1 Parasyte: Beginning

I gripped my pen and began scribbling on a piece of paper hidden between the pages of my notebook. The sheet comprises with all sorts of unique and random doodle-like images, which makes our artist heart's flutter. For me, art is a form of expression that these little hands could portray.

I started drawing light-weighted circles that partners up with lines and cylinders–a fundamental stature of a person or a humanoid appearance that guides me to sketch the outline of the figure from what I had in mind. Then the gestures of the model, produced by my mind, must be precisely drawn for darker strokes needed for its the physique. Next were several shapes and rounded shadows that should prepend to its visualised results.

There, I created another masterpiece known as an "Undead" from the concepts generated by the majority of the people. It composes general qualities much like from the movie scenes in theatres and drawings by famous artists. But the question is, have I done it right? Did I suppose so?

After reminiscing for some time, I decided that my work was nearly unrefined from the values seen from the regular zombies. I have yet to see a dead person in real life, apart from my uncle, Uncle John, who had died a week ago. I wasn't able to visit his remains, not until tomorrow; the day where his remains were supposed cremated on a crematorium near the city halls and the cemetery. I guess that all of the family's kids were invited, myself included.

'It'll be a good opportunity' I murmured, pondering on the idea to see a live dead body of a person. I took out my smartphone and called an alumnus of mine, from way back my high school days, to pick me up and asked for some company to my sudden adventures. Fortunately, we were good old gals for a long time, since grade school, and we still have managed to be this close during our first college year.

"Hey, why don't we visit a nearby hospital or something? I want to see a real corpse." I asked in a playful tone. It was our casual conversations and invitations, engaging ourselves in the various feat of explorations from the unknown. It was in my goofy nature to drag people around for my mischiefs, and one of which she has been my lucky contestant from my list of victims.

"W-WHAT? HELLO?! Jesus, it was just you! What? Say that again? Sorry, I just woke up and my brain isn't working at the moment,"

Her voice kept stuttering at each of her sentences, switching her tone from falsetto to a low pitch timbre, following her mood. My friend, Paula, is my closest childhood friend. I was born and raised in Tokyo, Japan, but relocated around the city of Auckland, New Zealand, due to my mother and father offered by a job that pretty much pays well than their usual work.

Neither myself nor my dad was adept at speaking the Japanese language, so we decided that transferring homes was a decent call. They are both inclined in the medical field. I, on the other hand, followed a different light on the arts and crafts like the master painters of the world! And I call her "Pura" due to my pronunciation of things way back and at the same time, teasing her during our silly conversations.

"Say? Do you have a friend who can bring us up to a hospital or something? I need a reference for my drawings. Please?~" tuning in with my bewitching tone, I pleaded my best friend for an invitation, with the help from her network of friends to a hospital where we can easily access any cadavers available.

"I thought you're parents were both doctors? And I still want to sleep!" she grunts to my comment as she grumpily emphasised the time. It was indeed past 4 o'clock, both my dismissal and her free time. In colleges, schedules of academic school days and vacant time slots are chosen and picked through a lottery; if you're unlucky enough, you might end up attending a full 8-hour class explaining chemical components or such and suffer an endless madness out of nothing but despair. Showing an example, I was that unlucky devil who had unfortunately obtained that kind of curse, and Pura being the lucky bitc— I mean, angel.

"Pleaaase~" I begged once again, this time adding more cuteness to my hoarse voice. We could all agree that being adorable at the outside saves the majority of human lives. 

As my voice trails off, Pura heaves out a sigh of defeat as her voice trails off in a distant.

"Alright Alright, be there at your dorm in a jiffy" as she hangs up from the phone, and sent me a threatening text saying "You're so gonna treat me at a coffee shop tomorrow," She said with a follow up angry emojis displayed at the latter part of her message. She loves me.

With a smile on my face, I sent my reply and prepared everything that I'd need for later's outing. We will start our adventure where the moon shines the highest!

8 O'clock came as we were all prep and ready to go for an adventure this late night. Pura brought a guy, which I think she had a crush on; a nursing student, maybe? Evident from the clean and roughly ironed uniform akin to the nurses seen in hospital settings. She then introduces the guy named "Clinton", a tall blonde chick, who was a sort of uh, a nerd in some ways.

I sent a text message to my mum and asked if I can visit 'Pura' to accompany her to a hospital. "It wouldn't take long", I added, and soon received my granted permission. It took me quite a lot of time to be able to explain the whole story of "Why I need to babysit my friend, Pura, in a hospital".

"So here's Clinton, a friend of mine studying at the same university. Their family owns the hospital. Clinton here had managed to persuade the health staffs of the hospital," Pura explains in a merry tune while scribbling down some phrases down at her notes, hoping she hadn't missed any details that need further considerations.

"What we're doing right now may violate a law. Usually, formal documents are required before certain individuals may…" 

Clinton added but was soon cut him off by my merry "Let's go see some dead bodies" making all of them sigh in anguish, simultaneously, at my laughable manner. It was the moment of truth being able to come this far. Thus, I couldn't anymore wait from my giddy two feet.

We soon found ourselves sneaking through the exit door, heading straight towards the apex of the building, where the remains of the dead patients reside. The lock doors are all capable of being open with the use of an identification card held by Clinton, which made our entrance quicker through the passing floors.

We entered an elevator at the far end sector of the hallway and managed to traverse ourselves to the utmost floor. By the time that the front door had opened, piles of dead bodies resting on the hospital's bed, furnished with the stench of formalin substance, greeted our senses.

