Chapter 33

At first, he doesn't realise what it is, thinking it has only started raining. But when the first drop lands on his head, it feels scalding, and when he touches the spot where it has fallen, the tips of his fingers come away red. He brings his hand and sniffs the substance. The metallic smell immediately invades his nostrils, and he feels his heart skip a beat.

This… This was blood!

Slowly, as more and more drops keep falling, the panic slowly settles in. Kit can feel his brain freezing, like his body is about to shut down. He is transported to that cold slaughterhouse. Images flash through his mind: the bodies that looked like they had been shredded apart, the way the entrails spilled out of an abdomen, the stark whiteness of bone against the deep red of blood. But worst of all were the screams echoing in his ears.

The screams from his memories mix in with those of the people around him, who upon realising that it was blood falling from the skies, started going into a panic. They start running around, scrambling to return to their houses or otherwise look for shelter. Anything to get out of this rain.

But Kit stays rooted in place. He can't seem to move, it's as if his body has stopped answering to his instructions, and he can only watch on in horror as the downpour increments in intensity. The drops of blood fall against his face, and he feels as the warm liquid drips down his body onto the ground. In only seconds, he's soaked to the bone.

Lost in a daze as he is, he doesn't feel when another person approaches him from behind. An umbrella covers Kit, and he feels another person's hand grasping his wrist.

"Here." A foreign voice speaks somewhere behind him, and Kit nearly jumps out of his skin. Startled, Kit turns around, to find Aki standing there. "Come with me," Aki gives him a small tug, signalling for Kit to follow.

Tripping over his own feet, Kit goes after Aki. Aki is pulling him along to devil-knows-where. Honestly, Aki could be taking him to the back of an alley to gut him alive, but Kit wouldn't know. But Kit would still follow him, if only to get out of this blood rain.

It is only after they've walked a few metres that Kit's brain catches up with him. "Aki?" He feels surprised to see the other man. "What are you doing here?"

"I live around the area," Aki answers, his expression neutral.

"You do? Really?"

"Mhm." Aki takes a turn left. "But I only moved in recently."

"But- But shouldn't you be at work?"

"It's my free day."

"Oh."

They keep walking for a couple more minutes, until they reach a small house tucked in between two others. If Aki hadn't led him here, Kit would probably have completely missed its existence. Blinking, Kit realises that he recognises the house on the right. It's Zinnia's house.

"Ah, your neighbour…" Kit trails off when he sees Aki giving him a weird look. "Um. Are you… close with them?"

Aki unlocks the door to his house. "Not really. I haven't actually spoken to them."

"Ah… I see." Kit clears his throat.

"Are… you a friend of theirs?"

"Huh? Me?!" Kit finds himself flushing at Aki's tone. "No! No! We… We just know each other in passing…" He flushes even harder at the memory of coming to Zinnia's house with Baz.

"Are you… alright?" Aki is still looking at him weirdly.

"Yes!" Kit shakes his head to clear it. "I'm fine!"

He steps in through the threshold, following Aki into his house. The doorway is extremely narrow, and even after passing through the hallway, the space doesn't change that much. It is an incredibly small house, everything feels as if it had been squeezed into this place. Aki heads into the bathroom, leaving Kit to stand awkwardly in what he assumes is the living room.

Kit still feels as if he were trapped in a dream, the dead birds and the blood rain not registering as real yet. Maybe it's his brain trying to protect him; otherwise, he just might go insane. A small part of him, the part that is still conscious and functional, is telling him that he should contact Kat or Fluorite. This definitely falls under the 'strange phenomenons' Kat said had to immediately be reported. After what the demon did at the Integral Meats warehouse… Kit doesn't want to think about what this is foretelling.

Just as he is about to take his phone out of his pocket, Aki comes out from the bathroom with a towel. He throws the towel at Kit, and Kit barely manages to catch it before it falls to the ground.

For a few seconds, Kit just stands there, holding the towel in his hands, not drying himself from the rain. He's scared that once he sees the towel come away red, the spell will be broken and he won't be able to stay sane. "You…" Kit stops, trying to find a way to approach the topic. "It was raining blood right?" He smacks himself mentally. That was not a subtle way to bring it up.

"Oh." Aki doesn't seem affected at all by the question. "Yeah, it was."

Kit is taken aback by the nonchalant way Aki answers him. "And you… You're not freaking out?"

Aki just hums. "A bit."

"W-what?!" Aki definitely doesn't seem like he is freaking out even a little. Kit clutches the towel until his knuckles turn white. "How are you so calm?"

