Kazuo Yokoyama groaned as he was roused from unconsciousness by a barrage of pain. At once he knew something was wrong; he found himself splayed out on the floor between his bed and his full-body mirror — shattered so thoroughly that nary a piece clung to the frame. At once he looked to the ground, wary for sharp pieces of mirror — but there were none. Cautiously, he pulled himself up from the carpet and his head began to swim in a nauseous haze. After sitting on his bed, he felt around his entire head for injuries. His first assumption was that he had somehow tripped and fell through his mirror, concussing him, but there wasn't a single wound on his body.

He thought back on what might have happened, but his head ached too much for him to think deeply. All he knew for sure was that he must have been getting ready for school, since he was wearing his navy blue Tenshiki High uniform — sans the blazer, since they had just switched to summer uniforms. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and saw that it was 8:20; he was running increasingly late to school. He grabbed his bag from his desk, put on his glasses, and slung his bow around his back, then quickly went through his house to the door for his outdoor shoes. The house was quiet, but Kazuo was used to this. His mother was overseas in America, and his father left for work long before Kazuo woke to get ready for school. As he stepped outside his head flared up with pain, and he gritted his teeth. If it still persisted when he made it to school, he would go to the nurse.

The sky was a foreboding dark gray that threatened to unleash a thunderstorm, but not a single drop yet fell. He was almost thankful it wasn't so bright, on account of his pulsing headache. One thing that did weird him out, though, was how quiet it was outside. He checked his phone again: it was 8:22. His road was a fairly busy one in the suburbs that should be rife with foot traffic — schoolchildren, housewives, businessmen, maybe a police officer. There was nothing, only an atmospheric rumbling overhead. Kazuo looked at the neighbouring houses. It wasn't just quiet, it was desolate. Like the whole block had been abandoned. A cold chill crept up his spine and settled around his head as he began the walk to school. He couldn't bring himself to run; his head was still unbearably foggy. Maybe I have a fever, he thought. I probably should have stayed home.

When Kazuo arrived at the crossing and looked ahead, across the street, he was surprised to find that he was no longer alone — but this person was far from normal. It was a young woman wearing some sort of black, skin-tight outfit. With it she only wore a white fur coat and oddly enough, a long white tail. Her hair was long and brown, and her eyes were golden and slitted like a cat's. Her cheeks had cartoonish whiskers on them, and the suit seemed to also include a pair of cat ears.

"Hello ~nyan!" she called to Kazuo, prancing through the street towards him without looking both ways. "I'm so glad I was the first one to find you! Now your spirit's all mine ~nyan!"

Kazuo rubbed his dark eyes and looked at the young woman again as she came to stop where the sidewalk met the road. "Cosplay?" he wondered out loud, in astonishment.

The catgirl tilted her head to one side, and then clapped her hands together. "Oh, I've heard of that! Like pretending, right?" She laughed. "Nope! I'm the real thing ~nyan! My name's Nekomata!"

Kazuo looked around. There was still nobody else in sight — nobody to confirm if what he was seeing was real or not. He chuckled dryly. "I get it, I must have a really high fever, and I'm still dreaming. This is a very dream-like setting, come to think of it. No people, a familiar place, something out of a video game in front of me . . ."

The young woman, Nekomata, placed her hands on her hips. "So it's going to be like this, is it?" She sighed. "Everyone thinks it's a dream ~nyan," she pouted. "Well, take this ~nyan! Agi!"

Kazuo saw a red light, and suddenly his body snapped into action. Every nerve told him to jump — somewhere, anywhere — to avoid this red light. So, he dove to his left. His left shoulder dug into the concrete and his bow shook in its holster on his back. His eyes widened as he watched the place where he was standing erupt into flames, the heat washing over him. His shoulder bled through his white shirt and stung with pain where it had scraped against the concrete. His head felt clearer, but it didn't hurt any less. Slowly, Kazuo began to consider this might not be a dream.

The catgirl was impressed. "Ooh, nice dodge!"

Kazuo saw her finger nails extend, becoming steel-like claws. He knew this was no girl — it was a monster. Regardless of if this was a dream or not, he had no desire to let some maniac cat monster get to him. He scrambled to his feet and started running back towards his home as fast as he could.

"Now this is more like it!" she called after him. "Keep running!"

Kazuo turned behind him and saw she was right behind him, a smile on her face, her yellow ears bearing down on him. She was likely toying with him, as cats were wont to do. He looked back ahead to his home, rapidly coming into view. No, he couldn't make it inside. By the time he had his key in the door, she would already be on him. He would simply have to keep running, and hope that this nightmare would end or that there was someone else here — hopefully someone friendlier.

