Shit…
Now I’ve gone and done it….
My clothes are completely drenched and my glasses are broken...
The snow isn’t letting up either…
I think I hear people running towards me, but I’m not too sure…
I might have dropped the cat food.
That cat’s probably getting hungry by now…
I’m feeling a bit lightheaded…
I’m kind of tired, so I think I’ll take a nap for now…
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My mother was a writer. Not famous, but fairly successful. She wrote stories about crazy and outlandish things. Things that would make you question her sanity. But, I loved my mother’s stories and I still do.
I remember a time before she published her first book. Our father had left us and it was just me and her. We ended up moving into a small and dilapidated apartment complex on the outskirts of Tokyo.
She would spend her days juggling her writing, working a part-time job and caring for me. Some days I would come home from school to find food on the dinner table and a note that read:
“I’ve already eaten, so go ahead and heat up your dinner,”
At the time, I knew that she was skipping meals to feed me. Eventually, the day came where my mother ended up collapsing due to malnutrition and lack of sleep. After being hospitalized, she slept for three days. When she woke up, she seemed like a different person. Her face looked healthy and, in a way, she started to shine.
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Soon after, she quit her part-time job and began writing as if something had taken over her body. She still took care of me, but most days, she was holed up in her room, writing away. After a few days, she said to me;
“I think something wonderful is going to happen,”
Sure enough it did. She had turned in a manuscript to an editor who fell in love with it and pushed to get it published. Her book ended up selling well and money started to become less of an issue. I eventually graduated from high-school and got into a decent university and everything seemed to be looking up for us.
But, of course, nothing stays like that for long. My mother ended up collapsing again, but this time it wasn’t due to malnutrition or a lack of sleep. She was diagnosed with stage four breast cancer. Even though she was admitted into a great hospital, there was little the doctors could do at that point.
Years went by and my mother’s condition continued to deteriorate. But, she was never afraid. The doctors would tell me that even when I wasn’t there, she always carried a smile on her face. I remember her telling me that she wasn’t afraid of dying and that this is where she was meant to be.
I got angry after hearing that and blew up on her. Saying that she was being selfish and that I had already lost a father and wasn’t ready to lose my mother as well. I remember her simply smiling at me and telling me that she wanted to tell me a story.
I sat at her bedside as she took my hand. Her fingers were frail and her skin, dry. I was twenty-two when my mother told me this story.
That day, she told me a story about a strange place. A place that you can only visit in your sleep, filled with spirits. You wouldn’t know when and why this placed revealed itself to you. She said that this place was filled with spirits with amazing powers that humans wouldn’t be able to understand; that they could change people’s lives...
She said that if they this place ever appeared before me, put your faith in it and it’ll guide you to where you need to be…
This was the last story that my mother told me.
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Where am I?
Everything around me was dark, as if I was floating in an empty void. Wherever I focused my eye, it seemed as though the darkness surrounding me would stretch on forever.
Hm…
Guess I’m dead.
I looked down to see my body, wearing the clothes I had on before I blacked out. Everything was still there. My hands, my legs, my head, my hair, all of it. I blinked and looked up to see a wooden door, with a sign that read open, appear before me.
Having nowhere else to go I opened the door. A bell chimed as I slowly pushed it open. I heard a voice call out from inside.
“Welcome in, Kaito. We’ve been expecting you,”
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-A Place After Dark-
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