They Are Watching

You wake up in the middle of somewhere. Gasping for air. Your breath is running, for whatever reason. Looking around, you’re in the middle of what seems like a neighborhood, though empty as it is. You stand up, trying to process things. Shit. You can’t remember anything. Not your name, not the place you’re at, nothing. Confused, you start scampering around looking for something. 

Naturally, you’re trying to look for help. But the area is dead silent. There’s no sign of life, at all. You noticed after walking around the place for the past 30 minutes. The fear slowly starts to set in. Being lonely in both body and mind is an experience you wouldn’t wish upon your worst enemies–not that you remember, if you had any in the first place. You walk and walk, the loneliness is haunting. 

Minutes turned into hours, hours turned into days, there’s still no sight of anyone. Anything even. It can’t be it. There’s no way you’re the only one left. If so, what even is the cause?

You keep on walking until you stumble upon a minimarket. It must’ve been no less than 100 kilometers already from the place you woke up at. You plan on giving the place a visit, but honestly, you’re more starved for an interaction than you are for food. You approach the place, until you hear something. A whispered shout coming from that minimarket.

“Hey!”

You squint, trying to make out what you just heard, and where it came from–while squinting the eyes might NOT be of help to the sense of hearing, it does feel like it. There’s some flickering light from the minimarket ahead. “Finally” a wave of relief filled your entire body with strength. 

You quickly rush towards it. You just walked past the gate when suddenly you feel pain from the back of your head. It’s not a regular headache. It’s actually far more than that. A blunt trauma. The sensation of heaviness strikes like thunder. You’re about to pass out from it. Moments before your body hit the floor, your eyes catched the perpetrator. Two men hiding just beyond the gate wall, one of them carrying a baseball bat.

Your vision disappears when they walk towards your slumped body. Until everything finally goes black when you hear another footstep coming in.

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.

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“Why the fuck did you have to be so violent?! You could’ve killed him!”

“We have to. There are people inside, do you really wanna risk it for one stranger?”

“I told you already, he is NOT a stranger!”

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.

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There's a faint voice of people talking for the entire time you’re blacked out. Arguing, even. Are they not on good terms? No. that doesn’t matter. What are they going to do to you? Not that you can do anything about it. Since you keep on slipping in and out of consciousness. But it’s never a bad thing to know what the fuck you’re gonna experience. You have a bad feeling about it. How can you not? The first social contact with anyone for the past few days and the first thing they do is knock you out cold. 

It seems like you’re being carried towards somewhere inside. It’s weird though, how long have you been carried like this?

splash You get hit by a bucket of cold water. Gasping. Successfully waking you up. You try to calm down your entire nervous system. Your danger sense is screaming. There’s three people in front of you. The two men you saw before, and one woman. They all look cautious. Why would they? You’re fucking strapped on this fuck ass chair for God’s sake.

“What are you doing out there? Alone, that is. What have you done?” a man is questioning, his voice is rather calm despite the vigilant appearance. He keeps his distance, but the sheer intimidating presence gets to you still.

“What?” you struggle to answer, you have no memories of anything before waking up days before. You’re confused, scared, and not to mention, your head still hurts from the smash earlier.

“ANSWER THE DAMN QUESTION!” the man with the bat starts banging it onto the wall right on top of your head. It graces your hair slightly, there’s dried blood on it.

Again, it shocks your entire being. You tried evading out of instinct. Unsurprisingly enough, you can’t move anything other than the parts from the neck up. Your limbs are tied tightly to the chair you’re sitting on. Hell, even your chest is strapped down.

“Please just answer the question and we will set you free” this time it’s the woman talking. She sounds anxious and worried more than anything.

That damned bat is now resting on your forehead. “If you can’t answer, I swear on my momma you will see your own brain splattering all across the floor. And I love my mum, ya hear?”

You gulp, audibly. It’s literally a life or death situation. You have to say something, anything. “I-I swear, I don’t know anything. I just suddenly woke up in the middle of nowhere, walked all day, I, I was just searching for people! Everything is in ruin, I don’t know what the fuck is going on, I was getting more and more desperate until I heard that voice from the minimarket. I swear on my life that is all that I got, can’t remember anything else,” it takes everything from you to not stutter.

“Oh fuck it, you’re going down now,” the man with the bat is just about to swing it before the other man stopped him.

“Hey, easy now. He just said what he had to say. Don’t just go around killing people. Makes you no different than them,” his voice is still as calm as before. Still holds the same level of authority too. It's chilling you to the bone hearing that. The other man apparently feels the same, as he lowered his weapon. Disappointed, the man with the weapon sighs before leaving the room.