Haruna Nakano awoke with a start, and while that was completely normal the conditions were anything but. The girl pushed herself up from the heavily littered floor, her head was pounding something fierce, what's worse she didn't know why. She most certainly got enough sleep last night and there was no reason why she was hurting. It was then she noticed the shattered mirror, if nothing else that provided some clues on what possibly could've happened, did she smack her head into it? She stood up to take a closer look... it was odd there weren't any glass shards, not even scattered across the floor, which boded well for her seeing as she was just sprawled across it. Haruna sighed and shook her head, it was way too early to start using her brain so instead she opted just not to worry about it for now. Curiously she was already dressed for school, uniform and even that light coat she usually wore. While it wouldn't be a first time, she swore she changed out of them.

With a yawn she starting looking for her phone on a cluttered side table, she really need to clean this room up; a lot of things had been going missing. Fortunately her phone wasn't on this list of missing items as she found it without too much searching. Turned out she was running late at 8:21, good thing she was already prepared to go. Haruna left her home in a hurry, by then both of her parents should already be gone, besides they don't typically get involved in her business anyway.

It didn't take long until she started to notice the... unsettling atmosphere of her street. It wasn't so much to do with the stormy sky, that was completely normal to her, but of course it was the lack of people. No matter what there should have been at least someone walking the streets, especially at that time of day, it was like a scene from a horror movie with how desolate it felt. Just what was going on? Between her vaporized mirror and the abandoned road, her day was shaping up to be something else.

Haruna looked up when she heard the sound of footsteps. She strained to listen, it was definitely someone running, the clatter of shoes hitting asphalt was unmistakable. The girl stopped in stunned silence, right in front of her was a boy, while she found the source of the sound she also unfortunately found the reason for it. Chasing the guy was a woman, but not just any old human. She looked like some weird anthropomorphized cat with vicious claws to boot, if that didn't scream danger Haruna didn't know what would. The girl had no idea what to do, was this boy even in actual danger, or was this a performance piece? Perhaps by itself sure, but on top of everything else she just instinctively knew that the world wasn't the same anymore. Haruna made her mind up; to turn around and run, because nothing about this was normal. Not at all.

Kazuo furiously drilled his feet into the concrete again and again in an ultimately futile attempt to stay ahead of the vicious catgirl, who hadn't fatigued a bit and still lingered behind Kazuo, occasionally taunting him with a cackle. Kazuo's entire body was hot, sweat was dripping from his brow, and his legs ached. As he charged through the crossing on the other side of the road, he tried to look both ways even though it didn't matter — after a few minutes of sprinting there had been no sign of cars or people. That is, until he made a hard right, hoping in vain that it might give him some kind of leverage against his pursuer.

Ahead of him was a girl about his age, who appeared to be wearing the same uniform. This didn't give Kazuo any sort of immediate relief, in fact, odds are this girl was some kind of accomplice to the creature behind him, or at the very least another foe. It wasn't until she also turned and started running that Kazuo felt that she might be considered normal, or at least as normal as a girl appearing in this strange world could be. He looked behind him to see how the cat would respond, and he was shocked to find that she was slowing to a halt.

"Two of them?" she observed out loud, suddenly becoming apprehensive. "I've never seen two appear this close together before ~nyan! Oh, what's a kitty to do?"

Kazuo didn't know how this would interfere with whatever plans she had, but he was happy to take advantage of the opportunity. Pumping his legs like never before, bag and bow clattering against him, he focused his efforts on trying to follow the girl and close the distance between them. He didn't quite know how to call out to her. There was a very strong possibility this was all some kind of feverish delusion on his part, and he had been running through the streets like a madman, chased only by his own mind. He looked behind him, and the catgirl was gone. His fatigue having caught up with him, Kazuo stopped to catch his breath. The usual aches and grievances of exhaustion beside, his head still pounded, and he felt himself becoming dizzy. He tried to steady himself on the nearby wall but missed and ended up collapsing to his knees, holding himself over the ground with his hands. His glasses fell, turning his vision into even more of a fog than it already was.

"Dammit," he wheezed. "What kind of illness is this? Am I going insane?"

