Annoying bitch. I was prepared with my backstory and Purple Banshee interrupted this crucial part of the movie. Sharing backgrounds was essential because someone had to break out a sob story for their later death to have an emotional impact. Also, one or two characters would lie and get found out later—that could be me. Purple Banshee here just had to be a diva and deviate from the script.
Green-Eyed Hero rushed over, sledgehammer at the ready. Kinda weird he found that item in jail. Another point of suspicion for him. And he was fine lugging that heavy thing around? Two points. Or was it three?
“Where’s the body?” he asked Purple Banshee.
“Over there!” Purple Banshee pointed but didn’t look. “By those frilly leaves. I’m sure I saw a foot.”
“It’s a foot alright.” Green-Eyed Hero turned the sledgehammer around and used its handle to sweep away the grass. “A foot… and there’s the rest of the body scattered. This man looks like he’s been mauled badly.”
“Let me see.” Beach Man cleared more of the undergrowth, took a look at the corpse, and then gagged. “Holy fuck, his face is gone!”
“Killed by an Adumbrae?” Frizzy Detective wondered. “Or a wild animal?”
“I don’t think this is a wild animal,” said Green-Eyed Hero. “Some body parts here and there. Only the face was eaten. It’s tipping more into sadistic violence than a hungry animal having a meal. Take a look for yourself,”
“I’d rather not,” Frizzy Detective replied. “I’m man enough to admit my stomach can’t handle that.”
I walked towards the corpse. Green-Eyed Hero tried to stop me but I shot him a glare, daring him to say what was on his mind. He wasn’t man enough to start a gender conflict, so he let me through. I discerned from his face that he expected me to bolt upon seeing the gruesome sight.
“Tha-that does look bad.” I pretended struggling to keep down a vomit. I took on the role of the girl trying to act tough because Purple Banshee was already the scaredy-cat even though I looked the part. “This has to be the work of that Adumbrae we met. Those holes… I remember its tongue could stab people…” Dramatic pause to appear like I was trying to compose myself.
“Francis, want to search this corpse?” Green-Eyed Hero asked with a smirk.
“No, thank you.” Frizzy Detective turned around and started to walk away. “We shouldn’t stay here. The Adumbrae might come back.”
“Like a criminal revisiting a crime scene,” I said.
What should I do when we do get attacked by an Adumbrae? I had to reveal myself. My face would be back to Red Hood attacking Red Island. More accurately, my face right now was Red Hood pretending to be a normal human. When should I pull off my figurative hood and reveal I was an Adumbrae? That was an important scene. Do I let all these people die first and then kill the Adumbrae killing them?
Boring. It’d be best to see the reaction of my groupmates come revelation time. Surprising only the enemy Adumbrae would be underwhelming. I was here to enjoy myself; drama was the priority.
A curious thing was that there had been no teleportation wave for some time now. Was it not its schedule yet? Or was everything outside the prison buildings not subject to teleportation? Would be annoying to have a human hunting game while the prey kept getting transferred to other locations.
As we traveled to only the Mother Core knows where, Frizzy Detective went on with his backstory. He was an accountant coming home late from a company diner, he told us. Then he met a beautiful lady he assumed was from a different department. They hit it off and went to a bar. Same as Beach Man, he must’ve been drugged and kidnapped. Not sure if I should be suspicious of his lame-ass story. It sounded too simple that it seemed made up. But the truth was usually mundane.
Schoolteacher was hesitant to share that she met up with an online date. Boom, boom, pow, she got kidnapped. Oh, and she wasn’t a schoolteacher. Some generic government employee; I tuned out her explanation. Her nickname remains.
Purple Banshee, on the other hand, was adamant about not sharing anything, even a fake story to appease the group. Made her less suspicious in my eyes. Maybe that was her game plan?
Of note was that none of these people were homeless. They weren’t nobodies that nobody would miss.
Why were they taken? Didn’t the 2Ms target people whose disappearance wouldn’t cause a fuss? What was the common thing that tied all of them? Frizzy Detective wanted to figure it out as well, badgering us with questions I was only too eager to answer. Fake stories stored in my head needed to be free. Consider this as a creative outlet.
“I have a theory,” said Frizzy Detective. “The commonality among us is that we’ve seen an Adumbrae.”
“Wha-what are you talking about?” Beach Man asked.
“Seen an Adumbrae with our own eyes,” continued Frizzy Detective said. “Not on TV or a video recording or whatnot. I’ll even go as far as to say that we’ve all encountered an Adumbrae. Why do I say that? I’ll be the first to admit—I’m a survivor of the recent Adumbrae Titan attack on La Esperanza. I was in a building that partially collapsed when the giant mushroom monster passed. Now… am I correct or not?”
“I-I was a kid when an Adumbrae attacked my town,” Beach Man said, scratching the back of his head. “Many people died, including my uncle. That was some twenty years back. I guess that’s an encounter.”
