The dim light that scarcely travels its way through my room in between the shutters sends red flags in my head that it’s early in the morning. The dust that makes itself visible once it blends with the beams of light reminds me as well of how I hadn’t cleaned my room recently, or rather how I hadn’t done much of anything at all.
Like a man at gunpoint with the barrel facing his way, I feel a mixture of fear and composure as I don’t remember much of anything about myself or my life, merely fragments of fragments, nothing specific. The thought of losing my memory wasn’t exactly appealing to say the least, but for some reason it didn’t send shivers down my spine or even make me hyperventilate and the like, almost as if there wasn’t really much to remember. Nostalgically, I vaguely reminisce a lack of activities besides laying in bed all day to which my body potentially confirms to with its sores and aches. Despite that, my current predicament tells me otherwise.
“I suppose anything’s better than staying in bed all day.” I think to myself in the hopes of actually finding something better to do and moreover try to figure out my past as I get up from my bed.
With a heave and a ho I sit up straight with a little effort and some groans of pain from stiffness. My eyes are still a little hazy from slumber, but despite that I manage to lazily look around and see a rather average household. Two wooden knob doors to which I presume one would lead to the rest of the house and the other a bathroom, a standard bed fit for one with a single white fluffy pillow and some sheets thick enough to keep anyone warm, a plastic work desk which I fondly remember to have frequently used before until recently for some reason that boggles my mind, some yellow though withering wallpaper with a 3-butterfly pattern that encompasses the room, and a brown dresser next to my bed with some in-depth circles engraved in the wood similar to coasters. I figured that they must’ve been stands for figurines or something. I at the very least remember this being my room, though I don’t remember much of anything that happened here or furthermore beyond these walls. I pay the room no more mind as my eye catches a digital clock by the edge of the dresser. It’s 6:53 AM.
With my day free as rain and my memory in shambles, I head for the door farthest from the bed with no train of thought in mind as I don’t know what lies beyond this room. All I know is that I have to start from scratch with some bits and pieces here and there. Lightly swinging the door open after a little twist of the knob gave me a slight boost in confidence with my luck today as I’d randomly picked the apparently right door that lead to the rest of the household. Peering out, there’s a couple rooms with the same texture as mine. The hallway looks plain with a little furniture here and there. Rather than exploring, I reckon that finding someone with answers is better than searching for some myself. That immediate thought was further supported by the ominous sounds of flipping pages heard from the stairs leading downwards to my left. I lightly close the door and just before heading downstairs something catches my eye by the front of my door. It’s a name tag. It says “Charlie” with an aesthetic design consisting of 6 pastel colors, namely orange, white, pink, purple, blue, and yellow. With my mind confirming the thought that my name is Charlie, the continuous sounds of flipping pages beckons me to move closer to its source.
In a jiffy, I’m downstairs and a strange looking lad with a book is sitting in what appears to be a dining room. I eye the area and see a kitchen beyond the dining room, a living room in front of me, and a door leading to the outside on my left, but my mind focused on the man in the dining room. He’s a stranger in my house but he’s probably one of the only people I can get answers from or trust at the moment considering he could’ve killed me in my sleep if he had violent intentions here, so I don’t outright put my fists up just yet. He gives off a dangerous aura but not quite a hostile one mostly because of his... getup. His hair starts off brown from the center and slowly but heavily turns golden to the end of each strand, not to mention how his hair is also lightly spiked in the sense that it looks nearly comical like in anime, a genre of which I’d mostly heard of but rarely seen. His right eye is colored bright pink while his left is covered by a white eyepatch. He’s wearing rather simple clothing, a pair of black shorts and a white t-shirt with a short black jacket that’s similar to a bathrobe.
Before I can further observe him, he looks up and gives me a tender smile as he says, “Good evening.”.
Despite it being around 7 in the morning, I play along as I ask about my current predicament.
“G-Good evening. What’s... going on?” I hastily respond. Naturally asking him who he is would be the most sensible thing to inquire, but his identity won’t help me remember mine.
“Well I’m reading manga and having breakfast and you just woke up, but from the looks of it you’ll have more questions than just what, perhaps why, where, when, but the important question is,” the sketchy stranger shoots back casually as he puts down his book on the table which appears to be Japanese and has a really menacing man wearing black in the cover page, “Who are you?”
“I’m... I’m Charlie, Charlie... I don’t remember.” I say with a hint of worry in my voice as I struggle to remember my last name.
“Well I’ll keep things simple for you then and answer everything you’ll need to know,” he says while forking a piece from an Omurice with a ketchup drawing that says, “I <3 ponies”, “For now”.
“I’m a being of legend, I’ve existed for quite a while now and I’ve watched over souls and the gates of hell as my job, I am death. I don’t have a name but you can call me Tony, it’s got a nice ring to it and it’s the name of one of my favorite housekeepers that I’ve ever known. You’re in a sort of... ‘pocket dimension of harmonized chaos’, I don’t know much about it either but I heard from some guy while I was buying manga that the one who made it is somewhere in this dimension.”
