Friendly Neighborhood (WIOW)

"Friendly Neighborhood" is the first chapter of the Ruins arc of Polimis' What It Once Was. It premiered on December 29, 2019.

Synopsis
Joselyn's odyssey throughout an undead infested world begins.

Plot
5 Months have passed since Isabella's death

Joselyn woke up, she took off her pajamas and began dressing for school. She prepared her backpack, grabbed a book, and accidentally let a small teddy bear fall to the floor. Isabella's teddy bear.

She took the plush, and stared at it for several minutes until hearing her brothers waking up. Emmanuel was the first one to break the silence.

"Good morning Josita, what are you doing?" He asked, but received no response. Emmanuel got up from bed and approached Joselyn closer. "What happens?" The young boy asked again, before noticing the teddy bear Joselyn was holding. Unsure of what to say, he opened his mouth only to say "Oh".

"Guys, is everything alright?" asked Arturo, who was already prepared to go to school. Tears were falling down Joselyn's face as the memories of her late sister began invading her mind. Arturo took the teddy bear away from Joselyn and took her and Emmanuel by the hand. "I know how you feel, I do too, but we have to be strong, for her" said Arturo, trying his best to act as the older brother, and to hide all the pain he felt at the moment.

The Palestina trio left their house and began walking to school, with nobody saying a single word. 5 months passed since their mother was sent to prison. 5 months since Joselyn stopped talking to everybody. 5 months since their little sister died.

For each one of them, life became harder for a different reason: Joselyn was still mourning her younger sister; Emmanuel was very concerned and saddened since Joselyn stopped talking to him, and anybody else; and Arturo sort of became Joselyn and Emmanuel's guardian since their mother, Angelica, was sent to prison.

"Have you guys noticed how the streets are so empty? I mean, emptier than usual" Said Emmanuel, trying to make up conversation and break the silence, although he was right: the streets were emptier than what you would expect on a winter morning.

"Actually, you are right Em" Arturo replied after looking around the neighborhood. "You would expect the streets to be empty since it's too early, but...not like this". Joselyn was too distracted thinking about her things to pay attention to what Emmanuel and Arturo were saying.

The siblings kept walking as they observed each and every street completely abandoned. Silence was deafening and the tension was like a noose around everyone's neck. Then, in the middle of the desolation, the trio saw a person knocking the door to what seemingly was their house, they guessed the stranger probably left their keys inside and was trying to call for someone. But that was not the case.

"See? It couldn't be that bad" Emmanuel told his siblings with newfound relief "Everything will be..." he said before his happiness was short-lived after reaching the school.

"...alright"

And after his last word, everything was just quiet. The school was empty. Not a single child or adult was there besides them. The street where usually around twenty cars are parked was now deserted. The three were really confused, they were sure that today was a school day. Joselyn was sure she woke up at 5:00 a.m., so they were not going late. They were right where they had to.

Arturo, trying to take the smartest choice, told Emmanuel and Joselyn they should return home and probably they could find some information on the news. As he and Emmanuel started walking back home, Joselyn noticed something odd: The gates to the school were open, so she entered to the school.

Before they could notice Joselyn was gone, Emmanuel and Arturo discovered a man in the distance, he was just standing right there, with a blank stare at nothing. "Um...excuse me, sir?" asked nervously Arturo. When the man turned around, Emmanuel and Arturo discovered his skin pale and his eyes gray.

As Joselyn investigated through a hallway, she spotted a classroom with the lights on and decided to check to see if she could find anyone. Joselyn found a backpack sitting alone, it was recently open. Joselyn let out a sigh of relief upon discovering everything was seemingly alright. Suddenly a girl's scream was heard in the distance, which prompted her to rush to investigate.

Joselyn found a young woman struggling in a fight with a man with decayed, pale and rotten skin. Shocked at the sight, Joselyn could only watch in horror as the girl pushed the man away, but he attacked and tried to bite her.

