Hi.
My name is Cherri Kusuri. Yes, you're hearing that right, Cherri with an I.
Now, you're probably wondering why your lil' device here is currently being projected my inner thoughts.
If I am doing this correctly, I have figured out how to project my mind into some other guy's brain through sheer freakin' will. You are currently being subjected to my innermost thoughts (quite possibly against your will) because I have tapped into some formerly dormant psychic ability I never knew I had.
Right before this moment, I have consumed an entire pack of morning strawberry flavored mints, and am now one with strawberry freshness, meaning I should be psychic and am now interconnected with you! Some random dude in- I wanna say California, at this very moment. The very, very last week of August, like- maybe a couple of days or a few days or some week before September, whenever today is- Cherri Kusuri has unlocked the most powerful form of telepathy!
... either that, or someone spontaneously stole my later-written diary and published it or something.
Any bets on how well my diary will/would do? Five thousand says, like, maybe, I dunno- at least 500 people would pick this book up. That's like, me paying fifty dollars per person. Though, I dunno... how much does publishing a book cost? I know it's free if you type up some random nonsense on the internet, but like- y'know, one of those VERY high paying books, those novels that bring in the big bucks, how much does it cost to publish those? I could totally appeal to an audience, make massive bank on-
Okay, okayokayokay, I'm getting very sidetracked. Let's just... let's start over.
Hi.
My name is Cherri Kusuri. Yes, you're hearing-
Pbffft, nonono, Cherri, they know who you are already, reel it back, girl...
So... where do I begin? Let's- start by saying, I'm a human. I am a human girl. Nothing noticeably strange about me. No cat fur, no reptile skin, no thick and fat gorilla or elephant muscle- just normal human girl skin. Compared to what humanity once was, I- guess I'm pretty unique, with some hot pink locks. Used to have braids, cut them off myself- all of that. Imagine my hair however you want, just make sure you really- REALLY put emphasis on the fact I have- like- medium length pink hair.
Now, if you're also a human hearing my thoughts or reading this right now, confused about what I'm going on about? Good to meet you! Or y'know, good to know there's going to be someone else out there like me. And if you're NOT a human, well, hi hi, I'm not one of you!
... none of that- nothing about what I just said explains it. Hold on, collecting my thoughts...
See, okay, when I was eight, Gumi and I- oh, Gumi, that's my sister, by the way. Gumi Kusuri. Slightly shorter bubblegum pink hair, but it's a lot more even and neat and tidy. Also human, currently asleep in the other bed while I'm projecting my thoughts at this very moment. Gumi.
"Gumi, say hi to the nice Californian man hearing my thoughts right now."
"snznshnsznsnzsnznzz..."
Gumi says hi.
Anyway, so- one summer's night, when I was 8 and Gumi was 7, I went to bed and woke up to learn that every single human I've ever known in my life (except Gumi) died a very bruuuuutal death. Mysterious causes, maybe some- virus, maybe an extraterrestrial being with lasers and stuff- whatever it was, everyone just freaking DIED. As I affectionately call it, the Great Depression!
... actually, can I even call it that? The Great Depression was, like, a hundred years ago-ish and was more about money than anything... could be a lil' bit confusing and I'd have to specify the 21st Century Great Depression while referring to that one as the 20th-
Screw it, never mind, I'm calling it the "Everybody F---ing Died" year.
EFD Season, or something. Everybody died during the EFD Seasonal Event. Yeah, okay, thinking this in my head, this is a way better name for it... really conveys the death of humanity in an easily recognizable shorthand acronym to just say "oh, wow! EVERYONE IS DEEEEEEAD!" and stuff.
Hahaha... the way I'm thinking about this sounds really morbid. Real catastrophe in our hands, and- yeah! It freaking sucks.
Probably wouldn't be alive right now, if the world didn't apparently have a backup plan. In everyone's places, as if the people of Earth never met their gruesome deaths... a bunch of- well, no offense to you if you are one, a bunch of bizarre and unusual creatures spawned out of nowhere to replace everybody that isn't me or Gumi.
