Gon stood there and cried for a few minutes, squeezing his eyes shut as the tears cascaded down his cheeks. Aunt Mito...Grandma Abe...Noko... He wiped his eyes, then came to a decision. I saw some people in the market. They'll... They'll probably be dying too. I should go help them, at least...comfort them a little. It was awful, the feeling of uselessness. He couldn't do a thing to stop this sickness, or prevent the infected people from dying. But he could do this. So Gon pulled the covers over the lifeless forms of Aunt Mito and grandma Abe, then exited his house. Gon's breath hitched as soon as the air hit his nose. The scent of death, it was all around. Oh god- Gon snapped himself out of it, then activated En. He could only push it out about 20 meters, but as he walked he'd be able to sense if anyone was still alive. He slipped his 20 KG knife out of his pocket and started marking houses. An X, and a number. An X to show nobody was alive, and a number for the body count.
Gon marked 5 houses before he sensed a living person. Gon deactivated En to save his strength and opened the door, it was unlocked. There had been a dead body outside in the garden, presumably they had gone out and didn't lock it when they left. He heard a soft cough, then entered a room. Gon felt his heart break slightly when he saw a 3 year old girl with blonde pigtails sitting on a bed. I don't remember there being any other kids on the island... Although, he'd left for about a year and a half. "W-Who are you?" She mumbled, as Gon sat beside her on the bed. He smiled, "My name's Gon." She coughed again, then her eyes watered a little. "M-Mommy didn't come back yesterday. Where is she?" He pulled the kid into his lap, rocking slightly. "You'll see her again soon, I promise" He murmured, fighting his own tears. D-Damn it. She's already coughing blood, she's too far gone. But it still...hurts.
The little girl smiled a little, "Really?" He nodded. "Mhm, very soon. If you..." Gon thought about his words for a moment. "If you fall asleep, you'll see her when you wake back up again." She coughed a little more, Gon wiped the blood off the corner of her mouth with a sleeve so she didn't see it. "I do....feel....sleepy" She mumbled, then her eyes started to close. Gon stayed with her until her heart stopped beating, then carried her outside and set her next to her mother. Gon went through something like this with about twenty people, quite a few of them children. Once he'd gone to every house on the island, Gon started walking again. I'm the...only one left here. I should do something about it. So he gathered all the people, bringing them to the marketplace near the docks. He put all the children together, there were about thirty. The rest of them filled up nearly the entire marketplace, 258 bodies in all. Gon was tired, both his mind and his body. What made it even worse, was that he knew a great deal of these people.
Gon grabbed his phone from his bag, which he'd made a stop for back home as he made his loop around the island. Who do I call? He couldn't think of anyone at the moment. I could... He pressed a few numbers, then put the phone to his ear. "Hello? Japon committee police here" Gon averted his eyes from the death around him. "I'm calling from...whale island" He said. "Alright, what is the reason?" His hand trembled slightly. "E-Everyone's...dead. Some sort of sickness came through and-" There was a sigh on the other end. "Yeah, nice try kid. If that were the case you'd be dead as well. Listen, we don't have time to waste on prank calls" Then the lady on the other end hung up. Gon didn't move for a few moments, staring blankly at the ground. They think I'm...lying. He laughed. It was a bitter, broken laugh. "I wish I was" He said out loud. Gon was silent for a few more moments after his hand dropped. The tears started coming again, rolling down his cheeks like a waterfall.
His mind pulled a blank at what to do next, he slipped his phone back into his bag and looked out over the sea of death. I guess I could... make sure none of the animals eat them? That was the only thing he could think of. Then...his eyes fell on a group of people. He'd sectioned the bodies out in 3 parts. The kids, the people he knew, and everyone else. Noko went with the people he knew, 45 in all. Gon sat down on a stall counter and waited.
5 hours passed, no animals even made an appearance. Gon decided to leave for a while and activate En, looking for any. As he thought, none of the animals were alive either. He didn't question why at this point, or how. He just turned back around and shut his En off as he made his way back to the marketplace. Gon snagged an apple from a stall, halfheartedly eating it as he let his eyes wander over the bodies again. The smell was awful, filling his nose. Gon spit the apple out. I need to...go somewhere else. But he couldn't go back to his house, he wouldn't be able to sleep in his bed anymore. So Gon went around the stalls, grabbing a few baskets and putting things in them. Bread, apples, water, potatoes, some more fruits. Then he walked out to where the docks were, you couldn't see the bodies from there and he'd cleared all the ones from the ship. Gon used his knife enforced with Shu to chop up some of the ship and make himself a place to sit. It was a pile of wooden planks pretty much, with some more a few feet away to put his food on. Gon sat down cross legged, wiping the tears off his face as he looked out to sea. I guess...now I wait.