Frizzy Detective could be right, I thought. Finding people who had encountered an Adumbrae—I was included in this category—shouldn’t be too difficult. There were government records and all that. But why gather them to just throw them away as fodder for the hunt? Could this be an experiment trying to trigger a seeding and summon a real Adumbrae?
“I… I’m from Las Vegas,” I said, hesitantly raising my arm. “I worked in a building with a view of the Greaves Convention Center. I watched the BID close in on the center and… saw some monsters. I swear that I was super far. Can’t even call that an encounter. But… yeah, I saw them with my own eyes.”
“Thanks for your honesty, Helen,” Frizzy Detective said, calling me by the fake name I gave them earlier. “Anyone else wants to contribute their own experiences? I believe we’re making headway to finding out why we’re here. Tristan, you’ve got something to say?”
Green-Eyed Hero had stopped walking. “Yeah, I’ve got something to say. There’s something over there, by the trees.” He strode forward, sledgehammer at the ready. “Get behind me.”
The rest of us looked at each other. A rustling of leaves. Purple Banshee yelped, “A person!”
A man with a tattered tuxedo flecked with blood stumbled out from behind a tree. “Thank goodness I found you! Please help—”
“Stay where you are!” Green-Eyed Hero had his sledgehammer at the ready. “Not one step closer.”
“Don’t attack!” Tattered Tux raised his arms as he hobbled. “I don’t have weapons. An Adumbrae… we were attacked by an Adumbrae! Me a-and, uh, others. Six of us! They’re all dead and I—”
The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
“I said don’t come closer!” Green-Eyed Hero roared. “Show us your injuries first.”
Smart thinking. I just realized that zombie movies were the opposite of Adumbrae movies. In zombie movies, survivors had to be wary of people with injuries because they could be infected with the virus. In Adumbrae movies, people with no injuries could be the Adumbrae. Funny how that worked.
Tattered Tux still approached us, even stumbling down the rocks. “I’m bloodied and hurt, can’t you see—”
Bang! A gunshot.
Tattered Tux dropped to the ground.
Looking over my shoulder, I saw that it was Frizzy Detective who fired.
“You’ve got a frigging gun all along?” Beach Man exclaimed.
“I found it from the guard that Tristan bludgeoned,” Frizzy Detective answered. “It pays to be frisky sometimes.”
“Why did you shoot him?” Green-Eyed Hero reached for Frizzy Detective’s gun, but the latter pointed it at him. Green-Eyed Hero retreated. “The hell is this?”
Frizzy Detective lowered the gun and gestured at the fallen Tattered Tux. “Smash his head and make sure he’s dead. Only a destroyed brain can stop an Adumbrae from coming back.”
“I’m not going to do that! Are you out of your goddamn mind?”
“Remember the writing on the wall: Don’t trust anyone. We have to assume any person we meet is an Adumbrae.”
“You’re going to believe those scribblings?” Green-Eyed Hero shook his head. “I’m not going to be a murderer.”
Frizzy Detective pointed an accusatory finger at him. “You already killed two guards.”
This is like watching a movie, I giddily thought. Would be good to have some popcorn to snack on, though I didn’t like popcorn. Noisy crunching in the theatre. Been quite busy lately that I didn’t have time to watch some good movies even just on my laptop. This scene was better than a movie because it was real life, and I was in it.
“That was different.” Green-Eyed Hero went to check on Tattered Tux. Despite not agreeing with Frizzy Detective, Green-Eyed Hero was still cautious, poking at Tattered Tux with the sledgehammer’s head. “This man was no threat.”
Frizzy Detective shrugged. “Better safe than sorry. Let’s leave. The gunshot would draw attention to us.”
Laughter filled the air. It didn’t come from anyone in our group.
Tattered Tux slowly sat up. “You’re much better than the previous bunch of people I ate.”
Green-Eyed Hero was quick to swing his sledgehammer, hitting Tattered Tux in the head.
I didn’t get to see what happened next because Frizzy Detective grabbed me and yelled, “Everyone, run!”
Surprising that Frizzy Detective took me with him. He must’ve remembered Green-Eyed Hero raising an issue when the first monster appeared and he ran off on his own. What wasn’t surprising was that Tattered Tux was an Adumbrae. We were at the point of the movie when the monster should show up, and the appearance of Tattered Tux just screamed suspicious asshole.
I checked the others as Frizzy Detective dragged me.
Green-Eyed Hero wasn’t dead yet? Tattered Tux was several feet away from where he had stood. Green-Eye Hero must’ve managed to hit him far. Strong guy for a human. Tattered Tux spouted bullshit, but his words slurred and became unintelligible as he transformed into a large snake monster and wriggled out of his tattered tux.
What should I call him now? Sneaky Snake? Suitless Serpent?
