He sluggishly opened his eyes, and close them back again, resuming his slumber.

“Morning, Kizo.” A female voice greeted him. It originated not far from where he was sleeping.

He reluctantly peeled open his groggy eyes once more.

“Mornin’ Em.” He slowly sat up and stared blankly at the teenage girl sitting on the other side of the small campfire.

“Dreamt of your home again?” She throws a water bottle at him.

He caught it, drank for a few seconds before answering, “Yeah. I even ate the usual noodles. With eggs. Walked around the neighborhood afterward.”

He stood up and ambled towards Emily. He rummaged through one of the six black containers behind Emily and grabbed a canned meal along with a can opener out.

“Macaroni and cheese again?”

He sat beside the girl, ignored her question, and pried the can open. He proceeded to place the can on top of the metal plate positioned above the campfire.

“Anything happened while I’m asleep?” He stood up again and lightly stretched his body.

“Except scaring off a few rats and bugs, nothing. It’s pretty boring.”

“What did I tell you? The underground parking lot is safe, not some midnight club hideout for monsters.” She rolled her eyes.

“Yeah, yeah. I was trying to be cautious. You never know for sure.”

“My instincts have grown sharper after ten years, Em. I’m not some amateur anymore.”

“You do realize arguing with me is pretty pointless, right?” She raised her eyebrow, staring at him.

“Morning banters are excellent for booting up my big, marvelous brain.” He headed over to the sizzling can and picked it up with his black gloves. “Get me a spoon will you, Em?”

“At least say please, you intelligent barbarian.” She reached into the container and pulled out a spoon. Then, she handed it to him as he returned to her side. He began eating in silence. As he filled his belly,  she placed back all the camp equipment laid out on the open into the containers accordingly.

“Chew slower. You ain’t getting an appointment with a doctor if you ruined your stomach.”

“Yes, mother.” She swiftly slapped him on the head and continued what she was doing.

When he threw the empty can into the smoldering fire, Emily has everything stored and was ready to go. He then equipped his backpack, weapons, and helmet before activating the five cubicle containers to levitate closely behind him.

“Ready?” She held his right hand.

“Yeah.”

X

When they reached the open streets, the Sun still hung on the horizon, providing little of its light to the waking world.

Kizo turned on the music player built into his helmet as he sauntered through the remains of the city. Partially destroyed buildings and skyscrapers, rusting cars all over the road, a few skeletons strewn over the path they walked on, empty stores raided years ago by scavengers, and so on.

Despite the eeriness of the dead city, they both find peace and serenity in the once busy road which has lost its voice.

They were in no hurry of reaching their destination. They carefully scanned their surroundings and kept an eye out for any items that could come in handy. Often, their efforts are fruitless, but it doesn’t discourage them from trying.

“I guess novelty can wear off faster than one expected, especially when exciting things rarely ever happen!.” Emily’s attempt to kick an empty can failed when the wind blew it away. “…damn you wind.”

“I did mention the journey might be dangerous, not that it will be dangerous.” He tapped his fingers according to the beat of the song playing.

“Travelling the Unknown Zone guarantees danger no? Yet here I am, looking forward to all the epic battles that never came.” She did a gun gesture.

“I prefer a boring journey over a dangerous one. Look, market ahead.” He nodded upwards while staring at the rundown supermarket. He pulled out his modified smartphone and marked the building with a supply symbol in the old world map before putting it away.

“Do you think there might be a monster living inside it?”

“I hope it doesn’t.”

“I hope it does.”

“Do you really want to fight monsters that badly?”

“I just want something interesting to happen, doesn’t necessarily need to be monster battles.”

“Maybe we can find a dragon ball inside. Then our quest to summon Shenlong will begin.” He smirked.

“Har Har.”

X

The supermarket was, as expected, devoid of any life. The entirety of the building’s interior was incredibly dirty. Everything was disorganized, and destruction was apparent at every corner. There were also skeletons to remind any visitors that people died here horribly.