In the next few minutes Haruna learned a few critical facts. One, that catwoman thing was definitely in fact hostile and it she wasn't it didn't give off that nice, friendly vibe. Two, the catwoman can talk. Three, the boy probably didn't know anymore about the situation than she did. The girl groaned and kept running until eventually that insane woman ceased chasing them... for whatever reason. At the time it didn't make sense, that monster would've caught them if it kept chase so why in the hell did it give up, or did it? Haruna leaned back trying to normalize her breathing, although that guy was certainly in worse shape than her. Also while the relatively light exercise didn't do any favors for her headache the pain remained bearable, which needless to say was good news for her.

Haruna glanced over to the stranger by her side, he looked surprisingly normal although when her eyes fell upon the holstered bow she honestly found that a bit suspicious. Sure that can be explained away with an archery club, just it didn't exactly sit completely well with her to know this man was technically armed. Otherwise judging by his uniform he had to a fellow student, maybe even a classmate if she were estimating his age correctly. Above all else she was a little glad that she wasn't completely alone in all this.

Now with her breathing back to normal rhythms Haruna stood straight up to look directly at the boy, one hand on her hip and the hanging at her side. "Guess I'm insane right along with you." She tried casually stating. "I'm gonna take a stab and say you're not stupid, or oblivious or anything, but that woman was not normal... God nothing is right now." She turned a hand towards the seemingly abandoned nearby city blocks. "No one, right? Not a single soul during what should be rush hour. Not to mention everything just feels... off, and I know you can tell the same, else I actually might be the only insane one here."

Haruna then sighed a shook her head. "Alright, yeah. You don't need to hear by ramblings, name's Nakano and I say we need to figure a way out of here... where ever 'here' is before Catwoman comes back for more."

Kazuo glanced up while the girl was catching her breath, and felt a bit relieved that she decided to stay instead of keep running. Though, he couldn't help but wonder why. Wouldn't any normal schoolgirl have kept running after seeing a maniacal cosplayer chasing a high schooler? This was like something straight out of a bad anime.

As the girl spoke to him, Kazuo was still catching his breath. After commenting on their circumstances, verifying everything he had thought was strange since he left the house, she introduced herself as Nakano. The name sounded vaguely familiar. Perhaps he had heard someone talking about her, or maybe she was even in his class. Besides the usual group of girls who hounded him to style their hair and pick out products for them, he didn't really pay much attention to others in school.

Although he hadn't entirely recovered, he could at least pull himself off the ground. "Yokoyama." He began by returning the introduction. "And leaving here would be difficult, since I'm not sure where 'here' is. As far as we know, this is our city. Something's just . . . wrong. Regrettably, I have no idea why or how." He looked around, still wary of that catgirl. "I don't like being out in the open like this. We need to find somewhere safer. If we're assuming all the buildings are abandoned, then let's find a convenience store. If we're going to be here a while, we have to stock up on essentials first and foremost."

It also seemed like he would need a weapon — since he didn't have any arrows with him — but he didn't want to mention this to her. She seemed genuine, but with all this weirdness going on, he couldn't fully trust her. As for her appearance, it seemed natural, to put it one way. It didn't seem like she bothered with much, but even though it was understated, she definitely had some inherent good looks. Her attitude, though, was quite direct. All and all it was refreshing, compared to the shrieking, giggling mounds of make-up and posh he put up with.

Yokoyama... huh. To Haruna that name sounded eerily familiar, well given how they go to the same school she reasoned his name could've came up on one occasion or another. It wasn't like her to dwell on the same thought for long and quickly dropped the question, what mattered is she had a name. The girl shrugged then nodded. "Sure, not like I got any plans of my own, plus... yeah figuring since the world isn't working right then a little bit of looting can't hurt... probably." It sounded like work, but she wasn't dense; survival was something you put effort into, didn't change it was still a pain though.

Haruna took the lead, the sooner they can start making progress and finding some resources, the sooner they can be done with all this. The nearest commercial district, at least to her memory, was three to four blocks down. It would be a little bit of a walk, maybe it would've been better to double back home, although they couldn't forget about Catwoman. During the walk Haruna glanced back at her newly found partner a few times, one to make sure he wasn't about to bail out on her, but two to also size the guy up.

What first came to mind was "pretty boy" Yokoyama looked like he seriously cared about his appearance, which was all fine and well just... she couldn't understand why someone would put all that energy into looks especially for something trivial as school. Now that work seemed to have payed off, if nothing else he actually was damn good looking in her opinion, while not exactly her type she could bet he had to be popular back in school. When it came to anything else it was simply too soon to tell, just he lacked some athleticism and potentially was a member of the archery club. Good thing was she found him to be agreeable so far or else this experience could've been hell in yet another way.

