Daily Life : Not Available

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Chapter 2

Posted: 12/09/2020

Status: Ongoing

There was nobody in the streets. No wonder it had been so quiet, so still.

Shizuo didn’t like this. This was strange, uncomfortable, wrong.

He stopped on the side of a road completely empty save for a few parked cars and got his phone out. Had there been some evacuation order he hadn’t heard while he was asleep?

Nope, no new messages. He almost shut his phone back off before he noticed something.

No signal.

Shizuo frowned. He shut off his phone, put it in his pocket, and went back to walking aimlessly, hoping to meet someone, anyone who could explain just what was going on already?!

He walked past a park and did a double-take when he noticed the fountain he had angrily ripped off and thrown the day before in one piece and back to doing its job of spewing water all day.

“Damn, they already repaired it? That was fast.” He mumbled, mindlessly scratching his hair as he felt the very familiar guilt surging up.

“Aah, I messed up again…”

He turned around and started walking away from the park and the diligently working fountain. He instead headed to what were usually the more populated streets of Ikebukuro, only to find just as much populace as there was near his apartment complex, which was none.

Where was everyone, damn it?! They couldn’t have just disappeared like that, couldn’t they?! Like what, the entire population of Ikebukuro except Shizuo himself got abducted by aliens or someth–?

Shizuo paused.

“Wait, that’s it!” He exclaimed. “This is probably one of those weird occult things that happen sometimes!” Celty would know what’s up, she was a Dullahan for fuck’s sake! One who was obsessed with aliens, she would know if they were responsible (though he doubted they existed, he could suspend his disbelief considering his present situation).

With newfound motivation, Shizuo ran all the way to Celty and Shinra’s apartment, hoping his friend would have more information about what was going on in Ikebukuro.

However, when he arrived there, nobody answered when he rang. He couldn’t text any of them either because of the lack of a signal. So, he decided to just open the door himself, broken locks be damned. He stepped inside the lobby and went up the stairs to his friend’s floor and quickly found the right door which he opened easily.

… The apartment was empty.

Not only that, it was surprisingly tidy, no object out of place and, most importantly, no sign of living anywhere in any of the rooms he opened, calling for both the illegal doctor and the headless rider and getting no answer.

They were gone.

No.

It’s like they had never even been here in the first place.

Shizuo didn’t know what to do, or how to feel for that matter.

Until now, every time something bothered or confused him, he’d feel nothing but red, fiery rage that would eventually result in broken bones and property. But now was different. He was alone, his friends were gone.

He didn’t feel the boiling heat of rage.

He felt cold, cold dread instead.

When he finally exited the deserted apartment, he felt oddly calm, but not in the peaceful way he’d always strived for, no. He clenched his fists.

He was going to find out who did this and make them pay. With a fiery, determined expression that would make even those who didn’t know of him run away in fear, he started walking, letting his instincts guide him, for once embracing them instead of being overcome by them.

…

Izaya unlocked the phone and blanked. No signal.

Huh.

He took the SIM card out and back in, but no change. He put down the phone, coffee forgotten, and went to get his other phones, with identical results.

The Wi-Fi was down too. Crap.

He put down all the phones on his desk, all useless for now, and quickly drank his (now cold) coffee, then quickly went back upstairs to get dressed.

He removed the bathrobe, then quickly put on his usual outfit for “going out”, black pants and a just-as-black long-sleeved shirt. He took a few knives and hid them in strategic places everywhere on himself, as was routine, then went back down to exit the apartment after putting on his shoes and coat (and hiding numerous knives there as well, on top of putting his favorite switchblade in the left pocket).

There, now he was ready to investigate what was going on here.

He stepped into the elevator, which appeared to be functioning correctly. Considering the lights were working in his apartment, electricity wasn’t a problem at least, so a power outage was unlikely to be the cause of the whole Shinjuku (and maybe even Tokyo) network being down.

So then, what caused it? He pondered through the whole elevator ride and continued after exiting the building that was also completely devoid of any human life.

Someone managing to hack and bring down the network seemed unlikely, unless it was a massive group of highly trained professionals. And even then, this city was big. There was no way it wouldn’t have been fixed in the following hour, yet it had been several since he woke up and he had no idea how long things had been this way beforehand.

Power outage, again, improbable considering electricity was running everywhere, even in the empty stores.

And well, what could even explain the complete lack of both human and animal life in the city? If an evacuation order had been given for whatever reason, he would’ve been one of the firsts to know. Not only that, but the streets were way too clean. If people had needed to evacuate en masse, many would have hurried and even panicked, that would have left at least some kind of mess. Yet there was nothing out of place.

Izaya stopped in the middle of an empty road.

Nothing was out of place. Everything was perfectly clean. No dust on any of the parked cars, no rust on the metal street signs. Everything was spotless.

He looked around with a frown. The buildings looked almost polished because of how smooth the cement was. Brick walls were perfectly aligned. The roads looked like they had just been repainted because of how immaculate the paint was. Cars were parked perfectly straight and looked like they had just been cleaned. Even the trees were picture-perfect, surrounded by only the most beautiful flowers and just-mowed grass.

Everything was perfect. Too perfect.

This wasn’t Shinjuku.

This was an imitation he had been placed in.

That explained the lack of people, and the fact there was no network to speak of. He probably was far, far away from home, and possibly, civilization.

He looked at the blue, cloudless sky. Where had he ended up and, most importantly… which of his many enemies managed to catch him and put him in a life-size replica of Shinjuku?

His phone went violently flying against the asphalt, the screen breaking as it hit the ground at high velocity.

He looked at the probably broken phone blankly, hands shaking with excitement.

“How ridiculous” he said in a quiet voice that felt much too loud in the uneasy quiet of the immense city. He started chuckling, first quietly, then gradually louder until the laughter became mad, hysterical cackling that echoed in the empty streets.