Shiki

SHIKI
Chapter 1: Escape

A dark figures stands silently under the cover of the alleyway. Moving closer to the end of the alley and towards the exit, the figure looks up as the air begins to darken. The congested sky slowly dulls the light around and replaces the sun with patches of cloud. Long, black hair can now be distinguished from the figure, tracing along the wind that blows through it like ink spreading in water, revealing the figure to be female.

As she steps out of the dark, the gray rain immediately begins to tumble down before her. Tugging the hood of her red sweatshirt over her head, she sprints off in the direction in which the rain had come from. She looks through the streets filled with people. As they rush for shelter, they cover their heads with newspapers and struggle to open umbrellas.

She passes by a newspaper stand now closing due to the sudden change of weather. On top a pile of soaked see-through pages was written in bold letters, “Abnormal Weather Occurrences Reaching Critical Mass”. The elderly man struggles as he attempts to lower the veranda while holding one hand on his hat. The wind suddenly picks up, whisking away both the hat and his few remaining dry newspapers.

Instinctively reaching for the hat that is now beyond his reach, he momentarily allows his grasp to slip. Before it can fall, she quickly grabs a hold of the handle. The man smiles out of appreciation, and helps her ease it down. He then gives a curt nod and another small smile, tipping the wet and muddy hat he had retrieved. She nods in return and pulls the hood down further to cover her eyes.

She takes one last look at the runny newsprint title, reading at the bottom of the large print, “The sudden appearance of abnormal weather conditions has baffled scientists. The first signs of mysterious behavior appeared when all abnormalities were located only within a contained area. However, reports now state that massive storm clouds have begun to spread and has now reached-“

“You want paper miss?”

The low gravelly voice of the old man next to her startles her. The man’s face comes into view beneath her hood, craning his neck down in order to see hers. She turns her head away and shakes her head casually. Having been interrupted mid-sentence, she doubles back to where she had been and takes off.

With each light step she takes, a splash of gray water splits between her once pure white sneakers, now tattered and musty with an ashen shade. Running a bit further, she slows her pace upon coming to an intersection. The little white man on the board flashes, as the big red palm appears in its place. She now stops, looking up towards the sky.

As each drop of water falls against her face and trickles down her neck, she continues to look up, with an expression almost resembling hope, her eyes seeming to beg for something. A peel of lightening streaked across the thick, clouded surface of the sky. The hope in her eyes disappears as the flash of light did.

The streetlight flashes once again and reveals the small white man. She bolts across the white barred street and glides through the approaching crowd of people. She slips past each person, barely even grazing them despite how tightly clustered they were. She notices the blank expressions of each face.

Their eyes gaze down, faces illuminated by the small screens of their phones. Others eyes were fixed straight ahead, and yet they see nothing in front of them as they bump into others and keep staring forward with no direction or will. She shakes her head at the sight as she flies through the crowd. To them, she was never there.

She soon approaches an old building, a foreclosure sign hanging from the door with the tape having been ripped off long ago. The windows of the building were shattered, covered with graffiti or lined with trash bags and wood boards. Walking up the steps towards the door, she pushes hard against the hinges, opening it without ever turning the knob.

Once inside, she then proceeds to jump up and grab hold of a wooden beam dangling slanted above her. She swings her legs back and forth, heaving the rest of her body forward and on top of the beam. With steady balance and agility, she runs along on top of the numerous beams, worn and rotted with time.

At the end of the main support beam was a hole, peeking out from two broken pieces of wood. A dim light spills from the small man-made entrance. Pushing aside the rubble and bits of broken wall, she manages to squeeze her somewhat larger form into the opening and reaches a large, empty room.

The light from before came from the flickering flame of the candle that stood on top one of the only pieces of furniture within the otherwise bare room. The sudden draft that came upon her entrance causes the fleck to quiver, as if trying to show it’s own form of expression. Rubbing her hands together, the girl removes her hood, holds out her hands and moves closer to the candle, grateful for the speck of warmth it gives.

“WoooOOOoooo…WooOOOoooOOOOOoooooo..….”

A muffled noise sounded throughout the space, as the girl examined the room to find the source of the voice. Her hands held together, she slowly advances towards the lump on the couch, squirming beneath a thin blanket. She smiles lightheartedly at this. Carefully reaching for the blanket, making as little noise as possible, she abruptly snatches the blanket away like a magician would during a big reveal.

“Gotcha!”

Up from the couch springs a young boy. With dirt on his face and water stains on his shirt, he wears a big smile that seems to care less for either of these things. Shaking her head with a small smile, she feels around for a switch and flips it up, lighting the room further.

With the room fully lit, both the boy and girl can be seen more clearly. The girl, soaked from head-to-toe, unzips and removes her bright red hoody and wrings a lock of her long, pitch-black hair in her hands. With the hoody off, you can see a very thin yet slightly built frame beneath her grayish-white t-shirt.

Wiping away the strands of hair that were clinging to her face, two dark, almost black eyes shone from the dimming light. The little boy sitting across from her, having similar looks, is obviously assumed to be her sibling. His floppy hair and eyes both as dark as his sister’s and an equally ragged appearance further shows their natural resemblance.

“Why are you all wet?”

He looks down at his shirt by pulling at the ends and stretches the sides of his pants. Both his shirt and pants seemed a darker shade then normal, the water dripping off the clothing from his fingers only helped confirm her suspicions. He looks up at his sister and simply gives her a smile feigning innocence, as he shrugs.

“You were late, and I was getting hungry.”

He says while pointing to an empty bag of “Sizzlin’ BBQ Pork chips” on the floor near his feet.

