Kenopsia - Chapter 93: Chapter 93

"And there... Done?" I pulled the gloves off but still shook my hands out.
Along the years you get used to things so much so that the rot filling the air is nothing but an after thought in your life, that the groans of the endlessly filling in husks are just a white noise, that the oppressive silence becomes the norm.... But just like how a nurse in the old world could eviscerate people to save them while helping in an operation without flinching could gag at the idea of touching the wet food in the bottom of a sink, I was feeling the same.
Not a day passed when I wasn't faced with a lone husk or a small group of them and needed to take them out, scattering brain matter on the ground as the skulls cracked and splattered, smelling burning rotting flesh to make sure no animal was to eat them.... And I still felt icky for touching rotting soggy wood with mushrooms that I had put under the bridge on purpose.
I had repurposed one of the shopping carts to transport the crate so I didn't need to touch it and wheeled it away to the entrance of the building I marked as a restaurant on my map inside the secured perimeter, I am not putting these with the wheat and then finding a mushroom filled building, better it be this one.
I pushed the door open and it smelt of old wood and dust, fresh food like in restaurants rots away fast so the smell had time to leave but it was still here, impregnated into the walls and ground.
This building didn't have several floors like most, only this one, so I just pushed the cart in and left it between the tabled, if the mushroom spreads so be it, we'll have more food.... That refrigerator is a saint to have.
I still walked in, it had windows.... We'll need to board up the windows of the buildings we are using as part of the wall, one mistake and who knows.... Might be the end.
I shook myself out, walking around the counter and opening the drawers, it always seemed so odd, finding so much stuff around, so much so that we could never find use for them and still think we are missing things.
Like I would have come in here oh so long ago if I actually missed stuff like this, the rows of alcohol of different sorts still here.
I picked a bottle of the shelf, looking at it, Gordon? I flipped it over, oh it's gin, got it.
How depressing it is that before the Great Silence this would have been a great price to drink with friends and to get hammered on but the first thought that came to mind was how it was of use to disinfect wounds and clothes along with a great fire starter.
I put it down on the counter bellow the shelf and left the building, we'll be back when needed anyway, for it or the mushrooms.
I jumped the fencing, walking away.
I truly wonder what the world would have become if it was not for this virus... No Andie don't, if you start thinking about what could have been and questions you don't have the answers too and never can get the answers you'll just send yourself in a spiral.
I sighed, looking up at the sky, cloudless but it was steadily getting colder so I brought out my boots and a hoodie, beanie back on head.
My fingers were cold, it is nearing, I hope we don't have an early winter.
I walked until I was in front of a familiar building.
I stared up at it before I entered and walked upwards the stairs.
The steps echoed like a morbid metronome, smooth and steady, ticking away at the seconds, seconds that were nearing me to my death. I am not delusional, death comes for all and once it will for me too, be it husks or an accident, I will die once, in this world of the dead.
I looked at my palm, the now old scar engraved in my hand.
I touched it lightly, even just that mistake with the globe could have cost me my life if it got infected, so many things can take my life, the smallest of things.
"It's been a while since I came back here." Last I remember was when that Adam tried his hand at me.
I sighed, looking around the apartment this whole journey begin in.
Going to what was once my room, I smelt mold but didn't expect much else in our world.
Simply staring at the moth eaten clothes covered a skeleton on the bed with some visibly bones broken and little metal pieces, what is left of bullets, on the moldy bed.
"Even now, your actions haunt my days." I said, leaning against the wall with my hands in my pockets and foot propped up on the side of the bed. "A boy almost lost his life purely because his name resembled yours and not only that, you are in a great majority responsible for my lack of trust." I pushed off the wall and stood normally. "And trust me, you deserve to never leave this room, not until your bones are dust and this apartment complex is brought to the ground by time but even if the hurt persists, the hate must be killed. You and I were humans, and as humans, we owe each other at least this." I grabbed the corners of the blanket and pulled them in, tying them together and trapping the remains in it as I lifted the bundle and carried it out and to the balcony.
I put it on the glass table that was there and light the bundle up on fire and, when I was sure the fire would hold good, picked it up and dropped it over the edge.
I crossed my arms and leaned on the small railing, watching the impact sound and the popping off fire draw in three husks that walked into it mindlessly, also burning to death.
I stayed there, wind brushing my hair around, just taking it in, I could almost see the scene, the first death I saw, the boy I killed in my ignorance.
Back here.
Finally setting one of my demons free, brought away in the flames of justice and compassion for the race we both belonged too.
Standing here on the balcony I scaled down to escape my death after crying myself asleep on it after I saw that boy be torn apart and rise again as a husk.
Standing at the start of the story the new me would write.
Standing at the dawn of my new life.
Standing where it all started.