Talk Sick
Chapter One
Chishiya x Reader
4.9K Words
Only the first 1.7K words bellow, please read the rest on Ao3!
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Tokyo was dark, eerie and pitch-black in a way it had never been before, in a way that left you feeling cold and shaking as you padded down the road on unsteady steps. Or maybe that was just the wind on your damp skin (damp with sweat or blood, you didn’t want to be sure) and the tangy taste of blood still on your tongue that made you feel disgusted right down to your core.
Try as you might, you could hardly remember what had happened in the last few hours. It was all just blurs, pleading screams you couldn't understand, that desperate fear in your gut that burned you from the inside out and made you capable of things you didn't want to be capable of ever again.
And red.
So much red.
You thought maybe it was better that the last clear thing you could really recall was your friends’ smiling and laughing faces, as they raced into the salt water at one of the many beaches Chiba had to offer, and left you sitting in content under an umbrella on the sand. Even then, you chose not to really remember, because you doubted it’d give you answers to any of your questions anyway. Because Tokyo was dark.
And you were all alone.
Cradling the arm in a cast to your stomach (because it ached, and you were cold) you stumbled down a lifeless street with no real aim to where you were going, you just wanted far away from that red covered room and the guilt that sat heavy on you there. Gripped tightly in your other hand was a playing card and phone you picked up and hadn’t really payed any mind to after it had chimed that simple “Game Clear”, it wasn’t like you could read anything else on it anyway, and it barely functioned enough as a torch to see your feet. You didn’t know where you were, your feet had carried you for hours already and they hurt with each ‘slap, slap, slap’ against the concrete, and you didn’t know where you were going. But you were tired, and your ears rang.
And Tokyo was quiet.
You just wanted to sleep, and wake up from this nightmare.
Waking up sprawled in the backseat of a car that isn’t yours the next morning, a crick in your neck, arms stiff, leaves you confused for a moment. You just lay there and stare at the roof for what feels like an eternity to try and remember how you got there. The screams came back unbidden, muddy and distant, yet you can’t shut them out fast enough – ending up curled up like a spring and biting your hand to stifle the sobs that make your chest tight for an agonising hour. Then as you quietly unfurl, wipe your eyes, and feel already rough dried tear-tracks; you’re hit with the sour sense of deja vu as you remember crying yourself to sleep just like this the night before.
You had wandered for hours, through the night and hoped to find someone, anyone that could answer your questions. Deep down you were hoping that you just weren’t truly alone now, after the death of so many, but inevitably had given up. You’d found the closest unlocked door, climbed in, and gone to sleep with pleads for it to be a dream on your quivering lips.
Now – when the quiet world outside was still there, overrun with grass and decay, and the physical reminders still stained your skin red – you couldn’t deny it anymore. Tokyo had gone empty of thousands of people, leaving you and (hopefully) a few others in a situation you were sure most would call apocalyptic. But you decide now wasn't the time to think about that, not to dwell and mope and sulk, now was the time to focus on fixing the little things.
Big things would come later (and so would the panic).
You popped the door open and climb out onto bare, unsteady feet as you take a second to look around and maybe figure out where exactly you were; somewhere still in Tokyo, that you knew. You and your friends had wandered around on your first week of vacation enough to have a vague idea of where you were, but you didn’t live here and you certainly didn’t speak the language. So without any of those signs that helpfully included English underneath the Japanese, you had no idea where to start.
“Well…” Your voice was worn, croaky and dry. You didn’t want to think about how it was from all the screaming yesterday. “Small things first… I need to learn how to read.”
You had heard a lot of things about what talking to yourself meant; that it was a sign you’d gone crazy, that it was a good way to work through problems, or that it was even a sign of trauma. Right now you are more inclined to think it was a mixture of all, but what would you know? You weren’t a psychologist.
You looked to the phone still gripped tight in your free hand, pressing the button to bring up the display and glance over the things you could see. The app icons you could understand well enough; a camera, settings, the time, and a gallery for whatever photos or videos you would take. The problem came with the two others. While clearly marked ‘Game’ and ‘VISA’ in English, once you tapped into them the display was mostly Hiragana and Kanji, and the scarce few Katakana you could read weren’t helpful. You’re being naively hopeful right now, you knew, but you weren’t stupid; you figured they were a count of what ‘games’ you had played and, being on a travel VISA already, a VISA for whatever this world around you was (be it another one entirely, the future, or some sort of illusion didn’t matter anymore). Still, seeing the single Heart sign staring back at you made your gut churn uncomfortably, you weren’t going to trust anything in this world at face value anymore. Not when a simple game of catch turned into a one-sided massacre right before your eyes.
So, you decided then and there that the first thing to do was to find a bookstore and track down a Japanese-English Dictionary and start translating every little clue this phone could give. You pause with a shiver, remember that you were still only dressed in your swimmers from yesterday, and sigh.
“Clothes… I’ll need clothes.”
You tucked the phone into the safety of your top, not wanting to risk losing it, and set off. Tokyo is huge, and still as empty as it was before, but with the sun out it’s much easier to find your way around even when you can’t read the signs.
It takes hours, hours that feel gruelling and hopeless and wear at you with every bookshop you find that doesn’t have a guide you can read, but eventually you find what you’re set out to on the bottom shelf in the back of an older bookstore. The store was small, cramped with books, mostly old and full of dust; it’s the type you could picture a small old lady with a welcoming smile to run but seeing it now just makes you feel like the city is just that more empty. But you take the book, sit down right where you are and pull out the phone to rest it on your knee in one fluid motion. Then start flipping through the yellow pages.
You are halfway through the second word in the VISA display when you realise it probably would have been better to find a pen and something to write on before starting, because translating into Romaji then translating into English word-by-word was going to have you getting something wrong. You tuck the phone back where it belongs, hold the book under your cast arm and go off in search of things to write on. You’re lucky, because right across the street is a decent sized Mall, so you know your search will be quick. You go in also hoping to find some clothes along the way.
Which you do. One of the first stores past the coffee shops and little diners at the entrance is a niche little clothing store, with a sign in kanji you can’t read. You almost hesitate at the door, the thought of stealing weighing on you. But you remember the screams, the blood – this world wasn’t going to be nice to you, so why would you be nice back? - then you’re picking up the first backpack you see and stuffing it with clothes. But only a few.
You don’t know what these ‘Games’ are yet, and you’re not naive enough to think it’s a one-and-done deal, so what you grab is practical more then fashion. Sweat pants and a jacket for weather, underwear, shorts, a shirt with a design you didn't pay too much attention to, to change into now. You find and duck into a bathroom, locking the main door without bothering with a stall (because you might not have run into anyone yet, but if apocalypse type movies have taught you anything, never leave yourself vulnerable). Just as you start to strip, you catch your own reflection in the wall wide mirror and freeze; you’d been ignoring it, the blood that had dried and flaked onto your arms, your face, your swimmers, everywhere. But seeing it now there was more then you imagined, almost more blood then bare skin and it makes you’re stomach churn. You all but lunge for the sink, turning the tap frantically and collapsing to your knees when nothing comes out, not even a pity drop.
Now that you had seen it, you could feel it. The crusty dryness that clung to you like a second skin, between your toes and even fingers. You wanted it off, the proof that people had died around you, had died because of you. You didn’t want to see it, you didn’t want to feel it, you didn't want it.
“Please… Please…”
