~ Chapter 30: The seed of corruption

[Mirtocan’s point of view]

The world went to Hell... and with it... so did human laws and decency.

When the outbreak started, we were all just a bunch of senior year High School students. Our main worry was to get back home, drop off our stuff and then head out to play. I was thinking about getting my first cyber implant and even a flyer. My dad promised me one, but that day, when we left home, we never expected even in a million years that for some of us it would be the last time we would see our families alive and well.

When the alarms went off, we all thought it was just a drill, but then the outbreak warning was released on every post, on every channel, on every frequency. The army was flying over the city, and there were fires that erupted all over the place. It was horrifying to watch from the distance.

Then, the first attacks in the school happened. A senior in the class next door and a freshman from the first floor changed in the middle of the class and attacked their classmates. Next thing everyone knew... it was chaos.

The school entered lockdown, the gates were closed, the PE teacher blocked the main gate and then every class that didn’t have anyone change was blocked off. As for those turned, they managed to bite up to ten other people, who were beginning to change... fast.

We all saw and played enough zombie video games to know what we had to do next, but the courage to do it was something else entirely... The first to act were the juniors in second year and several teachers. They killed the infected with baseball bats and other weapons. There were two in the kendo club who used pipes to smack down their enemies.

Thanks to them, we survived the first day of infection, but everyone was scared and worried about who would turn next and what were the signs of this. According to the internet, the disease affected the nanobots in our system, which was weird. How could a biological virus have any effect on this advanced tech? We thought it must be some nonsense, but more and more proofs to sustain this theory were discovered, and we also figured out why someone was infected faster than others... it was the implants.

If you had a cyber implant, then you were more of a possible danger than the rest of us. In the next two days, those with implants and those without implants were separated into two groups. There were teachers on both sides, but it was clear that if anything were to happen, the others were going to end up dying first.

We separated the school in two parts, barricading those with implants on the second floor in the classrooms for the fourth years. Then, we waited for rescue.

By the time the soldiers from the army came, we were almost running out of food and both camps were in a mess. We were already making plans for heading out to scavenge for food and supplies. Some of us wanted to simply leave in order to check on our families. I was among them, but the soldiers stopped any of our crazy plans.

They brought food, clothes, guns... safety. We thought we were rescued, but the next wave of bad news was just around the corner.

I was one of those who would often look on the internet for news and any sort of information regarding this situation. Cellurion City wasn’t the only one struck by this outbreak... every single city on the planet was struggling in front of this contagion and even off planet there were stations that had infected on board. Things looked grim. If this thing was this dangerous, chances were that the tragedy of Planet 6 would come to repeat itself.

I was scared, I didn’t want to die or end up like that!

So, I started to search about how Planet 6 handled its crisis, what did the people do exactly. First of all, I saw that the army organized itself in big military camps that began a forced recruitment process. If you could hold a gun, you were a soldier.

I didn’t want that, so... I used an anonymous user and sent the articles and videos I read about it on our school’s private network, the one shared between students. If there was enough opposition, then they would leave without taking any of us with them... or just the willing ones.

Of course, just a few rumors tossed in the air like that wasn’t enough to work, so I decided to send various anonymous messages to the people that I thought would feel threatened by this move, the radicals. People had to hear the truth about this possibility and there were many here who were against the government for some reason or another, more so against the army, whom they consider it to be the tool of those in power.

It didn’t take long before the two camps formed and then... when the army announced that they were going to retreat from here, the big debate started. The camp was split and where there was once doubt, there was now certitude. Still, I don’t know how it happened, but at some point, the fear of being recruited turned into a fear of being eaten on the way there.

Whatever it was, I didn’t care as long as I got to stay back here with the other survivors...

The army left just as I had planned, but... without their protection, there was now an increase fear of the Nano-Z outside. We abandoned the front gate and instead focused on barricading the entrances to the school. There was initially a plan or idea to turn the fields in the back into another campsite, but with our current numbers, there was no need to do so.