Clinton requested that we shouldn't dare open these lights or else we could attract the attention of the board directors residing in the office's room. Without any further restraints, we were finally arm's away from the mountain scraps of dead bodies. However, seeing these corpses ironically made my fazed comrades jump out from their seats, but not me. I was delightfully fascinated as I hastily memorise every nick and cranny of the murder like scene. I opened my sketchbook and hurriedly sketched the first thought what I had in mind while gazing back and forth, studying the live reference before my eyes.

"The reek is driving me crazy. We should head off right now!" Pura exclaims, and I would've seconded the motion. The scent was foul enough to harm our virgin lungs.

"Just a little bit more," I asked as I pleaded my group once more. Never did I realised barging in a collection of dead bodies resting on their death beds would clear my horrid thoughts from my unfinished drawings; which was losing the horrifying touch of a zombified monster.

"AT LAST" I utter. "Finally done!" It was a celebration that I had achieved as one of the marvellous pieces from the entirety of my career. But, then again, did my eyes deceived me? Did I saw a pair of fingers twitched from the dead guy for a moment? Did I? I guess so? I turned my focus away from my vibrant imagination and once again appreciated my hard-earned work.

Yet, happiness returned to me with a grave emergency, when the voice, which I mumbled, was loud enough to alert the health staff nearby; and we thought these dead bodies began moving, right? Silly me.

We stumbled our way from different obstacles blocking our path. Lots of carts filled with surgical equipment and other necessary liquids are obstructing our way near the elevator. Fortunately, we hadn't made a sound and arrived safely at the lift. The nurse who had searched the room was bewildered from the noise we exerted.

"THAT WAS AWESOME" the first who cracked the silence was none other than Pura herself, who excitedly claims while jumping around with an extravagant radiating smile painted at her ridiculous face. Clinton, on the other hand, expresses a worried look, carved from the bottom of her mouth.

"We made it! We made it. WE MADE IT! We made it." He declares in a set of sadness, joy, and afterwards to a monotonous state. That was Clinton's emotions, after all. He was very well surprised yet solemn from getting caught snooping around the dead bodies brought by his father, which was also the DIRECTOR of the said hospital.

"Relax. See? Nobody's at our tail, and no ones going report us to the..." my line of thought had been cut and severed by a pair of screams coming from the storey we had just escaped. A screech that was so intense that it felt more than a mediocre prank left by some teenage kids; like us.

"You heard that, Fleur?" Pura asks as she motions her body in a defensive stance. Clinton then follows her footstep as he too attempted to mimic the awful third rate martial art pose.

I, on the other hand, was wary yet unfazed from the sudden dreadful events. Despite my numerous feminine wears, I take pride in my bravery as a renowned woman, or so I thought.

Maybe it was the nurse who had been scared of the dead bodies like my friends here? Was it also her first time working as a nurse and discerning those unalive human beings?

We'll never know.

My thoughts wander around circling on my mind, attempting to find the distant clues howled by the frightened nurse. But then again, our group had all agreed that the thing which had happened last night was a nuisance topic to be discussed on a different date. Thus, the meeting was now officially placed on hold.

Who knew that my ignorance had brought despair that will shock the whole world?

Sunrise came that woke me up from the early daylight. It was around 7 A.M., and at that time, the dorm should've not been as quiet as it is right now. But that's what I think. The situation has drastically changed and somehow escalated pretty much alarmingly. Every member who is living in their rooms were now silent and left their room vacant for no practical reasons.

Did something happen? Why am I not aware of these shenanigans? I put on my regular clothing; a pink leather jacket and comfortable jeans painted in a black hue. Seemingly ready, I then went downstairs and asked for an audience with the staff remaining at the entrance door.

As soon as I opened the gate, a worker whom I was familiar with, was standing parallel from my view. She was profusely shivering, pale even, as she greeted.

"W-We need to evacuate immediately. Y-You should contact your parents."I paid it no mind and ask the trembling lady about the situation we're at right now.

"What's going on?"

"Martial…Law…" she replied and soon dashed down the office's door, and soon exited the building.

Martial law? Why would they suspend the ordinary law? Yesterday was bliss, and no events had happened to strike a definite martial law.

The timelines feel different, so I headed back to my room and immediately collected all of the necessary things inside my bag.

Cellphone

Charger

Can goods

Water bottles (around 500 ml)

Pair of clothes

Soap (wrapped in a plastic bag)

And some underlining things like my favourite sketch pad, drawing pen, and other materials included in my school bag. It was my knapsack and the only thing which was pretty much available. I wrapped my things inside and finally headed out on the entrance door, ready to face the outside world.

I open up my phone and walk through the surface filled with cars buzzing down the heavy traffic and people running around towards a specific direction. I check my social media account for the latest updates but ended up being traumatised from the unfathomable news.

"Real-life zombies found world-wide. Is this the new pandemic humanity must have to face?"

"ZOMBIES EVERYWHERE AAAAA"

And stuff like that.

Even here in the country of New Zeeland was packed with the burning topic of the uprising apocalypse. It brought terrors from the netizens, posting ever second about these eerie feelings of doom and demise of the humankind.

"What in the world" I couldn't hold my words as I covered my mouth gasping for this unknown knowledge. Gamers must have thought that these global occurrences would deem to be more exciting like mere prototype game. But as a gamer myself (well, I played a lot of games, and zombie genres are the one's popular at the gaming community) I would say that these plagues will bring the death to the word "alive" in the world.

Then, I heard them

The growls from behind, where the people had been running from, came to light as I saw

dozens.

No.

Hundreds of decaying bodies, arms detached, eyeballs painted in white, and rotten skin mixed with dirt and other insects came running down the main streets; devouring and infecting the flesh of the people stampeding towards my way.