Upon hearing every word that Tony had just said, he was clearly delusional. He sounded more and more insane for every word that slipped from his mouth.
“That’s... crazy, I can still remember the world a bit but... but nothing that involves anything as complicated as pocket dimensions.” I say while still trying to process what he’d just said.
He shrugs saying, “Well, there’s a first for everything.”
With the awkward silence between us as Tony diminishes his meal and no more re plausible answers I could probably get from him left, my next instinct was to search outside for something or someone hoping that the next person I find isn’t just as insane as Tony.
“I’ll... head out for a bit to clear my head, I’ll be back.” I say remembering that this is still my house even if I can’t remember much so this is the place I’ll have to stay at... even if it’s with Tony.
“Before breakfast? Suit yourself.” Tony says while finishing his last scoop of Omurice and then picking up his manga carefully and flips through the pages.
I give him a wave without looking back as I’m considerably certain he isn’t either. I open the door leading outside and before I can even close the door my body tenses up and freezes in shock as the door is left ajar. The flying laptops comically mimicking birds, the strange anthropomorphic animals in school uniforms, the deliberately imperfect architecture, and the magical telepathic cat merchant with a deep voice and a wizard hat calling me an adventurer and asking me if I require anything in my quest all pointed back to what Tony had told me, and that thought sent a shiver down my spine. This really isn’t my world. Staggering now, my vision blurs into a haze. Before I can stumble and pass out, Tony is already next to me supporting my body from fumbling.
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“T-T-Tony, I don’t know what the heck is going on but this better not be a prank.” I manage to stutter
With a heavy sigh he declares, “If it is then someone else is pulling the strings.”
Seeing me still speechless in distress Tony mutters hastily, “Maybe a little breakfast will help clear your mind.”
A few minutes later Tony got me a plate of warm egg while I was stiff as a board sitting by the dining table, it’s the same as his, an Omurice. Before sitting down he looks lost in thought while holding a bottle of ketchup, and with a shrug in his face that looks like he’s saying “whatever works”, he just puts “OwO” on the meal.
Still in immediate shock, I just stare at the plate while Tony just sat back down to a chair in front of me. He hesitantly reaches for the book and retracts his hand inches away from it as he sees me not moving, not reacting, not anything. In a swift manner he slams his hand on the table making me jolt upright and look at him with the same reaction still blanketing my face, this probably isn’t his first rodeo dealing with someone in shock.
“Good grief.” he shouts moderately in a warm yet weary tone as he sighs and closes his eyes. Right after, he walks up to me and firmly grasps my arms by both sides right before while he looks like he’s trying to form his words still.
“Charlie!” he sternly shouts with evident resolve lingering in his words.
“Y-yes?” I mutter managing to break from my psyched state for even just a moment.
“I want you to listen here and listen now, this is important, and rather... personal.” Tony paused a bit there analyzing what he’d just said as he aligned his thoughts and his words. He sounded melancholic by the latter part of his statement.
“I’ve lived for decades, even centuries already and aside from my job... I met a lot of people.” he reveals while wearing a somber expression as he looks away.
“As you can probably tell, they all...” his voice cracked and his eyes start to glisten a bit. It took him a few moments to recover.
“T-T-Th-The point is,” he recovers while rubbing his eyes with his arm, “The world is clearly a cruel place. People die, memories fade, so don’t be surprised if something like this happens. All we can do is fight back and keep going, you’ll never win the war, but it’ll give your battles some meaning before you’ve done your part.” Tony exclaimed leaving a newfound outlook with you and a reignited spirit with him, at least for the moment.
“Alright!” Tony hollered like a banshee beaming with excitement and energy as he was standing on the chair with one foot on the table and his hand pointing to the ceiling, “We’ve got an amnesiac stowaway and I must help him get back to his homeland! I don’t know much about this place either but I will help him in the name of laughter! I will help him for you, my Diane! May we meet one day!”
At the latter point he already lost you in his words but his grave enthusiasm surely had a contagious effect on you as you join him standing on your chair with one foot on your chair and the other on the table repeating similar gibberish for the fun of it.
“Onwards, a new quest awaits us!”
“That’s the spirit, Charlie.”
We both burst in laughter with a big, dumb smile on Tony’s face seeing that he got me out of my trance. Despite my current mood, a slight sense of worry lies by my thoughts, a sense that I dismissed as to not ruin the mood. I still don’t know about how I can get back to my world after all, but that’s still all the more reason to be hopeful and optimistic.
Our giggly immersion is broken seconds later only by a new voice that came into the scene blurting out loudly, “Oi, pipe it down will ya?! It’s 7 bong in the morning!”. It was a deep, raspy one from a man, sounded a tad Scottish too but the accent wasn’t unbearably thick.
