“...ake up.”
A voice was calling the guy from the surface of the sea of drowsiness he had sunk in.
“...wake up…”
It was a gentle feminine voice, whispering close to his ear to wake up, but there wasn’t any breath brushing against his skin as if it was an hallucination. His senses were slowly floating up to the surface, the first thing he felt was the softness of bedsheets on his skin, followed by the smell of detergent brought by them; then his ears were pleased by a slow humming, a familiar ditty from an even more familiar voice to his right. At last, the heavy eyelids slowly lifted, only for his dry eyes to be splashed by a blinding light, prompting him to move a hand over his eyes...but nothing, not the slightest movement from any of the limbs he attempted to budge. Nonetheless, he didn’t feel scared as an eerie calm dwelled inside him, at the moment.
“Wake up”, the voice repeated authoritatively. The gentleness from before was lost somewhere, leaving no space for pondering; the guy had to wake up.
Against the blinding yellowish light, his eyes opened wider, and as they got used to the glare, he was able to make out a white ceiling with a chandelier at its centre, the source of the warm light, which was becoming brighter by the second.
Then he saw them. Born from that light, images invaded his field of view, one after another, like someone were leafing through a flipbook up close to his face. Shock locked his eyes wide open, in a jarring expression as he was forced to consume large amounts of unbearable information. What he was glancing at….it couldn’t be true…
“No…” the guy mumbled breathily. “No no no nononoNO-”
“WAKE UP!”
Right before his mind risked crossing the thin lines that divided sanity from its opposite, the voice had shouted curtly, causing him to fully wake up.
He was laying on a meadow, emerald blades grazing his bare skin while its pleasant smell had replaced the previous one, as if it had never existed. The light too had disappeared, leaving only the white ceiling as a blank canvas, waiting for its artist to draw the actual sky. The guy stretched a hand towards that whiteness, the skin of the arm was smooth, hairless, like that of a doll.
With an athletic leap, he stood up. That body felt so unnaturally light while his head bore the sensation of having slumbered for over a hundred years. He scanned his surroundings -or to better say, non-surroundings- because there was literally nothing else, apart from grass and the white sky fading over the horizon. When glancing back, to be sure he didn’t miss anything, a confused frown contorted his face, as he noticed a nearing figure from afar that wasn’t there two seconds ago.
A girl of short and slim stature, with long-pitch black straight hair, flowing down to her waist, stood in contrast with the sleeveless and white nightgown that reached her ankles, motionless in the still air; and that was where the similarities with a living person ended. Her inexpressive grey eyes, hollowed cheeks, ghostly skin, made her appear otherwordly, as she sauntered towards the guy, whose fear was gradually growing with each step.
“You’re finally awake. For a moment I thought I had to dig a grave” she said, stopping a few metres away, with what was supposed to be a sarcastic tone instead of apathetic, gelid as ice. “That would have been a nuisance…”
Although her voice was the same as the one that indulged him to wake up moments before, her manners, combined with the look of a well preserved corpse, gave off a different vibe which made a shiver run down the guy’s spine, completely forgetting that he was nude in front of her; not that it mattered, considering there was literally nothing, neither nipples nor down there between his legs. His mind was voided of any reason why or how he could have ended up there.
A few seconds of eerie silence passed as the girl stared at him, with unreadable intentions on her blank face.
The guy took a deep breath, mastering the courage to ask, “W-What happened to me? What is this place?”
She finally detached her gaze from the guy’s frightened figure to give a quick glance around like there was something he couldn’t see, “You’re in the Realm of the End”, then resumed locking gaze on the guy. “This where the worst people ever existed end up after passing away.”
“Y-You mean to say…?”
The girl blinked once, the first time since she appeared “You’re dead.”
You. Are. Dead.
He shouldn’t have been surprised by it. The situation was either that or a weird dream, but even expecting it didn’t make the situation better. His blood, if he did have any, run cold in his veins.
