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gjnhjfdhns: Part THIRTY-NINE: Hello, Again

"Ohh, that top looks cute!"

"Too cute for your face, /Manrina/!"

"Oh, shut up, /Mangel/! At least my face isn't like /yours/!"

"Beautiful?"

The four of us snorted with laughter, stepping onto the second floor from the escalator. The mall was usually packed whenever a high-profile movie came out, what with the theatre being right beside it and all. We meandered around the food court, keeping an eye open for an empty table.

"What do you guys want?"

"Nothing, really."

"Oh yea, I forgot, you don't eat food."

"Oh, screw you, Hazel!"

"Whoa there, no thanks! I'm not into guys who're that effeminate!"

"Scre-" She stopped herself mid-word and smacked my arm.

"Hey, look, an open table!" Ale cheered, pointing toward the center of the court. We dashed toward it, the four of us grabbing the chairs on one side just as another group grabbed the chairs on the other. Eyes met and narrowed.

"Hey, this is our table, we were here first," said Anthony.

"Oh, God, we were first, and you know it!" Angel scowled.

"Fcuk you guys!" Andrew said, rolling his eyes. "Buzz off."

"No way!" Yelled Marina. "You fcuk off!"

I looked around, expecting to see a crowd of some sort, but, to my surprise, the food court was nearly empty. The few people that remained, however, stared at us with a looked of muted fear. I could virtually read their minds through their eyes, and everyone was thinking how absurd it was that we were all getting so worked up over a table- especially surrounded by many now empty circles.

It's not absurdWe're not crazy... This is OUR tableOUR table first... They can fcukFCUK off...

It felt like my glasses were tinted red; I took them off, but my vision remained unchanged. Slowly, I slid them back on, each movement bringing more red to my eyes. By the time my glasses were on again, all I saw was red.

and then

a hand bursting through the scarlet nothingness and
sending me backward. I hated that hand, hated it more than I'd ever hated anything in my life, wished it only the most painful of deaths; an arm came to join in, and I hated that, too. The hate seemed to propel every motion of mine, and I relished in it, let it take control of my body (cause it pain, cause it pain, make that hand hurt, make that arm hurt, make the face go away, make them scream)

and then

I was hit again and again, but I felt no pain- only more hate. The strong emotion seemed to be replacing my soul in my body, and the push was almost excrutiating, awakening my rationality.

don't

My body threw another to the ground, and was consequently hammered across the face, but it didn't care, it just continued on, dealing pain like a virus infects.

stop that, it's not you

Kicks and scratches, shoves and punches, it was an anything goes free-for-all and all were getting battered- but it didn't matter, not to the hate, all that mattered was creating more of itself, all that mattered was hurting everything else as much as possible.

it's not them, but it's not you

Suddenly, there was a burst of light, and the red evaporated within the blinding curtain of bright. I was on the ground, lying on the dirty tile of the food court, the ceiling coming into focus- no haze of red to spoil the view. My head was throbbing with pain, stemming from where I think I hit it on the tile. I shifted, choking with agony as a tender spot on my head pressed against the floor. It wasn't the only place that hurt, though; I felt like I had been hit by a train and then run over by a truck. The back of my neck burned. Somewhere, in the distance, I could hear screams and crashes.

"Oh, Jesus..." I groaned, putting my hand on my forehead and squeezing my eyes shut. "What..."

"Hey- Hey! Wake up, wake up!" Someone clapped their hands in front of my face. "Wake up!"

Slowly, I opened my eyes; my lids were heavy, it was almost painful to bring them up. First to come into focus was the upside-down face of Marina. "AGGH!" I would've shot upright, had it not been the the stab of pain in my torso that shot me down. "I- I... Jesus Christ, what kind of torture is this?"

"Hurts that much?" She dusted off her shoulder. "I think I got out earlier than you..."

"I meant waking up to your face."

"Oh, shu' up!"

"What d'you mean, 'got out earlier'?"

"That red thing..." She tapped her chin with a manicured finger. "That fight. Out of nowhere, Mitch pulled people out and whacked them on the back of their neck." She rubbed said spot. "I think that made the red go away..."

I was suddenly aware that I wasn't the only one lying on the ground. There weren't many others, though- in fact, I was one out of four on the ground. "There's... There's only six of us?"

"There were more." She looked strangely grim, and looked away. "Tons more. They ran, though. Can you hear those screams?" For a moment, we were both silent, listening to the faint cries of strangers, and the guttural roars of something familiar. "I think that's them. I think they're rampaging... Only, I don't know who they'd rampage on. This whole place is empty."

I pushed myself into a sitting position, struggling against the hurt I was so unused to. I could clearly see, now, who else was around: Brian, who had thrown an arm over his eyes; Jerome, who was already sitting up; and Mitchell, who was standing over Andrew and gently shaking his shoulder.

"What the hell do we do, now?" I asked, both hands cradling my head, which was aching like nothing else.

Murmured Brian, "Let's go shopping."

Marina and I let out weak laughs. I kept looking around, fully grasping the concept of our location. "How'd we get here? I mean, isn't this Kildo*? Last I remember..."

What did I remember, exactly? The party-gone-hell, yes... The school, and then the explosion... The cemetary, the f-cked up hospital... the stone angel, the underground airplane, Monyo, Ydem... that inhuman dude... the monster, the wall, the-

"HEY!" Ignoring all the limbs that screamed with agony, I stood up and pointed at Mitchell. "YOU! What's the big deal, jumping out of an airplane?! We could have been /killed/! Hell, we could be dead right now! Oh my God, what if we're dead right now?"

"Yea, um, Hazel, does this look like heaven to you?" Andrew asked.

"You're right. I mean, I don't know about you guys, but I'd go to heaven- I'm /just joking/, dude," I put my hands up and backed away from Marina, who had a very indignant look on her face.

"Are you guys talking about that airplane?" Jerome asked. "The one I saw when that angel thing came to life and killed me?"

"You're still alive, Romee."

"Yea, whatever, same thing."

"But you saw the plane?" I asked. "What happened then?"

"I don't remember."

"I remember seeing a plane," Andrew piped. "But that's about it."

"Me too," Brian added.

Marina: "Same."

"But nothing afterward?"

"Yea," they each replied, though at varying times.

"Bastards, you guys dragged us off to some dude's office thing!" Mitchell said, crossing his arms. "You don't remember that?"

"You went to some dude's office thing?" Marina asked.

"Yea. He wasn't really a /dude/, though- I mean," I smiled at all the odd looks I got, "he's not exactly /human/. He had these claws, and he had faceless henchmen." I rubbed my neck where the points of the claws had threatened me to give Mitchell away.

"Yea, Liev and Velei." Mitchell said. "F-cker Liev..." He traced the cut on his cheek, which had stopped bleeding but still looked very red.

"What're you talking about?" I replied, puzzled. "Their names were Monyo and Ydem!"

"What're you, deaf? They were Liev and Velei! I wouldn't forget Liev, that goddamned-"

"No way, man! I know they were Monyo and Ydem!"

"You know, I'm surprised how off you both are."

We all looked at the doors on the far side of the food court, where the relaxed voice had come from. There, on one of the empty tables, stood the man from the airplane.