3: Happy Birthday

This is about Sonny, and his events with and the introduction of his parents on the day of his 10th birthday.

                The sun was rising. In its wake, came the comforting heat, which was welcomed in these days.

                Quietly, a boy slept amidst the newly arrived hotness.

 

                After a while, the sun grew taller in the world. The boy’s eyelids could not safeguard his eyes from it any longer.

                As a result, he awoke.

 

                He sat up, rubbed his eyes and looked to his right. A man was stretching.

                This man was the boy’s father.

 

                The boy stretched, himself, and lay back down.

 

                All around him, the white swarmed. The boy looked up into the sky.

                It wasn’t snowy today.

 

                The boy looked to his left. He saw a person among the white, walking towards his father and himself.

                This was his mother.

 

                The boy turned his point of view back towards the sky. He then yawned.

               

                The woman was crying as she dragged a lifeless body with her.

                Soon, her crying was in range of the ears of the boy and his father. The man walked towards her.

 

                They met, a few feet to the left of the boy, who was still looking into the sky. He paid no mind to the woman’s suffering; nor did he bear any concern as to why she was this way. He already knew.

                So, he looked to the sky, still.

 

                “Victoria,” the man said, sighing afterwards. “Let me get that for you.”

                The man took the carcass.

                “I’ll prepare this for us in a few minutes,” he said. “You must be sore; we haven’t been hunting in a while, huh?”

                “I know. And, thank you,” Victoria said, sniffling.

 

                The man grabbed two pieces of wood. He then rubbed those two pieces together, setting them aflame.

                The world was a barren, freezing wasteland, this was true. Although, there was very little humidity, if none, most of the time.

 

                The man threw the flaming logs onto a small pile of wood.

                A fire was soon established.

 

                The woman walked past the boy, then stopped and backed up, and looked down at him.

 

                “You’re awake, I see, Sonny,” she said.

                “Yeah, I suppose I am,” the boy said. “You were crying?”

                The woman sighed.

                “Well, you’re ten now. You know what that means.”

                “I’ll be fine. Like dad has said, my skin’s thicker than normal. I think that’ll give me a pretty good advantage,” he said, smiling.

 

                Sonny’s skin was rather thick, indeed. He hadn’t suffered a flesh wound once in his entire life.

 

                “He is right, you know,” said the man, cutting open the dead body. “James could never cut him deep enough to wound him. God has gifted our son.”

                “I understand that, Arthur” said Victoria. “I guess I’m worried that someone will have an Alter strong enough to perforate him.”

                “Mom, don’t worry. I could protect myself even if I didn’t have thick skin.”

                “In any case, you should be weary,” said Arthur. “You need to be if you’re going to survive.”

                “Yeah, no problem,” said Sonny. “You were tough on me when we were training, right?”

                “Yes,” said both parents in unison. They looked at one another, smiled, and then Arthur looked back towards Sonny. “Since you survived your mother and I, have no doubt you’ll be fine.”

                “That’ right,” said Victoria. “Your father and I are both equally matched, you know?”

                “I know,” said Sonny.

                “And, if anybody’s too tough for you, you just let us know and we’ll take care of them for you,” said Victoria.

                “Mom, I got it.”

                “Sonny, now you promise me that you’ll be safe and that you’ll get us if you need us.”

                “Mom, you’ve planted your point, and you‘re over-watering it; I understand, already.”

 

                Victoria said nothing in return. She simply smiled and her eyes watered a bit.

 

                Arthur returned to tending to the food, shifting its position every few moments, getting it cooked the right way.

                Sonny returned to laying, looking at the sky.

                Victoria sat, crisscross a few feet from the cooking body, observing Arthur, turning back to look at Sonny every few minutes.

 

                And for a while, the silence persisted. The only noise audible was the crackling of the fire and the clutter of Arthur moving around, cultivating the meal.

 

                Half an hour passed, before the body was removed from the burning and then prepared for eating.

                Arthur grabbed his Alter, James, a sword much like Sonny’s, and sliced the body up.

                He threw a slice of the body to Victoria, who caught it, and began eating quite ravenously.

                He then grabbed a piece for himself, then one for Sonny, began eating his slice, and threw one on the ground near Sonny.

 

                Sonny turned, thanked his father, and picked the slice of human of and brushed off the dirt.

 

                “I’ve never had a home cooked meal before,” said Sonny. “They’re better than the meals the Government gives us, right?”

 

                “Yes, we cook them better than the Government,” said Arthur, chomping away. “Now, enjoy it before we decide we’re hungry enough to take it from you.”

 

                Sonny chuckled.

 

                “Okay then,” he said, biting down.

 

                Soon, the entire body was gone. In a matter of minutes, the family had finished off another entire human being.

 

                Sonny stood, stretching as he got up.

 

                “That was delicious. I’m going to enjoy being ten.”

                “Don’t forget: soon, we’ll probably die and you’ll have to catch and cook your own food,” said Victoria.