Soon enough they arrived in the shopping district, well "they" providing Yokoyama didn't run off for whatever reason. Haruna walked right up to the nearest convenience store then slightly turned her head. "Well here we are, how do you want to do this? Run in and grab whatever we find first or be a little more tactical about it?" She then coughed in the direction of where they just came from. "After all I'm assuming a certain Catwoman hasn't given up on the hunt yet, meaning we might need to be quick about this. Also..." Haruna held up her schoolbag. "I doubt we can carry much with these, do you think they sell backpacks or something here? Even cheep ones?"

After Nakano asked how they should approach this, Kazuo gave her a deadpan look. To him, there wasn't even anything to consider. "If this is truly a survival situation, then we have to be tactical about every move we make. Especially in cases of mortal danger." However, she was right about the likelihood they might be attacked again by that strange monster-woman. "But we can't be picky, either. Get whatever food you want. Quick things are best." His eyes fell on Nakano's schoolbag, and then his own. "We can keep an eye out for backpacks, too, though I'm not sure if a convenience store like this will have anything."

Feeling that any concerns had been sufficiently addressed, Kazuo started into the aisles. True to his word, he wasn't picky at all and only glanced at a wrapper for about a second before shoving it in his schoolbag. Mostly he stuck to junk food in bags. Not that he would ever eat the stuff normally, but this situation was far from normal. Even if he didn't necessarily like the food, he knew that its convenient packaging and long shelf life were well-suited for survival.

As he went down the aisles and gradually became more separated from Nakano, he began to feel a chill in his back. On the way to the store, he had kept looking around for any signs of life, wondering when — or if — things would go back to normal. He hoped this was some strange, unexplainable phenomenon that would pass quickly, but having seen nobody other than Nakano and the catgirl the whole morning, he was gradually becoming more assured that he wasn't overreacting or taking this too seriously. This could be a major problem — a life-or-death situation. The realization slowly crept up his back and around his neck like an icy embrace.

After reaching the back of the store, he found something that might be useful. "Miss Nakano, over here." He wasn't quite sure where they stood in terms of age or standing, and though she probably wouldn't care, he decided to be proper. "Are these what you had in mind for a bag?"

Kazuo had found a small shelf lined with cheap children's backpacks. Namely, there were only two: a garishly-blue Gundam backpack and an equally-obnoxious pink Hello Kitty backpack. They weren't much bigger than their schoolbags, but they could probably be handled much easier. "Which do you prefer?"

Haruna simply nodded and got right to work, they probably didn't have the time to waste on talking anyway. The girl decided to search around the opposite end of the store, after all there was no point in looking at the same shelves. Initially she taken to packing as many small water bottles as she could reasonably fit into her bag, it looked like Yokoyama was busy gathering food and there was no telling if they'll have easy access to clean water. It begged the question, would there still be working plumbing in the city even if there shouldn't be anyone maintaining it?

Yokoyama called for her attention to which Haruna responded imminently. "There's no reason for the 'miss' you know, don't know what kind of girl you take me for, but I don't really care for that sort of politeness, but yeah give a sec I'll be over." She stuffed one last bottle in her bag before lightly jogging over to the boy.

After his explanation of the backpacks, Haruna stared at her two options, and even tilted her head in confusion. Were these really the only bags in the entire store? Eventually she picked the Gundam one, it seemed like the lesser of two evils. "Well... I sort of like robots." She shrugged. "Besides, painting a bright pink target on my back doesn't seem like a smart decision." Then perhaps a bit unexpected given her attitude so far, Haruna gave small smile. "But hey, if you want a pink Hello Kitty backpack, I won't judge... just your manhood on the line and whatnot."

Good now they had extra begs, now they could probably end up being a liability because such tiny backpacks won't fit all that well on them, but it had to do for now. That said while it would've been ideal to completely replace their schoolbags, that didn't seem like an option anymore seeing as their new backpacks aren't that much better. Quickly Haruna filled her Gundam pack with other non-food items such as disposable lighters, a random assortment of magazines for some entertainment, and two umbrellas. Now that she felt somewhat ready to move on she met up with her partner yet again once it looked like he was finished as well.

"So uh... Yokoyama." She started. "I know where we can get some stuff to fight with... but well the problem is they're back home... meaning we have to go back, meaning we can easily run into Catwoman. Its going to be a little hard to explain, but let's just say my dad is a collector of sorts. If you feel like backtracking isn't worth the risk I wouldn't blame you, but it is an option."