“Food aisle first.”

“As we always do.”

Emily’s sped up footstep echoed in the empty hallways. Kizo matched up with her pace while skimming through the environment.

When they reach their destination, a large number of shopping carts can be seen gathered at the cash register, but not one single product remained within their sight. Still, they went straight to the food aisle and saw rows of empty shelves. After that, they went through the rest of the place, confirming indeed nothing they can use remained.

The both of them, without communicating with each other, simultaneously began their search for the warehouse entrance. In hindsight, It would appear as a wasted effort, but it is often where they come upon their supplies. Most people think it is difficult to obtain various necessity from it and so they overlook it entirely.

After 10 minutes of searching, Emily discovered the entrance.

“Over here Kizo!” She shouted at his general direction and waved her arm to visually capture his attention. He effortlessly slinked his way towards her.

“Disappointingly, there are no lifeforms behind this door.”

“You do know if there is a monster inside, our trip here will be most likely wasted, right?”

“You’re no fun, Kizo.” She stuck out her tongue and pushed open the door. He switched on the light on his helmet before following her into the warehouse.

The warehouse was in complete darkness.  Stacks of crates with varying degree of damage lying on the floor and shelves. Few of it seemed to be violently ripped open with some if its content lying around the crates. There were bodies crushed underneath the crates. There were also a few decayed bodies a couple of meters away from them, hinting at a possible mass murder.

“Hmm,” He approached and inspected one of the corpses kneeling down, “Stab wounds at the abdomen, but big chunks of meat were torn off the shoulder…” He glanced at the other bodies, each with smaller, but visible bite marks on their shoulders.  

“A sudden transformation perhaps? Then, he or she attempted and quite successfully suppress their new animalistic instinct. Impressive.” He stood back up again, “Regardless, this doesn’t concern us. Emily?” He turned around and saw no one.

“Heyo~” Another girl, apparently younger than Emily, suddenly appeared beside Kizo and startled him for a quick second. Her skin color is brown and has a tied-up, light caramel short hair. He calmed himself down and took a deep breath.

“Could’ve at least give me a warning, Emily...” He grumbled.

“Where are we?” She curiously looked around.

“Inside a warehouse. We should start searching for supplies. Find where the forklift is and if it’s still functional.” He activated the x-ray scanning function of his helmet and ambled down the first aisle, peeking into each crate’s content.

“Okay~” She gleefully sauntered away.

“Shampoo,” his sight moves to the other container, “toothpaste,” and another, “frying pans,” and another, “servitor parts...I miss having those bots.” He then turned to the next aisle.

“I found the forklift~” Her voice echoed loudly, “There’s a dead body here too! I’m going to check if this is still working.”

She sprinted towards the forklift, pushed the incredibly rotten body with a knife at its back down to the ground, and assessed the forklift. Her attempt to turn on the forklift failed as there was no fuel left in the tank. She jumped out of the vehicle and began searching for another one.

“The forklift doesn’t have fuel! I’m going to see if there’s another one with fuel!” He nodded as he turned into the third aisle.

“Hopefully a few food crates survived…. Oh, tissue papers,” He stopped at his tracks, ”Won’t hurt to stock up some.” He mentally marked down its position before resuming his steps again.

The teenager found another forklift, but its roof was partially torn open, most likely by a big, strong claw. As she approached the forklift, multiple bodies were found in close proximity to it. She halted near the bodies and took a quick glance at them. Their skeletons indicated someone forcefully stabbed through their chest, ripping their heart out in the process. She felt a slight chill running down her spine. She ignored the bodies and examined the forklift.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

She turned the keys on the forklift and its engine started making noises. She then quickly turn off the forklift and shouted, “Kizo! Kizo! I found another one that worked~!”

“Got it! Now look for crates that have supply we can use!”

