"The Lost", Chapter Four

Aug 21, 2009 20:48

Title: The Lost
Chapter: 4/10
Fandom: Arashi
Character, Pairing(s): Jun, Aiba, Sho
Rating: R
Warnings: Language, frightening situations.
Summary: Do you remember me? Lost for so long? Will you be on the other side? Will you forget me?


It was half past three on Sho’s wristwatch when they were finally able to sneak away.

Since the explosion, security had increased. Not that there were really enough staff to keep track of people, but meals were watched closely, curfew was strictly enforced and all the exits were manned around the clock. But that left the basement doors unguarded, at least after curfew.

All three of them together was too risky. Sho and Aiba had gone the night before since they needed the lock picked and redone each time. Tonight would be his turn with Aiba. Sho moved to the middle bed, moving his backpack and the other pillows around to make it look like there were enough bodies there if a flashlight passed really quickly.

Aiba headed off first, past snoring students. They went in socks because their bare feet tended to squeak on the gym floor. Jun followed as quietly as he could - he’d been awake long enough that his eyes had adjusted well enough. They made their way down the corridor in silence, Aiba leading the way with the little screwdriver clutched in his fist like a lifeline.

The basement hallway was deserted. Only the humming from the boiler room made any noise. Aiba knelt down in front of the radio room door, his usual blissful expression replaced with serious concentration. He’d only been Aiba’s acquaintance for a few weeks, but he’d never met anyone who wore his heart on his sleeve as openly.

If Jun was alone in his head, he could forget about things for a minute or two. But all it took was one glance at Aiba to change things around. The unashamed, open smile when someone told a joke, something rarer as the weeks went by. Or the way his eyes would darken and his fists would clench when people talked about the explosion from the other day. Aiba was an open book and a constant reminder that the world’s axis was off its tilt. He didn’t hate Aiba for it - Aiba kept Jun honest.

Aiba had the tip of his tongue poking out of the side of his mouth as he worked the screwdriver inside the lock. Jun kept watch, arms crossed and suspicious. There’d been nothing the night before, and he knew that O.S. and N.K. claimed to have taken their broadcasts on the road, but he had to know more. Flying something blue - he needed something large enough. And just where would he put something like that? His immediate thought was the roof, but how would he get up there?

The lock turned, and Aiba mumbled a relieved “I did it!” under his breath as he got up from his crouch. Jun followed him into the radio room and closed the door. The equipment was there, just as it had been left by the staff who’d put the radio on for the day.

There were still government announcements every day without fail - but they were meaningless weren’t they? No mention of the explosion that had probably rocked the whole city. Earthquake, the staff had told them. But Jun had experienced earthquakes before - even tiny ones shook the ground underneath you and sent you racing for the nearest door frame. No, this had been a different sound entirely. It had to have been a bomb. But what had been hit? And who had set it off? Their only answers would come from O.S. and N.K.

Jun switched over the radio controls to the room. Aiba tapped his stocking foot against a box of microphones, the friction of his foot against the cardboard making Jun want to tell him to stop. But there was no way he could. Every time they left their beds it was a risk. He couldn’t any other people in this place, so he’d let Aiba let out his nervous tension as he saw fit.

He turned the dial, desperately trying to find the signal. There was only static. Five minutes passed, then ten. When twenty minutes had gone by, Aiba grew even more antsy and started to pace the floor. They’d always picked up the Survivor Radio broadcast within minutes - there was no message, not today.

“I need to know what to do,” he mumbled to himself, willing the calm, almost sleepy voice of O.S. to come over the waves and make another flippant remark about the weather.

“We should probably get back, Jun.”

He fiddled with the dial more, staring the radio down, begging for some kind of broadcast. Anything was preferable to the pops and hiss of the static. “Damn it,” he said, punching the panel.

Aiba gasped as the sound of the buzzer on the scoreboard went off upstairs, a loud and disconcerting noise. Everyone had to have woken up. “Jun!”

“Fuck!” he cried, switching the dials back. Letting his anger get the best of him. Sho was going to be so pissed with him. He hurried into the hallway, eager to just take off running, but Aiba had to get the door back the way they’d found it. The lock clicked, and they were running.

There was no time to get back to their beds, and he pulled Aiba into the locker room as soon as they made it up the stairs. He raced for the first shower stall, and Aiba caught on quickly enough and headed for one a few down. They’d be checking everywhere, up and down the aisles. All Jun could think about as he tore off the scrubs was Sho, who’d have a lot of explaining to do.

The shower spray was ice cold, and Aiba let out a yelp as soon as he got his on. Late night showers were breaking curfew, sure, but their desire for cleanliness was a better excuse than being in the basement in a staff only room. The door opened and one of the thugs in charge came calling.

“Hey! Supposed to be in bed!”

