"N-not human?" Cole asked, completely confused.
Celes stood up, walked over to grab her lunch bag, brought it back, and sat down next to Cole. She pulled out a scuffed, brown-covered book that looked like a journal and handed it to Cole. Cole immediately took it and started reading. The book was Dr. Albert's research journal, and it was clear Dr. Albert knew from the start that Celes was not human.
According to the notes, Dr. Albert's kind were called Draugr, or undead beings that were physical ghosts requiring human and animal blood and flesh to survive. They controlled this world and treated humans as their prey because they had already hunted many animal species to extinction. They ran human farms in cities and disguised themselves as humans to monitor them, as they were also fundamentally human.
"S-so that's it?" Cole asked, looking at Celes next to him.
"You haven't read everything yet, have you?" Celes asked.
Cole returned to the text. He flipped a page, and there was a drawing of a human with various types of arms. These were beings created by combining human, Draugr, and Cryptid DNA, called Chimaera. Cole immediately felt a shiver run down his spine as he read the name. He continued; the book also stated that the Chimaera were created by humans who were fighting back against the Draugr, and their facility had been destroyed.
Then, Cole flipped the page again. Underneath was a drawing of a heart. The Chimaera heart was described as being made of Cryptid crystal that had surfaced, and it required the essence of life to function and live. Cole immediately clutched his chest. His heart was now beating normally, like a typical human heart, meaning that it had been "dead" until now, only beating occasionally. Cole's face went pale, and he looked at Celes.
"S-so we also need... food?" Cole asked.
"That's right. As it says, and as proven, oh, and the meat I gave you just now was Draugr flesh. Meat that had actually been rotten and a carcass for a long time but became fresh with blood. Didn't it taste good?" Celes replied, asking again.
"HOEEEEEEK," Cole immediately tried to vomit the meat up, but he couldn't. He tried to stab his fingers into his mouth, but nothing came out.
"Hey... come on, don't think about it. The important thing is that it tasted good, right?" Celes said, patting Cole's back.
"GRRR... why didn't you tell me that before?" Cole said, wiping his mouth.
"You wouldn't have eaten it, and you wouldn't have believed me if I told you beforehand. Let's keep reading," Celes replied.
Cole returned to the journal. It turned out Dr. Albert's reason for capturing Celes was so that one day Celes would search for her five friends who disappeared from the facility, before he consumed Celes and took her power. "SNAP," Cole closed the book and handed it back to Celes.
"Thank you. Now I understand, but I still can't remember anything or what happened," Cole said.
"Yeah, same here. Reading this book didn't trigger my memories, but it does mention the location of the destroyed research facility. Want to try going there to find out about us?" Celes asked.
"Why didn't you go alone?" Cole asked.
"Because until yesterday, I didn't know what to do, and I had no will to live. When I saw you in that field, everything came back to life," Celes answered.
"I see. So, what about yesterday?" Cole asked, looking down.
"Those Draugr had captured a human and planned to eat her. They took her to that barn. I followed them, killed them, and took a little bit of their flesh for myself to eat, but it turns out I gave it to you instead... though I already ate some last night," Celes said.
"Uhhh... you're making me sick," Cole said.
"Hehe, sorry," Celes replied, smiling.
"So, you don't think everyone at this school is human?" Cole asked.
"Yeah, I suspect almost all our teachers are Draugr. I only know for sure that the teacher named Karlston is a Draugr, though," Celes answered.
"Huh... Mr. Karlston? He's a Draugr? He just talked to me yesterday about a college scholarship in the capital," Cole said, shocked.
"Oh... he told you to go to the capital? That means he was trying to send you into a Draugr den. That's typical; he tells humans to go there so they can be consumed by the Draugr. Smart humans are a delicacy for them," Celes said, annoyed.
"W-wait, how do you know the capital is a Draugr den? Didn't you live on the south side of this town?" Cole asked.
Celes immediately fell silent. She looked down and pulled her knees up, hugging them. Then, she slowly turned to look at Cole.
"Sorry, I lied earlier. I only moved to this town a year ago because the facility in that book is near here... I came from the capital, and the reason I couldn't stay there... is because everything there is not human... but I wasn't lying when I said I had no hope for life until yesterday when I saw you in the field. Please don't be mad at me," Celes said softly.
"Don't apologize. I understand, and I'm not mad. I don't understand myself... but (looking around) after seeing the state of the world like this... I feel strangely motivated... I suddenly want to live, and the mystery of why I was drawn to the corpse... I've got my answer now," Cole said, looking straight ahead at the dark sky despite the daylight.
"Thank you," Celes said, smiling.
"So, what now? What should we do? I still want to find out who we really are, even though we know what we are. We can't have absolutely no memories, like who our parents were and everything else," Cole said.
"Let's go to the facility they destroyed to find out. How about we go tomorrow? Tomorrow's a holiday, right?" Celes asked.
"Hmm... alright," Cole replied.
"Now, let's eat," Celes said.
She grabbed two more lunch boxes from her bag and handed one to Cole. Cole, receiving the box from Celes, was naturally hesitant and full of questions, but "CLAP," Celes opened her box, and the contents were just a normal lunch.
"Huh... not meat again?" Cole asked.
"Of course not. We need that kind of meat so we can transform whenever we want and not have to wait once a month, and also so we feel alive and full of energy. As for normal food, that's for our stomach; humans still need to eat, right?" Celes answered.
"Oh... I see," Cole replied, completely lacking an appetite for the food in his lunch box. Then he glanced at Celes's lunch bag. "No wonder her lunch bag is big; she's got all sorts of stuff in there," Cole thought.