The police finally let me go. There were hundreds of witnesses, dozens of reports and even some video, and it was clear that I had nothing to do with Sean's death. He'd saved me, he'd pushed me out of the way of the truck, the truck.
I couldn't unsee it, the empty seat. The cops hadn't believed me, said that I was probably not getting a good look, or that the stress was messing with my memory, but I wasn't wrong. There had been no driver. No driver, none, and a truck that runs a guy over? Every nerd knew the story, we'd all read more than a few isakai over the years, it was him, it was Truck-kun, he was real.
Soon, soon maybe I'd get to meet him, no, I WOULD meet him, but at the moment I had a duty to uphold. Sean was dead, his parents lived out of town, and before they arrived I needed to act, one last act of brotherhood, to repay him for saving me.
Picking locks was easy, too easy, and when everyone in the building already knew me nobody suspected my coming or going. Sean's door popped open and I went in, into his apartment that I'd spent so many nights playing games, or watching the newest anime in.
First, and most importantly was the computer. His hard-drive just went into the microwave, that was the only way to be sure. Taking it apart, nuking it, and then putting it back together took hours, hours I could think.
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If the truck was real, I finally came to the conclusion, then there had to be others. If there were others, there were ways to find them. Find them, and I might find him, if I could find out where he was going to be, and when, maybe I could get my own adventure, maybe I could even go and help Sean, we'd been like brothers after all.
Some of Sean's movies had to go. His mother didn't need to see that he'd owned the entire collection of 'Tentacle Harem Sakura Power' or 'Reborn With Five-Hundred Wives' and she wouldn't. A few rearrangements made it all look natural, the movies going into a box. They were shortly joined by a stack of books, and some of the figurines that I really worried would cause my dead friend's parents too much stress.
No, not dead, Sean wasn't dead, not really. He was gone, but if he was gone then he was in another world, another life, the lucky bastard. Once I was sure everything was in place I washed my hands and left. I'd need to do the same to my own room, before I found that truck.
The next morning I looked at my own apartment. Small as it was I was now sure whoever found it wouldn't be bothered by what they saw. Lots of things had stayed, some were even a little risque, but nothing too bad. I put on my favorite t-shirt, the hero's logo faded, but still standing proud, and sat down at my computer. All those nights learning about these wouldn't go to waste, no today I would begin my search.
Hours passed, algorithms had to be written, data parsed. I went all over the world searching, police reports, coroner's reports, news. Truck induced deaths, no suspect caught. It was hard, as there were a lot of trucks, but patterns began to emerge. One thing was clear, not only did Truck-kun exist, but someone was trying to hide him, luckily for me they were doing a poor job of it.
Victims, or not rather, they were all there, so many, so many years. Point after point of data got found, got cataloged. Points of data forming a line, a line I could use, the line I would need to find the one who'd taken Sean, the one who I needed to meet. I just needed to predict where he'd be, where I could intercept him, where I could make him take me to another world.