 

                Sonny looked at the ground, reminded that his parents were getting older.

 

                As people got to be around 30 years old, their system started failing slowly. By 40, if a person was still alive, they were hailed as a very strong individual.

                The cold eliminated any viruses or sickness in the atmosphere and everyone containing a disease was killed off. Even so, the humans nowadays had quite the immune system.

                No, it was the fact that the respiratory system had become one with the digestive system that they died at a young mid-30.

                When coming to be that old, the metabolism starts to slow, though that varies among different people.

                As the metabolism decreased, the food eaten began to back up. Signals or symptoms for such were barely recognizable, so there was no way to prepare to take it on, and deal with the pain; it just sort of happened.

                And then, you die.

 

                To describe it further, one could say it was like suffocating. That or choking. Or, better yet, suffocating and choking.

                Yes, it was like suffocating and choking, combined into one.

                It was also quite a sight to behold.

 

                The person whom was choking/suffocating would be fine, and then suddenly--even though their metabolism usually slows at a steady rate--the person would collapse and, clutching their neck, would most likely squirm until fully dead.

                They would then defecate. Everywhere.

                The system would force all food out, even food that hasn’t been processed.

                The exit for said forcing would be the rectum for the foods, and the urethra for the fluids.

 

                One can imagine the intensity of this event to be fierce. In fact, it is intense.

                For all the food to, at once, force its way through the digestive system and out of the anus, the idea of its fierceness can’t be summed on a scale of visual proportions.

 

                The food literally--very literally--explodes out of the anus.

 

                Combined with the surprise of the situation, for it being without warning, those who are with the person that this would be happening to, would be traumatized to an incessant extent and would be pretty much screwed because, seeing this, the person would smell the food, if not covered in it, and would throw up.

 

                Throwing up was a bad thing, because that pretty much meant that the person would have to go and hunt again. This was troublesome. Especially for lazy people.

 

                Sonny, however, had never seen this sort of death, and hadn’t actually heard about it from his parents, so, for this moment, he wasn’t grieving the possibility of him seeing it.

                He was just sad because he felt affectionate towards his parents. He had assumed, when his mother told him they would probably be dying soon, that they thought they were going to be hunted before long.

 

                “I know,” Sonny said. “I’m really going to miss you guys if someone hunts you.”

                “We know,” said Arthur. “Don’t get accustomed to our cooking though. Being honest, it might not last.”

                “Okay,” said Sonny. “And, I meant to ask something. What happens to someone’s Alter if they die?”

 

                Sonny’s parents apparently failed to mention a lot of things to him as he was growing up.

 

                “Well, it usually disintegrates,” they both said.

                “Like, right after they die?” asked Sonny.

                Arthur looked at Victoria, the question in his eyes, “why didn’t we tell him this stuff before? “

                She answered, with the look in her eyes that said, “It’s not my fault. I had to breast feed him. You know that was painful.”

                Arthur turned back to Sonny, who was becoming impatient as his question had not been answered yet.

                “Well, yeah, pretty much,” said Arthur. “Is there anything else you would like to know before we start our day?”

                “Not really, no.”

                “Well, okay then. I have a request though, Sonny.”

                “Sure, dad?”

                “Let’s spar one last time, okay?”

                “Okay, good. I need to use burn off some energy.”

 

                Sonny, now excited, grabbed his sheathed sword, and placed it through the silky belt-like fabric around his waist.

 

*             *             *

 

                The clothing styles of this time were close to that of ancient Japan, where the gangsters of that time were defined as ‘samurai’. They wore a ukata, which were the robes that the primeval samurai wore, and, to hold that ukata together, there was a strap of fabric of some kind that acted as a belt. In Sonny’s case, silk.

 

*             *             *

 

                Sonny rubbed the hilt of Yuna, and spoke to it softly.

                “This will be our final practice, Yuna,” he said.

 

                Arthur fetched James. James didn’t have a sheath; it was a two-handed sword, and so it was considered inefficient for a sword like that to have one.

                He held James, arms folded, clutching the hilt, straight up and pressed his head against the flat part of the blade.

                Arthur always did this before a premeditated fight.

 

                Sonny looked at him, and drew Yuna from its scabbard. Its luster purged the air, shining brightly, reflecting the sun.

                James was a bit worn. As was Arthur. The blade wasn’t quite as shiny as Yuna’s, but, it was, nonetheless, a powerful weapon.

 

                Arthur lowered his blade and looked at Sonny.

                “You ready?” he asked.

                “Of course,” replied Sonny.

                “Let’s begin.”

 

                The milieu, which was once raucous with the pitter patter of all that was going on, allayed.

                It was a silence so sudden, you could almost hear it.

                The two, father and son, stared each other down, clasping their Alters.

 

                The advance of Arthur--thrusting himself towards Sonny, his Alter, piercing through the air’s particles as he swung it--burst the scene into reverberation once again.