Good Day

The man and children crowded around her, creating a robust wall of backs which make it impossible for Aspen to see through at this angle, a pack of carnivores feasting on their felled prey. The woman’s legs desperately floundered about to a start, before soon going limp and only spasming involuntarily from time to time. The screaming stopped too. Gurgles replaced it. In normal circumstances, one would conclude that she’d died. Instead, now a freak of nature, she watches with her very own eyes her kidneys burst and squelch under the pink teeth of mere children. Content slurping and giggles fill the air. When the pack of cannibals eventually deemed their hunger satiated, they all got up without any communication necessary, and took off. Red-mouthed and drunkenly jolly. Aspen watches them leave through the window. If this wasn’t proof enough, children of New mankind were even worse than the adults, in any sane man like Aspen’s opinion, because they never had the chance to learn proper conduct or ethics. In a world devoid of any, they couldn’t hope to do so anymore, after all. These snickering atrocities are the direct result of that. Not to mention that their brains are small and stupid, and children were always a little inherently evil to begin with. No longer hearing the echoes of their squeaky voices (the adult had remained silent for the entirety of the scene), Aspen deems it safe to exit hiding and steps out onto the sunlit streets again. He stops in front of the severely mutilated woman. Her abdomen was as flat as paper, having been quite entirely rinsed off of fat, blood, muscle, bone, and nerves. The skin of her back remained, messily showing traces of bloody outlines of the organs that had been removed. Her limbs, untouched, as well as her head, lay limp, yet still attached to the sheet of skin that was her body by thin nerves and skin holding on for dear life. The scene reminded Aspen of a frog dissection. And her leftover ribs and spine spread about - spoils of a great many wishbone traditions. The reason the woman had stopped screaming was not due to unconsciousness or the pain having stopped - her trachea had simply been eaten. Still in as much pain, the writhing human stared emotionlessly in the direction her head was tilted. A shame. She won’t be able to talk, in other words. Aspen had felt hopeful when he’d heard her hearty screams, thinking she might be able to communicate still. And that a human in her position would have no choice but to share information, provided they had any. The crew of cannibals, on the other hand, would probably not be up for a civilised chat. He stares at her unsightly body with solemn eyes. The stench that already permeated the town grew even fouler, but for some reason Aspen couldn’t muster up the will to cover his nose. With a sigh, he bids the woman farewell.

“Help, Aspen.”

He freezes. Wide-eyed, he looks behind his shoulder. At the woman’s parted lips, that of course remain unmoving aside from the fresh blood trickling out of them. As if afraid to move, Aspen simply stares in horror at the living corpse, feeling the hairs on his neck stand on end. His imagination? An echo of the past…? That voice just now, it sounded just like… Without averting his eyes, he chuckles stalely to himself.

“Angels can’t speak,” Aspen assures himself in a quiet mumble. My brain can’t have fully woken up yet, he then concludes. It’s confused. Turning his head away again, he resumes walking. To the moaning masses, he throws out a “Hello” every now and then. Good day. Only breaths of death as replies. That’s what he’d expected, anyway. So when a voice aside from his own suddenly reflected the greeting, he immediately assumed it was his mind playing tricks on him again.