1.1 Rotting Beginning

Harold was standing at the edge of the riverbank of Misoki. He was just three meters away from the rushing freshwater of Misoki River that is coming from the peak of Mt. Bridgette.

It was five in the afternoon and the sun was about to set in a few minutes. The yellow light coming from the west was slowly coming to its ending as the moon starts to embrace its light upon the dying night sky.

It was a gloomy day for everyone, not only to Harold but also to these folks that he managed to move out of the destructing city, the Troofolis, twenty-two kilometers North from Mount Bridgette.

Everything was supposed to be fine and ordinary and, we people should have a peaceful day where we will meet our family by the end of the tiring day.

But, we cannot always please to have a perfect day, and most of all, we cannot promise to always have stability, there is more to life than the common ground and that means, it is not all about rainbows and butterflies.

It all happened this day.

It is Monday.

Everybody was busy doing their works in their respective workplaces.

Harold was at the police station, organizing the case files on his table.

There were tons of brown folders with white papers noted with heinous complaints and crimes inside, that were piled up at the right side of Harold's desk.

The whole police station was busy, some policemen were having their breakfasts at the cafeteria while some of the other policemen were chatting with each other, talking about what happened on their respective days.

Harold was busy arranging the piles of case when his friend, Hans went to the scene bringing Harold a cup of hot coffee with a paper bag containing two strawberry doughnuts.

"Hey, you good there?" Hans greeted at Harold while placing the coffee at the center of Harold's table alongside the bag of doughnuts.

Harold was interrupted by this and he gestured friendlily. He happily put off the folders to the floor to clean up his table, then he had his breakfast with his close friend.

"Hey! Thank you Hans!" Harold greeted back.

Hans smiled shortly after that and he sat at Harold's table without any hesitation.

"No prob man! How is it going?" Hans politely replied.

"Yeah, honestly, I received three complaints of attempted murder earlier and I think that it is not a coincidence that all of these three came from the employees of JKLM Company!" Harold answered straightly.

"Really? What could be the reason behind all of that?" Hans continued asking.

"You know we cannot make an unstudied hypothesis right? We know how the process of justice works!" Harold argued.

"Yeah, yeah you're right smart ass!" Hans jokingly replied.

"Fuck off dude! How about you? How you doing?" Harold asked back without hesitation.

Hans exhaled exasperatedly and he smiled lightly.

"I received a mysterious note at my car this morning with a note telling me to be prepared for this day" Hans seriously responded.

"Oh shoot! Stop messing around with me!" Harold jokingly responded.

"It is true, the note's still here!" Hans said seriously and then he grabbed a piece of paper out from his pocket.

It is all clear.

It is a piece of letter written in a small portion of a yellow colored paper.

Harold was shocked about this and he even made a shocking face as a respond to this.

"Oh no! We're damned!" Harold overacting the response.

"Fuck off dude!" Hans being pissed off at Harold while putting back the piece of paper back at his pocket.

"You really think you can get me with that childish prank you playing along with me?" Harold jokingly asked.

"I am serious dude, I have a very big feeling that this day ain't going to end well!" Hans said.

"Relax! Maybe it is just your neighbor's son playing a prank at you!" Harold said with a smile on his face.

The smiley face faded after Hans' reponse to that.

"My neighbors were all boarding students, they don't have kids!" Hans responded.

The conversation was cutted shortly after the speaker from the administrative office announced a report.

"Attention to Police Officer Harold Benign and Police Officer Hans Wichter, please occupy police mobile ADS-7740 and politely go in Troofolis Memorial Circle, there is a heinous incident occuring. I repeat, I am calling the attention of Police Officer Benign and Police Officer Wichter, please occupy the police mobile ADS-7740 and politely go to Troofolis Memorial Circle."

The Announcement faded.

Harold and Hans hurriedly headed to the station's inventory to get their vests and pistols: Harold grabbed two caliber 45 pistols with two corresponding ammunition boxes filled with thirty ammos each box while Hans was busy searching for the car key, Harold also gets two medium-sized vests and after some preparations, they're all settled. Harold and Hans carefully wore the vests for protection, and after this, they went now into the parking lot at the back of the station. As soon as they see the assigned car, they hurriedly make their way to it.