That piqued our curiosity and even more so to Tony’s, it looks like he doesn’t know about our other visitor in the residence from the baffled stare we gave each other. After glancing to my left and his right towards the living room where the voice came from, we make our hasty but not quite so cautious short trip to the room. Considering the greeting was fairly neutral, whoever it was he probably wasn’t hostile.
Strangely, there wasn’t anything sentient in the room. There was the mandatory couch and television a few meters from the entrance and each other, 6 pastel colored paintings with a sort of sigil on each one, a couple more standard furniture here and there such drawers and cabinets, and one set of feminine clothes on the couch which was probably the most eye catching thing in the room besides the paintings.
“You know who that was?” I inquire already knowing his answer.
“Nope, but someone’s definitely here.” Tony scratches his head in thought.
“I reckon he’s somewhere else, he’s definitely not here but he’s gotta be in the house.”
“Well let’s keep at it shall we? Anything new is worth looking for, he probably knows more than we do... hopefully.”
Leaving now to search even further, the voice speaks once more. “Leaving without so much as a hoot and a holler now, are we?”
If we weren’t sure of it then, we were now. That voice definitely came from the living room. Hustling now and getting back to the living room in half a second, Tony and I finally saw who our uninvited guest was.
With a little shock at first, I came to see the feminine clothes standing right in front of me. Tony wasn’t quite as shocked as I was and was moreover fascinated if anything. My reaction subsided in a jiffy after once more immersing myself in the idea that anything was possible here.
Stutteringly, I managed to say, “O-oh, good morning sir?, m-might you be... invisible?”
“Invisible? No no no laddie, I’m not wearing the clothes, I ‘am’ the clothes.” He returns with a tad of warm enthusiasm.
“Oh right, formalities. I’m Gerard. Gerard Hanby. Folks call me Gary. Pleased to meet you both.” He welcomingly continues while reaching out a ha- umm... a sleeve in my direction.
Routinely, I throw my hand nearing into his sleeve and shake it as he takes notice of Tony who appears to be mesmerized. Worryingly, Gary asks him a question to break him out of his frozen state, “What about you, chap? What’s your name?”
Almost instantly, Tony breaks out of his unfettered gaze and responds, “Whoa, my bad. The names Tony. Sorry, you kind of reminded me of someone.”
“Aye lad, so I’ve noticed. It’s probably clearcut to you gents but don’t be unsettled by the voice and the appearance, it ain’t the works but nonetheless it contrasts well in my opinion.”
With the introductions over now, I take thought into what Tony’d just said. Paying more mind now as to what Gary looks like. He’s simply just a pair of classical blue jeans that are a wee bit ripped, a blue dress that ends right about the same length as a short skirt, and a black leather jacket. I take respect into the leather jacket as it gives him some badass points in your opinion and fairly makes it a bit more sensible how it contrasts with his voice. Stopping my inspection I wonder who that reminds Tony of, but I suppose that’s a tale for another time.
Gary appears to ask another question, breaking my thousand yard stare, “Sorry, didn’t quite catch your name.”
Lightly flustered now forgetting to give my name after hearing his, I just hastily respond, “it’s uhh, Charlie. Yeah.”
Gary pulls a gesture of putting one sleeve up close to his head opening and the other on his supposed elbow which equivalents the facial gesture of raising an eyebrow, “Just Charlie?”
Noticing my smile transforming into a frown, it looks like Gary senses a bad vibe fill the room, “I... don’t actually know my full name.”. Gary frowns at that while Tony simply went up in front of me while still facing Gary pointing at me with his thumb as he casually said, “He’s got amnesia.”
I’d object to his statement, but that’s the most accurate possibility that even I can think of at the moment so I hesitantly nod in agreement.
“Well ain’t that something? Although...” Gerard ponders for a bit as Tony and I lean towards him a bit slightly surprised and hopeful, “I bet Kher would know a thing or two about it.”
No doubt about it, the first thing we had to ask first was who he was, but Gerard was quick to the pace as he quickly connected to a new statement probably from seeing the curious looks we were giving him.
“You don’t know Kher?” Gerard curiously questioned. “Well that’s not too surprising, Kher is the God who made this world.”
Knowing the name of who made this world wasn’t exactly the most helpful of info, but it’s still something. I nevertheless get higher hopes knowing that we have someone who knows about this place more than we do.
“You know him?” Tony asks.
“No, I don’t think a lot of people know him, but I think the school knows a wee bit about him.”
“Why the school?” I ask in curiosity.
“Well it’s a place for learning now, innit?”
We both deadpan at him.
“Hehe, I hear there’s a lassie there that knows a thing or two about Kher.”
We don’t have much planned anytime soon so in a moment I have a suggestion, “Well, best we go now I guess.”
“Now is a better time than any.” Tony follows up.
In a nod of agreement we’re already heading for the door as I finished my last scoop of breakfast that I’d already forgotten I hadn’t finished. We didn’t really own or moreover need anything so it was straight to the door we went. Although I can already tell, we’ve got quite the adventure ahead of us.