(Ab)normal Days | Kenichi (closed to Isamu) | Don't Open Dead Inside
[ TW: Eye trauma, emetophobia ]
Kenichi ended up staying in the science lab for very different reasons than he had expected to be there at first. Convinced that there was something of use to be taken from the room, he decided to give it a thorough search, covering as much space as he could with the charge he had on his flashlight batteries.
Maybe it would have been better had he just left in spite of his curiosity. Even just turning and walking out after finding Momoko's obituary would have been fine. But no, he had to stay and keep looking. He had to stay and find a dead body.
When that boy in the classroom had been found seemingly ages ago, there was still a shield of denial and apathy protecting Kenichi from the worst of the horror – the one thing that kept him from completely ignoring the existence of the corpse was the smell of rotted flesh and blood. But people had died in front of him since then, and alone in the darkened lab with piles of whatever flooding the floor, he couldn't help but take in the full impact of this dead kid who had blood smeared all around him and no eyes – even under the shine of the flashlight, they remained a void that threatened to blot out the little light in the room.
Yeah. It was time to rip himself away from this sight before he spiraled any deeper into that morbid train of thought.
Kenichi began to make his way out of the room, but he was uncertain of the safest way back to the door, and he was pretty sure he ended up taking the long route out. His flashlight still had enough power left for him to sweep over the floor on the way, collecting a few more bottlecaps as he walked. He tilted the angle of his flashlight just a little bit away, and the light was truncated by a sheet covering…something. He could see the blood, and he had a good guess just what was under the sheet, and he decided he would leave some other sap to deal with yet another body…
He took a step back, and the lump under the sheet shuddered and moved forward.
Of fucking course it did.
Believing himself to be (somewhat) alone in the room, there was absolutely nothing stopping Kenichi from screaming the moment he realized that there was now some kind of animated thing coming his way. As much trust as he had in Momoko, he wasn't going to wait and see if this thing shared any of her good intentions, and he turned around and booked it out of the room. Kenichi risked cutting corners as he navigated the odd spots around the floor, his feet and then legs feeling as if they burned as he stepped into the energy.
The flashlight, dim from overuse, was swung around wildly as he tried to get his bearings – first, back behind himself, where the shambling creature lurched after him and practically forced him to keep cut deeper into the energy to get out. Kenichi felt like he wanted to just double over and vomit from the stinging pain that kept shooting through his body, but he remembered the body with no eyes and the promise he had just made and he knew he needed to keep forcing one foot in front of the other. He swung the light forward, a cry of relief escaping him when he saw the door was right before him. Just before he rushed out, the light caught on something that stood out against the floor, and he had just enough presence of mind to sweep down and scoop it up as he dove through the doors, slamming them shut.
Kenichi braced his body against the lab doors; there seemed to be no struggle from inside, and he took this apparent moment of safety to just collapse right there, legs still spasming from the contact with the energy.
He was so fucking done with this place.
Somehow, Kenichi crawled and then walked away from the science lab; the doors did not immediately burst open, but he wasn't sure if the room was safe anymore. And Kenichi Kagata realized in that moment that everything in this school really did seem bent on killing them all.
Somehow, he dragged himself into the kitchen, grabbing just a couple of things he believed he needed. He returned to the doors of the lab, for one thing only: Kenichi took two especially disgusting pieces of fruit and smashed them against the door, smearing them into a large reddish X. He'd normally balk at wasting food like this, but 1) he didn't think that tomatoes that looked rotten and black deserved to be called food anymore; and 2) he needed to put up some kind of warning for the moment, at least until he could find materials for a better sign.
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