Talks about how to organize ourselves quickly appeared among the ones who thought themselves worthy and before I knew it, we were all split into three different camps.

This sparked that beginning of my worries. I couldn’t even begin to imagine how stupid these guys had to be in order to suggest that we split up in the middle of an apocalypse. I was allocated to the Stylers, but the moment I tried to send messages to the other two, I found that all of my contacts there had blocked me.

This was getting ridiculous...

The days went by, and I had to prove my worth... I had to prove that I was strong...

I went out to hunt for supplies, and I killed several Nano-Z with a bat. It was terrible, but I came back alive. I got praised for my quick thinking, but when I saw all that blood and gore, I could barely hold my stomach in. Since the beginning of the outbreak, I never took a single step outside of Resonance High, so there was nothing to prepare me for what was to come.

With each passing day, I was starting to regret my decision, but at the same time, a new idea popped up in my head: If I could somehow become the new leader of the Stylers, I could then change their ways and views, make them see the light, make them see that my way of thinking was better than theirs!

So, I began to plan my rise to power.... little by little, but... I underestimated mankind’s cruelty and their savage animalistic tendencies when society’s rules stopped restraining them.

The strong ruled and the weak had to submit to the strong. The strong were those who could hunt, who could fight, who could offer something useful to the camp. The weak were those who were too afraid to walk out of the school’s grounds. One of them was our teacher, Adelina Yortam. A woman in her thirties, who dressed modestly and often tried to act as the voice of reason for all of us younger folk, but... once the rules changed, she was the first to fall.

The seven students, a teacher, and a man that was brought in as a survivor by the army dragged her into an empty classroom and had their way with her. When she was allowed to leave, she was mentally broken, a mere shadow of her former self. 

I should have felt sorry for her, but... what I felt was envy and regret that I didn’t go with them to have my way with her as well. It was then when I thought that if I’m strong, maybe I can use some of those privileges as well. There was one girl who caught my eye and who was part of those designated as weak.

Just like those guys did, I dragged her to an empty classroom, and there... I made her mine.

Something change in me that day, and from there on, I saw the weak as items we could possess and lose at any time to those who were stronger than us. After all, without the rules of the government protecting our possessions for us, everyone was free to take that which belonged to someone else.

We didn’t steal anymore... we claimed what we thought should be rightfully ours, whether this meant resources or people.

The Stylers weren’t the only ones who began to think like this, the geniuses in the Euripide also thought the same. They just used the ones who weren’t that smart in a similar manner. The Exiles preferred a ‘strong rules the weak’ approach similar to ours, but they were a bit more chaotic.

During the next week since I made my first claim, the new lifestyle in our school was showing signs to have been accepted by everyone, until the hunting parties returned, or rather what was left of them. The guys from Euripide died, the Exiles had only one dude left, and our party had only three survivors, out of which one was heavily injured. The next day, he turned and bit teacher Adelina’s hand. We killed him and tossed her out.

For the next couple of hours, she begged us to let her in, promising that she was safe and wasn’t turning, but afterwards there was only silence. A guy from the Exiles went out and then returned with his bat covered in blood. The Nano-Z around this place got her, but she didn’t turn completely, or so he claimed.

None of us went out to confirm the situation because of what the hunting party survivors told us. The Nano-Z were changing, healing up, getting stronger, faster, becoming more aggressive. Later that night, we went up to the rooftop to check the surrounding areas... The Nano-Z had red glowing eyes... they were terrifying.

We thought we were strong because we could defeat them with ease, but when we saw those things rushing through the streets like madmen, tearing each other out like savage beasts, all of a sudden, we felt small and weak... Then there were the Tormentors, those evolved Nano-Z that killed our original hunting parties. They were stronger, faster, and smarter than the regular ones. They hunted like those savage things in the night.