“T-This can’t be! There...there must be a mistake!” he said quickly, stopping some time to regulate his quickened breath, only drying his tongue more. “I’m just a normal person, I-”
I...what?
He was going to say his name, his good deeds and whatever else he had done in life, when a realisation struck him dumb; he didn’t remember anything from the very start of his own life, not a trace of the person he was had remained. He fell to his knees, clawing at his bald head, stealing from him the chance of unloading by ripping a few hair off while his fingers desperately attempted to dig deeper in that literally empty head of his.
“It’s useless, everything has been erased after your death.” the girl’s voice sounded closer towards the end. She now stood terribly close to him, no footstep to alert the guy of her closing off and, at the sight of her, he screeched, stumbled backwards then fell on his backside. His shivering legs felt like mush, but even so, he managed to got up, wanting to run away for some delusional safety – yet, when he turned around, there she was again in front of him, without making even the subtlest of sounds.
“Stop.” she sentenced. Around them it all looked the same as if the two hadn’t moved at all. His lips trembled as words came out without a second thought.
“W-what do you want from me?”
His sight hazed amidst tears, but squinted shut to not let them out. If that humanoid thing in front of him was a monster, she must have been longing for some more desperation on his part.
The girl stared at his patheticly trembling figure, a piercing gaze that seemed to be watching straight into his soul.
“Let’s make a contract.” she said curtly.
“H-huh?” he raised his hairless brows; that surely wasn’t what the guy was expecting. “C-contract?”
“Yes. You’ll get to live another time, to retrieve your memories and redeem yourself from the horrid deeds you committed in your previous existence.” she focused on his eyes, voided everything apart the sclera, still wet from his tears and smirked subtly, probably imagining them lighting up with blissful hope. Then she resumed “But you’ll have to work for me.”
And just as expected whatever hope there was before, vanished from his face, leaving the seat to fear once again. He swallowed dry saliva, trying to untie the knot that had formed in his throat. A sinister feeling had been permeating into the air from the very start, and now that her intentions seemed to becomie clearer, it felt dreadfully heavy.
“What k-kind of contract are we talking about?”
“After you’ve accepted the contract…” she said evenly, leaving no rooms for argumenting, “you’ll become a Nylict, a human who did the most horrible things known to man and because of this was blessed by a God with powers to cleanse the good off the Earth.”
‘Cleanse the good...off the earth?’ The guy thought. ‘Did she mean killing innocent people?’
He could feel the stomach turning upside down such was the disgust that devilish idea brought him, which also relieved him, he wasn’t completely emptied of emotions after all.
“Why me? What did I d-do to deserve this?”
“About your first question, I’m not going to repeat myself twice since I already said the answer.” the girl said, clearly irked from her tone. “And for the second one...that is something you’ll have to find for yourself, among your lost memories.”
“And….and will I be able to find them? What exactly did you intend for ‘cleanse the good’?? What-”
“You’ll know more if you accept the contract.” she interrupted him curtly; the time for questions had ended. The guy’s head was reeling, his mental state swaying like a swing, back and forth between insanity and negation or determination and will to uselessly protest how he had right to live even without accepting her proposal.
Maybe that last bit was also part of his growing insanity.
‘Who in their right mind would try to argue to a goddess, devil, whatever this girl is…’ He reprimanded himself.
“So?” the girl indulged. “Do we have an agreement?”
Her coldness was even more obvious now, transpiring that there was no other answer other than accepting. She stood motionless. Her eyes sending that piercing gaze and her mouth, from where those inexpressive words came out; she could have at least extended a hand from him to grab as to sign that contract or something similar instead of letting them hang besides her side like some kind of creepy mannequin.
The guy breathed in and out slowly, “I have to ask again, what did you mean by cleanse the good?”
“You know already.” she answered, glaring down at him with unfiltered displeasure. “Any other question?”
