Zombie Kiss Chapter 2: Verdict

Prologue

Blood gushed from the white rabbit"s stomach.

Its fur turned red like a b.l.o.o.d.y cotton ball. The tender membrane on its ear tore apart. The white rabbit limped its way slowly. It could stop moving any moment.

I followed it, every step bringing me closer to darkness.

Darkness from a black, bottomless "hole".

But when I took my eyes off it for a moment, the rabbit disappeared, leaving me behind in this "rabbit hole" all alone.

Like Alice who lost sight from the White Rabbit.

In…the labyrinthine blackness in my heart.

That was…the wide rabbit hole in me.

"All the world"s a stage" was a quote from Shakespeare that I agree with. Humans are actors, destined to live. When they die, their roles end, no different from a puppet with severed strings.

I never thought of myself higher than others. I never felt disgust, envy, or love. To put it simply, I was apathetic towards other beings in my species. In my eyes, humans and ants are the same, just living things driven along to the day they perish.

It was a fact, but this world condemned people like me as "twisted". They say I stepped over a line that can never be crossed.

However, to live smoothly in this world, I had to wear the mask of "a regular human being" and play along with roles given to me. Still, no matter how well I pretended I was normal, the rabbit hole never disappear.

It grew wider and darker.

I let the rabbit hole embrace me.

When I reached out my hand, darkness swallowed it like a hungry animal. In a round pit where darkness lives…

My hand touched something…

"Ariya! Are you listening!?!"

A voice that called next to my ear caused me to shift and remove my hand from a pet.i.tion box. My eyes met a woman"s.

She was in a plain college uniform, no accessories other than a simple sweater. Her hair was naturally curly, her face without makeup. She did not stand out, like a pure flower without colors.

"Yes, what is the matter, Lilith?"

A smile spread across my lips automatically.

"Strange. Once in a blue moon do I see Ariya s.p.a.ce out."

Lilith eyed me all over before smiling.

"I was going to ask whether you want any help. My job is already done."

She pointed her finger at a pile of doc.u.ments on a long, white table. I realized n.o.body was left in this small committee room.

"Thank you, Lilith, but it is late and you should head back. I will finish my work in a minute."

I answered according to the "friend with good intentions" script, and of course my acting deserved an oscar, judging from the young woman who looked at me with admiration.

"Then I"ll go ahead. See you tomorrow."

Lilith waved, and I raised my hand in reply. When her back went out of sight, the smile of my lips instantly dropped.

No reason to wear the "good person" mask when I am alone.

The person named "Lilith" was the vice president and my a.s.sistant. For this reason, we often worked together and seemed close from outsider"s perspective.

Lilith had a nickname: "Saint Lilith", because she was kind and friendly. She loved to help others even though it brought trouble on herself. I often act as if I admire her saint-like behaviors.

In truth, my admiration was "an act".

Someday I might be able to truly admire her…

…That would be the day she became "a corpse"…

That was the rabbit hole in my heart.

Death is alluring.

Death is like the "white rabbit" who called out to me.

"n.o.body escapes death", even children knew that. Plants and animals received "life" only to head to one destination: death. A thousand year old tree would eventually crack, fall, and die.

Death is the only certain pillar of the universe.

Death is equal. Death is justice.

Because one life can only die once…

Death is valuable to all things.

After I let my thoughts drift about, I went back to concentrating on my job and reached into the pet.i.tion box. Then, I took out this week"s pet.i.tions.

"Pet.i.tion Box" was a project by the university"s student committee. The "student committee" were voices for all students and were made up of representatives from all faculties. Those representatives were juniors or seniors, except for the faculty of medicine who sent two freshmen instead.

Those two were me and that woman who just left.

The "Pet.i.tion Box" started one month ago, with aims of making the university a better place by allowing students to write comments or things that should be improved, then drop those in this box. The committee would select them and bring them into meetings.

The one who selected pet.i.tions was me.

I volunteered for this position with substantial reasons and a confident face that I rehea.r.s.ed in front of a mirror.

"I want this place to be a university where our friends can have fun learning."

When I said that, I wore the same mask as politicians who waved from their parade carts, spewing baseless slogans.

My reason was a complete lie.

The real reason was…I wanted to see "something".

There were almost twenty pet.i.tions in the box, most of them were senseless messages that people wrote on a whim or a rant to relieve stress.

But not all of them…

I selected a card.

