Chapter Text
It was one totally normal school day in Kamiyama High, or so everyone thought. The three members of Wonderlands x Showtime chat amongst each other on a bench during their lunch period.
“Our last show was another success! As expected from a future star and his adoring troupe!!” Tsukasa laughed loudly, holding his head up with a proud demeanor.
Rui nodded. “Fufu, it did go pretty well.” He calmly laughed. “But, there are some improvements I’m thinking we can make. How about we try incorporating something new in our next show?” Rui suggested, moving aside his purple hair strands from his face.
Tsukasa’s smile faltered, his shoulders growing tense at the thought of being the victim of Rui’s new ideas again. “Hey, don't make me do anything weird or crazy, like that human cannon stunt again..” The blonde boy sighed, recalling the chaos he had to endure before.
“I'm so hurt you'd think you’d even suggest I’d do such a thing, Tsukasa-kun,” Rui placed a hand to his chest in a joking manner.
Nene sighed to herself, looking down at her bento box sitting in her lap. She was right in the middle of her chattery friends.
(“Jeez.. they’re so loud.. I should've eaten by myself today..”) Nene thought, slowly chewing on a bit of her food from her lunch. Just as she was starting to block out the loud conversation between Rui and Tsukasa from her ears, another loud interruption caused Nene to jolt, and catch the two boys’ attention.
“Hey guys!!” The voice came from the rooftop, and it appeared to be Mizuki Akiyama. The three troupe members peered up at the rooftop, squinting against the bright sunlight.
“There's a reeeeally large group of people heading towards the school right now!!” Mizuki yelled, looking down. “There's something pretty off about them, so I think you should head inside.. it looks dangerous!!” They warned, steadily looking behind their shoulder to look at the mass hoard of people slowly stumbling over to Kamiyama High.
“Large group of people?” Tsukasa repeated to himself, looking back down. “It could just be some certain event today, right?” Tsukasa turned to his friends, uncertainty sparking in his orange eyes.
Nene slightly clenched her jaw, eyeing the ground below her in thought. (“There's no current events going on right now.. and ‘dangerous’? What kind of ‘dangerous’ people would come to a school? Unless..”) Nene paused, lifting her eyes up in realization.
(“Zombies..?”) Nene tensed at the thought, her eyes slowly widening. She packed up her bento box, rising to her feet which caused her legs to slightly tremble.
“..Right?” Tsukasa repeated, his voice slightly wavering as he looked between Rui and Nene, noticing none of them answered his question. His gaze flickered to Nene standing up.
“I.. think Akiyama-san m-might be right, y’know..?” Nene tripped over her words, slowly inching towards the school doors. “I might just be overreacting because I play so many games, but it doesn't hurt to go inside.. right..?” The green-haired girl quickly put her lunch away in her school bag before quickly making her way inside the school.
Rui and Tsukasa exchanged confused looks of silence before following after Nene.
Nene sped-walked down the hallways, frantically looking around her surroundings with caution. (“We should find a safe place, just in case..”) She thought to herself again, oblivious to the fact Tsukasa was calling her name constantly, and trying to match her walking speed.
“Nene!” Tsukasa raised his voice loud enough to make the cautious girl snap out of her thoughts. She turned around as she matched the two boys’ confused looks, coming to a halt in her walking.
“Are you okay? You’re kinda panicking for no reason.. what happened?” Tsukasa blinked, watching Nene avert her eyes away from him.
“I know it sounds crazy but.. about what Akiyama-san said with the whole crowd of weird people coming to our school..” Nene took in another breath. “I think it might be.. z-zombies..” She murmured, slowly looking back at her two friends. Rui lifted a brow in surprise while Tsukasa blinked a couple of times, giving Nene a look of quick doubt. (“Is this what gaming does to people..?”) Tsukasa thought before sighing.
“Hate to break it to you Nene, but zombies aren’t real—” Tsukasa slanted his eyes before getting cut off by a blood-curdling scream echoing from the hallway. The three troupe members all snapped their heads towards the noise from afar. There was one female student trying to push off some sort of figure with its side dripping with blood. It honestly did look, in fact, like a zombie. “HELP!!” She yelped.
Nene, Rui, and Tsukasa all stood there, mortified to the point they couldn’t move for a few seconds before a sense of reality hit them again. “What.. is.. THAT?!” Tsukasa yelled, practically feeling the color drain out of his face. (“There’s no way that’s real.. right? No way.. Nene was just kidding.. w-what the hell do I do..? What about Saki? And Toya?! Oh my gosh I need to–”) Tsukasa shook his head, slipping out of his overthinking manner before bolting the other way of the hallway. “TOYA!!” The blonde boy yelled out his close friend’s name before leaving his other friends.
“Tsukasa-kun! Wait—!” Rui called after him before feeling a very forceful pull on his school uniform. He quickly turned around to find another zombie, face to face before it lashed out at him. Rui jolted back before hitting the ground while the zombie was on top of him. Wincing, Rui strainfully pushed against the zombie’s surprising strength, his mind racing. (“This is.. actually real..! I need to be smart about this, or I’ll die here.. I need to push them over, and make a run for it with Nene..”)
Just as Rui was about to attempt his strategy, a loud banging noise hit the back of the zombie’s head, causing it to immediately let go of Rui and fall to the side. The purple haired boy looked up at whoever did that with widened eyes, noticing it was Nene with a heavy fire extinguisher in her hands, breathing heavily. “Goodness.. this is so heavy..” Nene huffed under her breath, eventually setting the heavy object down on the blood stained floors.
“Are you okay?” Nene finally asked, holding out a hand for her childhood friend. Rui gave a slow nod, a bit shaken up. “I’m fine.. just some minor bruises. Not anything to worry about, but..” Rui grabbed Nene’s hand, rising to his feet before looking at the hallways of Kamiyama High, drenched in red liquid. On the floors, windows, lockers, it was straight out a horror scene. “This is really real.. you were right about the zombies..” Rui murmured, rubbing a bruise on one of his arms.
“Yeah.. Where do we go, though? I think the rest of the city might even be worse than here..” Nene questioned, trying to suppress that sick, nauseous feeling that threatened to rise.
“I don’t think the higher floors have been attacked yet,” said Rui. “If we could make a run for it, we could get to the third floor and set up a barricade.” He suggested, earning a nod from Nene. “Alright.. let’s go then..” She murmured, still feeling uneasy.
And so, the two childhood friends were off, rushing down the horrifying hallways of a once-familiar Kamiyama High.