It wasn’t a question in itself, but a test. She wanted to see if he dared to talk again. He quickly lowered his head, not able to bear her gaze any more, especially since he had another question; if he wasn’t pushing luck already, then he was about to do it, pushing it right under a train. Thanks to courage found who knows where, he asked, “And...what if I refuse...?”
Having pronounced those words, he remained still, sitting on his knees, head down as if waiting for a sword to behead him. From the corner of his eyes he could see her bare feet and imagined her still glaring down, more disgusted than ever. As seconds passed, his heartbeats grew stronger, faster, louder.
But nothing happened. The girl turned around in a fluid spin and calmly ambled away in front of the puzzled guy.
He was about to speak when something caught his attention, a sudden heat grew in his abdomen and to his horror, a hand passed over it came out bloody. Just like the grass around him that was getting soaked in red coming out of that deep gash.
He was going to mumbled, “W-wait no-” if it wasn’t for the excessive blood that spurted out of his mouth, then from the eyes, ears, every pore of the skin, painfully dilating them; all rapid enough to kill someone on the spot. Panicked and incoherent thoughts governed his mind as he struggled to breath, suffocated by his own blood, the same he puked in ungodly amounts. It was only by miracle that he heard the last thing that devil of a girl had said.
“This is just a taste of what could happen because of your refusal. You’ll get the full picture soon.”
He wanted to scream that he understood what she said, that he was fine with whatever terms she had, everything if it meant living.
How ironic. Even without memories, a human soul will have a renowned will to live whenever death hovers over one’s head.
The puddle of blood that had formed around him had become wide and weirdly deep, so much that the guy started to sink, his legs flailing in attempt to propel himself upwards and his arm trying to grasp himself on the grass, it felt like something was trying to pull him downwards…
‘Please…’ He thought as he watched the girl disappearing in the distance. The cut was burning as a constant reminder, until there was only that intolerable white and field of grass to watch, after a few seconds there was only the latter and as he sunk, his hearing muffled, the blood completely occupied his field of view, stinging and prompting him to close his eyes.
---------
He woke up again, hastily sitting himself and gasping for air, still expecting to be submerged in that mix of dark and light red blood, but instead, he was in a small room like a tiny studio apartment, so tiny that the wooden floored bathroom wasn’t separated with the rest of the room, its window was filtering a dim and hazed, dream-like light.
“Is this...real?” he mumbled before pinching a sweat-pearled cheek strong enough to hurt. It was real. He got up and neared to the sink to wash his face, but there wasn’t even a towel to dry himself and had to use the shirt of that dark blue uniform he was wearing, still no shoes. From where he was, he stared at the room with its white walls, a colour he had enough with. The rest of the floor had greenish mats and what made him more concerned was a metal door with a small window near it, from where someone in guards clothing would sometime peak into his room, stare at him attentively a few seconds, then lower back an outside curtain hiding him from his view. All the puzzle pieces were fitting together perfectly.
“I’m in a prison…” he leaned with his back against the wall and slit down, sitting with his legs against the chest while staring blankly at the opposite as he mulled over the nightmare he had just experienced; it felt too unrealistic. A dead-looking girl in the middle of a meadow with a white sky?
‘Maybe I’m going crazy…’ he thought. Not that his actual situation was any better, as much as he tried to squeeze his brain, he couldn’t come out with any reason of how he ended up in a cell. Nevertheless, he let out a sigh of relief. ‘At least I won’t see that lunatic demon…’
A clanging sound coming from the door startled him out of his pensiveness. As the door opened a growing glare of artificial light entered the room, casting on the floor the longed shadow of a person standing at the entrance. Judging by the wrinkles on the man’s face, he must have been in his 50s and quite tired too, as evident from the bags under his almond shaped eyes.
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“We got something special for you today. You get to choose your meal.”
The prisoner blinked twice at what he had heard. First of all, that guard wasn’t speaking English or whatever other language that he had spoke in the dream but…
‘...Japanese?’ he wondered, assumption that in his head felt right, especially since the sound of it matched the one in his own thoughts, yet, in that nightmare he was talking in another language, he was sure of it.