“Sorry!” Jun shouted, turning off the freezing water as Aiba did the same. His teeth were nearly chattering as he put the scrubs back on over his wet body. This was probably a bad idea, but he hadn’t had time to grab a towel.

Aiba came out of his stall, and he’d managed to find a towel to wrap around himself and one for his head. Jun realized that his new friend was something of a miracle worker. “Sorry!” Aiba said apologetically. “We’ll get right back to bed now.”

The guy eyed them suspiciously, but they were both wet, so who could say that they’d been anywhere else? Aiba went to change, and Jun waited patiently, bumping his forehead against one of the lockers.

“Aiba…”

“Don’t worry.” A towel came flying over the lockers to land on the ground next to him. He smiled, grabbing for a new shirt and bottoms from one of the piles and toweling off. He wouldn’t have to go to bed in wet clothes after all. “I’m sure Sho’s smart brain came up with a good excuse.”

The scoreboard was his fault. He was too overexcited, too nervous. Even Aiba hadn’t lost control like this. They headed back for the gym, and the guard guy was waiting just outside the locker room door and escorted them there. Sho was still in the middle under the covers, looking asleep as far as Jun could tell. Maybe he’d told whoever came by that they’d been in the shower anyhow - it was the best excuse.

The guy with the flashlight wasn’t going away, and Sho wasn’t moving. Jun swallowed down the lump in his throat, moving over to his cot while Aiba said nothing and headed for Sho’s on the opposite side. The guard waited until they were back under the covers before walking away.

He stayed at the far edge of the cot, facing away from Sho. Jun was almost asleep when he felt a finger poke in his spine.

“Scoreboard,” Sho whispered. “Way to go.”

There wasn’t anger but amusement, and he didn’t know which one was more unsettling coming from his senpai. Sho turned over, moving closer to Aiba. He exhaled the breath he didn’t even know he’d been holding before pulling the pillow over his head to try and get some rest.



The scoreboard numbers seemed brighter than usual.

Jun stared up at them, one hand behind his head- he had long since given up on sleeping. His brain was too busy, too furious, too full of what if's and how come's to slip into dreams. They hadn't been able to get O.S. and N.K.'s broadcast for days, but he had the paper in his bag with the dates scribbled on it- would they come? If they found something blue to put up, would Survivor Radio find them?

None of that was really important when compared to the biggest weight on Jun's shoulders: did they want to be found?

There was something to be said about the relative safety of the center, of the smelly, too-small gymnasium that was more damnation than salvation. No matter how many fights broke out within the showers, there were walls- there were bars and locks and sheets over the windows just like the blinds pulled over their eyes. Maybe they were better off not knowing what was out there. Maybe they were safer being kept from the truth, from reality; then again, maybe not. Their food stores were running out, and there was no word from the constantly repeating government messages- did they really have that much to lose?

Jun shifted and turned over, hugging the pillow tighter. Weeks ago, the only decision he had to agonize about was whether or not purchasing a breakfast meal plan would be worth the money. He would rather be concerned over his ability to wake in the morning and get to the dining center than worrying about whether or not the still-unknown threat outside was easier to handle than the slow starvation that awaited them in the gym.

How badly he wished he didn't have to make the decision- but it was his to make. They all had to make it for themselves.

And Jun- he wanted out. Things were deteriorating inside, and they had no information. They stood a better chance of finding out what was happening around them beyond the confines of Safety Center 9, and if he had to do it himself, then so be it. Existing alone wasn't the worst thing in the world. Jun was used to being alone- used to waking up alone.

Next to him, Aiba shifted, and the blankets tangled in his lanky limbs. The sheet fell off of Jun's foot, exposing his toes to the cold air of the gym.

"It's three," Sho whispered. Jun breathed deeply, cheek against the itchy linen pillowcase. Sho didn't say anything else- there really didn't seem to be much else necessary. They all knew, in the tightness and heaviness in their stomachs.

But for a very long time, none of them moved.

"We could put an exercise ball on a stick," Aiba said, after a long silence that stretched between them like sticky cobwebs.

Sho sighed. "Or use a yoga mat?"

There was a bubble of laughter that lodged itself in Jun's throat- he shouldn't have worried. Without any goading from him, Sho and Aiba had arrived at the same conclusion.

"One by one," he said, under his breath. "Meet down at the door to the PA system."

Aiba went first. They couldn't leave one person behind, not then. It was a group decision, and a group execution. They had to risk all three being found out of their beds, but Jun still grabbed for his bag as silently as possible to shove into the empty space where Aiba had just been lying. It wasn't much, but it was all they could do.

If everything went according to plan, they wouldn't be in Safety Center 9 that much longer anyway.

Sho was second. Jun could only see him for a few feet as he moved away from the cots, pressing himself up against the un-extended bleachers that stacked over one another in criss-crossing bands of metal. And then Jun waited, counting silently to twenty, until his heart beat slowed again and he heard nothing from the hallway both had disappeared down.