“Sorry about that. He’s just, well, he’s had his reasons. My name is Han, the other guy is Alex. And this woman right here is Wonyoung. sigh Do you at least remember your own name?” the man who introduced himself as Han is kneeling in front of you after saying the last question. His sharp eyes are looking right into your soul. He doesn’t look angry, nor trying to be threatening. But you shiver all the same.

You have no choice but to stare back. “I would tell you if I know it myself, but I swear I couldn’t remember-”

“Leo,” the girl, Wonyoung, cut your words. “Does Leo ring a bell to you?”

Both men in the room stare at her, equally confused.

“Leo! We were dorm mates in Uni, we graduated together too! We were actually pretty close back then. Until you suddenly disappeared from my life…,” she pauses for a few seconds. “...Do you really not remember a single thing?” her voice is stammering. She sounds pitiful right now, her eyes are tearing up.

You look at her, trying your best to recall something, anything, out of your memory. You can’t. “*sigh* I’m really sorry, but I just cannot remember anything… Leo, huh, well, thank you, Wonyoung.” 

Wonyoung is crying. She’s looking down to cover her face with her hair, but the sobbing could be heard quite clearly still.

“Well, I guess there’s that. Leo, nice to meet you,” Han moves his hands to loosen the rope tying you down.

You look at him confused. That easy? Granted, you can’t say that their actions were justified, but they literally tried to kill you a few minutes prior. “Uhm, thanks, Han. Can I ask about where we are right now? And uhm, why was I, you know, attacked like this,” now that your hands are free, you try to feel your own head. You feel that it’s wet, and warm, right on the part directly hit by the bat. You retract your hand to see there’s blood on it.

“I hereby announce my formal apology. bows But, we had no other options. There’s a war going on right now… No need to worry though, we should be safe here in the bunker.”

“What?! A fucking war?!!!” you frown your eyebrows. Struggling to form sentences as a response to that statement. Your thoughts are swirling. 

Before you could muster any words, Wonyoung spoke up. “Humanity right now is no longer considered as the apex predator. There are creatures, things, out there. We never really know what they are, where they came from, how they suddenly appeared amongst humans, or really anything about them. We call them mimics, and they’re…” she’s wiping tears off her cheeks with the back of her hand. She tries her best to make her voice sound tough, but fails spectacularly in the middle of the attempt.

“Mimics?” again, you are so out of it. At least you can respond now. Who would’ve thought you woke up in the middle of what might potentially be the extinction of humanity.

“Yes. They are despicable creatures, to say the least,” Han answered this time, while also patting Wonyoung’s shoulder. 

“-We have little understanding about them. But from the little things that we do know, is that they hunt humans. Not because they need to, it’s mostly because they want to. I think it’s considered ‘fun’ for them. Also, the reason why we call them mimics is because they can morph into humans. Specifically, they morph into humans they’ve eaten. Morphing isn’t the only thing they can do, they also absorb all the humans' knowledge and retain that information for however long they want to. So, say that a mimic has eaten 10 people, that means this mimic has a combined wisdom of 10 people, and can change their form into any person they choose, whenever they feel the need to.”

“That’s…, scary...”

“Yes. But it doesn’t stop there. I said that the mimic retains all the knowledge of the humans they eat. This means, all the memories, personality, everything. They literally become what they eat. The only thing that could distinguish them from normal humans, is only when they feel like it. Or, in special cases, is when a person knows the mimic’s former human so well that they notice subtle differences from them. Other than that, it’s nigh impossible. That is mainly the reason why humanity is slowly losing advantages, we began to destroy ourselves from the inside. The terror of doubting each other, even the closest ones, it’s...”

You look at Han closely, for a fraction of a moment, he’s lost his composure.

“*sigh* Not to mention, they’re about two times stronger than the average joe. Their senses are heightened to the maximum capacities of human thresholds. And they hardly need to eat. Their only weakness so far, that we know of, is that they don’t really multiply, so their number should be limited,” 

Han ends his explanation by closing in on you, whispering right beside your ear. “I trust you, for now. Thank Wonyoung for it. But if you show any slightest sign that you’re a mimic, I will not hesitate.”

His words just then were sharp, cold, and ruthless. He’s scary. You don’t respond to it, can’t. Just as casually as he explains things, he leaves the room with the door opened still. This time it’s Wonyoung’s chance to approach you. She pulls out a handkerchief from her pocket and rubs it onto the wound on your head. “Ugh, I’m so sorry for this, I already told them to not hit you! But I suppose they were right, you were alone, and thus suspicious – ohmygod you’re bleeding so much,” the words stopped on her throat. She’s holding back her tears.