CHAPTER 2: WHINNY
“This has to be what started this, what turned mom into…” my brother Rin tried to put into words, but I grabbed the old newspaper from his hand.
“Let me see that. Are you sure that this isn’t just AI?” I stare at my brother, interrogating him.
“I can tell the difference between AI and real, Whinny,” he asserted, then continued. “And that is real.” He then grabbed the newspaper and stuffed it into my face, pointing to the one thing I didn’t want to bother even reading.
“Then what about last week when you thought that Dracula Monkey Faced Orchids were an actual thing?” I raise a questioning eyebrow, while smirking to get him to laugh.
“It is! You just refuse to believe. They’re endangered Whinny, endangered!” I suddenly hear a roar combined with a cry all at once. It sounded like mom.
“Shh! If you keep yelling, mo-” I stop myself, then continue. “That thing will find this little hut and rip us to shreds. And if I need to make another fire, I swear… So just don’t make me make another fire. I have so many splinters as it is.” I exclaim, trying to sound my anger without sounding threatening.
My brother then grabbed his sleeping bag and turned away from me. “I’m going to sleep. Good night,” he grumbled.
I sigh and stay up for a little while longer, before I finally fall asleep.
In the morning, I wake up to see my brother leaning against the only escape we have. “We have to get out of here,” he mutters, remembering to keep his voice low.
“Yeah, you’re right. But how? If we try to escape using the exit at night, I think that thing is faster at night.”
“We could try to make a run for it. During the day,” my brother calculates. “It is possible.”
“I know it is,” I utter. “But I am not as fast as you, and that thing sounds so… hungry and hunger is the only thing that fuels these things as if they’re a wild animal or they have a parasite,” I exclaim, continuing to hear if that thing is coming toward the hut, just in case we actually do it today. I peek through the cracks of the old hut, adding more splinters to my hand. “Rin…” I utter.
“I think we should do it today, Yeah?” I interrupt him in the middle of his so-called ‘thought processes.’
“Th-theres more…” I exclaim, not even batting my eyes away.
“More of what?” he asks firmly, as if he has no idea what those twisted things were anymore.
“If we are going to do that plan, I suggest we do it today.”
“Let me see-” he stops mid sentence. He sees them, too. More of those things have seemingly spawned in our yard, roaring their heads off. “We’re doing it today, no question. But.. I hope you don’t die, Whinny,” he says, hugging me. I hug him back as I restate the same thing. We pack our stuff in our bags, and I grab our dad’s old hunting pistol.
“Just in case,” I state to myself packing it in my bag.
“I love you, Whinny. Even if I die, remember you did the best that you could.”
“You too, Rin. You too…” We hold hands as we go through the emergency exit. We ran so fast, I could barely hear anything besides my heart beat. “Where are we going?” I ask Rin, who just smiles, and says, “Somewhere safe.” I grasp his hand as a monster pokes its long head in front of us. I scream and shoot it two times. I only have eight pieces of ammo left. Its head falls onto the floor along with its tangled body.
“Good aim, Whinny,” he congratulates me and continues sprinting through the twisted mob of people. But I don’t even think they’re people anymore…