Aki cocks his head to the side. "Calm? Do I look calm?"

Kit nods.

"Would you rather I start running around screaming and flailing my arms?"

"Well… No." Kit takes a seat on the one person couch across from Aki's own. "But… You do seem awfully unbothered by all this– Oh." He looks down at the cushion underneath him. "Sorry. I got your couch all dirty."

"Don't worry about that."

"Really?"

"I wasn't planning on keeping these couches for long." Aki picks at the armrest on his couch. "These were pretty old and already falling apart. I was going to get rid of them as soon as I could, so in a way, you gave me an excuse to do it."

They sit in silence, just listening to the rain fall down outside. The silence in the house is smothering, and Kit starts fidgeting nervously with the towel in his hands. The blood that had fallen on him is already mostly dry, so he will simply wait until he can get back to the office and change his clothes. (The bathroom at the office is in reality more like a locker room with stalls, and due to the line of jobs that they do, everyone keeps a spare set of clothes in there.)

Aki takes a book from the coffee table and starts reading, probably trying to distract himself from the present situation. Kit doesn't blame him. For his part, he takes out his cellphone, intent on trying to contact anyone from the office. He dials Kat's number first; if anyone would know what to do, it would be her. But the phone rings twice, three times, and then a mechanical voice is telling him the call cannot be made; the number is unavailable. He frowns. He tries calling Baz, but to the same results. Aster; nothing, Jessica too. He's growing worried. He calls Mousie, but again, his call is declined. Could they all really be busy? As a last resort, he decided to call Fluorite. The Director never, in all the years he has working at the office, ever picked up her phone. According to Baz, she just never does. But in his desperation, he gives it a try. But it's futile.

Maybe it's got something to do with this rain; it could be interfering with the signal. Kit will simply have to wait until it passes by.

If it passes, a small voice in the back of his mind whispers. He squashes it down. He can't be considering those possibilities or else he really might just go mad.

But as the hours pass by and the rain doesn't look like it will be stopping anytime soon, Kit can feel the previous uneasiness from earlier return. The certainty that something terrible will happen, or is already happening comes back stronger than ever. And it's not just that, this time, he can feel every fibre of his body screaming at him to get out of this house. To run away.

'Run away where?' he asks himself.

'Anywhere; anywhere but here,' his body screams back.

But he can't. He can't go back out into that rain. Even if he wanted to, what would he do? It's not like he knows where the others are. And what if he were to encounter the demon? What would he do on his own? A strong chill runs down his spine, causing his whole body to tremble. He looks over to see Aki quietly observing him.

"Are you okay?" Aki asks.

For some reason, Aki's gaze on him is unnerving. "Y-yes. I'm fine," he hurries to answer, if only to get him to look away.

Aki hums, returning to his book. "If you say so."

Kit lets out a breath he hadn't realised he had been holding in. "Yeah, don't worry about me. I'll be going as soon as this… rain is gone."

"Alright." Aki goes back to ignoring Kit's presence. "Make yourself at home meanwhile."

"Yes. Thank you." Kit shakes his head. He must have been imagining things. Aki? Unnerving? Impossible. Hadn't he been the only one to stop and help out Kit? Even if they only briefly knew each other, he had still gone to the trouble of inviting him to his house. Kit had no reason to feel anything other than gratefulness towards him. It must have been his brain playing tricks on him. He must be too jittery from everything, and feeling someone else's gaze on him freaked him out.

True, Aki was a bit… cold. He was definitely very quiet and reserved, but that didn't mean he was a suspicious person. Kit could understand the decision to keep to oneself. He himself had always been that type of person, if perhaps not as… intimidating looking as Aki, he had always prefered his own company. Well, with the exception of Baz. But there was a certain solace to be found in being alone, that was something he could relate to.

It was simply his imagination, Kit tells himself again. But the urge to run away doesn't fade even with time.

It isn't until night has fallen that the rain finally stops. When it does, Aki looks up from his book and looks at Kit.

"I'll be going now, then," Kit whispers. "Thank you. Again."

Aki nods. "Don't worry about it."

Stepping out of the house, the sight waiting outside makes Kit wish to remain inside. The entire streets are dyed red, and the birds that had fallen dead are now giving off a putrid smell, their bodies in complete decomposition. Kit covers his nose and mouth with his sleeve, but it does little to keep the stench away. In much the same way, all the plants and trees that had previously been teeming with life are now withered and full of pests. But worst of all, is the heavy mist that has fallen. It's almost impossible to see with it around, and Kit finds that when it comes in contact directly with your skin, it stings. It's not something terrible, but more like the burning sensation of standing too close to an open flame. Taking a deep breath, Kit ventures out into the street, back to the office.