Five minutes later, he joined them by the locked door and the hastily scrawled 'staff only' sign.

"It has to be something that won't blow away," Sho said, without preamble, as soon as Jun arrived. "Something that won't fall down."

"Could we even get a mat upright like that?" Aiba asked. Jun turned his attention to the mats on the shelves, wedged between jump ropes and step aerobic platforms. Mats would be heavy- and what would they prop it up on? He chewed on his bottom lip, rolling it between his teeth.

There was a heavy silence, and Jun could hear Aiba's fingers sliding over the bumpy surface of the exercise balls.

"Maybe it doesn't have to hang?" Jun said. "Maybe- maybe it's just enough to be visible? And blue?"

Sho shrugged, crossing his arms. "Still, no matter what we use, we have to get it somewhere where they can see it."

"The roof," Jun and Aiba said at the same time, in tandem. They shared a glance, and Aiba smiled a little.

"How do we get to the roof?" Sho asked. He sounded annoyed, but Jun knew it was just nerves-nerves and tension and the dread of possibly knowing after so long of not, of frustration and the never-ending sensation that they were going stir-crazy.

Aiba made a 'aha!' noise in the back of his throat. "Distraction?"

"Fake something?" Jun suggested. When both turned to look at him, he put his hands out, palms facing up towards the ceiling. "Asthma attack? Panic attack?"

"Could probably really have a panic attack," Sho muttered.

Aiba pulled out one of the yoga mats, and it unfolded, hitting the ground with a muffled thud. Jun stared down at it- was it blue enough? It was more navy than cerulean, but perhaps it would still function as they needed it to. Was it enough, was it large enough to be visible?

"It'll take two of us for a distraction," Aiba said, slowly. "One has to get to the roof while everything is going on."

There was another uncomfortable silence, and then Sho extended his hand, fingers tightly fisted. "Janken?"

Jun nodded, and held out his own hand, and Aiba did the same. They mumbled through the routine. Aiba took rock- Sho and Jun took paper. Aiba let his hand fall back down to his side as Jun turned to face Sho square-on. His heart was in his throat as his hand shot out- rock. Sho had scissors.

Jun sighed, the noise whistling through his teeth a bit. "Okay."

"What do we put up?" Sho asked.

Jun was inclined to go with the yoga mat, but something caught his eye on one of the shelves, a box with a bit of color coming out the top. He reached over, pulling it free in a shower of dust particles that made his nose itch. It was a box of mesh jerseys, the kind you throw on over a shirt while playing a game that required two different colored teams. The top was all varying shades of red, but underneath there were blue ones- bright blue, really bright, the blue you couldn't miss even against the hue of the sky.

"Yeah," Aiba breathed. He grabbed for the first one, pull it out and taking several more with it. "Yeah, guys, these will work. Tie them together."

They worked for several minutes in companionable silence, fingers furiously flying over the webbed material.

"Hang it on anything," Sho instructed, reverting back to take-charge mode. Threads connected, Jun balled the makeshift flag up into a roll he could slip under his arm. "An exhaust pipe, the ladder- anything. Make it obvious."

He made an affirmative noise, too anxious to be irritated. "What will you do?"

"Freak out," Sho answered.

"The showers?" Aiba offered. "It would be further away from the stairs Jun needs to get up."

Jun's heart was hammering wildly, and had somehow made its way to his throat. He tried swallowing it down again, but only half-succeeded.

"When you hear everyone move, go," Sho said.

"Yeah," Jun agreed.

He found a nook just beyond the storage room, safely out of sight in the darkness of the shadows. His hands were trembling as he watched the other two steal away towards the locker room. There were guards nearby, but they weren't really moving- the flashlight circles on the ground were stationing, wavering only slightly near the toes of their boots. They spoke in low, bored tones that Jun could faintly overhear.

Down the hall, he couldn't see Sho and Aiba anymore- were they in position? Were they ready? He sucked in a breath and held it without knowing what he was really doing.

Sho's scream scared him, and he jumped, pressing a hand against the wall while mentally cursing himself for not expecting it. It scared the guards near him, too- he could see the flashlight swing wildly, and then aim down the hall towards the doors to the showers. There were shouts, and then hard footsteps that sounded as if someone was stomping angrily against the tiles.

"Help!" Aiba hollered. "Someone help my friend!"

It would have been wildly hilarious had Jun not been pressed into a corner praying with everything he had for the guards to both leave the area. They did- two steps of hurried footsteps started down the hall, leaving the end open.

"Who's there?" one of them shouted, even as they were moving and the concentrated beam of light was shaking with the alternating steps.

"My friend, my friend, he just started freaking out-" Aiba was saying, sounding panicked and convincing- Jun would have believed him, at least. And then the stairway was open, and Jun ran for it. He could only keep his footsteps so light, hoping that Sho's continued screaming would cover it up, and he all but threw open the door leading to the stubby rooftop.

