TADASHI HAMADA IS STANDING in a warehouse. It is early in the morning, cold, when frost is just beginning to break by stray beams of daylight and the air cuts through fabric and skin to the very marrow of his bones.

(•–•)

A NOTE

Tadashi Hamada is holding a pipe in his hand.

It is dripping with blood.

(•–•)

There is a writhing shadow at his feet—a miserable, painful blob of mutilated flesh that reaches for him with a wet moan pealing from its formless lips.

Tadashi steps back. His breath is rapid and his heart rate more so; his face is twisted into angles and directions that it never has before, and his limbs tremble as he raises the pipe over his head, ready to deal the final blow. The soles of his shoes slick against the blood-coated cement as throws the pipe down with every ounce of strength.

It hits. Directly, efficiently, sickeningly.

The figure flops against the ground with a resounding squelch—like watermelon pounded against iron. Tadashi drops the pipe and crouches over the corpse, letting the dull, metallic ring pulse through his eardrums to the frozen tips of his toes. Blood swirls around the kneecaps of his patchwork jeans, dying his skin crimson.

"I'm sorry," he chokes, fingers curling into the well-worn black fabric on the corpse before him. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so so sorry."

Using a gun would've been merciful. But he didn't have that privilege. No one did.

(•–•)

TADASHI HAMADA

The deadliest enemy in an apocalypse is not the zombie.

It is the one you trust.

(•–•)

It's fifteen minutes after Tadashi leaves the warehouse. He packs dirt over his knees and scrapes it away. The blood looks older, worn; it'll blend in with all the other stains and tears on his jeans; it won't draw suspicion. At least, that's what he hopes.

He slips back to the main path: the bumpy, dilapidated remains of a highway, bathing in the slim remains of blue light before it must bake in the beating rays of the sun at high noon. Nothing surrounds it but weeds and dead field. That, and the corpses.

Hiro is sitting on one, spinning some kind of improvised metal tool in his hands as he stares distantly down the road. He used to be terrified of corpses. Now, they don't even phase him.

"Morning, Hiro," Tadashi says with a pasted smile.

"Morning," Hiro says. The corpse twitches beneath him. He smashes its skull with his tool and it lies still.

Tadashi rummages through the fields for a moment before he finally finds his trusty bag.

"Sleep well?" he calls to Hiro.

"As never," Hiro snickers, leaping to his feet. "But guess what I found?"

"What?"

"I told you to guess."

"A purple platypus."

"That's a really bad guess."

"You didn't ask for a good one."

Hiro rolls his eyes and sticks out his lower lip like an ordinary petulant 14-year-old kid. "Fine. Follow me."

And Tadashi does.

(•–•)

HIRO HAMADA

Their parents turned when he was four.
He killed them to protect Tadashi.

But he doesn't remember,
and Tadashi will never tell him.

(•–•)

Hiro leads him further down the highway, where the broken asphalt begins its faded gradient to crimson. They're maybe down a half mile when he turns abruptly off the road, leading Tadashi into a segment of field where the grass stretches above their heads. Tadashi keeps his eyes straight ahead and ignores the crunching bones beneath his feet.

"You ready?" Hiro says, pulling to a stop.

Tadashi smiles. "Ready to be disappointed?" he teases.

Hiro slaps him on the back. "Ready to be amazed!" he crows, throwing his arm to brush a large section of grass aside.

A bulky pick up truck is collapsed on one side, deflated wheels sagging against the remnants of its underside. More paint is chipped than remaining and none of its windows are intact. Tadashi peers inside and is gifted with the smell of year-old cheeseburgers and a 36-ounce soda that is certainly insect paradise.

"Gee, I'm overwhelmed," Tadashi says wryly.

"This isn't even the best part," Hiro chirps. "C'mon, help me lift her up. This baby'll take us all the way to Las Vepporo."

Tadashi sighs, but stoops down obligingly. "This thing? It's busted, Hiro. Where can we even find any new wheels?"

"Won't need any," Hiro says. "Three, two, one, heave!"

Tadashi grunts, righting the truck upwards. Somehow, it's much lighter than he thought it would be. "Wait… is this…?"

"A carbon-fiber hovercraft with a solar-charged hydroelectric engine, disguised as a rickety old truck?" Hiro smirks and throws the door open. "What would give you the notion?"

"C'mere, bonehead," Tadashi cries, grabbing Hiro around the neck with one arm. Hiro yelps, clawing blindly behind him.

"Stop it!"

"Unbelievable," Tadashi says. "You didn't even have to try, did you?"

Hiro worms out of his grip and jumps into the car, tossing rotting food and decapitated limbs out to the field with all the tact of a toddler. "I can't help it if I'm so attractive," he drawls with a playful smirk.

Tadashi lounges against the hood of the truck as Hiro slides beneath it with his makeshift tool. "I find it hard to believe that someone would just leave this here."

Hiro only shrugs. "Good for us. Did you find Aunt Cass?"

Tadashi sighs. "You know how she gets."

A loud, metallic bang makes Tadashi glance under the car in concern, but Hiro doesn't seem to be fazed in the slightest.

"I'm sure she'll meet us at Denveshima," Tadashi continues. "And are you sure you can get that to work—?"

The engine revs and the truck vibrates to life. Hiro dusts his grimy hands against his equally grimy jacket, flashing a smile at Tadashi.

"Sorry, what was that?"

"Yeah, yeah. Calm your ego," Tadashi says fondly.

Hiro only smirks and leaps into the car. Tadashi smiles back, but inside, he can't help but wonder just what Hiro could have done a decade ago, in an ordinary civilization with science at his fingertips.

Maybe he would've just wasted all his time, ignoring school because it was too boring or too stupid. Yeah, that sounds more like Hiro.

"Hurry up, you old geezer. You take forever."

"Slow down, whippersnapper," Tadashi tosses back, slipping into the driver's seat. He slowly edges the hovercar out to the highway.

"Las Vepporo, here we come!" Hiro crows.

But Tadashi hesitates with his hand over the throttle, changing a final glance back to the abandoned warehouse, half-dissolved in the polluted distance.

"Goodbye, Aunt Cass," he mumbles.

He turns to greet the bloody dawn.

(•–•)

AN OBITUARY

Aunt Cass was always a fighter.

The average turning time is 15 minutes.

She took two hours.

tbc.