“Okay!” She whipped out a pair stylish and futuristic looking glasses and put them on. The glasses provided her the ability to determine the contents of the crates.

“Cookies eh? The twins will definitely be delighted to have some.” He mentally marked down another crate and continued. He spotted another forklift, but the front portion of the machine was crushed.

Fifteen minutes passed, the two of them finally finished scanning the warehouse. He and the teenager met up at the forklift she found.

“Found anything useful?” He sat inside the forklift, examining it to see if anything else was damaged.

“Yep! I found some potato chips and frozen pizzaaaaaa.” Her foxy tail wagged excitedly.

“Now we’re talking. Grab on to the forklift, we’ll go the crates I found first, then to yours.” He grinned as he switched on the forklift, thinking about the pizza as well.

The girl stood on the side of the forklift with her hand tightly gripping the metal frame as he slowly drove the forklift to their destination.   

When they arrived, Kizo amateurly operated the forklift to bring the crate with tissue papers down to the ground. He exited the forklift and walked towards the crate. He willed one of the containers floating behind him to land on the ground and grabbed the tools required to pry open a crate. Five minutes later, he took out five rolls of tissue paper and squeeze them into another levitating container. He put the tools back to its original container and drove the forklift to the next crate.

From each crate, he would take no more than ten items inside and move on to the next.

“Pizzaaaaa~” She said out loud as she stared hungrily at the still frozen pizzas, thanks to the perfectly insulating crate.

“Choose wisely Circe, we only have so much space to fit those in.” He picked out two pizzas with ten types of cheese as the topping and placed them into the food container.

“Aww. Guess I’ll pick these for myself….these for Emily….and these for the twins!” She then stuffed eight frozen pizzas into the container. It barely fit in after the addition of cookies, potato chips, canned meals, and packets of biscuits.

“It’s quite a surprise to see most of the crates here are untouched. I guess those bodies did a good job scaring off scavengers.” He gulped down the juice he found in one of the crates and closed his helmet again.

“Shall we go~?”

“Let’s.” He turned on his heels and headed back to the entrance.

X

“So we spent about two and a half hours inside. Guess we’ll need to walk a little faster after lunch.” The clock on his hud displayed it is currently 10:30 a.m.

“Let’s go then!” She held his hand, and the both of them resumed their travel under the scorching sun. Circe brought out a big umbrella, providing a comfortable shade.

As they strode past the parking lot, Circe hums along with the song Kizo was listening to. He pulled out his worn smartphone and began studying the map of the old world, planning what route they should take and where they should rest for lunch.

“Alright, we’ll walk down this highway….and we’ll stop at this M&H shop, which is about….90 minutes, no, 95 minutes from where we are right now.” He slipped his phone back into his pocket. He peered idly into the interior of abandoned cars as he passed by them.

“That’s a pretty long way! Think there’ll be monsters on the way there?” Her fluffy tail curled into a question mark.

“Why do you and Emily want to fight a monster so badly?  Have you two forgotten what happened last time?” He opened up one of the containers and took a few pieces of candy out. He pulled apart the plastic wrapping and popped it into his mouth. He slid the other three into his back pocket.

“We didn’t forget, It’s just that it’s been awhile since we had a battle~ I wanna test out a few new tricks!”

“I’m not risking my life just so you can fight some monsters and test out your new tricks. I know, the journey is quite boring for most of the time, but unlike you, I can die very easily. Why not just do that in the wonderland?”

“Because monsters in the real world are way tougher, and much more fun to fight with” She threw some shadow punches.

Well, at least there’s music, else I’d be bored out of my mind too. He thought to himself and turned up the volume slightly. Circe, on the other hand, curiously inspected anything that was remotely interesting to keep herself busy.

After an hour or so, they exited the highway and went into another inner city area. There weren’t as many skyscrapers there, but those that were  still standing had suffered major structural damage. Occasionally, Kizo would stop, stare at the wreckage of buildings or rubbles with a few skeletons around it for a few seconds, sometimes fingers trembling slightly, before carrying on with their journey.