"Those pigeons at the faculty of medicine courtyard are very dirty. Please do something."

I read it over and over, a cold smile forming. I felt like Alice who dove into the rabbit hole.

Something fun will happen…

1

"Again?"

Lilith gazed at the courtyard behind the faculty of medicine with confusion. This is the best relaxing s.p.a.ce in the faculty. The open s.p.a.ce had multiple benches, and angel"s trumpet trees offered them shade. White and orange flowers that hung like bells swayed gently, making a beautiful sight.

But that beauty was erased by dead pigeons dispersed across the yard. Bunches of grey feathers lay on the brick floor, and rotten odor wafted in the air. Hundreds of red marble-like eyes stared into s.p.a.ce, frozen in time.

Lilith could not move and stared at the scene in fright, just like others who echoed her "again" because this was not the first time…

Before, there were many chaotic events, starting from smashed monitors in the computer center. Then, equipment from labs were stolen. The professors called the police, but could catch n.o.body.

This chain of bad events was the center of the student body"s attention, and the journalism club (again) made the story into a bigger scandal. They named the culprit…

"Shadow Vigilante"

"This is too much, that sinner!"

"There is nothing wrong with this. These birds are dirty."

"The culprit is not right in the head."

The students offered a variety of comments, but n.o.body moved to do a thing. Lilith looked around with a bad feeling. As member of the student committee and vice president of the faculty of medicine freshmen, she cannot stand by and do nothing. Lilith decided to step up.

"Please step back. These birds might carry pathogens. Do not touch them!"

Suddenly, a voice spoke up. The calm in that voice was like a wind that blew panic away. Lilith knew this voice well.

"Ariya…"

The polite man, who was good with people and wore a neat uniform from head to toe, stepped through the crowd. His warning herded everyone away from the courtyard, before he shifted some plastic chairs to block the crowd from getting back in.

"Amazing…it was chaotic just a moment ago."

Lilith went to Ariya and complimented him from the bottom of her heart.

Ariya replied humbly, but Lilith knew how amazing the president of the first years is. His perfect record and high test scores was enough proof to call him "perfect".

"I can clean these up by myself. You do not need to help and get yourself dirty." Ariya told her and loosened his tie.

But the young woman shook her head.

"How can I just do nothing? Let me help."

As member of the student committee, she would feel ashamed if Ariya was the one who did everything by himself, but the moment she bent down to pick up a dead pigeon, a hand stopped her.

Lilith"s questioning eyes looked at Ariya, who was holding her wrist. The man did not say anything, but took out rubber gloves and placed them in her hand.

"It cannot be helped, then. Good that I brought some gloves."

"Thank you. What about yours?"

Lilith glanced at the young man"s clean hands.

"It is nothing. There is only one pair. Lilith, you can use it."

"How could I? We should share it, one glove each."

She handed him a glove, then met his eyes.

"I can"t let you be the only one who got dirty."

The moment Lilith finished her sentence, something rippled through the air.

It went by so fast she could not tell what happened. Looking again, there was just Ariya, smiling gently like always. He reached out to take a glove.

"Then…thank you."

His warm demeanour was the same, but for a fraction of a second…

She felt like that it wasn"t the face she was familiar with.

Why…?

"Why are there only two of you here? Where are the other committee members?"

A strict voice echoed. Turning around, two men in student uniform waded through the crowd. The one who spoke was Jorn, the committee president and a senior in the Faculty of Political Science. His mannerism was similar to Ariya, but more mature and strict.

"I will make sure they get a good scold, Jorn!"

Jorn"s sidekick and shadow was Vich, a junior from the Faculty of Law. Because of his position as vice president, he followed Jorn"s every command without a second thought, and would not let anyone object either. Many people would scorn him, saying Vich was practicing this skill for his future career growth.

On their neckties were pins, one for the president and one for the vice, so people could easily recognize them.

"Don"t bother. Let"s deal with the problem here first. And Ariya, Lilith…"

Jorn faced them, stress in his eyes.

"Later on, don"t do something reckless. What if these pigeons were carrying some kind of disease? What would you do then?"

"…Sorry."

Ariya replied politely, while Lilith only nodded without a word, feeling a little down from getting scolded.

"They didn"t die from a disease. It must be his doing…the Shadow Vigilante." Vich spoke up. "He must"ve poisoned them with food in the courtyard. He"s the only one who would do this."

"Eh? Vich, you know who did this?"

