Takemura Itsuki

“Let’s begin.”

The Yeti looked at us with his furious eyes and his thick fangs covered with his saliva. He then opened his mouth and turned his head up. “AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!” He then turned at us and punched the wall in front of the small garden of my house. With my hands trembling, I held the arm of Haruto and pushed him backward as I tried to run. But, he didn’t move. I turned back and looked at the back of his head. He looked at the Yeti punching once more that wall, and it broke into small pieces scattered up in the air in all directions. The pieces pattered on the ground and the giant foot beside them stepped forward inside the garden, stepping on the long wild grass in the garden. “C’mon, Haruto, run!” He didn’t move. His scared eyes glared at the rage of that beast and his hands turned cold as I held them. I let his hand go and then slapped him on his head as hard as I can. “RUN FOR YOUR FUCKING LIFE, HARUTO!”

His head jerked frontwards and he turned back at me. “I-I—”

“There’s no time!” I held his left hand again, turned back, and started to run to the corridor. At the narrow corridor, we turned right at the entrance from where the window up on the closed door let the soft sunlight in to lighten the whole corridor. We ran at the door, and I crouched down just in front of the shoe rack in front of the door. Haruto quickly opened the door, and was just about to run when I quickly moved his hand backward at me. “Get your shoes on, it’ll be helpful.”

“Y-Yeah,” He said and crouched down facing me, turned his head down as mine, and started to tuck his shoes on. We then suddenly heard the wall of my room breaking down by that angry impactful punch. That beast then punched on the wall again. He then punched a little rightward. It created a whole circular hole in the wall. He then bent down a little and stepped inside the house. He stepped frontward again and kept his left foot just some centimeters away from my console. He then stepped forward with his next foot and punched on the wall in front of him. The wall in front of us broke. I turned my head back at it and looked at the shattered bricks in the air hitting the other side of the corridor as the beast’s fist came out of it. Haruto was just facing that side. With horror in his eyes, he looked at that creature’s destruction and tucked in the shoe. He then stood up, and so did I. I turned back at the door and we both ran out of my house. We both turned right at the street we just stepped in and started running up the hill. We moved our legs as fast as we can and the black sport pajamas we wore were fluttering as we ran. Our arms moved to and fro our body quickly and our chest was bent outwards as we ran in fright. As we both ran, I said, “Assistant?!”

“Yeah?” The masculine robotic voice replied.

“Show me the map!” The hologram of the map appeared in front of the two of us and I looked at the two white dots representing us running in a narrow lane in the middle of the village. The red dot was on our left. Then I narrowed my eyes and noticed the yellow dots roaming—one just beside us. “Hey, what do those yellow dots represent?!”

“The Yeti, there’re ten of them.”

“WHAT?!” Haruto turned his head left at the hologram. “WHY TEN?!”

“To make it more difficult, obviously. We’re just testing you for a little bit. Don’t worry, it’s the easiest test.”

“We’ll see that,” I said. The hologram disappeared. “Let’s turn left from here. The dot was that side.”

“Y-Yeah,” He replied, and we turned left inside a narrow lane in between two houses. We slid through the dirty lane with garbage lying all over the lane. We stepped on banana peels and white plastic packings and polythenes and what not. I exited the lane on the other side and turned to my right. There was an electric pole, so I jerked my body leftward at the center of the street. Haruto followed me real quick as we ran up that street. As we ran, another Yeti broke in the street as he broke one of the houses on our right. As he speedily broke it and entered, he turned his head left on us, and the two of us running suddenly applied brakes and looked at it with our scared eyes. I stepped back, and so did Haruto, and then we turned back and started running. But just after a step of sprint or two, we again braked our run as we looked at another Yeti breaking in the streets from our right from the other side of the street. It turned left at us and looked at us with its rageful eyes as he breathed up and down his body. We turned our heads back and looked at that one stepping at us. As he stepped his right foot at us, it created a depression at that place as small bits of the road scattered in all directions. We both stepped backward at the other one in front of us. “W-What are we supposed to do?!” Haruto shouted and I turned at him. He turned at me with his desperate, confused, and scared eyes and shouted, “DO SOMETHING, ITSUKI!” That cry ran down my veins and my mind.

“Do something, Itsuki!”

“Do… something… Itsuki…”