Code Zulu Alpha: Nerd in the Apocalypse!

The rest of the footage played out but seeing it for the second time still bugged me.

What happened was that Kaley quickly drew her pistol, held it with both hands, and pointed it at Ezekiel. However, Ezekiel just started muttering to himself before he started hitting his face with his left fist. It didn't take long before he started to chuckle silently while tears were flowing down his cheeks. His expressions were in direct contrast with each other and it made Kaley step back a few times.

[Stop moving! Hey! I'm telling you to-]

[I COULD JUST KILL MYSELF, RIGHT? RIGHT?!]

As soon as Ezekiel made direct eye contact with Kaley, he grabbed a clump of hair from his head and ripped with off with a maniacal expression. After that, he banged his head on the table as hard as he could before doing it over, and over, and over.

[I told you to stop moving! Hey! Cut it-]

[YOU HAVE ONE WAY TO MAKE ME STOP, YOU BITCH! Wait-- I… Oh! I forgot about my-]

Ezekiel's expression kept changing repeatedly, and even I got unnerved watching it for the second time. He looked deranged, sad, excited, angry, disturbed, and lost but his last moments bugged me-- no, every one the most.

Asha's face couldn't be described by words even if I tried.

What happened was Ezekiel just looked at Kaley in the most disgusting way possible before he looked like he was in ecstasy. His eyes were filled with lust but it didn't take long before his pupils disappeared for a short moment. He trembled momentarily before Kaley took another step back and it was then when he started to urinate on himself.

Ezekiel's pants started to darken as he wet himself but he kept eye contact with Kaley while giving a faint smile.

[Thanks. I'm gonna kill myself now...]

Ezekiel easily pulled out his gun from his pockets and pointed it at his head. It only took a fraction of a second before he pulled the trigger and a part of his room got newly decorated. However, only a few people noticed that as soon as Ezekiel said his parting words, Kaley lowered her gun by a few centimeters.

I never said anything about it but the old-timers definitely knew. Kaley glanced at us, waiting for us to bring up the subject but now was just not the time.

The footage eventually ended and everyone's eyes were now on Asha.

She was just sitting on her chair motionless, but her eyes were extremely red from crying. She didn't bother to wipe her tears anymore as her eyes were just stuck on the screen where we showed her Ezekiel's final moments. She stayed in that position for a while before she blinked once and looked at me with somber eyes.

"So, what's gonna happen to me?"

I looked at her in the eye before opening my mouth, "Mrs. Bergonio, I can't imagine what's going through your head right now but-"

She cut me off, "Are you gonna send me away?"

"No."

"No?"

"We're not sending you away. You did nothing wro-"

She cut me off once more, "Did nothing wrong? Hah! I tried to protect my sick son, enabled all of his urges, blamed all of you because he killed himself, and you're not gonna do anything to me? Why?"

"Technically… we're just moving your place of residence here in this hospital. Even if we tried the news of what happened today will be discussed in our meeting and it will be difficult for you to live with your 'roommates' and to be honest with you, they requested for the same thing to happen."

"Oh… I'll be on probation like the new ones that stumble here every now and then..."

"Essentially, yes. That's what's gonna happen."

"..."

"Furthermore, you'll be required to attend psych meetings with Mrs. Payan here and we'll monitor you-"

"Monitor me? What? I'm not crazy!"

"We're not telling you that. These meetings are just-"

"D'you think I'm gonna kill myself?! Is that it?! I'M NOT FUCKING SICK LIKE MY-"

I just stared right at her and released a bit of pressure, "You just lost your son and you're being forced to start fresh. We're doing this for your own good and whether you like it or not, you're doing what we're telling you to do. It's harsh but you're being let off easy, remember that."

I said each word just loud enough for everybody to hear and Asha shrunk down and bit her lip. Her face showed a lot of bitterness and sorrow but I could only do so much to keep everyone satisfied. I couldn't just let her go because she might do something stupid when no one's looking and I wanted Marisha to dig a little bit deeper inside her head.

There were a lot of things to take into account and I eventually had Asha escorted to her new quarters.

I thought this day would be like any other day where we wouldn't notice the time but it turned out to be more tiring than going for a simple cleanup run. I'd normally leave this kind of thing to the professionals and play some IRL hack-and-slash but this time, someone too close to home got involved.

Furthermore, I needed to tie up some loose ends.

The old-timers tried to finish up what we started, Marisha excused herself to bring the news to our young couple, while I drove back to my compound with Kaley.

She wasn't speaking a word when we got back and she just followed right behind me when we got to our room.

Once I closed our door behind her, I removed my gear and just placed them on our bed. I sat down and eventually laid on my back but Kaley was still standing by the door. She was looking at me with concern and we just stared at each other for a moment. I sat by the edge once more and Kaley started to look down on the floor.

I didn't try to initiate the conversation and it eventually prompted a response from her.

Kaley raised her head to look at me once more and she was lightly pursing her lips, "I… I just knew, okay?"

I didn't answer and just kept looking at her.

"I… I… I just..." Kaley tried to say something but she stopped midway. She continued to look at the same spot on the floor earlier.

Looking at her expression, I knew that she knew she shouldn't have lowered her guard one bit but this 'ability' of hers made her rely solely on it. Even if she knew, even if she was 100% sure, even if the person she was up against declared that he would kill himself, she shouldn't let her guard down until it was over. People, especially people that were backed into a corner could easily turn a normal situation into something extremely volatile.

Things resolved as they should but that few seconds was crucial and could've turned into something irreversible.

I finally walked up to her and squished her face with both hands so she could face me, "Look… at least you know what you did wrong, okay? This… I don't know… this insight check of yours is abnormal but we already know that it's not 100% foolproof. Remember the case with Ilana?"

Kaley tried to get away from me, "I… it hurts~ stop pinching so hard~"

I squished her cheeks even harder, "Nope. This is strike one. Deal with the pain and listen to me."

"Ow… O-Okay..."

"I love you, alright? I just don't want to regret shit because I've done a lot of regretting already. I get overconfident in my abilities too but I have you and everyone else in our team to check me. However, you were alone that time and slipped a tiny bit. That-- That should never fucking happen again, alright?"

Kaley's cheeks were getting redder and redder, "A-Alright..."

I finally let go of her cheeks and said, "Get to strike three and I'll make a new diamond with my pubes!"

Kaley almost lost her balance, "W-What?! Y-You wouldn't!"

I started to ruffle her hair, "What? Hmm? Gonna do anything about it?"

"Argh! Sto- Wha- Wai- What are you doing?! Wha-"

Kaley was about to cry but I carried her like a sack of potatoes before throwing her on our bed. Before she managed to recover, I snatched one of our pillows before throwing it straight to her face.

She let out a roar but I was already running down the stairs.

"GET BACK HERE, YOU DOOFUS!"

I just cackled as I raced out of our house and even Zeus thought we were about to play tag. He was chasing after me but he slinked away once he saw Kaley stomping hard with each step. Everyone else also gave way and I was running at my top speed, heading for the covered court.

'Perfect, heh.'