He doesn't know what he will find; unconsciously, he starts preparing himself for the worst.

But the idea of being the only one left alive is too much for him, and he feels his legs threatening to give out underneath him.

He can't give up right now. He has to be better. He has to try, at least for the sake of remembering the others even after death. Kit grits his teeth. He has to do this.

With all his remaining willpower, he forces his feet to move, one in front of the other, slowly making his way. All around him the scent of death and blood has permeated the air. Even after he has left the neighbourhood, the pavement is crimson, all the vegetation dying. Looks like the rain hadn't been an isolated phenomenon, but had instead fallen across the entire town. He can only imagine the sort of chaos that is currently spreading. So much for trying to keep this whole demon business under wraps…

He keeps walking, his body moving on automatic.

Every step feels like one closer to his doom.

~~~

When he returns to the office, Aster outside is leaning against the building's wall. Kit hadn't expected to see xem here. Xe has a cigarette between xeir lips, and when xe sees Kit approaching, xeir pupils blow open comically. "What the hell happened to you?!"

Kit can only imagine what he looks like with dried blood all over his body.

"You taking a smoke break?" Kit evades answering xeir question. "You know those things will end up killing you one day, right?

Aster chokes on the smoke. "You're saying that to me in the state you're in?!" Xe throws the cigarette onto the floor, crushing it under xeir heel. "What the hell, man?! What is wrong with you?!"

Kit just tiredly walks past xem, heading into the office.

"Nuh-uh," Aster bars his way with xeir arm. "I wouldn't go in there if I were you."

"What?" Kit almost wants to hit xem. He would, if it didn't mean certain death.

"There's a hysterical lady in there. The Director and Kat are trying to do something about it."

"Hysterical?"

"Yep." Xe pokes him in the shoulder, effectively glueing him to the spot. "Right when the whole shitstorm with the blood falling from the sky like the fucking end of the world or whatever starts, Fluorite sends us out to 'investigate' or whatever, y'know?" Xe is waving xeir arms around as xe speaks, the only sign that xe is affected by this whole mess. Aster, who is always so cool and collected, acting a bit out of line? That's as good as saying the end is near. Which, in this situation, might be pretty damn close to the truth.

"...Right."

"But it's just pure chaos out there. People are screaming and nobody is in their right minds, so there's no chance to investigate because these people are like, three seconds away from ripping out another person's throat with their teeth."

"..."

"Well, maybe not that extreme, but you get my idea."

He doesn't think he does, but there's no point arguing with Aster when they're in this state.

"So we have to stop them from killing each other, on purpose or accidentally, and when this whole mess is over, it's like 'this has to be the worst of it, right?' Wrong. When I come back to the office, there's this lady waiting outside, crying and screaming something I can't make out. So I call Kat, and she has to come running. Somehow, she manages to make sense of what the lady's saying, and her face goes all pale and she then immediately heads inside with the lady to talk with Fluorite."

"So you don't know what's happening?"

Aster shakes xeir head. "No. But I know I don't want anything to do with it." Xe takes out another cigarette and starts smoking again.

He does not feel like dealing with a hysterical person either, but he really does need to, at the very least, change his clothes. Besides, Dee is still in there, and he can't just abandon them. "I'll just…" Kit sighs, massaging his brow. "I'll just go in through the back."

Aster blows out a puff of smoke. "Suit yourself. But don't say I didn't warn you."

"Yes, yes, whatever." Kit just waves his hand as he walks away. The back door to the office is the door which connects the lab to the main building, but in order to get there without going through the office itself, one had to jump over the fence into the "garden." It's a short fence, at least. But he must be getting old, because as he jumps over, he can feel his bones groaning in protest.

Once inside, the first thing he hears are shouts coming from the Director's office.

"— her husband disappeared?!" Fluorite seems like she's about to snap. "Why the hell did she come here? Do we look like the fucking police?! This is not part of our work, so tell her to go away. We're busy at the moment."

Kat's voice, "But–"

"Go with her to the police station and help her file out the missing person report if you have to, but just get her to leave the office!"

"Director, you're clearly not listening to me!"

"What do I care about one single missing person?! If you hadn't noticed, we have a much more important crisis to deal with!"

"She says her husband was taken away by a demon!" Kat finally shouts back.

Kit feels his blood run cold.