It was dark- terrifyingly so. There wasn't a trace of the moon in the sky. Jun had lost so much time within the center that he didn't know what phase it was in anymore. He hadn't even been sure of what the weather was like, but it was cool, just a bit, just enough. Enough to send a prickle of goose bumps down his arms when the air hit the exposed skin.

He pulled out the hastily tied together jerseys, looking wildly for something to hang them on. He wasn't sure how much time a faked panic attack would really buy him- how long would Sho's ragged wheezing keep the guards from their post?

He found a thin metal rod that extended up from the roof and looked sturdy. When he grabbed it, it didn't move much. It was good enough, and it was a few feet from an exhaust pipe. He could string the jerseys between the two, to make sure they were always visible. He looped the armholes of one side around the pole and tied them, knotting them twice- better safe than sorry. Then he jumped across to the pipe and managed to get the opposite side's straps around the girth of it.

A make-shift banner. It would do- it had to do. It had to be enough.

It wasn't until the jerseys were hung that Jun allowed himself to look beyond the roof of the gymnasium. He wasn't sure what he was expecting- chaos, maybe. Thundering groups of people clamoring around each other or people running through the streets. There was none of it- there was nothing. The entirety of the city he could see beyond the gym was silent as the grave. The neon lights of downtown were still visible, but there was no activity- no sound, no cars, no nothing. Dead.

It shook him. Tokyo was never silent, never activity-less. There wasn't a single person on any of the streets he could see, not a single car driving through the roads. He was so rattled he could hardly remember to breathe, and when he finally sucked in lungfuls of oxygen, it burned.

Campus, behind him, was equally quiet. Jun spun in a circle, heartbeat increasing painfully- there was nothing. There was no one. But as his eyes adjusted to the dark he could start to see something on the side of the building closest to them, the maintenance shed. Peering in, he leaned over the side of the railing with fingers wrapped tightly around the concrete side, heart in his throat.

A dark splash against the brick. Dark, dark- red. The barest hint of crimson in the darkness.

Blood. A splatter of blood against the building next to the gym. And just when he thought he would never be able to breathe again, never get his limbs working again, something moved in the shadows below. There was a shift, just enough that he could see something brushing by the shrubbery lining the sidewalk.

Jun threw himself away from the side with so much force and panic that he tripped over his feet and stumbled to the ground in a heap of shaking limbs. A strangled noise wrenched itself from his lips that he didn't even realize he was making- too much noise. It alerted whatever was down below him, whatever was in the bushes beyond the gym walls. There was a hoarse cry from the sidewalk that made Jun's blood run cold, and the distinct sound of nails scraping against brick.

Blind terror gripped his system, making his blood run cold.

He was moving before he registered it, scrambling back up to his feet and over to the door leading back down into the safety of the building. He no longer cared if he was making noise- all he could hear was the awful cries from the thing in the darkness and the shrillness of nails breaking against mortar. He threw open the door to the stairwell and nearly fell down the steps in his haste. Red, red everywhere, at the edges of his vision, bile choking him.

Jun didn't know how he got back to the cots in the gym- he was propelled by instinct, understanding nothing. His head was pounding. He fell onto his cot with a muffled whimper, and immediately the other two bodies on the mattresses moved.

"What the hell?" Sho hissed. "Could you be any louder? We didn't do all that just so you could get caught!"

"Wait," Aiba whispered, and his hands were on Jun's arms. "Wait, Sho- something's wrong. Jun?"

Jun didn't answer- couldn't answer. He tried to curl himself up into a fetal position against the pillow but was shaking too badly to even move properly.

"Jun?" Aiba tried again. "Oh my God, Jun, what's wrong?"

"Everything," he whispered into his palms, as Aiba's arms went around his shoulders. The warmth of the embrace was comforting, but it couldn't cover the crushing realization of what they had done- what they were going to do. They were willingly trying to get out into it, out into what was a barren wasteland that used to be a city.

The other two seemed to understand- at least enough not to ask. It had to be hanging in the air around them like a pillow waiting to smother them completely.

"Maybe they won't come," Sho whispered, after several achingly long minutes. "Maybe they won't see it."

And Jun didn't know which was worse- knowing O.S. and N.K. might not come, or knowing they might show up.

-----

He was walking past the bushes, and he had a grip on his book bag strap so tight that his knuckles were white. His shoes pounded the pavement. Test tomorrow, test tomorrow, he told himself. Have to make it back to the dorm. It was such a long way from the library. The light over the path started to flicker and suddenly there were fingers around his ankles.

“No!” he screamed. “Get away, get away from me!”

Bony, bloody fingers tightening and pulling. And there was laughter from the bushes, high pitched and ear splittingly loud. He kicked, desperately. He had a test tomorrow. They pulled him and he hit the pavement hard, scraping his hands. Then there were more hands, more rotting fingers crawling up his leg, tearing at the laces of his sneakers.