He didn't move from that spot for days, not once. It had been almost a week when he saw something. Gon glanced up, it was a ship. Honestly, nothing in him really...felt happy about that. He was numb. From the death, from the loneliness, from the lack of sleep, from the dehydration, from the hunger. His eyes dropped, a blank stare to the stones below. His food and water had run out two days ago, but he couldn't bring himself to move. He heard a shout, there were rustling and thumping noises of a sail going down and an anchor dropping. Since there was nobody there to tie the ship up and help them ashore, it took a lot more time and effort than usual. "Where the hell is everybody?" A male voice said, there were footsteps but he didn't look up. "Hey look, there's a kid" Another voice said, this one female. The footsteps approached, when he saw shoes in his vision he didn't look up. "Hey kid, why are you the only one out here?" Gon didn't answer.
"Oi, we're talkin' to ya" The male said, shaking his shoulder a little. Gon raised his head, looking into the man's eyes with a blank stare. Both adult's eyes widened in shock and alarm, probably because he had massive eyebags and little to no emotion on his face. "W-Woah, you alright kid?" The blonde woman said worriedly, placing a hand on his shoulder. Gon didn't answer. The man glanced over to the other platform, the one with the empty baskets and water bottles. "When was the last time you had food?" Gon blinked. A group of three men walked up, chatting to each other. "What's the holdup-" They paused when they laid eyes on him, then the brown haired man who had come with the woman let out a frustrated sigh. "Can you even speak?" Gon didn't respond. "Where the hell is everybody-" Gon decided to move a little, pointing to the marketplace. The small group glanced at each other for a moment, then the group of three men started walking. "You guys go, we're gonna stay with the kid"
Suddenly, it hit him. What was making them sick? What if...these people get sick too? Just as the woman was about to speak, Gon did. "You can't stay here" His voice was small, broken, void of emotion. The woman paused, frowning slightly. "Why?" Before he could answer, suddenly there was a scream. Both of the adults in front of him jumped, then looked in the direction where the men had gone with terrified expressions. "That was...Valto." The woman said in alarm. There were rapid footsteps, all three of them men came bolting back like they had seen the most horrifying thing in their entire life. Though, they probably had. "Why the hell'd you scream like that?" The man snapped. The group of three stopped near him, panting hard for a few moments, then one of the pointed out to where he did. "There's a fucking pile of dead bodies over there. There were hundreds of them." The two froze, horrified. Then the woman's eyes snapped over to Gon.
"You said...we couldn't stay here. Why exactly is that?" She said cautiously. He looked down. "Scratch that, what the hell happened here!" One of the three men snapped. Gon's breath hitched, his hands trembled slightly. The group fell silent, it was the first emotion he'd shown at all. "They all...got sick" He mumbled. The woman put a hand on his shoulder. "Kid, how long have you been sitting here?" She said worriedly. He didn't look up. "A week" The men walked away, leaving only the blonde woman to talk to him. "When was the last time you ate something?" Gon's hands stopped trembling, he looked up with a blank stare again. "Ran out of food three days ago, water two" Her eyes widened with shock and she removed her hand. "Hold on, I'll be right back" She ran back to the ship, more people passed by. A few stopped to look, but most just ignored him. Eventually the woman came back with a basket, and a face he recognized.
That face had reddish brown hair and a pale blue bandana. It was Katzo, the guy he'd saved from falling off the ship during the beginning of the hunter's exam. As soon as he laid eyes on Gon, he gasped and ran over to him. "Gon!" He froze, breath hitching a little. N-No, he can't stay. He'll die too- "Wait, you know this kid?" The woman said, making her way over and setting the basket down next to him. Katzo nodded, looking deeply concerned and mildly scared. "he was on the ship for one of the hunter's exams, saved me when I started to fall overboard during that big hurricane..." He trailed off as he looked into Gon's emotionless eyes. "What even...happened? Gon? Are you alright?" The woman sighed. "Apparently... Valto said there was a massive pile of dead bodies out that way but-" Gon grabbed Katzo's sleeve, gripping it as tightly as he could. The woman broke off, this was the most movement he'd really made towards anyone. Katzo looked at him with a horrified expression. "You have to go, you can't stay here." His hand trembled slightly, a small hint of desperation creeping into his eyes. "or you'll die too"
1934 words
To be continued...