My groupmates ran in different directions. Schoolteacher and Purple Banshee were together, disappearing into a brambly thicket. Beach Man was already gone. Green-Eyed Hero ditched his sledgehammer—that was sad to see—and ran opposite where the women went. Suitless Serpent decided to chase Green-Eyed Hero.
We fucking split up! In movies, this would be the beginning of the end. Each person would get picked off by the monster until it was only the main characters left.
The bigger problem was that I couldn’t do my dramatic reveal if the others had gone to get their idiot selves killed. I only had one audience left—Frizzy Detective. He seemed like a downer when it came to reactions. Oh well…
“Don’t look back,” said Frizzy Detective. “Can you run on your own?”
“Yes, I can.”
“Good.” He let go of my arm. “Do your best to keep up with me. Alert me if you’re falling behind. Does your feet hurt?”
“They do, but I can manage,” I said. “Hard to feel pain when fearing for my life is the only thing in my brain.” Odd that he suddenly cared about me.
Did this mean I was his love interest? He did have that vibe of a survivor, so he’d have lots of screen time if kept this up. Be the main character even. And that meant he needed a leading lady. I was the only option. Not like Purple Banshee or Schoolteacher were particularly suitable for the role. They’d probably be dead soon anyway.
“We’ll head north,” Frizzy Detective explained. “I saw mountains that way. We’ll have higher chances of finding water springing from the mountainside. As for food, we’ll try foraging for mushrooms.”
“The mountains?” I asked. “Wouldn’t that be, you know, hard to climb?”
“Yes, but the Adumbrae might think we’ll go back, instead of circling and moving northward.”
“I guess you’re right…” Was everyone in our group suspicious?
“Unless we were trapped on an island, there’s a high chance that the mountains are the borders of this… whatever this place is. It could be just wild hope, but we might find civilization on the other side of the mountains.”
“You’re not an accountant, are you?”
“I’ve taken some accounting courses.” He grinned at me. “And I’ve learned some survival things… somewhere. I’m not going to say more than that. You have your secrets too, don’t you?”
“Erm, yes,” I said, looking away. We now have some lies revealed. The time for my own revelation drew near. If only we could reunite with the others.
But that might not be possible. Screams echoed through the trees. Birds chirped as they vacated the canopies above. It sounded like a female voice.
“Keep moving,” Frizzy Detective said. “Ignore the shouts. Don’t let them get it to you.”
“Yeah, I know,” I said. “I should keep focus on—oh!” My foot wrappings snagged on a root exposed aboveground. The cloth tore. I almost tumbled.
“Are you okay?” Frizzy Detective caught me. Romance music started rolling. He let go of me, his cheeks blushing. He went down on one knee, not to propose but to check on my foot. The wrappings were falling off.
I walked past him to avoid getting examined. “We should continue. I’m fine, really. The Adumbrae might be nearby.”
“Are you sure?” He slowly stood up, giving me a perplexed look. “You must be in pain. I can help—”
“Francis! Helen!” Purple Banshee was up a tree. “Thank the Mother Core I’m not alone. I can’t find the others. I think Ms. Harper is dead.”
Ms. Harper must be Schoolteacher’s real name. I barely listened to her story.
Purple Banshee descended from the tree, and Frizzy Detective helped her. “Did you guys see the Adumbrae?” she asked. “Are you both okay?”
“We didn’t see the Adumbrae,” I said. “And we’re fine.”
“Too fine.” Frizzy Detective pointed his gun at me and fired.
My foot gave me away, I managed to think before the bullet hit me in the chest. It was comparable to a strong poke, but I still enacted my theatrical fall. This would be turned slow-motion during editing. As my head hit the ground, I realized that I did the exact same thing as Suitless Serpent. I should’ve remained standing to spook both of them. Too late now. What were they going to do next?
Purple Banshee yelped. “Why did you shoot—?
“She’s an Adumbrae,” Frizzy Detective hurriedly replied. “Huh, why are you staying?” He must’ve tried to pull her. “Let’s go before the Adumbrae gets up!”
“You’re wrong.”
“What? You have to trust me that she’s an Adumbrae! Don’t think I’m shooting people for the fun of it. This time, I’m sure—”
Purple Banshee laughed. Her voice changed from trembling to confident and strong. “I’m the Adumbrae, you moron.”
Dun, dun, dun, I thought.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts to answer the previous chapter's Author's Notes. The consensus seems to be that REND shouldn't stray into numbers. I agree. We stick to a soft system. The draw of REND is Erind's shenanigans anyway, not the power system or progression. I have some more questions:
Many say that authors shouldn't get swayed by the opinions of readers, but I want to hear your thoughts since you've reached (almost) the end of REND 1.0. People who've read only the earlier chapters would have different opinions compared to you, who liked REND enough to read its 2.8k pages. We've been on this journey together, so how was it?