He screamed, but nobody was helping him. His hands clung desperately, trying to find a handhold on the sidewalk, but he was already in the grass. Clumps of dirt burrowed under his nails as the laughter behind him just got louder. Why wasn’t anyone helping him?

The last thing he saw was the street lamp flicker out.

“Jun, wake up.” He opened his eyes, and he was soaked in sweat. Sho had his hand on his shoulder, and he was close enough that Jun could feel his breath on his face. A nightmare. Another one. Three days, and he hadn’t gotten a full night’s rest yet.

He flopped onto his back and sighed, wiping his hand across his forehead and pushing tendrils of damp hair aside. “Was I shouting?”

“No. No, you were just…” Sho let his voice trail off, finally loosening his grip on Jun’s shoulder and scooting back to his bed. “Aiba’s in the bathroom,” was the explanation for why Sho had even bothered to come to his part of the pushed together cots.

He wanted to get up, wash his face, but they even needed permission to get out of bed and use the bathroom. Aiba had had to go to the guard first, and Jun didn’t feel like seeing their grumpy faces.

It had been so real. It was getting more and more real every night. He shivered despite being hot, still hearing the echoes of laughter as the nightmare started to fade away. “You okay?” Sho asked, voice laced with a surprising amount of concern.

“No,” he replied honestly. “I’m not. I just keep…”

But he was interrupted, and everyone in the gym was too as the fire alarm went off. The noise blared, high and screeching and beside him Sho covered his ears and cried out in surprise.

“Everyone stay in your beds!” they heard almost immediately. “Do not move!”

His nightmare was forgotten as the alarm kept sounding. There was no fire department coming to rescue them, and additionally, there was no getting out of the building to get away like in a regular drill. Had someone pulled the alarm as a prank? What was this?

“Aiba. He’s still in the bathroom!” he shouted.

Sho was still covering his ears. “What?”

He gave up trying to communicate, just pulling the pillow over his head to try and drown out the noise. It went on for a few painful minutes until finally, the alarm was off. One of the guards had managed to get it. “Doing a count!” they announced, and Jun’s ears were still aching from the alarm. “Stay where you are!”

Sho sat up, legs crossed and nervous, and Jun just stayed on his back. The guys in the row in front of them were whispering to each other.

“You think they really did it? I can’t believe they did it.”

“Tonight was the night,” his friend told him. “They were going to see if they could break into a pachinko parlor…”

Sho shuffled closer since Aiba still hadn’t gotten back. “People escaped?”

Jun gulped. No wonder the alarm had gone off - they’d probably gone out an emergency exit. His nightmare came flooding back, along with the memories of being on the roof - seeing someone creeping around outside. “Idiots.”

But weren’t they idiots too? Sure, they had no intention of breaking out just to go steal money, but they were waiting for O.S. and N.K. to arrive. A head count was started, and the guards started barking out names with only the scoreboard light to guide them. When Aiba’s name was called, Jun was happy to hear a noisy “I’m here!” from the other side of the gym. The guards had probably dragged him out of the bathroom for the count and hadn’t let him move yet.

In the end, there were two names, Nishikido and Yamashita, who hadn’t answered. Jun closed his eyes and wished them luck out there. They were going to need it. Aiba finally came back, worming his way into the middle of Jun and Sho. “I’m so glad I was just peeing,” Aiba admitting, offering more information than Jun required.

The guards called for everyone to calm down and get back to sleep, but that was impossible now. Aiba pulled the covers up to his chin. “So what happened?” Sho asked Aiba.

“Well, I was just overhearing. But two guys went out the door past the basketball coach’s office, the one with the emergency exit.” Jun was on edge, knowing his suspicions were confirmed. “The guard guys were super pissed - they didn’t know where the alarm was coming from.”

Jun blinked. Nobody had been watching that exit at all that night? With the alarm off, the gym was eerily quiet. There was no snoring, nobody talking in their sleep. Just a hushed calm, like the eye of a storm. The exodus of two of the other students had awakened something in everyone - that escape was possible.

Ping.

There was a quiet rumbling, like metal shaking. It clanged, not at the volume of the alarm, but a noticeable rattle from right behind them. “What was that?”

The guys in the cots just to their left were already out of bed, walking over to the bleachers. Jun felt his blood run cold, and the same lightheaded panic was sending the hair on his arms up. If the two guys had gone out the emergency door and set off the alarm, but nobody had closed it because the guards hadn’t known what was happening…

Aiba grabbed his arm, seemingly reaching the same conclusion. “Jun, remind us what you saw when you were outside.”

His tongue was heavy in his mouth, fear creeping through him all the way to the bone. “There…they were quick, I didn’t get a good look.” He heard the cots creak again as Sho moved closer on Aiba’s other side.

