our last night alive

Act 5

Megumi

27th of November

"How did you get so impassive and untouchable by everything you see?"I asked her impatiently, while kicking some rocks on the way.

"It's not really positive, Megumi."Her marked accent always gets me unprepared.

"I want to know, please."I sighed, I really need to know, I'm tired.

"It's something that you both impose yourself and learn from the time. It depends a lot also on your personality."She looked at me. "You'd have no problems in becoming like me, Megumi. I don't recommend it to you though. Being so insensitive isn't good as it seems."She gave me a blank smile.

"I'm tired of suffering."

"I know you are, Megumi."She was looking forward to her, walking rigidly. "But being empty is much worse, trust me."She stated, looking down at her shoes and then again in front of her.

"Do you feel empty?"

"Quite empty, from that side I am. There are times however when I don't feel anything at all. This is just a way to protect ourselves. We block everything out. That might seem good at first, but then it turns out to be worse."

"I'm just exhausted. I wish I could forget everything, die. But I can't."

"You can't because you imposed it on yourself, Megumi. You could die, choose to kill yourself, still, you don't do that because you forced yourself not to. You know, in this world we are totally free to do whatever we want, but we don't because we are used to following the rules and being governed. In fact, however, we can do whatever we want, we just pay the consequences after."She stopped walking, facing me. "You want to kill yourself? Go for it. Nothing is here to stop you."She stated. I stared at her in disbelief. "I hope this clears your mind."With that she walked away, leaving me thoughtful in the middle of the path. She's right after all. If I want to kill myself I can just do it, nothing is here to directly stop me. Now that I've realised it though, I feel something inside my chest that tells me that I don't wanna die that much anymore. I returned back to the hospital, feeling terribly bored. I don't know what I should do. Going on an expedition would kill my boredom but there's the chance that it would take my life too. I sighed, collapsing on my bed. I have nothing to lose anyway. Just my life, but it seems not to matter that much to myself in the first place. After Anastasya's words, a weight has been taken off my chest. She's right. I imposed myself not to, but I can. I have a free choice, nothing stops me. That made me sigh in relief and the thought of Gojo stops tormenting me. I got up, deciding to warn George about my participation in the upcoming expedition.

"That's fine, Megumi. We are going to the city again."I nodded, looking at the ground. His voice was raspy and he was drinking some tea, totally surrounded by paperwork and some maps. He had a small light on his desk and just stood there organising everything. After his daughter's death, he started spending most of his time in solitude. He still worked at the research but not as much as he used to. He cleared his throat. "Listen, Megumi. I have a little announcement."I listened to his words carefully, nodding from time to time. "We were thinking about having an expedition for more days, okay?"He took a sip of his tea before going on with his speech. "There must be a military base at about 100 kilometres from here, more or less. I'm pretty sure that no one has occupied it yet, while about three quarters are certainly flooded with zombies. No one generally dares to settle down in military bases. People usually avoid them due to the drastic overflow of zombies. The zombie gene has probably generated there, or, at least, that's what we think at the moment. It's dangerous, deadly dangerous to try to conquer one, but I'd like to see what's happening down there, apart from the useful weapons we could find, there's a high percentage of discovering more about zombies. We aren't experienced enough, but a group of about 7 or 8 people is the minimum for an expedition like this one. Anastasya, Marguerite and I have discussed this several times. What do you think of that?"