During the day, they were Nano-Z, but during the night, they were Raskals... and those powerful enough evolved into Tormentors. It was a simple naming system that we all agreed upon, however, we now came to realize that our High School might not be as safe as we previously thought it was.

Every night, the Raskals moved around and forced us to reclaim the paths we had previously cleared up. Every night, they moved closer and closer to us, we had to pay extra attention to both the noise and light we made. Night guard became a habit again.

We couldn’t live on the second floor anymore, so we moved to the second floor and blocked the stairs, just in case. Instead of three different hunting parties, we made a single joint one that was big enough to survive even a Tormentor’s attack, but if they failed to return before nightfall, they were as good as dead.

Our resources then started to dwindle, and food was the first thing to go. We started to become desperate, but then, some of us heard that the Euripide had food... and not just any food, they had meat!

I was sent there to investigate, and they gladly offered me a bite to eat. It looked like regular meat to me, so I didn’t mind. It tasted good, but then... they told me what I ate. It was not ‘what’ but ‘who’. The Euripide turned cannibalistic and ate their math teacher, Patrovici Kona.

Two days later, after I shared the news with the strongest in our group, we decided to go down the same path. I already tasted human flesh and honestly... I didn’t find it so bad. I liked it.

To mark our deal, we sent them one of our weak members. Afterwards, they sent us a part of him... packed in nice juicy packages. We ate until our fill, but Zuiza and Yumino didn’t touch their meat. They felt something was off.

We didn’t like traitors, and the two of them were showing off signs of being weak lately. It was true, they didn’t go out to hunt that often and didn’t touch our new food source. However, before we had the chance to punish them, they fled.

It didn’t matter, we managed to secure a couple of survivors who stayed locked up in their houses until now, but unfortunately for them, they would now become our next meal.

I had to admit, but it was strange, the ones who still felt remorse because they turned to cannibalism could not stomach the meat that well and they turned weaker and weaker. Some of them tried to flee when they found out that what they were eating was human meat, but ever since those two escaped, no one else was able to do so. Our security was tight and if they tried to flee from this place, they were going to be the next ones on the menu.

The fear of getting killed by a Nano-Z awaited them outside, while here they had to live with the fear of one day being eaten by us. But it was a justifiable means to an end. We were hungry, and we couldn’t do well to protect the others without our strength. The strong ruled over the weak and now those who were far too weak or worthless would become the meal to sustain the strong.

Soon, the strong would need to head out and hunt for supplies again, but the more survivors we brought back, the more we could postpone the next expedition. There was also a pact between our tree groups, especially with our newfound food supply and joint team. We were stronger together and we shared the same meat. If the weak didn’t want to be part of the menu, all they had to do was to become strong. Once they were strong, we wouldn’t need to cut them up into meat.

“Hey, Mirto, some of us were wondering, but should we try to find women and impregnate them... you know, young flesh might taste better.” Davius asked.

He was once part of the Morals and Ethics club. Ironic, seeing how he was one of the first to give in to the taste of human flesh.

“And do what? Feed them for nine months until they give birth? Are you out of your mind? Just pray you find cattle that’s already fat and ready to pop!” I laughed.

My words, a long time ago, would have sounded disgusting, but now they were pleasant.

Did eating human meat turn me into this new and better version of myself... or was I always the same, but hidden from the eyes of society? In a way, all of these newly born cannibals had only me to thank for turning them into what they were... for sowing the seeds of deceit and doubt like the snake in the Garden of Eden.

It wasn’t wrong, barbaric, or disgusting anymore... it was funny, especially since I was the only one who knew about it, and I was also one of the strongest here.

Yes, they were fools... my fools, my meat... and they would never get to know about it!

“Hey! You guys! We got intruders! I think it’s one of them teachers, I remember him from philosophy class, but I can’t remember his name.” the guards came over, calling out to everyone in the three camps.

“Fresh meat! Finally!” I said and then laughed.