At this point in time, I was walking toward this log cabin prepared for us—where we also parked our vehicles—but to my surprise, Kaley was waiting by the porch with a dimly lit lantern and what seemed to be a mosquito coil that almost burned itself from its little metal stand it usually came with.

Once our eyes met, the solemn expression I was wearing was completely melted by the bright smile she let out as she waved me over, motioning for me to sit beside her so we could at least have someone to bear the cold with.

I gave her a kiss before I put my arm above her shoulders, “Have you been waiting all this time? Shouldn’t you be more comfortable inside?”

She shook her head and chuckled before she scooted even closer, “I am and I would be but I needed some alone time to think. I— You— We handled things “appropriately” but that doesn’t mean we could just function like normal, right?”

I was taken aback by that statement and the feeling of guilt suddenly welled up inside me, “I should’ve—”

But Kaley shut that shit down before I tried to blame myself, “You doofus, I love that you think that way but being alone sometimes with my thoughts could sometimes help me a lot. You did good by— Wait a second, why are you looking that way before I waved you over?”

“Ah…”

“Yeah, why do you look like that earlier?”

“It’s… It’s complicated—”

“I excel at handling complicated stuff. Besides, I’m your wife… kinda— wait, I am without that certificate and other legal stuff, so you can tell me anything and I can help you. Did something happen with your disciples or whatever you call them? I see that Isaac didn’t come back with you, did he find someplace else to stay?”

“…”

“Hey? You can tell me every—”

I looked Kaley in her eyes before I sighed deeply and said, “I… Hmm… It’s a little— no, I should tell you… Fuck—”

“Just tell me!”

“I’ll trust you with this, alright? Haaa… I… Hmm… Why is this hard? It should be fucking easy to tell you everything but— Can we do it somewhere private? I’m not comfortable relaying this to you while we’re on this porch… Can we go inside?”

Kaley immediately tried to hold me down as she looked into my eyes, “We can’t. Nope, I’m sorry…”

“Hmm? Why—”

“There’s an ongoing orgy inside and—”

“Wut—”

“Before you ask, Quinn and Tatiana locked themselves up in one of the rooms available but they are going at it ever since you took some time to teach the General’s kid. I would’ve joined them if it was any other day but you know… things happened and I wanted some time alone…”

“So Jesus and his crew—”

“Yep.”

“Ah… Aren’t there windows we can climb—”

“Nope. I picked our room for that reason and it backfired… We can’t bypass the activity in the living room because they’ll definitely make us join… And no, I’ll accept “tacos” but not “sausages” in our relationship… Unless you’d let in—”

“Nope.”

“I mean trans-tacos but sure, I’ll always respect your decision on that.”

“T-Thanks, I guess?”

Kaley chuckled before she gave me a light tap with her elbow, “We’ll go on our pace, alright? Hmm~ It really is getting colder but there’s no signs of them stopping anytime soon…”

I suddenly had an idea, “We have spare blankets in our Raptor, we could spend the night there if they go at it for the whole night?”

She let out a smile, “That sounds cozy, actually… I can have you all to myself too. Quinn’s awesome but I want some US time, you know?”

“You took the words out of my mouth. Shall we?”

“Let’s.”

After a short bit, Kaley and I made ourselves comfortable in the backseat of my prized vehicle but she just had to ask about the things that weren’t answered before I had the chance to meet her lips with mine.

“Can’t I just tell you tomorrow?”

“Nope. You seem troubled by it, the best I can do is share the burden with you because I’m sure that with your memory and the way you are, you’d think about it deep into the night. And if we do “it”, I want you just thinking of me, not the other thing that’ bugging you.”

“…”

“Am I right or what?”

“Psychic…”

“Hmph. I’m not gonna react to that now.”

“Fine… What do you wanna hear first?”

“You choose, I’ll just listen…”

“…”

“…”

“Fine. I’ll tell you about Isaac.”

“Great.”

“Haa… I wouldn’t go into much detail—”

“Nope. Go into all of the details you can. Please.”

“…”

“We don’t have all night?”

“Why are you so snappy tonight—”

“Don’t change the subject! I’m waiting~”

“Fine… Hmm… Isaac’s story is pretty much like everyone else’s though…”

“Would be nice to learn something instead of dancing around it…”

“I was just about to— Anyway, he’s pretty much like a regular Joe like me— you know, a little weeb-like and some other shit but he realized one of his hobbies by enrolling into this school—”

“The uh… Umm… Kishin-Ryuu School of Martial Arts?”

“Yep. You remembered, huh.”

“You were agitated when you remembered, I took note of it.”

“Huh. Anyway, it’s not as important right now— well, it kinda is because when shit went down, he was attending a class in that school. But since any kind of electronic or communication devices were put away or were in a different room, they’d only taken notice when all hell broke loose.”

“Right around the first emergency broadcast?”

“A little bit later than that because they thought that there was just a fire somewhere far because of all the sirens going off.”

“Oh…”

“Anyway, Isaac said that the first thing they did was fish out their phones from their lockers while their teacher rushed to turn the TV on because their dojo—or should I say their studio—was also his home. ƒreewebɳovel.com

He mentioned that his teacher then realized that his live-in partner was still outside, working in a call center or something, so his teacher quickly fished for his keys and ordered what’s left of his students to vacate the premises immediately.”

“What? Really?”

“Yeah, well he said that there really weren’t many of them left in the studio because everyone else just scrambled to get to their families, but since Isaac didn’t have a car of his own, he asked his teacher if he could come with him and just drop him off when he’s close.”

“What did his teacher say?”

“Oh, well… it’s a no-brainer because they just took off with his teacher’s fancy-ass pickup and drove like madmen.”

“Did they bring—”

I almost stifled a laugh, “Right. There’s one piece of information I forgot to tell you.”

“Hmm?”

“His teacher’s white.”

“And?”

“His name’s Kenji Sato—”

“Wut—”

“Anyway~ To answer your question, yep. They brought their own katanas with them but Mr. Sato had a fully-automatic M16 and classic 1911 at the backseat of his vehicle. Luckily for Isaac, the place where his teacher’s gf was working at was pretty close to his home but… but that’s the only time he lucked out.”

“W-What do you mean?”

I let out a long sigh before I answered, “Well… Remember when I told you when they fished their phones out from their lockers?”

“Yeah?”

“Well~ Isaac’s folks didn’t answer when he tried to contact them but when he was about to ask his teacher to pull over for a bit so he could jump out, his phone rang…”

Kaley recognized my glum tone, “A-And?”

“He umm… he said that he was pretty ecstatic and glad they managed to call him but when he answered it… umm… all he heard from the other side was his mom sobbing, telling him to get to safety and she loves him while she was bleeding out from the bites she sustained.

He uhh… he said that his first instinct was to still go back home—especially when he heard the sobs turn to screams—but his teacher gave him a good punch and gave him a good talking to.”

“…”

“Mr. Sato kept telling him that after they’d let loose on those sons of bitches and the moment they secured his girl, they’d drive straight to his home so they could put his family’s spirits to rest.”

“What did Isaac say?”

“He told me that he actually said nothing at that point but he told me that he never held his blade so hard that the wraps were making that stretching noise. And once they made it to the call center, he was the first one to jump out of the vehicle and started cutting down anything that shouldn’t be moving… and… and the ones threatening to steal their vehicle.”

“Oh… That’s… That’s understandable, r-right?”

I let out a bitter smile, “Yeah, I would’ve done the same thing but there’s a reason why we didn’t come out for a time the moment it started. To avoid that. We resorted to that stuff but not that early… and without a single loss to our belt…”

“Yeah… Oh… What happened to his teacher then?”