‘I’m putting too much thought into it…’
The guard raised a brow at the prisoner’s expression growing more confused by the second. “Not happy, ^{#@$}^$#:-han?”
And now there was that gibberish at the end; was that supposed to be the prisoner’s name?
“Well…m-meal aside...” the guy scratched the back of his head, frustrated by the true meaning of that meal he was offered. “...could I know why am I here? I’m sure there is a mistake-”
The guard frowned before erupting in a resounding laugh. “Man, I didn’t know you were a comic! Ha…” his smile slowly disappeared at the seriously confused face staring at him. “...You were joking right?”
As seconds went by and the prisoner’s expression didn’t change, the guard’s face shifted to shade of red becoming more intense, to the point of looking like a tomato (especially because of his round face), his breathing became heavier, trying to contain rage that had been building up for a long time.
“You- You’re joking right?!” the guard asked again, this time shouting and attracting the attention of the other prisoners from the near cells, while spitting right on that prisoner’s face. “You killed them all!! My family, many innocents were smashed under the building you blew up!!”
Driven by rage the guard threw away his service cap and started ripping off the few hair he had while yelling hoarsely, “HOW COULD YOU FORGET?! HOW?! ANSWER ME YOU JERK!!”
His anger had brought the man in dark blue with his back to a corner of the room and his hands pressed against it, wondering if he was going to be the next target of his anger. He must have looked so small and insignificant that not even the guard seemed to be caring about him anymore. The guard went on with the swearing and after pulling every single hair, his fingers went for the cheeks which he started pulling down along with the lower eyelids as to rip those off too, and would have succeeded if it hadn’t been for another guard rushing into the cell.
“Hey hey!” the young guard, probably in his thirties placed his hands on the colleague’s shoulders as to comfort him while whispering some friendly words, seemingly working as the old guard’s hands slided down his face before falling to his sides.
Whatever the young man was saying to him didn’t concern the prisoner at all.
‘Meal…’ that simple word was stuck in his head. ‘Am I really on death row…?’
It couldn’t be real. He didn’t remember anything, making it difficult for him to accept that reality.
‘Maybe I’m still sleeping...’
He glanced over the two guards, one still comforting the other in the middle of the small room, behind them the door open, letting in the hazy artificial light.
‘But if it’s not...I could try make a dash for-’
His eyes widened, thoughts died, whole body froze in place. The two guards were now staring at him, both with bloodshot eyes, as if they had read his mind and were insulted by its simplicity.
Those gazes screamed one thing, the same thing the girl had said:
“You are dead”
Both of them quickly closed the distance with him and without giving him a second to run, their hands clawed around his arms with unnatural strength that hurt him.
“N-No!! There must be a mistake!” he shouted, tears welling in his eyes, but was ignored. They dragged him out of the cell, into a corridor connected to multiple closed cells on both sides, each with a corridor-facing window without curtains and blacked out on the other side, and still...it felt like the prisoners were watching the scene of that dragged prisoner desperately flailed his legs in attempt to slow down the guards’ deadly march.
“P-Please!!” the guy screamed helplessly, only to receive an answer from the spectators.
“Shut up, scumbag.”
“H-huh…?” the guy glanced around frantically and saw them, eyes glowing behind the dark windows, as they talked.
“You’re the worst among us.”
“That’s what you deserve, asshole…”
“Maybe death sentence is too little for you...”
“Die. Die. Die.” they chanted together.
“THAT’S NOT TRUE!” his heartbeat was racing, his mind swirling with thoughts and eating away his sanity.
“I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT’S GOING ON, PLEASE!!”
Nobody listened to that raucous cry or looked at those tears flowing out of his eyes like fountains and lining the cheeks of that disgusting face. The guards didn’t faltered as he budged his arms, attempting to flee from their grasp, stomped his feet against the ground like a child so much that a third guard had to join the humiliating parade to hold his legs still.
