indeed I am. My grandpa’s a cop and he taught me to use it!” Kawasuki boasted.

Tsuri grunted. “If you’re going to stand around and talk, I’m going to go give my fallen comrades a funeral,” she said before walking over to the beach and out of sight.

Kawasuki turned to Emiko, “Fallen comrades? What does she mean?”

Emiko put her head down, “The students from our dojo along with our sensei were in the wrong place at the wrong time and paid the ultimate price for it.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. You can go help her bury them if you want,” Kawasuki said.

“I told her not to bury them, that it’d be too dangerous with these things roaming the island,” Emiko stated. She stopped and thought for a moment. “Hey, maybe if you wait over by the street right there and take out any of the things that may show up-”

Kawasuki cut her off, “I get it, go mourn your friends, you deserve that at least.”

“Thanks. I’ll be sure to pay you back someday. Also, sorry about Tsuri, she’s kinda hostile towards new people.”

“It’s okay, it sounds like you guys have been through a lot today, and anyways I’m used to hostile people.”

Kawasuki moved closer to the beach and watched Emiko and Tsuri move rubble from a collapsed cliff. “They’re incredibly strong,” Kawasuki thought, “even though they sure don’t look like it.” Though they had just run out of adrenaline, they were still able to move boulders as though they were nothing.

The two girls began to dig shallow graves by hand. It looked monotonous and tiring for them to be moving all of that sand. After about twenty minutes of digging, Tsuri and Emiko slowly moved the mangled corpses into each of the graves, burying them with the separate piles of sand they created. Finally, they stuck each of the warriors’ swords on their graves as though to show respect to the fallen.

“You can go get the boat started if you want, Tsuri and I are gonna be here for a few more minutes,” Emiko shouted over at Kawasuki.

“It’s all good, I’m gonna go look for some supplies over at the convenience store back there. I advise you do the same when you’re done,” Kawasuki shouted back.

He walked over, humming a tune as if nothing had happened, pushed the doors open, and began to look around. It looked like the owner and all the workers had already evacuated. Kawasuki found a medium sized backpack and started to stuff supplies along with food and water bottles into them. He even found a small radio with batteries. He checked the backroom for any extra supplies before heading out of the backdoor.

Kawasuki was caught off guard by one of the deformed monstrosities lurking in the back alley. He tried to get back in the building to shut the door, but couldn’t move back fast enough. The hulking beast grabbed him by the arm and lifted him off the ground like he was a ragdoll. Kawasuki felt the beast squeeze his arm before it eventually snapped like a twig. Kawasuki screamed as he felt his bones shatter in his arm. In spite of the extreme pain, he still managed to whip out his pistol. Pressing the gun against its head, he blasted it as quickly as possible. The dead beast dropped Kawasuki and collapsed on top of him.

“Jeez, this thing is really heavy, I don’t think I’m going to be able to move it with my screwed up arm. What if more come, there’ll be nothing for me to do to defend myself,” Kawasuki thought to himself.

As if the universe heard his thoughts, the bushes near the forest at the edge of the building began to rustle with that same hissing sound he heard earlier, “Crap, more are coming,” Kawasuki said to himself, “guess this is the end for me.”

The beasts walked into the street. There were about five of them, all of which were approaching Kawasuki.

Emiko and Tsuri ran over frantically. “Hey, we heard screaming and ran over, are you-” Emiko looked before her at the crushed Kawasuki and stopped dead in her tracks. She couldn’t even finish what she was about to say. All that came out was a gasp of shock from imagining how terrible his fate would have been, had they not arrived when they did.

Emiko and Tsuri drew their swords and began to cut through the aliens. Within seconds they slaughtered all five of them.

“They’re so badass,” Kawasuki thought.

The two girls moved the corpse off of Kawasuki.

“Are you okay?” Emiko asked.

“I’m good, but I think my arm is broken,” he groaned.

“Too bad that thing didn’t kill him,” Tsuri said under her breath.

“Hey c’mon, don’t be such an ass to him, he saved our lives,” Emiko said.

“And we saved his, so we’re even,” Tsuri pointed out.

Emiko grunted, “Can you just heal him real quick?”

“Fine,” Tsuri grunted back.

“Heal?” Kawasuki thought.

Tsuri closed her eyes and grabbed his broken arm. Slowly the shattered bones began to move back into place and the pain started to go away.

“You have-” Kawasuki said confused, “You have super powers?!”

“No,” Tsuri said, “it’s a technique of our clan that only a few are even capable of, which allows us to heal minor injuries if we focus hard enough, but I happen to excel with this technique so I usually do the healing. Emiko can only really heal small cuts. I on the other hand am capable of also repairing broken limbs such as yours.”

Kawasuki could barely process what had just happened.

“Well, thank you,” he said. “You should get some supplies and stuff from the store, I’m going to try to get the boat started.”

After about 10 minutes they came over to Kawasuki who had managed to find the key for the small yacht they planned to take.

They collected their things and the girls paid respect one last time to their fallen comrades.

Kawasuki started the boat and they sailed off, leaving the island of Okinawa behind.