The bleachers. Someone…no, he told himself. Some thing had gotten in. Had it already gotten to the guys who escaped? Had it been waiting, night after night, every night for a month? Lying in wait to get this opportunity? Aiba’s fingers knotted in the sleeve of Jun’s shirt, and he fumbled for his glasses.

There was a scraping against the inside of the bleachers, like nails across a chalkboard, and still the guys were laughing. Did they think it was a buddy playing a prank? “They should get away from there,” Jun mumbled, unable to shout to them. All he knew was the empty feeling in the pit of his stomach. Run. They should run before it got worse.

Aiba was getting antsy. “Did someone come inside? Someone from out there? I didn’t see…”

One of the students was brave, walking right up and pressing his hand against the bleacher. “Hey Yamada, get out of there, man. We know it’s you!” He knocked on the wood, his fist pounding with a dull thud.

“We should get the guard,” Sho was whispering. All of O.S.’ calm messages were coming back. Raids on pharmacies, flesh falling off - and the guy was still knocking on the bleachers. Seconds passed, the guys laughed, giving the bleachers a little shake, sending the metal squeaking again.

Jun grabbed Aiba tight by the wrist when the student’s knocking was answered.

One thump. Then another.

And then came the howling laugh, making Jun’s eyes water and his mouth go dry. The other students backed away with awful, surprised cries, but it was too late. The cots split apart as Jun moved, and he and Aiba hit the gym floor hard. The other cots were scraping and screeching on the gym floor. It had only taken seconds for panic to reach their row of beds and the one in front of them. Then the next and the next.

“Move,” he gasped. “Masaki, move!” He tugged Aiba by his arm, and he heard Sho’s strangled shout behind them as they just bolted. Jun collided with other people, limbs and hands, as he moved in the opposite direction of the bleachers. It was in there. The safety center had been breached. It was in there, and it was laughing.

The panic was growing, and everyone was screaming, but there was no matching the volume of whatever was behind the bleachers. Aiba stepped on his foot, and Sho was keeping with them by holding onto Jun’s shirt as everyone formed a huge clump. He nearly fell over cots, backpacks, and empty plastic bottles again and again.

“Stay calm!” The guards were finally running over, elbowing through them to get to the bleachers. He tripped over someone’s jacket, feeling the metal teeth of a zipper slice open the sole of his foot. Jun buckled over, falling onto someone’s bed, and then Aiba’s hand was gone but Sho had fallen with him. There was weight on top of him, and the crowd was hitting the bed, shoving it along the floor, and all he could do was reach for Sho to hold on.

“Jun! Jun!” Aiba was screaming. There was still just the light from the scoreboard, and the darting beams of the guards’ flashlights.

Sho’s arm was around his waist. “I didn’t see it. I couldn’t see.” There was another rough push from the terrified students and the cot tumbled, tossing him and Sho onto the floor. “Stay with me,” the older man said, voice trembling. They stayed crouched against the wall, overturned cot serving as a wall between the two of them and the other students.

In the distance, back by the bleachers and their own cots, there was shouting from the guards, the wailing from whatever had come in. God, it was so noisy - it was like a death rattle. What was this infection? What had it done? No human sounded like that.

“Get it in the basement!”

The public address came on, and a harried voice came over. “Stop panicking! The situation is under control! Stay away from the bleachers and stop pushing!”

He could only feel the pain in his foot, cradling it in his hand as Sho kept a shaking arm around him. They couldn’t see anything where they were. The guards must have been dragging the infected person out of the gym, and the screams disappeared out into the hall. The voice on the P.A. came on again and again, and they were packed like sardines against the wall, spilling out into the hallway. It smelled like sweat and somewhere close by someone had obviously pissed themselves. “It’s over,” Sho was saying, although he didn’t sound so sure of it. “They got him. It’s okay, Jun, come on.”

The guards’ voices were less angry, almost numb as they started to get people to get back to bed. “Come on, it’s gone. Nothing to be afraid of, you’re safe now. Let’s get back to the beds.” The P.A. continued, urging calm and that there’d be a full explanation in the morning. He doubted it - they’d probably say that a rabid possum or raccoon had gotten in, causing an overreaction.

But raccoons didn’t knock back.

He had trouble getting weight on his foot, and Sho had to help him back. Aiba was visibly shaking, trying to get their cots set to rights, but his gaze kept stopping on the bleachers, just meters away.

There was no such thing as a safety center now. One infected person, whatever had gotten him that way, had been enough to send a room full of nearly a hundred guys screaming and panicking. They were like fish in a barrel now. It was only a matter of time before more of them came. He’d take his chances on the outside, Jun decided then and there.

Aiba saw them come up, saw him limping, and immediately took off running. Sho got him down onto the bed. He said nothing, knowing there wasn’t anything to say now. Whether O.S. and N.K. arrived or not, they couldn’t stay here. Their choices seemed to be attacks on the outside or attacks on the inside. Aiba managed to find a nurse, a trembling thing who barely cleaned Jun’s wound off before wrapping it in gauze and hurrying off for her own bed.

