Walls talk, but so do the rats.

They tell tales of death and ruin. Plague and destruction lay waste to everything in their wake. The rats bathe in the drool of decay and nest between its teeth. Their arrival denotes everything life wants to avoid.

But what happens when the rats flee, whispering and screaming of something foul and horrid? What is life to do when the companions of plague fall to sickness and disease?

Run, hide, and wait.

Haunting, double-toned howls danced through the grey town, replacing the long-gone cock-a-doodle. Wind howled and screamed at anything that moved, and reached out with hateful claws to poke holes in the living. Horses with finagled masks thrashed their heads as a desperate and coughing woman, donned in filthy foreign sleeping silks, rushed to mount one. A man followed; or tried, when his knees buckled and sealed his fate as a light snack for the circling and salivating deer closing in. Green dropped from their mouths. The woman fled, ignoring the man's pleas as she tightened the mask around her face.

A child's cry echoed, like a repeating siren wailing through the night. Hissing and steaming papers skipped across the street. Green-eyed bunnies, with skulls split open and dripping goo down their faces, hissed at the feasting deer and demanded a cut of the snack.

Kókóa adjusted their shall's hood over their buzz-cut head. A walking assortment of colors and fabrics, they covered themself as much as possible to fight against the tantrum-prone wind. A tattered, camo-patterned dark grey shall wrapped around their shoulders, neck, and head. In the middle, covering their mouth and nose, sat a pink gas mask. Beneath the baggy neon orange and brown patch-worked shirt, a black long-sleeved undershirt clung to their skin. Their tan cargo pants carried an arsenal of supplies, held up by a green belt. Too-big bright red steel-toed boots thumped against the ground with each step. 

Everything could see them. Everything could find them. Everything could kill them.

They did not care.

Today's mission: food. They had about three cans of soup left in their stash, and would've liked to get more earlier, but today would have to do. 

Bodies lined the walls and floors of the supermarket, ghoulish goo dripping from the cracks and self-inflicted gouges. Kókóa breezily stepped over them. Fools of desperate times falling from common sense. Survival relies on smarts, not fear.

Fear makes you stupid. Stupid makes you dead.

While humming cheerfully, they leisurely browsed the practically untouched shelves of canned goods. Corn.. peas.. beans... carrots... soup... They shrugged and took an armful, shoving it all into their bag. The more the merrier, and it wasn't as if the people left were smart enough to get to it before dying.

On they went, whistling and humming and skipping through the aisles. Crackling clicked on and off through the speakers. Every now and again, they'd grab something to add to their stash. A blanket, a thing of plastic forks, a bar of soap. Some they picked up for the fun of it. Kókóa had no real direction besides the want for food—everything else was purely from impulse.

A gurgling groan from behind made them pause and look over their shoulder. A man—or what would've been a man, if not for the twisted limbs and oozing gouges from his body—staggered towards them. Kókóa held their ground, the air around them rather amused and unruffled. Step. Step. Step...

And down he went, dying and dead on the floor.

Idiots.

Now bored, they hiked up their over-stuffed bag and left the supermarket. More people attempted to flee, during the brief period of reprieve. Some, like the two men, failed to properly prepare themselves and ended up meals to the twisted creatures overrunning the town. Others were smart, and knew their timing enough to grab a horse and leave while they had a chance. Turning back for others could be fatal.

Kókóa didn't want to leave. They had just got there; what was the point of arriving, if they were to just leave once more? That wasn't so fun. So they stayed, and they watched, and they survived.

It wasn't that hard.

Next came entertainment. Watching people and creatures battle it out could only sedate their endless craving for stimulation for so long. Kókóa, lazy to the core, dropped their bag off at their tent before heading to the library to read. There, piles of animal-like bodies surrounded the doors and blotted out the windows. Dogs. Matted and bloody dogs, all malformed and rotting, sat dead atop one another. Kókóa patted the peeling snout of one before entering, as personal tradition dictates.

Books were easy. Books weren't necessary. They were vital to sanity, but not to bodily function. For this reason, they found very little human corpses lying around. Here and there, the die-hard bookworms slumped over tables in a last-minute escape to another reality. But other than those respectable few, the building held only unloved stories just itching to talk.