All of my neighbors became a bunch of anthropomorphic animals dressed in their usual human clothing, the people at the market became walking and talking green-skinned goblin and ogre creatures with the most scrunched up and wrinkly faces, sometimes the TV shows feature walking talking marshmallow cupcakes on gameshows and "spray can people" on the news. Spray can person. Like, a- a large person, but their face is just a spray can nozzle, like it shoots out paint and- yeah, yeah, you get it.
No signs of a dead town, just- a town of new creatures and animals and weird oddities! Even my new dad got changed into a creature, too! "New" being- well, I mean, sure, it's new in the sense that my dad isn't human anymore, but I mean new because...
... okay, rewinding a little because I can, I want to give a bit of family history. See, couple of years prior to everyone dying, Mom married some new guy in town. A city guy, someone dressed in this neat and tidy white button shirt with blue jeans and brown worker shoes. Also, someone who lived in big cities as a math dude. An "accountant" or something. Typed numbers onto a screen and signed papers for hours upon hours.
Never really understood the work he did, since I was quite literally a little girl who lived on a farm, but- well, all that stuff he does makes some FAAAAAT money. Like, tons of it! Apparently, he also loved spending money on my mom and spoiling the heck out of her, so like- yeah! Probably the only reason I can think of as to why Mom liked him, his tendency to spend massive amounts of money on her. Someone with my mom's good looks and magic blood would have to have a real good reason to settle with someone like my dad, and-
Oh! I should probably also lead with that, Mom has magic blood!
On top of being, like, a farmer... a farmress? Well, she's also a sort of- medic, a licensed nurse trained under the local town doctor, and... blood sorceress. Mom was very, very popular in town for being a kind and caring nurse with magic blood. Astonished our neighbors with her magical ability, really! Whenever she saw anyone hurt, Mom came over and concentrated her blood magic to heal them with a touch of her hand. The pulsing energy in her veins, as she described it, "concentrates heavily on a body and helps it regenerate with magic" and all.
One time, a neighbor got- accidentally hurt by a pitchfork that went through his body! So, Mom pricked her finger with a needle and dropped some of her own blood directly on the wounds... and voila, he was back to normal, fit as a fiddle and back to work, completely rejuvenated and refreshed! Mom was always a miracle like that.
However, her magic took a back seat for her other qualities, as... well... okay. I can say this about my good looking mom: my mom is a bombshell. Tons of men hit on her a lot, all of them really attracted to her good looks and everything. I'm not gonna tell you what my mom looks like, because- like, why would I? But trust me, she's pretty and beautiful.
If you reeeeeally want to know what she looks like, just- know that I take a lot after her, and so does Gumi, and we're gorgeously hot girls. Simple as that. We come from a long line of pink haired, hot women. All the Kusuri women are just really charming and attractive darlings, and- compare that to the fat, bald, wrinkly, boring, stinky, smelly, bad toothed, bad everything nerd that managed to win her over... yeah.
Stolen novel; please report.
Anyway, so, back to the point. Mom's attractive, my new dad isn't, and my new dad became my new new dad.
When EFD season hit, my new dad became a huge anthropomorphic hippopotomous- hippopautomous. Hippopotomus... crap, I feel like I'm spelling it wrong, just- hippo. A hippo. One of those really big, thick skinned animals that hang out in water and eat grass every single day. Big freaking nose and face with tiny black eyes and small ears sticking out the top of his head. His skin no longer the wrinkly pale it was... now he's just all grey with a slight tinted shade of orange. Dad became one of those.
It's fitting that this hippo became my dad, really. He's equally fat and hulking, dressed in my dad's white button shirt and blue jeans. Acted exactly like him, walked around and talked just like my dad, a very convincing performance. Even still, to this day, takes a long time to take a bath. Makes a biiiig deal about his personal baths, kinda like a hippo. So, no- surprise there.
... and, uh, right, everyone else in town changed too. Back to that. Remember that, Mr. California.