The girl cried out something to Joselyn which she did not understood. She, being unable to understand what the girl told her, stood in her ground paralyzed until the girl pushed the sick man out of her again and tossed him at Joselyn. The creature pinned Joselyn to the ground and attacked her, she tried as hard as she could to prevent the creature from biting her. As her strength was drained by her effort, a fire extinguisher hit the man, or creature on the head and sent him to the ground. Joselyn raised her face to see the extinguisher being held by the woman, who was now offering her hand to help Joselyn get up. Before Joselyn could answer, the man got up and tried to lunge at Joselyn again, before his head was crushed with the fire extinguisher by the girl. "Thank you so much Rin, you saved my life" said mockingly this girl, whose name apparently was Rin. Once Joselyn stood up, the two heard a scream coming from outside and immediately rushed back to the streets.

In the streets, the girls found Arturo being attacked by a pale man with gray skin and lost eyes, similar to the one that attacked Rin and Joselyn. Rin ran towards Arturo and the man he was struggling with, and pushed the man to the ground, she then took Arturo's hand and lead him and Emmanuel away.

"Who are you?" He frantically asked Rin. She looked at him in the eye, but did not answer.

The three crossed the gates of the school and Joselyn immediately slammed the gates shut. "What the heck was that?" Arturo asked Rin, who, again, chose to stay quiet.

"Fine, keep your goddamn secrets." An angry Arturo told her before opening the door to leave the school, but Rin put her hand over his. "Bakayaro! Do you want to die?"

"What?" Arturo's expression quickly changed from anger to shock. "What are you talking about?"

"I-I don't know!" Rin histerically tried to explain. "Everything I know is that, if you go outside, the kyonshi will kill you."

"Kyonshi?" Asked a confused Emmanuel.

"Dead." Rin crossed her arms. "Everything I know is that a good blow to their brain apparently takes them out. She then turned around to look at Joselyn. "That's why I bashed the one you saw in the head."

"It sounds made up." Emmanuel said, taking a look at the undead outside the school. "But seems legit." Arturo countered. "What should we do?"

"We just wait." Arturo replied, again, trying to act as the mature brother. "If this is as serious as the girl says, then government should be already handling the situation." He turned around to look at Rin, seeking relief. "Right?"

"I suppose..." Rin said, actually unsure of Arturo's strategy. "But not here. This place is just as dangerous as it is outside."

While the two were arguing, Joselyn decided to pull the door handles, opening them and revealing a big amount of undead people roaming aimlessly. Emmanuel noticed Joselyn looking through the doors and followed her. "Hey Jos, what's up?" The boy asked his sister as he, too, took a glance at the outside.

"So, what do you suggest?" Arturo asked Rin. "Do you have a kind of survivalist bunker or something like that?"

"Ha." Rin replied humorlessly, she obviously was not in the mood for jokes. The whole world was ending, how could he joke on a moment like this? "No, I'm going back home. I'll pick up my siblings and then we'll go to this place, a supposedly "safe-zone" at the outskirts of Atlanta."

"You make it sound like it's some serious crap." Arturo crossed his arms. "For all we know, this could be over in... I don't know, a week?"

"You think this is a passing thing?" Rin crossed her arms, too. "Like a kind of flu that will disappear on the span of a week?" She then led Arturo outside, showing him the herd of walkers that were wandering around the school. "You think this is just some random sickness?" She added to the stack of rethorical questions.

He just had to step closer. He recognized those creatures, how could he not? They were fellow students. His friends. Shit, shit, SHIT. And so many eyes gazed up. Gawking. Staring at him, or were they? He blinked and he was fine. He wobbled a little, reeling from... whatever that was. Was it happening at all, or was he just hallucinating? Did he even woke up that morning?

"HahahAHahAHahahaha..."

When did the floor get so close? When did he fall to his knees?

Eventually Rin grabbed his hand and they were outside. But not in the street with the reanimated bodies. It was an alley.