The two of them hurriedly entered the police mobile and immediately make their way at Troofolis Memorial Circle.

Hans took the driver's seat while Harold occupied the passenger seat next to him.

Harold was reloading their pistols carefully and Hans was seriously driving the mobile to the destination.

"You sure we need pistols in this?" Hans asked.

"I don't know, maybe we should prepare too, for assurance!" Harold replied while still reloading the guns.

After several minutes that had passed by, the two policemen arrived at the grassy park at the center of the circular intersection.

Civilians were circling around the event making it hard for the two cops to see the situation.

"Hey, everybody, move!" Hans shouted powerfully, that alarmed the civilians.

Folks were alarmed by this and they were forced to do what the cops are asking for them to do.

As the civilians went thinner and thinner, it is slowly becoming clearer to the policemen what was happening.

There was a pale looking lady at the center of the park with a big wound on her neck which was severely bleeding. The lady was crying hysterically, pleading people to kill her immediately .

"What happened here?" Hans asked the witnesses.

There is a woman assisting the wounded lady by wiping the wound and that woman turned at the two policemen after hearing the policemen's voices.

"Hey Ma'am, you know what is happening here?" Hans asked unhesitantly.

The woman answered with a horror on her face saying, "Tell the people to leave this place now!"

The two policemen were confused by this statement and as soon as the woman turns back, the lady crying had already turned into a monstrous humanoid creature with pitch black eyes and overgrown veins all throughout its body.It swiftly devoured the old woman's neck with its reanimated sharp teeth. The old woman tried to scream at the top of her voice for help but as the creature pull out its teeth, the flesh of the woman's nech was also pulled out, exposing some blood-filled flesh looking like a marinated pork for barbeque. The woman cried for the last time because of pain and she immediately passed out as the creature tries another bite on her flesh.

Hans turned back at Harold in a horrifying face and screamed.

"Tell everybody to run!"

Dozens of same creature appeared from the distance and they were all aggressively running towards the folks, where did these creatures come from?

Harold scaredily turned back to the people and shouted.

"Everybody, Run!"

The civilians were alarmed by this and they all make their ways away from the direction creatured are coming from.

Harold immediately ran across the radius of the memorial circle and grabbed people with him.

Hans, however ran to the same direction as Harold and the two of them rescued as many people as they can.

Harold saw a water delivery truck at the highway with enough space at its back to place some people, he decided to put these people there and he made these rescued people get inside for shelter. He successfully put seven people aboard and grabbed another two people from the running crowd and place them inside the police mobile, for the truck can only carry seven people.

Accidents occurred at the highway, committing more casualties in the area. Cars and other vehicles were twisted around the highway and the creatures had managed to devoure more and more people as the time goes by.8

It was a critical situation for Harold and Hans to get these rescued people to safety. So they have to move fast.

Harold went to talk to the water delivery man and instructed him to follow the trail which is going to be lead by the police mobile, the delivery man agreed, settling their conversation.

Harold went back to the police mobile and looked back to Hans who was dramatically looking at the car collision victims who were trapped inside their vehicles. There is a flipped car in the highway containing a mother, and her child crying at the trapped scenario.

Someone has to save them and it was Hans.

"I need to save them!" Hans said as he looked back at Harold while lending him the car key.

"Wait, don't tell me you're not going!" Harold said with seriousness on his face.

"I will find a way somehow in order to go after you, just make these people climb at Mount Bridgette, twenty-two kilometers south, no turning, just go at the high altitudes and survive as long as you can!" Hans instructed and he immediately went out of the car to rescue the distressed mother inside the trapped car.

Harold guiltily move over to the drivers' seat and forcefully started the engine and drove the car even though it is against his will.

Harold headed to the highway heading south with the delivery truck following behind him. He geared the car way faster than the usual, to get there before the sun sets and to have enough time to scavenge for survival things.

The dismayed man, Harold was crying mildly in the front of the steering wheel and while driving, he looked back at the faces of the two survivors that he saved earlier from the rear mirror.

Both of them were crying and they were undoubtedly friends who are hugging each other's arms tightly.

One of them smiled at Harold while crying and even though she's just mumbling words, she tried to say her gratitude towards Harold.

"Thank you, Mister!".