Code Zulu Alpha: Nerd in the Apocalypse!

The three of them sat in front of my laptop as it played the brutal truth that awaited them, and the more they saw, the uglier their faces become. It started with anger or fear for the first few parts but it quickly went into denial, confusion, unwillingness, and disgust.

They just slumped on their chairs either covering their whole face while tears were streaming down their cheeks or shaking their heads incessantly while muttering a ton of gibberish.

Out of the three, Sheila's reaction was the most demure maybe because her suspicions about her parents were just confirmed. Despite that, she looked like she was still hoping that what she witnessed before was still all a dream and we were playing a fucked up prank on her.

It's just that even if reality would almost always be disappointing, it could also turn out to be devastating.

The only one silently crying out of the three was Ethan. He never looked so demoralized from the words that came from his mother's mouth and all his beliefs were just turned upside down.

With that said, Melanie was the one who was most unwilling to accept the fact that they were just groomed to simply 'spice up' their parents' marriage, and no sort of 'love' was present when they were involved in such acts.

Even if she heard the exact words that her dad just needed 'live' toys, she was still shaking her head and muttering to herself that what she heard was all a lie. However, when it cut to the scene that her dad was accusing me of doing all of this just to get ahold of his personal 'toy', her face just warped into something indescribable before she just started to hyperventilate before she bawled her eyes out.

The way she cried in front of the screen almost transferred the pain right into everyone that was inside the room.

She looked like she was disgusted by wearing her own skin and it would take a lot more than water and soap to clean out the filth she was feeling with herself. It almost translated into self-harm but just hearing horrible words from her own father made her lose the strength to do anything at all.

All she could do right now was let out bitter tears accompanied by a curse in each breath.

None of them wanted to talk to anyone right now but as I was putting back my laptop in my bag, Marisha approached all of them. Her words were just loud enough for everyone to hear and they had a soothing and calming effect on anyone who heard it.

It obviously calmed the three down to a certain degree but before Marisha continued, she had to ask me, Mary, and Marcus to relocate to the room next to the one where we were currently in.

Showing those kids something horribly unthinkable broke through their defenses pointed at the wrong people and now it was just time to mend and mold it into something proper. It would still take some time until they could recover from this but like everyone else, it would depend upon them on how fast they could do it.

I could only ponder about what Marisha was telling the three right now but since I'm with Mary and Marcus, I decided to finalize their relocation.

It was easy enough to give them their own place of residence and to make it even easier, the two of them decided to share the house and foster the kids we'll be taking under our wing. However, Mary's relatives decided that they wanted to stay in the same place they were in not because of trivial reasons but they also had important responsibilities on Iskoh's territory.

"That's understandable… So, the two of you are actually together? You guys married?"

Marcus answered, "Not yet, but we're... already secretly living together for a few years. We're not living 'together' all seven days of the week but it's almost always like that..."

"Oh, so you'll be taking in Sheila and her younger brother?"

Mary interjected, "We could take in Mary and her two sisters too… They're a lot but we're used to taking care of young ones-- Who's taking Ethan and the others by the way?"

"It isn't final but Aunt Sharon might take him in. She'll be great handling boys that think they could punch their way out of anything. You see, my family from my mom's side were raised 'traditionally'... Well, I am too. I'm not saying your organization's views are bad but sometimes, you need some tough love to literally toughen them up. You just need to find the right balance."

"Ah… You don't mean--"

"Yep. He's kinda old for it now but I'm part of the generation where we're raised with the belt, hanger, and the slipper. Some people from the first world might call them abuse but it's entirely different compared to the one they just went through."

Mary nodded a few times as she let out a faint smile, "To be honest, I was also raised that way… I'm not against it but I'm-- We're just finding other ways to raise them without experiencing what we did but-- There's a fine line we needed to walk on and as you said, we needed to find the right balance..."

"Yeah..."

The three of us started to share more stories to get to know each other more but while we're in mid-conversation, we saw Sheila knocking from the other side of the door.

"U-Umm… M-Mrs. Marisha is c-calling for you..."

"Me?"

"Y-Yes..."

Hearing that, I excused myself and left the room I was in but I discovered that Marisha was already done talking to the three. She eventually left them in Marcus and Mary's care and the reason she called for me was that she wanted to give me a piece of advice.

The two of us were the only ones left in the room and I could hear the clock ticking from the wall.

Marisha was just looking at me straight in the eye and no one was saying a word. A full minute had already passed so I had to break the silence.

"So--"

"I heard my husband talked to you."

"Y-Yes..."

"Sorry for interrupting you. Care to share anything with me?"

"I think Matthew could--"

"No, I wanted to hear your side of the story. I already heard his, I wanted to hear from you."

"..."

I didn't answer immediately as I just stared into her eyes but I let out a long sigh before speaking my mind out. It would be useless to hide anything from her and if there was anything that could get through to Matthew's overprotective stubbornness, I was already face-to-face with her. I told her about how angry I was, how I started to be conscious about what everyone was thinking of me, and how I keep having these 'blackouts' at certain events.

I just told it as it was and she listened to every word I said. Honestly, I felt a lot better after talking to her about it and she didn't even flinch when I told her I wasn't in control of what happened in those three days. Her expression told me that I didn't need to worry about a single thing but she really did give me one piece of advice.

"Listen to me, this will sound really~ dumb, but you gotta take it easy..."

"Wut?"

"I told you, this will sound really, really~ dumb but… you gotta take it down a notch..."

"I don't--"

"I need you to breathe, calm down, and think about… nothing. Young man, I've been following you as best as I could, and right now, you really need to slow it down. That thing that happened earlier, when it felt like it got cold? That's a good sign and a bad sign."

"Oh, like this-- Ow! Wha--"

"You doofus! Don't do it willy-nilly! I can only take so much! I'm not one of your fighters!"

"S-Sorry..."

"A-Anyway… What I'm saying is, you need to clear your head for a few days. Your psyche is starting to get a little out of hand with all that bloodlust that stays with you, so you need to do something else right now. It should be something that'll calm your body and mind, and it could be something menial, stupid, or something completely boring."

"Huh?"

"Anything that makes you do things almost unconsciously while your blood is rushing through your head, you need to lay off on it for a bit. I'm not entirely sure that this will work but I think this bloodlust feeds off of that. You need to suppress it first before you could start to control it… These 'blackouts' of yours might be a step above this 'pressure' you could bring out like--"

"Like this-- Ow! You hit much harder than last time!"

"I SAID STOP DOING THAT, YOU DOOFUS! But yes… l-like that… Some people could only subconsciously let out this 'pressure' you could easily let out, I'm sure you'd also be able to control these 'blackouts' of yours."

"..."

"I think it's better to call them something else if you succeed, no?"

"A brownout?"

"..."

"What?"

"A blackout is a total shutdown of electricity while a brownout is just a partial--"

"I KNOW WHAT IT MEANS! IT JUST SOUNDS DUMB LIKE MATTHEW'S JOKES! BROWNOUT MY ASS!"

"HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!"

Marisha was just groaning as I cackled at that last bit but we discussed a few more things about what I was experiencing. She said she handled similar cases before but those 'blackouts' were just blind rage that was slightly different from what I did on those three days.

The only thing similar between the two was the trigger.