I'm probably straying too off topic and this all probably sounds pretty weird and expositional, but- hey, I'm pretty rambly, and I'm just going over what happened. No other explanation comes to mind. Everyone just... morphed into some semblance of bizarre creature. I didn't know at the time if it was a hallucination, if the overnight EFD Seasonal Event was all in my head, if I was just hallucinating the entire catastrophe that killed everyone and replaced them with creatures- but the cause didn't matter, it happened!
It's a LOT for an eight year old to go through. I was way too young to understand any of it, and I was very scared throughout the whole thing. Imagine how lonely and terrifying it would be if you were a little girl believing the entire town died!
But... I wasn't alone through it. I had Gumi.
Gumi- my sister, if you haven't been paying attention. She told me she can see the same things, that she saw everyone the same way I did. We both saw the neighbors as anthropomorphic deer, bears, cats, dogs, even avian birds and aquatic fish people. I even checked how she saw Dad, and- she described him the exact same way! Well- I mean, not exact exact, she's a bit nicer about it and has good things to say about him. Still stands, though, that Gumi sees that our dad transformed into a large hippopoto- po... uh... hippo!
So, since both of us, she and I, saw the exact same thing... it- it just had to be real. Overnight, everyone just became something beyond- humanity. Gumi and I are the only humans left in town... and, as we later found out, on Earth. Everyone else isn't human anymore. That's- just how the world works. Everyone, but Gumi and I, died overnight.
The only people who were ultimately spared from becoming new creatures were me, Gumi, and our... our mom.
Yeah...
... yeah.
...
So... uhm. Anyway. Moving on.
Back then, Gumi brought up a really, really good point that if we were the only two humans left as everyone we know and supposedly love became not human, it would be really weird if we treated them any different. So we needed to pretend everyone in this world is still human. Otherwise, we'd make a big commotion and out ourselves, possibly leading to very- very dangerous results.
Though, truthfully, I like commotions and I like getting into trouble. That's the reason why I'm just projecting this entire bit of Earth lore into your mind right now: because I feel like it. I felt like messing around and spilling the beans to the lucky person now subjected to my newfound telepathic powers. Or maybe making a profit off of my unique diary that goes on about "nonsense" to you.
Whichever one this is, no difference to me, I'm just having a field day thinking all of this right now. I don't mind telling you 'bout our life's story, I thrive on the attention. You've been listening so far (if I actually AM being telepathic right now, haha)... I'm gonna take this as far as I'm able to. Really get the names "Cherri and Gumi Kusuri" out there, in case you or anyone else decide to look us up after we inevitably become famous people. The inseparable only two humans in the world and all!
:D
But anyway... our telepathic connection aside, Gumi and I just- planned to continue living as if EFD Season had ever happened. As if everyone in the world was still normal and human.
Having Gumi with me made it so much easier to cope with the end of humanity. We were practically inseparable sisters to begin with, and now- we literally ONLY have each other. I don't know how far I could have gone into this without her. With her, it felt like I was able to continue living our happy lil' lives as farm girls with our dad, without a care in the world.
If you couldn't tell from my lengthy, lengthy word soup, Gumi and I are/were country girls, essentially what you could call... "country bumpkins". We were born on a farm, did a bunch of farm things as lil' girls, like... farm, and... uhm... farm...
... it's all a haze, nowadays, that was a life long ago. Years have passed since then, so am I expected to remember every single farm thing we did?
No, I'm not! Because I lied to you just now, haha!
See, Gumi and I couldn't keep living as if nothing ever happened. We never got the chance to get our lives back to normal, to do all those farm girl things after the EFD, because- we moved! We moved away from home shortly after the event.
Hippo Dad tried to run our farm for like... a week after EFD, and it didn't go too well. Mom was the one who handled all the farm stuff, and- and... well, without her, Hippo Dad was clueless on how to run it.
So, he made the... decision... to sell it. He sold the Kusuri farm to some other family that could handle it, and... also decided to take me and Gumi away from home. Told us that we were moving out of town to live in the big city, to move to a new home. Going on to just leave the farm, just like that.