She lets out an exasperated sigh, and pulls a towel out from a pile of dirty clothes. She sits him back down on the couch and throws the towel over his head.

“You’re not supposed to go out, remember? I told you I’d be back soon to get us some food.”

She rubs the towel into his soppy hair trying to get as much of the moisture out as possible.

“It was only across the street. Besides, it’s no fun in here.”

He kicks his small feet in the air, his head jerking left and right while she tosses the towel all around his scalp. Once she finishes, he jumps down from the couch and vigorously shakes his whole body.

“Ahhh! Hey! You’re not a dog you know!”

Getting drops all over the place, including his sister, he stops abruptly and smiles once again, his eyes hidden under his messy bangs. She couldn’t help but laugh at this, her frown soon becoming a smile. She gently strokes his head, combing his thick hair with her fingers.

“Good boy.”

“Look who’s treating me like a dog now”

They start to laugh together, the room filling with their laughter. But it soon dies down, as the girl puts on a serious face. He tilts his head to the side at the sudden mood with a puzzled look on his face. She gets down on one knee and gently places her hands on his small shoulders. Looking at him straight in the eye, she calmly states,

“We have to “go” now.”

“Wh-what? Why now?”

She cast her gaze down for a moment, but faces him once again with more force in her voice.

“We can’t stay here any longer. “It” is already almost here.”

“No! I don’t want to anymore! You said we could stay “here” longer!”

“We need to leave “here” right now. Hurry and get your things.”

Before she could pull away, he grabs her hand that rested on his shoulder.

“What about mom?”

She glances over to the other side of the room. There she catches a glimpse of a small, porcelain jar in the corner of her eye before quickly returning her attention to the boy before her.

“…Mom will have to stay.”

“But-“

All of a sudden, a flash of lightening beams into the room. Startled, the siblings turn towards the window as the light instantly vanishes.

“1…2...3-“

A clap of thunder comes rumbling down from the swirling black clouds, following in pursuit of the lightning’s trail. The boy turns to his sister, a look of concern across his face.

“Sis...”

“I know. We don’t have much time now. Hurry up.”

She immediately rushes to the couch and grabs an empty bag by the leg. Stuffing it with random clothes and various supplies, she ties a cloth together with sandwiches and band-aids. He imitates her actions and grabs his backpack. He fills it with clothing, supplies and a box of jellybeans he secretly bought while his sister was away.

Another thunderclap resounds, dispersing right through the ground, causing the earth to shake.

“We need to get out of “here”!! Come on!”

She moves over the planks of wood and rubble covering the wall adjacent to the door. Another lightening strike bursts out and strikes the roof of the building. The sudden shock breaks through the solid roof and tears straight into the room. Sparks fly all throughout the immediate area where the lightening bolt lands in the room.

“Watch out!”

Bringing him closer towards her, she hugs his head and shields him from the hot embers. The light shortly dissipates. Cautiously, they raise their heads to see a large black burn pattern on the floor, charred and still emitting a good deal of heat and smoke.

“You alright?”

“Y-yeah…”

He says weakly in response. He clasps his hands together, trying desperately to hide his trembling from his sister. She notices his attempt to put on a brave face and gently hugs him.

“Let’s go.”

Pushing aside the remaining pieces of debris, she pulls out a metal bar fixed into the wall and plunges the bar into the wall. She pulls it out and repeats her previous action again and again, chipping away at the damaged plaster. Brushing away flakes of plaster off her shirt, she drives the pole in one more time and finally breaks through. She fans the air as the cloud of dust dissolves, revealing yet another wall.

This wall, however, was very unusual, in that it did not appear solid. Its surface gives the impression of being translucent, yet an ambiguous image can be made out on the other side. Colors swirl across its shell, mimicking the exterior of a bubble, round and frail looking. As the room continues to be showered with bolts of lightening and thrums of thunder, the siblings take hold of each other’s hand.

She whips around at the sound of breaking glass, the porcelain jar now strewn across the floor with piles of black powder covering the shards. He grips his tiny hand tighter around her fingers. She looks down at him, his eyes facing hers with sadness and fright. He clutches her even tighter, silently telling her he’ll be fine despite his obvious state.

She nods and faces forward again, her conviction restored. Just as another bolt comes crashing down towards them, the siblings jump into the wall as its exterior pushes against them. After a bit of resistance, it finally lets them break through as their bodies fade behind the iridescent barrier.



“S…si…Sis! Wake up, sis! Sis!”

She hears her brother cry out for her, feeling his hands shaking her arm. She sits up and scrunches her brow, holding her head to lessen the pain.

“Sis, you ok?”

She smoothes over her hair with her hand, feeling a bump on the back of her head.

“Yeah…I think I’ll be alright.”

Having survived their rough landing, she tries bringing her eyes in focus to check their surroundings. She looks around at the tall, shadowed structures hovering above them. A semblance of a metropolis stood before them, once gleaming with lights, never asleep. The lack of light or sound indicated that it was now nightfall. She stands up as she wavers a bit, still dizzy from her bump on the head.

“Sis…Where are we? Do you know?”

Examining the horizon, she spots a tall building up ahead of them. She jumps down from where they landed and advances closer towards the figure to get a better look. It was taller than the buildings surrounding it, ascending high into the sky with a blinking red light a top its point. Several illuminated triangles feigned in a white light lined the top of the structure just below the antennae point. They each pointed up and arched above a layer of one another.

“Sis, do you know where we are?”

He says while tugging at the bottom of her jacket. She looks left and right at the other buildings around the tallest. She sighs heavily, her earlier suspicions confirmed upon seeing two identical structures adjoined with no tops, having only been half-built after its past destruction.

“We’re in "New York That Will Be."