There was no shouting from downstairs, no more of the screeching howls. He didn’t know if it was dead or just biding its time. He hadn’t even seen it. It had been too dark. What mattered most was that it had gotten in at all. Sho gave him an aspirin and something else from the limited stash in his laptop case.

“Sleeping pill,” he mumbled, pulling up the blanket and almost absentmindedly brushing the hair away from Jun’s forehead. Aiba got on his other side, keeping him in the middle, and he fell into a troubled sleep, terrified of something worse lurking just outside the gym doors.



He wasn't sleeping- not really, anyway. It had been awhile since he'd been able to sleep at all. Even huddled underneath the blankets of the cot with Aiba's comforting warmth at his back didn't help stave off the memories of the hysterical, inhuman laughter that had come from behind the bleachers.

So when everything stopped without even a click or pop or signifying noise in any fashion, he knew.

The scoreboard lights fizzled into nothing, and the music through the speakers abruptly stopped (he was almost glad about that, because they'd been leaving the 'soothing' elevator songs on at night in hopes of soothing ruffled nerves, and it was more grating during the dark hours than it was during the day). There was nothing; no sound of alarm, no screams, no laughter, just silence that rang louder than any shouts could have.

It was so quiet he could hear a pin drop, and he could feel in the change of tension that the others had noticed the absence as well. There were several long moments when nothing moved, no one said anything, and Jun just stared up into the darkness that was all-encompassing. He'd never realized how much light the scoreboard had actually provided; in the inky blackness, the gym seemed far more foreboding and ominous, and the lack of grating music was worse than the stupid songs had been.

The power was off.

And then the panic set in.

Suddenly, everyone was shouting, moving, cots scraping against the floor. There were some cries from the doorway and a few beams of light from flashlights, but they were wavering and unsteady- even the guards were panicked. Maybe they thought the emergency generators should have kicked on. Maybe the power was out to the whole city- perhaps there was simply no one left to man the hubs, and they had run out.

Aiba's hand found Jun's in the darkness, even as the three surged to their feet, grabbing for their belongings shoved under the cots.

"This is it," Sho said, shakily, from Jun's left. He could only barely hear the older man over the din of noise that had erupted. "It's failing."

There was a shuffle, and then a tiny bit of light as Sho powered on his cell phone and used it to illuminate what he could of their faces.

"We can't stay here," Jun said. People were running around him, making for the exits- or the roof, maybe. Anywhere they could find safety now that the gymnasium was useless. They were sitting ducks in the darkness. Electric-powered door locks wouldn't be much good without anything to jolt them closed.

Aiba bristled, fingers clenching tighter around Jun's. "Where do we go?"

"Out," Jun said. "Just- the dorms, maybe. Somewhere we can lock a door"

"Wait," Sho hissed. The small, blue-glow from his phone threw his face in harsh relief.  "If we are going out there, we need to get food- something, at least."

He was right. Jun started moving without really thinking about it, feet finding the way even in the dark and the smidgen of light from the flip-phone. He'd made his way in the dark to the food stores too many nights to forget the simple path there from the main gym. There was so much panic, so much hysteria- after the break-in, everyone had been on edge, and everyone had started to realize what Jun already had. Something was very wrong, and now that wrong was able to get to them without much trouble.

The doors were opening and closing rapidly. There was shouting everywhere. The guards were trying to keep people in order, but half of them were panicking, too. The orderlies were yelling, and the nurses were crying, and there were simply too many bodies shoving through to be stopped.

They were heading left, towards the main doors- Jun took a right. Aiba's hands clenched around the back of his itchy shirt. Jun's foot hurt when it slapped against the floor, but there was too much adrenaline to really feel the pain until it gave out a bit. He slumped, hitting the wall with his shoulder and biting back a cry. He didn't want to alert anyone else to the idea of sustenance; there wasn't enough of it anyway.

Aiba grabbed his arms and tried to keep him upright, while Sho moved ahead to the door with his phone still open.

"Grab what you can," he was saying, as he opened the door. It took a moment for Jun to register, through the hazy cloud of pain, that there was light spilling out from the open portal that wasn't coming from Sho's cell phone. "Grab anything that you can carry-"

He dropped his phone as there was a muffled smack, and then Sho was halfway on the ground with both hands over his face, shouting in surprise and pain.

"Oh," came a voice from inside the room, sounding not very concerned at all that Sho was flailing around in the doorway. "That's more effective when skin comes off with it."

Jun's heart was in his throat- he recognized the voice.

"Ow!" Sho was exclaiming. "Ow, my nose!"

