.. ' Kaboom! Boom! Boom! Katakragaboom! Then I slid under a desk and flew out of the building before it crashed. I caught a chain hanging from the opposite building and made my landing flawless like a heroine. The lion-looking bird charged at me, but I simply sidestepped. Staying calm and reserved...." Mira paused, trying to build suspense.
Scarlet's eyes gleamed with excitement and anticipation. Awe was plastered on his face.
"Then what?! The suspense is killing me!"
Mira grinned and assumed a hero's stance — like those in the movies — then said with confidence:
".. I ran away like a surviving heroine."
Scarlet's crimson eyes brightened, a wide smile spreading across his face. He jumped up from the cinema chair and strode onto the stage where Mira stood.
"Excellent! Excellent! Miss Mira, your brilliance is amazing. You're a true coward! A true survivor! You've successfully graduated from Scarlet's School of Survival and Cowardice. Splendid! Just splendid!"
He was wearing a tuxedo and a fake beard, while Mira wore a red gown that embraced her beauty. They would have both looked more "human and lovely" if not for the bruises on their bodies and dark circles under their eyes. They looked like abominations themselves.
They were in a contemporary, ruined and dusty cinema center. Rows of chairs aligned facing the stage, and elegant ones were in the upper part of the building, like small balconies. On the chairs were "people" made of brown cardboard and wires wearing costumes.
Scarlet turned to the lifeless crowd and started talking to them like a deranged host.
"Ooh, let's give Miss Mira an applause. She deserves praise. C'mon clap! Yes, yes, clap!"
He clapped his hands with manic enthusiasm. The sound echoed hollowly through the empty theater.
Meanwhile, Mira's expression darkened after she heard a loud chime echo outside the building like a large alarm clock.
".. Here's your cer... Huh? What's wrong, Mira?" Scarlet asked, noticing her somber state.
She turned to him, her eyes filled with strange emotions that made Scarlet shiver.
".. How long have we been here, Scarlet? This is the fourteenth time I have heard the cyber-clock. Which means we've been here for two weeks or more."
Scarlet wanted to say something but remained silent. Finally, he spoke.
".. Yes, and I am really starving! On the bright side, there's unlimited popcorn for you to eat."
Mira stared at him with a deadpan expression.
"Have you gone haywire? First, you complain you're hungry all the time and yet have eaten nothing for the past week. Second, do you think popcorn is some sort of lifesaver?! Forget about food! We will lose our sanity in this place. We're probably the only ones remaining on the island."
Her expression darkened even further.
"... The Island Defense might never come."
Scarlet scratched the back of his head, trying to come up with an idea to brighten her mood. He was actually feeling the opposite of what she was.
Yes, he was weak and had dark circles under his eyes, but a vampire's resilience should never be compared to that of a mundane human. Not even to talk of a teenage girl!
He and Mira had been hunting those abominations for the past two weeks, trying to look for more survivors, but they hadn't found anyone. They couldn't jump to conclusions yet, though; the island was very large, and it would take at least a month or two to travel on it.
Those two weeks had weakened the two of them, but Scarlet still loved it.
One, as a vampire who loved hostile and desolate areas, this was a perfect world for him. Not to mention the fresh human bodies they met along the way while looking for survivors.
.. Well, drinking their blood without Mira noticing had not been very easy.
Second, if the human bodies finally decayed, he could just drink Mira's. He had also planned not to kill her immediately. Instead, if he ever became really hungry, she would have to find out he was a vampire, and he could just keep feeding on her while drinking her blood.
No one could actually stop him in a place almost or possibly devoid of humans.
Eventually, he knew Mira would later die. After that came the reasons he'll miss crowded areas.
After Mira's possible death, he might eventually give in to madness and hunger. All his survival tricks would have been for nothing. Also, he was running out of survival tricks.
'Ah.. what a hassle.'
He turned to Mira, who had also been pondering something either different or similar. Maybe she was also planning to use Scarlet's flesh as food until he eventually died.