“P-please..!” he said roughly the whole time like a broken disc, his throat burning. Minutes that felt hours had passed, when they reached their destinations.
Wooden walls, grey floor and in the middle two square of tape, the smaller at the centre of the bigger one, and, what the prisoner’s gaze was fixed to, a noose hanging from the ceiling, kept barely taut by a series of rings, running from the ceiling, down the wall and a few on the floor.
“Move.” the young guard ordered, as him and the colleagues straightened him up and forced him to walk in the middle of the smaller red square. The third guard then placed the noose around his neck, before taking a few steps back until outside the bigger square.
The prisoner’s head was tilted to the side, that light of hope completely gone from his eyes, the white reddened from the constant crying.
‘At least this will end fast and maybe my next life-’ his eyes widened in horror again. The dam in his mind had broken, letting out a river of visions of him dying horribly, multiple times in a row, hanged again, buried alive, a weight tied to his ankle that pulled him down into the depth of the ocean, pushed down a roof…
“Ah...I understand now…” he said in a hushed voice.
“What are you mumbling about now?” the old guard grumbled. “Trying to redeem yourself at the last moment?”
“Come on man…” the younger guard tried to say that the prisoner was about to die and it also went against the code of conduct to act like that.
The prisoner heaved deeply between clenched teeth, not bothered by what the guards said, instead, he focused all the remaining energy on shouting:
“GODDESS, DEVIL- WHATEVER YOU ARE!! I ACCEPT! I ACCEPT YOUR DEAL! GIVE ME THOSE POWERS BUT…” he was sobbing again now, his shoulder trembling “don’t...don’t let me die here…!”
The guards stood there, looking at him, flabbergasted from his sudden plea, then at each other, realising they had seen a similar scene a lot of times already. The old guard got closer, stopping right outside the big square, whispering curtly:
“No one would save you, not even the devil.”
The prisoner felt his body was becoming lighter as the floor disappeared from under his feet with a click shutter-like sound, the rope tight against his throat, the neck stretched and everything went black in an instant.
---------
All over again, the guy woke up, this time screaming for his life as he seated himself, his forehead pearled with sweat, his heart beating loudly, almost wanting to escape that bone cage. He glanced down at his body half covered by sheets and entirely by bandages, aside from his eyes and mouth, making it a perfect mummy costume for Halloween, if it wasn’t for the hospital gown he was wearing. His fingers brushed against the oxygen mask pressed around his mouth and nose.
‘And now I’m in a hospital…’ he thought wearily, saying he wasn’t surprised would have been an understatement. Who knew what else was in store for him.
The rows of windows filtered soft strips of lights onto the floor, still having that haziness around them, effect that gradually vanished as his eyes adjusted to it. Inside those white walls -which the guy would have gladly bashed his head in- there were two other people in the beds in front of his, one dead asleep while the other was ‘listlessly’ scrolling on his phone and giving subtle scowled glances at the bandaged patient.
The guy scratched his head, locks of hair sticking through the strips of gauzes ‘Was that just another nightmare…?’
He glanced out of the window, no dreamy light obstructing the view of buildings most of the view and skyscrapers peaking through them, soaring towards the limpid sky. ‘It seems so real...’
“Oh my- You’re awake!” standing right in front of the door’s frame was a young man in a white nurse uniform, wearing a surprised expression. “S-stay there! I’ll go call the doctor!” he uttered fleetly before clumsily walking away.
The patient glanced back at the IVs passing under the gauzes. ‘Stay there…? I guess that will be easy…’
When the nurse came back, he was followed by a middle-aged woman with chestnut brown hair tied in a ponytail, wearing a dark green pullover under the classic white coat, black pants and low heeled shoes; a hand in the pocket and the other with what was probably the patient’s medical report.
“Look who just woke up.”, she said playfully, her cheeks tagged by a small smile. “Slept well?”
“I...I guess so..” the patient stammered, preferring not to mention the nightmares. What could have a done a doctor about it, after all?