Half an hour later, they arrived at the clothing shop. The door was shut tight and appeared barricaded, but all the windows were shattered, which allowed them to enter with ease.

“Even the clothing shop can’t escape the fate of being robbed clean,” Kizo remarked as he searched for a clean spot to sit down.

“Maybe they used the clothes as fuel?” The duo sat down somewhere around the center of the store after swiping away the small number of glass shards.

“Maybe. Or they were planning to hold a ‘Post-apocalyptic beauty contest’ to keep themselves entertained. One of the two.” He grinned at his idea as he removed a tiny stove and a flat, circular metal plate from one of the containers. He placed the black plate on top of the stove and switched it on. A strong, blue flame sparked into existence, heating up the plate.

Kizo took out the frozen pizza he picked from the crate, laid it on top of the metal plate, and cover it with a small metal dome. A peculiar circle, with intricate drawing within its circular border, etched on the outer surface of the dome lighted up for a quick moment before the light faded away. Kizo removed the dome and the smell of a freshly baked pizza went up to the duo’s noses.

“Smells delicious! Can I eat a little bit, Kizo? Please~? Pretty, pretty please~?” She stared at him with a pleading look.

He lightly shook his head in a nonchalant manner and smiled, “Alright, only one slice okay? The human needs his food to function.” He patted her head.

“Yay! Love you sooo much!” She hugged him before snatching one slice of the pizza and enjoyed its flavor. Her tail wagged excitedly as she ate.

The traveller took off his protective helmet, put it down on the ground beside him, and savor the delicious pie he had long for six months. After he finished the first slice, he took another one, then another, then another until the entirety of the pizza had been consumed.

“Man, I am getting old,” he burped, “In the past, this much pizza couldn’t even fill up half of my stomach.” He turned off the stove, letting the metal plate cool down.

“At least we could save more food while travelling the same distance yeah?” She sat lying against his shoulder.

“Not really? It just means that we need to stop more frequently to eat. Despite it would slow down our journey, at least my legs will appreciate the rest.”

“Maybe Kizo can go into the wonderland once in--”

SCREAMS

Both of them instantaneously snapped their heads to the road outside. They saw a kid dashing past the store at a distance while screaming. A split second after, they saw what was chasing the child. A horrible creature with green, scaly legs with a lion’s head, who appeared to be large enough to take down a large truck with relative ease. A Monster.

“Circe! Guard the supplies, I’ll be right back!” He rapidly put on his helmet and grabbed his weapons before sprinting towards the monster at full force.

He was quite far behind the monster when he exited the store, but he was able to catch up to it with relative ease. When he got close enough to the monster he dived behind a car and began shooting the beast with his mana-powered rifle. His strategy worked, the monster stopped chasing the kid and turned around to locate its attacker. Unfortunately, the kid also stopped and swerved to his back to see who saved him.

“Don’t just stand there you idiot! Find somewhere to hide!” He shouted as he slowly backed away from his cover while still shooting the beast’s face. The kid heeded his order and frantically ran away searching for a hiding spot.

The beast was enraged and roared at Kizo, which he took as a chance to fling a grenade into its mouth right before it closes it. He ducked behind a massive concrete wall as an explosion went out in the beast’s mouth. Even at a moderate distance and behind the concrete, he could feel the shockwave from the explosion.

He slowly peeked out from behind the concrete to see if the monster was dead, alas it was still standing, and it immediately tackled the concrete Kizo was hiding behind with its full force. As he realized he could not escape his impending doom, he performed a gesture with his hand before the beast completely destroyed the enormous concrete rubble.

After the monster had stopped its movement, it turned around and searched for its kill. However, the body was nowhere to be found. The beast became extremely confused and angry after losing not one, but two preys.