"One, two, three, who will I be?" they sung, fingers bouncing over the spines. "Relinquish thee and embrace the tree. Ah." They snatched up the book they landed on, a short little children's book full of happy pictures and childish doodles from an unsupervised viewer. Happy with their new reading material, Kókóa trotted over to a table and sat atop it, legs crossed and body already rocking back and forth in excitement.

The book itself was boring and plain, but they weren't interested in that. They wondered what inspired the story. What happened to have promoted such a telling tale? Why were the characters doing what they were doing? They wanted to know, they craved the answers, but nothing could give them, and that's what made it exciting.

Dusk soon fell, inviting in the nearly endless nighttime that would quickly rush in within minutes. They closed their latest book and stuck it back on the shelf, then hopped off the table and made their way back to the tent.

Home? Home wasn't quite the word. Shelter, perhaps.

A bat swooped down, greenish fangs exposed and hungry; they shooed it away with a flap of a hand. Carnivorous deer walked through the fires set by lightning and machine fuel, warming themselves for the night to come. The hissing bunnies patrolled the street, loitering around the deer in the hope of getting a final snack.

But no rats.

Rats were smart. Rats knew.

They nearly reached the tent when they heard it. The flap of a robe. A scuttle of feet. They turned on their heel and searched the area. Surely, no one was out; they hadn't spotted any.

More noises, growing closer. This didn't sound like that of the others. This sounded... odd. Too purposeful. Too sneaky. Too normal. 

They hated normal.

Behind them now. A slow clap, all parts mocking and no parts entertained. Kókóa spun back around, only to come face-to-face with an all too familiar face.

They grinned, mouth scarred and pale. A large slash cut across their mouth and cheek, while another crossed over the opposite eye and their nose. Their robes, thick wool covered in a deceiving white silk, draped over their frail body to cover all the other scars. But Kókóa knew better. Kókóa had seen them far too many times. They straightened and removed their mask, a foaming sneer full of rotting fangs.

"Nysein."

They starred each other down, neither moving and neither willing to back down. Kókóa knew they had a limited amount of fun, but this felt too quick to be worth it. 

Darkness coated them by the time Nysein decided to be the one to speak first. They glanced around the town, observing and admiring. "I like what you've done to the place." No they didn't. Kókóa wasn't stupid enough to believe such a lie. "Where are your babies?"

This made them grin proudly, blue-fingerless-gloved hands splayed. "Safe. They were smart. Knew what to do." They moved, now pointing and bobbing their hand. "They ran before I came."

"And so they remain..." Nysein nudged a nearby body, mutilated behind recognition, with their boot, disgust dripping from their expression, "...untouched. Lucky you. Your little devices live to carry out another playtime."

From anyone else, it wouldn't have been an issue. But the way they said it, Kókóa took offence. It sounded so condescending. "Playtime?" they challenged. Nysein ignored it, the boring individual they were.

"Yes. And it's my turn, you know. I'd like to have a little bit of fun before Phêx picks off the rest." Their expression didn't change, but Kókóa could've sworn they were pouting. "You and Tatari nearly took them all."

Kókóa wanted to argue. They wanted to say that 50 years wasn't nearly enough time. But Nysein also had a point; the people hadn't taken to the starvation well, and they never saw the plague coming after somewhat recovering from Tatari's turn. Stupid on their part, really. They should've. They knew. But they also didn't, which baffled Kókóa. So many stories, and so much ignorance.

"Fine." Relenting left a bad aftertaste in their mouth. Nysein's shoulders pitched at an angle, the most happiness they'd show. Kókóa gestured to the wasteland they had grown fond of. "They're already betraying each other."

"All the easier for me." Nysein breezed forward and took Kókóa's face between their boney hands to kiss them on the forehead. "Tell Tatari and Phêx I love them and will be home when I'm done."

They nodded, a shower of nostalgia washing over them at the reminder of home. Home. Where the four of them lived happily and freely together, with no rules but their own to follow.

Just thinking about it had them buzzing where they stood. They couldn't wait to be doted on once again.

The two Horsemen exchanged their goodbyes, then Plague rode home, and War rolled up their sleeves and began picking at insecurities and weaknesses.