“Mh mh…” she hummed, not convinced as she leafed through the report, which must have been quite substantial, while the nurse was removing some of the bandages from his head “That scream was nightmare-fuel. Did you have one?” he asked out of the blue
“I-”
“Come on, Sato-san.” the doctor interrupted the patient. “Ikari-san just woke up. Let’s only ask the necessary for now.”
“Oh, sorry…” he said to both the doctor and the patient as he continued to unwrap his head.
‘Ikari-san?’ the patient thought. ‘Sounds familiar...’
Seeing his confused face, the doctor asked, “Something’s in mind?” her smile grew brighter and understanding.
The patient startled at first, not prone to talk about his worries, but then he mumbled, glancing down at his bandaged hands with sorrowful expression “I...I don’t remember anything.”
The doctor gave a quick glance at the nurse who had stopped a moment from handling the bandages, probably taken aback by that affirmation since he had never had to deal with a patient with memory loss- then resumed, finally freeing the patient’s overly-long dark brown hair from their prison and fell right in front of his eyes.
“I literally cut them yesterday…” the nurse said to himself
“Do you remember your name or anything before waking up?” the doctor asked, her tone becoming more plain and serious.
“The name you said, uhm...Ikari was, right? It sounds familiar to me.”
“That’s your last name.” she pointed out “You seem to remember something though not clearly. Do you remember anything else about yourself, like your parents’ names?” At the patient’s shake of head she continued asking, “What about what country we are in? And the name of our current Prime Minister?”
“Uhm…We’re in Japan” the patient fidgeted with his fingers while thinking. “Hirohito…?”
“Pfft-” the nurse’s shoulders moved up and down as he tried to hold back a laugh, a hand held up to his mouth. “I-I’m sorry…”
“W-Was I wrong?” the patient flushed with meek embarrassment.
“Please, don’t mind him.” The doctor sighed. “Sato. Why don’t you go search for his full medical history? And since you’re at it, ask to prepare for MRI and CT scans and an EEG. Thanks.” her reprimanding was enough to stop his delirious shivering and make him straighten his back, his expression as blank as a soldier’s.
“Y-Yes doctor. Will I have to ask for a blood exam too?”
“No. It won’t be needed.”
The nurse raised a brow. “But...with the recent out-”
“I said, it won’t be needed.” the doctor crossed her arms and glared sternly at the poor nurse, who was surprised as much as the patient from that sudden change in demeanour “Understood?”
Reluctantly, the nurse nodded. “I-I’ll be going then.” he said before scurrying out of the room.
“Good” just as flicking on and off a light switch, she was back to a less threatening attitude, now facing the patient with a smile. “Mh? Why are you looking at me like that?”
He quickly shook his head, relaxing the raised brows he had. “N-Nothing.” he patted his right knee. “Just a little bit of pain here.”
“Ah I see.” she said, not convinced at all by his faint attempt at lying. “Speaking about pain, do you feel it anywhere else?”
“No…” he opened and closed his hands. “Maybe a bit stiff and tired, but that aside, I feel good.”
“As if you had been sleeping for a longer time than usual instead of a coma?”
The patient flicked his fingers. “Exactly-...wait” he furrowed “Did you say coma?”
“Mh mh…” she hummed in assent while looking again at his medical report. “You have been in one for almost two weeks, after a ‘small’ incident.”
“W-what incident?” he asked, disorientation clear as day in his gaze; the word small didn’t seem reassuring at all.
“A skyscraper in Saitama prefecture collapsed, resulting in multiple victims…” she said with methodical sadness. “So far you’re the only one who's woken up.”
‘Saitama...wasn’t that mentioned in…’ the realisation made him turn pale, which promptly alarmed the doctor. “D-don’t worry! Just a bit of pain!” he justified hurriedly, as his face run cold with sweat.
She shrugged after a longer glance than usual. “If you say so. We’ll have to run a few tests anyway so that we can say what’s wrong other than your memory loss.” she stared at his half-bandaged face, clean from bruises or injuries of any sort. “Even though you’ll be probably fine, memory included.”