"Hey kid." Rin knelt down to speak with Joselyn. "I just want to make sure you are aware of what's happening." She said, reflecting on what happened before with Arturo. Joselyn didn't know what to say. Just a few hours ago she was still mourning her fallen sister, and now this? Not that she was scared, it was just... something hard to swallow. Yet, she nodded.

"Listen, I know this is a lot to take in. Even I am afraid, but you know what? I've got an idea! Why don't I take you and your brothers somewhere safe?"

Joselyn wanted to speak, but the words failed to fall. Emmanuel had to be the one to ask the question. "Not that we don't appreciate it, but... who's to say we'll be safe with you?"

"Nobody. I'm not trying to persuade you to come with me," Said the girl as she walked towards her car. "But what happened back in the school? The guy whose head I had to crush with the extinguisher? I just don't want you to have to witness things like that. Kids like you should be happy, not a care in the world." She then noticed Arturo staring at her. His eyes were looking at her, but his mind was somewhere else.

"What about Arturo?" Emmanuel innocently asks. "He is my brother, We can't leave him behind." Joselyn would say the same, but she would rather not, so she just nodded. "If we're going somewhere, then he comes with us." the young boy finishes.

"Of course he comes!" The asian girl reassured him. "Who said we'd leave him behind?" She said with a cheery tone, altough she was rather wary of the young boy, and he knew it. But she had to encourage the kids somehow.

And so, the Palestina siblings were driven to Rin's house, located at Macon.

And they had arrived. It was a seemingly quiet and deserted town, not a single person roaming the streets, or undeads for that matter. The second she set foot out of the car, she felt an unusual calm. The silence, the tranquility. It was as if all of her problems just... went away.

"This way, folks!" Rin said as she led the siblings towards her house. A cute and tidy house among all the mess that was Macon. She approached a door, pulled a key from her pocket and proceeded to open the door.

"Touya? Hikari? I'm ho--" She said before being sent to the ground by a shovel, the tool being held by a young asian man about twenty-five years old, with brown eyes and black hair. He approached the hurt girl lying on the ground and realized she hit Rin. "Sumimasen." Are the first words to come out of his mouth, apologizing to Rin. She slowly gets up while putting a hand on the back of her head. "Baka." She mutters, clearly annoyed.

"Touya?" She asks, rather annoyed. "Explain. Now."

"Now," The man smiles. "adverb. At the present time or moment."

"I didn't ask for a definition, asshole." Rin crosses her arms. "Why did you had to go and hit me with the shovel?"

"I didn't mean to, I'm sorry." The man, now identified as Touya nervously apologizes. "I thought you were one of those undead weirdos roaming around."

"What's all that noise, Tou?" An older asian woman enters the scene. "I thought I told you to keep it down--" She cuts herself short once she sees Rin and the Palestina's. "What is going on here?" The confused woman asks. "Who are you?"

"Just some pals I came across while on my way back." Rin steps forward. "Arturo, Emmanuel and Joselyn, right?" The kids nod.

"Nice to meet you" The woman crouches to meet them. "My name is Hikari." The woman, whose name is revealed to be Hikari, offers her hand to Arturo, who shyly takes it. "That boy over there is my brother, Touya."

Rin opens her mouth to speak, but before words could fall, gunfire and helicopter noises are heard from outside.

All eyes were on the door, as the shooting sounds intensified, everyone was expecting the door to break and someone to enter... but it never happened. The Sugimori and the Palestina siblings decided to wait until things calmed down.

A while had passed and Joselyn was observing everyone around her. Going around and talking to each other while she was sitting alone. It just put her off greatly, because that loneliness gave her time to reflect about the recent events. A zombie apocalypse. That is something you would see on a movie or a TV show, not something that actually happens. Yet there she was. Sitting. Quiet. Waiting for whatever was happening out there to end.

Waiting for silence to reign over the friendly neighborhood.

Deaths
SPOILERS BELOW, READ AT YOUR OWN RISK '''
 * None

Your Rating
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Trivia

 * First appearance of Rin Sugimori
 * First appearance of Touya Sugimori
 * First appearance of Hikari Sugimori