"Baby," the same someone scoffed. Jun moved forward, bracing himself on the side of the door and using Aiba's shoulder to keep his still smarting foot from the ground. There were two people inside with what looked like an electric lamp sitting on the table next to them- one of them was calmly packing up packages of freeze-dried food into a tackle box, and the other was shifting through the rest of the boxes as if he were looking for something in particular. There was a chain near the second one's right arm, a chain that connected to something hard and white.

Jun felt a sudden flash of anger that made his blood boil. "The power didn't go out- it was cut."

"I- a Wii controller?" Sho asked suddenly, still rubbing his nose, but there didn't seem to be any blood. "You hit me in the face with a Wii controller?"

"Seriously?" N.K.- and Jun knew with absolute certainty that's who it was, because it was impossible to miss the exasperated tone that colored everything he said- sighed. "You guys are already out of cookies?"

"Hey!" Jun said, angry, putting his injured foot down to shift his weight to the heel and kick with his other foot at the door. It was stupid and petty, but it got their attention. Both N.K. and O.S. looked up with raised eyebrows at him. "What are you doing? You can't just break in here and steal our food!"

O.S. made a pleased noise and held up a packet. "But you've got ramen."

"You said you would help us!" Sho cried. He looked to be rapidly approaching infuriated, hands clenched tightly at his sides, nose a bit red from where the chained Wii controller had made contact.

"We said we would find you," N.K. said, as he finished throwing packaged foodstuffs into his backpack. He zipped it up with deft fingers. "Finding you is very different from helping you."

"You started a riot!" Jun snapped. "Look what you've done here! And now everyone is out there, where the danger is!"

N.K. threw the straps of his bag over his shoulders, tugging once to make sure they were secure. "Not our problem."

Aiba stepped forward, looking angrier than Jun had ever seen him- it was odd to see the expression on Aiba's face, strange to see his features contorted in rage.

"You're just going to leave everyone to die-" Aiba started, with a finger outstretched and pointing accusingly, and N.K. slapped it aside as he picked up his Wii remote again.

"It's live or die!" N.K. hissed. "Which one do you want to do?"

There was a tense moment of silence, and Jun couldn't be sure what it was that he was feeling that was clogging up his throat. It was painful, hard to breathe. O.S. closed his tackle box with a resounding clang, and picked up the lantern.

"What's out there?" Sho asked, finally, and his shoulders slumped forward. The need for information was rapidly overpowering the anger at being taken advantage of.

N.K. leveled him with an unreadable expression. "People." His gaze flickered between the three of them, ending on Jun. "You really don't know?"

"They haven't told us anything," Jun admitted. His throat was very dry.

N.K. and O.S. exchanged a glance that seemed to speak volumes in a language Jun couldn't decipher. Before either could say anything- and Jun wasn't really sure they were going to- there were footsteps behind them in the hallway, footsteps moving towards the food stores. Aiba grabbed for a handful of packages and Sho whirled, grabbing his cell phone off the ground.

"Let's go," Sho ordered, hoarse. "We have to get to the dorms, it's not safe here."

"Dorms?" O.S. repeated. He seemed to perk up.

N.K. was still scowling. There was something very hard in his gaze. "They're all locked. You can get in?"

"To mine at least," Jun said. His keys were still in the bottom of his backpack. He only needed to get in his room- to get some real clothes, at least, to see what he could find that would be useful. It seemed like it could be a safe zone- right?

N.K. seemed to consider this for a very long moment, and then he stuck his hand out. "Nino."

"Jun," Jun responded in kind. He shook the offered hand gingerly. "We shouldn't let you come with us. You're vultures."

Nino raised an eyebrow.

"But," Jun continued, "tell us what is going on, and you can tag along."

It was risky. The newcomers could be loose cannons, unknown factors- Jun didn't know how they would play into the grand scheme of things. But there was little they could do without knowing for a fact what they were up against- and the bits and pieces they had managed to collect only made things more confusing and perplexing. It was impossible to fight against an enemy they didn't understand, and they had to stay alive- they had to try, at least.

With the chaos and panic and unknown going on around them, maybe Nino had been right. It seemed like it was live or die.

Jun had no intention of dying.

"Deal," Nino agreed, with a quirk of his lips. He glanced back over his shoulder at O.S. "Come on, Satoshi."

The two led the movement out the door, and Sho's hand gripped Jun's arm hard when he approached.

"Do you know what you're doing?" Sho hissed.

"No," Jun said. "But what else can we do?"

Sho didn't seem to have an answer for that, and neither did Aiba, who just shifted his weight nervously from foot to foot. The three stalled awkwardly for several long seconds.

"Come on, ladies!" Nino's voice called back to them from the corridor- the hallways had mostly emptied, fleeing bodies already lost into the night. It was unsettling to see the gymnasium so empty, so activity-less. "Let's get this moveable buffet underway."

Sho's fingers closed tighter, squeezing once and pinching Jun's skin, but they complied.

[pairing] matsumoto jun/sakurai sho, [fic] the lost

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