“Hey! Dumb lizard cat over there! Looking for me‽” The beast turned to its back and growled at Kizo, who was standing about 3 meters away from his original position.

The beast instantly pounced on him, but it didn’t recognize what Kizo was doing fast enough. As soon as Kizo had a clear shot of the beast’s eye, he let go of the trigger, releasing a charged-up, piercing aetherial bullet that penetrated through the beast’s skull like jelly. The beast’s body slammed heavily onto the ground right beside Kizo, its bodily fluids flowing out from the hole on its face.

Kizo lied down on the ground exhausted, rifle still on his hand, as Circe came running to him with all their stuff. She began examining him for wounds despite him claiming he wasn’t harmed.

The boy, who was hiding inside a building, after hearing an extremely loud gunshot followed by a loud thumping sound, peeked out from his hiding spot to see if the danger was gone. Luckily for him, it was. He slowly and cautiously walked towards the man who saved him, who was sitting up beside the monster’s giant corpse.

When the boy arrived in front of Kizo, he bowed forcefully, “Thank you, mister! Thank you for saving me!”

It was this moment that Kizo realized the boy he saved is a Demi, a rabbit Demi, based on his mixed features of a rabbit and a human, especially the obvious long, rabbit ears stuck on the boy’s head.

“Don’t mention it. I had nothing better to do anyway.” Circe elbowed his arm hard and glared at him. He threw a quick, casual glance at Circe before speaking again.

“I was joking. Let’s go somewhere safer to talk.” He stood up and lead them into a bakery, and then into its kitchen. After that, he made sure there was nothing else that might pop up and disturb them.

“What’s your name?” He crouched down and looked straight at the boy’s eyes.

“Kellen.”

“Kellen! That’s a nice name.” The emote, ^~^, showed up on his helmet before he sat down. Kellen was slightly intrigued by it.

“So, Kellen, why were you chased by that thing?”

“My mom, my dad, my brother and I were out finding food. We do that every day. But today, we went a little further to see  if there was a new place that had food. Eventually we found a big building that has lots of food in it! But we didn’t know there was a big monster living in it, and we accidentally woke it up. My brother and I tried to run with our mom and dad, but it blocked us and we had to run the other way. We managed to get out of its sight for awhile and I told my brother to hide in a secret place, but the monster found me before I could  hide so I ran away. And I just kept running and screaming, sometimes hiding to rest a bit before it found me again. I was hoping someone would save me, and then you showed up mister! You saved me! Thanks again!” He proceeded to hug Kizo. He hugged back.

“But mister, can you help me find my brother and get us back to my mom and dad? My dad will pay you back if you help me!”

“Of course, Kellen. But I don’t really need to be paid, I’m quite self-sufficient.” He stood up and looked at the boy.

“Self-su-ffi-cient?” Kellen stared at him, confused.

“Err, let’s just say I really don’t need to be paid.” The boy nodded.

“Circe, you got all our supplies?”

“Yup! All here.” She pointed her finger at the containers and handed him his backpack. He put on the backpack and recalibrated the containers to follow him.

“So, which direction is the building at?” Kellen thought for awhile before pointing his finger towards North, the exact opposite of where he came from.

“Uh...”

“The monster chased me towards this direction,” he points to South, “And then back to where we came from!”

“So it chased you in a straight line and then a U-turn eh? I see. Alright then,” he patted the boy’s head, “Let’s go!”

X

“Hey mister, where’d you get all this cool stuff?” He circled around Kizo and admired his gear. They had just started their journey.

“Well, let’s just say I have a friend that’s very good at her job. I found most of these and I gave it to her to improve and fix it before it was returned to me.” A slight smile emote appeared.

“You must have a really good friend!”

“Indeed I do. Also, you can call me Kizo. And try to keep your voice down, don’t want to attract any other monsters.” He placed his finger in front of where his lips were at.

The boy nodded enthusiastically and did the same gesture as Kizo, “Shhh….”