Lilith asked. She was also curious who the Shadow Vigilante was. True, these pigeons made the courtyard dirty with their droppings, but poisoning them was just going too far. The method ignored the possibility that other animals or somebody might be harmed.

"That guy, of course. The black sheep of your faculty."

"Vich, you mean…"

"Yes. "Vakin"."

Vich announced a familiar name with confidence.

"If it"s that guy, he could do this without batting an eyelash."

Um…was it really him…?

"Eh…um…it"s true that he"s kind of strange…" Lilith said hesitantly. "But, we don"t have any evidence to put the blame on him. We can"t say he did it just because he"s a little odd."

She warned with the best of intentions, but Vich talked back with frustration.

"You"re acting all saint-like again, Lilith. Everybody is suspecting him. There are rumors that the guy like to research weird drugs in a lab. A simple bird-killing poison is nothing."

But…those were just rumors.

Lilith wanted to argue, but after seeing Vich"s frustration, she could not open her mouth.

"But I agree with Lilith."

Ariya said, and the three committee members stared at him.

"We do not have any evidence, and cannot make any a.s.sumptions yet."

Vich scratched his head, fed up with the behavior of his two undercla.s.smen, while Lilith thanked Ariya in her head. Since forever, he was the only one who did not mock her actions by calling her "Saint" or "goody-two-shoes" or "party-p.o.o.per". Not once. Ariya was the only one who listened to her reasons.

Ariya is such a "good person".

"Whether Vakin is the Shadow Vigilante or not isn"t important right now."

Jorn concluded. "Call someone in to test if these birds died from poisoning or from an illness…"

"Want my help?"

The four committee members turned around in surprise, but what was more surprising was that a man in a lab coat was kneeling and used a scalpel to cut a pigeon"s belly.

"Stomach is filled, and this smell…it"s strychnine, no doubting it."

The man stuck his bare hand into the bird"s abdomen, and pulled out a goop of food pellets from its stomach. Mucus and blood coated his pale hand. People in the crowd shouted "eew" in unison, but the man waved that goop around like a toy.

"Hey!?! What the f.u.c.k are you doing, Vakin!?!"

Vich yelled at the man in a lab coat, known to everyone as "Black Sheep of the Faculty of Medicine."

"What am I doing? An autopsy, of course."

Vakin replied, looking at Vich with the corner of his eyes. He didn"t wish to annoy anyone, but his eyes always looked down at everything anyway. Lilith knew this man for a long time and could never get used to his glare.

"You made matters worse. You are the one who put strychnine in their food, huh?!"

"Hmm? Deaths bring chaos, sure, but this kind of method is not my taste…"

The man smirked, his expression radiated childish cruelty. He stood up, picking the dead bird along.

"Talk about chaos, this is what I like…"

Vakin did something no one was expecting.

He threw the bird carca.s.s with dangling gut into the crowd, merely an inch away from Lilith"s face. She barely managed to dodge.

"Hey!! Are you crazy or what!?!"

"Eeeeeek!!!"

"Eew, gross!!!"

That moment the crowd dispersed like a jabbed beehive. Just from a single dead bird, the calm that Ariya brought turned into chaos, like a still lake disturbed by a hailstorm. There were swear words and screams when people fell and got stepped on.

Amid all that noise was a laughter.

"This is more like it! Chaos from human hands is much better."

"What the f.u.c.k!?!"

Vich (and many people who were following his lead) rushed towards Vakin. Lilith tried to stop them, and from the corner of her eyes, she could see Jorn putting a phone to his ear. The dean will hear about this.

"Thank you for your little help, Vakin."

Ariya surfaced from the chaos.

"But we want to finish cleaning up. Could you please get out?"

"President" and "Black Sheep", the two polar opposites of the Faculty of Medicine stood facing each other for a moment, before Vakin shrugged and turned around.

"Do as you wish. No matter how hard you try, this world tainted with sin won"t get any cleaner."

He left with an unsettling line, no care for all those people reviling him. Lilith watched his slender back disappear towards the building, a professor chasing after him.

When Vakin left, the crowd began to gossip.

"He must be the Shadow Vigilante."

Different people had different opinions, but that was the only thing they all agreed upon. They had no evidence yet, but Vakin"s popularity is in the negative, worse than the worst political party.

"Are you still going to protect him?"

Vich asked, and his words pierced right into Lilith"s heart.

Lilith could not reply.