--- 3rd March 2032 ---
Just as the doctor had forecasted, he turned out to be just fine physically and mentally, even reacquiring all his memories in just two days to the intense stupor of the entire hospital (who would have probably performed a vivisection on him if it wasn’t for that same kind doctor who told all of them to not spread the news) and after a week filled with tests, he was considered fully healed, and was going to be dismissed that day.
As he washed his face in the room’s shared bathroom with the typical smell of disinfectant never leaving any patient, he could finally look at his reflection in the mirror without feeling disoriented, without those dark brown eyes and short curly hair feeling as unfamiliar as they did before while droplets of water trickled from his chin and into the sink.
‘Dai…’ he thought of his own name, a custom he had build in those weeks to become more used at the sound of that name, which still sounded far away as if it wasn’t his own. The doctor had calmed him multiple times saying that if he wasn’t going to remember it, then it would have been better for him to, again, get used to it.
He stared at his own figure reflected in the mirror “This coma made me skinnier than I was before the incident, and there I thought it couldn’t be wor-”
His phone started vibrating in his jean’s pocket, it was an incoming call from someone saved as “Anma”, meaning “mother” in the Okinawan language, which made him smile softly. His thumb slided on the screen to answer and neared the device to his ear.
“Haisai(hi), mom.” Dai said, tears welling in his eyes; this time, those were tears of joy at the sudden realisation that there had been a chance he wouldn’t have seen them anymore.
“Oh nifee deebiiru…(thank you...)” the warm and emotional voice of his mother slurred on saying something else quietly, almost in a prayer, then raised her voice again directed to Dai.
“You haven’t been answering our messages and with that incident in Saitama we really thought…” she stopped talking and for a moment, all it could be heard was her sobbing, all the stress of those weeks finally coming out.
“Dai.” the familiar grumpy voice of his father spoke, unlike the son on the other side and the wife, he was hiding his emotions well.
“Taari…(Dad...)”
“How have you been?” The hospital called us a week ago saying you had woke up. We didn’t even know you had ended up in the hospital and when we arrived they didn’t let us see you without saying why. I was that close to having the police called on me just for entering if it wasn’t for your mother who brought me out of there.”
Dai chuckled, knowing he wasn’t exaggerating, that man rarely got angry but when he did, it became difficult to reason with him. “You came all the way here from Okinawa?” he asked.
“Of course,” the mother intervened “We were so confused and scared. You should have seen how pale your father was!”
And just in that moment, the man coughed. “L-let’s change topic, he still has to tell us how he’s been…”
Dai chuckled before telling them everything, obviously omitting everything about those painful nightmares.
“Oh god…” the mom said in the background when hearing about the amnesia.
“The important part is that you’re fine now.” the father said. “Do you have some free time this week? We want to give you a visit, you know how much I dislike calls…”
“I know. The doctor actually said I should be staying at rest for a week just to be sure, but I don’t know if the school will give me permission; I’m fine after all. Maybe we can...” he was drying off his tears on the heel of the other hand when he noticed something in the mirror, a red glimmer coming from the palm of his hand, which he turned around to look at.
“What the…” he stared distraught at his palm, where a red-outlined stylised tattoo of a rhombus with an eye at its centre shone of that faint red light against his light brown complexion. The hand he was holding the phone was subjected to the same glimmer, but instead of looking at it, he grasped the device tighter.
‘So that first nightmare…that devil of a girl…were…’ Dai didn’t want to finish that thought as he stared listlessly at his free hand and that cursed mark, his view shivering. ‘What does this mean? This is my life, right…? Right?’
“Dai?” the mother’s voice called from the other side of the phone. “Why are you silent?”
“Nothing, mom.” the guy spoke after a moment of hesitation, trying to maintain his composure whilst the whole body shivered. “The nurse wanted to tell me something, nothing to worry about. Anyway, as I was saying…”