“Kizo, my time is almost up, I’ll be going then~”

“Alright. Later Circe.”

She instantly vanished. Kellen, who watched her suddenly disappear into thin air, started panicking.

“Mister Kizo, did you see that! Your lady friend just disappeared! Where did she go?!” Fear crept up on his body while he glanced around searching for her.

Kizo turned, kneeled, and grabbed his shoulders, stopping him from moving.

“Hey, hey, calm down. Just calm down, okay? She’s fine. She just went back to...uh...my head...I guess?”

Kellen stared at him confusingly. Then suddenly, out of nowhere, a blonde boy with a dark grey wolf tail jumped into existence, standing beside both of them.

“Heyo hostie--” Kellen frightenedly leaped away from the other boy and gawked at both of them, terrified.

“Wha-what’s going on?!” The rabbit demi was on the verge of tears.

“It’s okay Kellen, he’s not dangerous. He’s uh….magic! Do you know what is magic, Kellen?” The boy nodded slowly.

“Yeah, that’s what he is. He’s made of magic, just like that girl you met before. They’re both made of magic, that’s why they can appear and disappear whenever they want. So, don’t be afraid, yeah? Don’t forget about your brother, we need to keep moving. I can explain more as we walk.” He carefully trod towards the boy and offered his hand. A smiling emote appeared.

Kellen, despite still in shock, carefully took his hand and all three of them continued their journey.

“So, before I explain what is going on, this little guy here is called Eli.” He pointed at the boy, only as tall as Kizo’s shoulder, on his left side.

“Heyo! Nice to meet you~” He waved at Kellen. Kellen waved back timidly. The wolf boy giggled.

“Now, Kellen, do you ever heard of the word ‘tulpa’ before?”

“No...” He shook his head.

“It’s okay, not a lot of people know, even before the end of the world. To put it simply, tulpas are ‘people’ that live inside your head. It’s a mind thing, not related to magic.”

“But you said they are magic?”

“Well, their bodies are made of magic, that’s why they can appear and disappear out of nowhere. But they actually live in my head. I created them.”

“You can create people in your head?!”

“It’s...complicated. Hmm, how about this. Do you know what are imaginary friends?”

“Yeah! So tul-pas are like imaginary friends?”

“Close, but not quite. Imaginary friends only act in a certain way if you’re imagining it. They don’t have their own thoughts and they don’t do their own things. Tulpas, on the other hand, act like real people. After creating them, they will slowly have their own thoughts, opinions, emotions, and other stuff like that.”

“So...you make imaginary friends...that act like real people….and they live inside your head but have magic bodies....and they’re called tulpas?”

“Yep. But, I didn’t always know they can have their own bodies made of magic. In the past, they only existed inside my head.”

“So they’re trapped?! Won’t they get bored? Or sad? Or lonely?”

“We didn’t get bored! Or sad, or lonely.” Eli stared at him, “We live in the Wonderland! It’s basically an imaginary place that hostie made. It’s very big and we have a lot of fun! There’s also two more of us that you didn’t see, so we’re not really that lonely~”

“Why do you call Mister Kizo, ‘hostie’?”

“Tulpas usually refer to their creators as ‘host’. And those who can bring their tulpas into the real world, through their magic bodies, are called Tulpamancers. Although, that term used to mean whoever has a tulpa. But since magic has become a real thing, it only refers to people like me.” He glanced at the boy, “Still scared?”

“No! It’s so cool! People living inside your head and they have magic bodies, you’re like a wizard!”

“Well, technically I am one. And cool, huh? I still remember the times when we were viewed more as freaks than anything….” He mumbled.  

“Can I do it too? Can you teach me?” Kellen gazed at him in anticipation.

“That’s…. How about we focus on finding your brother first? I can tell you more after I get you and your brother back to your parents. Is that okay?” The boy nodded in excitement.

All of them increased their pacing and eventually reached the building within thirty minutes or so.