Late night out

A man was being dragged across the floor by a tentacle that held him by the mouth. He struggled to pull it off with two of his hands but the tentacle was a 2x level. Soon, his body was forced to join with Hikaru.

More of Hikaru's tentacles protruded and wrapped around him. It began digesting him. The tentacles slowly permeated into his skin and flesh. It pulled him in closer as his body softened.

He was sinking into Hikaru's flesh where his two sons' body parts were visibly sunken. His wife had already been assimilated.

During the assimilation process, Hikaru had been mimicking Chizuko's voice.

He had mimicked her vocal cords as best as he could and was tuning the pitch. He started a high pitch test before increasing the bass. After he reached the optimal, he was talking to himself and comparing it from his memory. He made adjustments until he got the best match.

He had to adjust it because his skills in reconstructing vocal cords had improved since mimicking Aimi but he still wasn't advanced at it. Also, he needed to improve his knowledge of human anatomy by absorbing more people.

Not theoretical knowledge but a deep unconscious understanding of it. He had to get a feel of it. His cells had to instinctively grasp the genetic data, to the proteins, cells, tissue and the organs as a whole. His parasitic cells had to learn each of these steps to become faster and more accurate.

His lips curled up when he heard Aimi's mother. Satisfied, he took out Chizuko's phone and saw that the time was 5:35 am. This was the last house he raided today.

After he killed Aimi's parents, he had taken their phones with the next experiment in mind. He hadn't planned to test his mimicry abilities with the parents. It was a completely spontaneous idea that struck him.

He had reported her house address already. It's only been luck that they haven't reached her down the list. The target list has expanded to all the student's family in the schools of Midori ward including Hikaru's school, Kirigaoka Junior Highschool. Since they've gained access to the schools' database after infecting the principles.

Any family is taken out as long as they had sufficient information for a smooth harvest. This came from the memories of the host. As long as the host's memories were accurate, they could attack their friend's families. Also, they could access new memories from the new victims. This is very much like social networking and multi-level marketing. By taking out whole families in one swoop, they would tie up loose ends.

He typed in the phone for Chiho's name and she immediately came upon the search. He called her number.

"Chizuko? What's -"

Chiho sounded confused on the phone as it was early in the morning.

"Aimi's returned home." Chizuko's voice said bluntly.

He realised that he needed to put in more emotion to it.

"..." Chiho was stunned that the phone went quiet.

***

"What? Aimi came home?" She said in disbelief.

"Yes! She's safe and sound. I'm so glad!"

"What happened? What did she say? Can I talk to her!"

"Sorry Chiho, she's too tired to talk to anyone. She's sleeping in her bed."

"Ah- of course. Let me know when she's better!"

"Haha! I will! Take care now."

"Ahh- Thank yo-"

The phone suddenly hanged up. Chiho's hand that was holding the phone dropped lifelessly onto the bed yet she was vibrant with energy.

She was simply overwhelmed by the joy that she didn't know what to do. It was so abrupt that she was wary of it. How come Aimi came home now and what happened to her? That was the thought which was plastered onto her brain.

She fell flat on her back in her bed with her legs dangling on the bed's side and stared at the white ceiling. Relief washed over her. Her muscles relaxed and she felt sleepy again. She closed her eyes to rest.

...

...

Hikaru!

Her eyes snapped open and she quickly clicked on Hikaru's name from her recent calls. She immediately reached his voice mail. She forgot that he blocked her. Frustration twisted her face. However, she quickly came back to the realisation she had.

'So... all this time...'

She covered her flushed face. Was Hikaru innocent this whole time? What about the ominous feeling she had about him? Was she paranoid all this while?

She needed to find out from Aimi to be sure but she already thought about how to apologise to him. She was extremely conflicted with her feelings. She felt like she was in the wrong yet the impression she had earlier of Hikaru was still stifling and rooted.

He also blocked her!

'I'm going to see him at school...'

She kicked her feet in annoyance as her thoughts repeated themselves in a never-ending cycle.

'What am I going to do!'

***

Hayato had also waited for his son last night to talk to him but this time, Hikaru didn't even come home. He had already called him but received no reply. He left a text asking if his son was alright.

"Sigh."

He didn't want to bother his son too much by sounding worried and calling a couple more times. Maybe Hikaru was sleeping over with his new girlfriend or was she old? This led to the question, how much did he not know about his son? His son started becoming a stranger to him, clouded in a fog of mystery.

He was eating breakfast at 6 am alone at the dinner table. This was a typical morning but he felt even more lonely knowing that Hikaru wasn't in the house.

It was only until the last couple of days that he felt the damage that had been done from two years of neglecting his son. He should have paid close attention.

Hayato pointed at the tv and pressed on the tv remote to clear his thoughts. "Breaking News" flashed before him. A picture of mayhem appeared on the screen. Reporters spoke about a shooting happening in his ward.

The tv showed footage of the explosion site. There were charred roads and trees as well as a house with blown down doors. It was riddled with bullet holes. There were police cars, fire trucks, ambulances and special assault teams (SAT) which are a swat team equivalent to the US. They were all swarming behind the reporter like busy bees.

Hayato was now feeling distraught that his son wasn't home. He had a bad feeling and hoped that his son wasn't a victim, but more so this wasn't related to Hikaru's late night outs.