Apocalyptic Chaos 2: Toxic Beings

Chapter 1: Hanzel Duke

It was odd at first. It had just been Millicent and me for what seemed like forever. It had only been a few years, yes, but it had slowly begun to seem like that was going to be my life. After we moved in with everyone else, I tried to become accustomed to being around others.

It didn't work so well.

I had lost most of my social skills and it didn't help that they all had a negative opinion of me. Eve was usually the only one I talked to. We had trouble finding things to talk about at first but soon, she started telling me about her recent life. I learned to start referring to her as 'Nepoznat' since she wanted to forget about her early life. She also helped me get along with everyone else. But even though I started to be more comfortable around them, I still spent most of my time in my workspace.

My workspace was a room in the corner of the basement. It was spacious enough to be comfortable, but there was a slight problem. I could tell that no one entirely trusted me and someone was usually down there with me. Even after multiple attempts to convince them that I was a better person, I couldn't blame them for being wary. So, I just ignored them and focused on my work. Millicent would also help me when she wasn't talking with Adriel.

We had been working on different devices that could help us in our fight against the Toxins. I also worked on a cure to the virus on the side. I told Nep about my previous experiments and she offered to help since she was equally as inconvenienced by it. I gave her tips on how to fight it off so that it would be manageable, and she gave me information about her different experiences with it. Even with our combined efforts however, the experiment was a dud. Nothing we tried seemed to work and we mostly abandoned the project.

After our defeat with the cure, I started devoting all of my time to making new inventions. Timothy offered to help me at times, but I didn't entirely trust him. It could've just been my past with the Toxins, but I didn't feel comfortable telling him what we were working on. Nire, however, seemed much too naive to pose a threat. Although she was incredibly skilled, I couldn't see her being crafty enough to betray us. Sometimes, I'd let her help me with a certain design I was working on since she was good at the actual look of things.

In time, we had numerous prototypes and a few working inventions. After my first few successes, I could feel people becoming less suspicious of me. It felt good being able to have a casual conversation with one of them or have a debate. One day, I was arguing with Theodore over whether video games really did cause violent tendencies or not, when something happened.

"I've played video games my whole life," He said," and look where I am!"

"That's what I'm doing," I said," and you're in the middle of the apocalypse and shockingly good at fighting."

"Tae-kwon-do lessons!" He responded.

I was just about to say something when I heard a scream from the dining room. We both rushed to see what was happening and I saw Nire on top of the table pointing at the back door.

"What happened?!" I asked worriedly.

"There's something outside and it doesn't look natural!" She said, practically shaking.

I sighed," Yes, we already know that the virus affects things in strange ways, now can you please get off the table?"

She looked out the door again before climbing off the table ," Yeah, but I swear it looked right at me."

"It was probably curious." I said in exasperation," You're totally fine."

She squeaked and grabbed me," There it is again!"

I squinted and saw a large blue bunny standing on its hind legs and staring at us through the window.

"Well," I said in surprise," that's definitely new."