I didn't really pay any attention while he was explaining to us why he's selling the farm. Personally, I- didn't really feel anything at the time. No attachment to the farm and the hometown anymore. Everyone died and mostly everyone got replaced by copies of animals and creatures and stuff. Why would I need to feel bad about leaving them? Gumi and I are just- the ones that survived the apparent purge that happened, and we just needed to go along with Hippo Dad and his whims for our own good.
So... we had a day to walk around, say our goodbyes to everyone in town. I pretended that these creatures were still my friends at the time, as I said bye-bye and already made peace to leave them all behind.
Gumi was sad, though. Had tears in her eyes as she said bye to my "friends" for me. Hugged and cried in their arms as she said bye to all my recently deceased buddies.
I asked her later about why she cried about it, and well, she felt sorry that she never got to know any of them before they were just- gone. Out of our lives. Completely unimportant strangers from that point on. A sad, sad truth to admit, but one that Gumi and I have had to face over- and over- and over again.
Oh, right, yeah, should probably mention this bit before I keep telepathically talking to you, stranger- Gumi and I are starting our first day of high school later today. We're teenagers, and we're- preparing to go to some new high school in the new city. Freshmen gals ready to take on a new big setting! Another, yet another fresh start to it all.
Did you get my emphasis on "another"? Good!
Why did I emphasize it again? Because we MOVED again!
Haha, yeah. We moved three times in total. Hippo Dad sure did like to migrate. For a few years, Gumi and I were subjected to an entire elementary school education, continuing off of all the information Mom homeschooled us with (our dad taught us math. Surprise, surprise) for a couple of years. Did all the elementary school things, before going on to middle school... in a completely new town. Then, we- did a bunch of middle school things, and- now we moved again.
Apparently, we live in yet ANOTHER new city I just can't be bothered to remember the name of, and- honestly, by this point, Gumi and I are just used to the process now. Our first day in the city, Dad dragged us around willy nilly... buying new school supplies, getting us in new- school uniforms, haha... and... yeah. Gumi and I straight up passed out in our new twin-sized beds, in our new bedroom, having had no time to unpack or get used to our new third home.
Kinda sucks. But it's whatever, and... now, we're just- continuing to live life post-EFD. Another new home, another new city, a new highschool with new friends and teachers and blah- blah- blaaaaah... as far as I'm concerned, I'll repeat it again: I kind of just don't care. Humanity's dead and Gumi and I are just meant to deal with it. Doesn't matter who we talk to or leave behind at this point.
...
But... y'know... it's a new chapter in our lives, so I just- I guess I want to try and- be an actual person again. High school is the most important chapter in a girl's life, as taught to me by those funny little TV shows that tell me, directly, "high school is the most important chapter in a girl's life!"
So, I'm like... I guess I'm going to try and make the most out of this new move. I might as well try to- finally get used to all these animals and creatures and things around us, to make some new friends and junk. A blank slate of nothing just means... I have to make something out of it.
This is going to be my last four years before I'm considered an adult and have to do actual adult things. Might as well enjoy it while I still can, while my "normal life" has been taken from me already.
Yeah.
... anyway, I'm just gonna go back to sleep now.
Nice meeting you, stranger, and- I guess I look forward to telepathically communicating with you again. Hope you reach out real soon and can tell me what you are.
Are you some sort of walking centaur man with buff, bulging muscles? Are you some mythological monster with snakes for hair, dressed head to toe in crow feathers? Are you a walking glass display case filled with tiny little horse figurines inside your body?
Have I somehow ended up telepathically communicating with some grimy and sentient brick wall with a face? Or, again, will this just be some book that gets published and earns fat money from whatever dork decided to take my words and publish it?
Well, whatever you are, stranger... uhm, well, hope you're ready to be subjected to whatever else I feel like telling you! This new chapter of my life, this new chapter of my life and Gumi's life.
And good night. Ciao. Nighty night, pal. Talk to you some other time, Mr. California!