'Don't be dumb, Scarlet. Not everyone is like you. And besides, Mira is a—'
"Let's try the hunt one more time. Now that I think about it, I don't think your flesh will be that delicious if the rest of the dead bodies go rotten. Not that I'll enjoy eating human flesh, but what can I do?"
'... A self-centered, wicked blockhead.'
"So what do you say?" Mira grinned.
Scarlet nodded and took off the beard and the tuxedo, revealing his traditional all-black dressing underneath. Meanwhile, Mira went to the back of the stage and changed into all-black clothing. They both completed their dressing with black plastic masks and gloves that covered their whole faces and hands, respectively.
Besides the traditional outfit, they wore biker protection gear, using it as makeshift armor. Mira wore roller boots with it while wielding a sharp, bloodied cutlass.
Scarlet adjusted the chainsaw on his back, checking the teeth and the fuel line with care that bordered on obsession.
He stared at Mira, his expression hidden under the black mask.
Without saying a word, he nodded to her, and they both went out of the building.
****
Mira yawned and sighed as she rolled along the uneven road.
"Seriously, Scarlet, I think we've wiped out every abomination in this area."
Scarlet didn't reply and only studied the surroundings. Some abominations they'd killed were still present... or what remained of them. The air smelled of rotten flesh and metallic blood.
Chrome buildings were destroyed, their broken pieces scattered on the uneven street in different sizes. Some were so big that Scarlet and Mira had to change their course of direction occasionally.
Beyond this desolate cityscape, Scarlet could sense another presence apart from Mira's.
He stopped walking and turned his gaze to the ground, with a grim expression hidden behind the mask, prompting Mira to stop as well.
"Don't speak too soon."
That was what he muttered before he grabbed Mira and leapt back, creating a distance between them and a large claw that shot out of the ground immediately after they leapt.
The large hand with sharp, long claws cut through the air, sending debris and dust into the air. Mira and Scarlet looked at each other with calm postures.
The hand looked like an exoskeleton with very little fur. The claws were made of pure iron.
Mira frowned behind the mask.
"How did it get underground? Is it under the island? Floating?"
Scarlet frowned as well.
"... It's not floating. It's up in the darkness. My instinct can't be wrong. But how?"
Scarlet may not have known why blood banks and mortuaries existed. He may not have known the difference between a lion and a jaguar, but what he was sure of was the Floating Islands.
.. It was a story etched into his memory.
A long time ago, when humanity had just advanced in technology — one of which was that they could control gravity at a certain rate — chaos ensued. Chasms appeared on the surface of the Earth in different sizes, giving way for inhuman monsters to find their way to Earth.
Humanity lost half of its population. To save the rest of humanity, scientists tried to control gravity, pulling the last remnants of humanity away from the surface, into the sky on floating islands.
These floating islands, over the years, were redesigned to resist altitude and to maintain the gravity manipulation. Below the island was a large heap of dirt and debris, and above were cybernetic buildings made of chrome and metal.
Between these two was a large metal sheet that separated them. The metal that covered the whole expanse of each island had a space that radiated a color-type glow. The glow came from crystals called Resonance Stones, which powered and made the gravity more stable.
The space itself was like a basement below the city.
.. Maybe… just maybe, the resonance stones had been exhausted, and the unknown monster had found its way into the basement somehow. Or maybe Scarlet's senses were wrong.
The claws retreated into the ground with a loud rumble, and everything went silent abruptly, like it had never been there before. Only the hole in the ground and the large debris around it served as a testament.
Scarlet and Mira walked… rolled… over to the large hole.
Scarlet removed the mask, a grim expression plastered on his face. Mira followed suit. She sighed and turned to Scarlet, as if expecting a command from him.
Scarlet's scowl deepened.
".. What if the stones have actually been exhausted? That means we have limited time to get off this island before it descends and crashes on the surface. What if it has already started descending?"
He turned to Mira.
Mira's expression was tense. Then she muttered,
"Then we're in hot soup."