A Location Unbeknownst To Him

Chapter 3: A Location Unbeknownst To Him

It was dark.

It was empty.

It was boring.

“Is this hell?”

No, this wasn’t hell. He knew that, it just seemed like the perfect moment to say that.

It wasn’t that hot to be hell.

“Is this heaven?”

Probably not. If this wasn’t hell, no way was he going to be in heaven. There was no way.

No way at all.

“Hello?” he tried yelling into the endless void, but the void, being silent, didn’t reply. Instead, he heard nothing, absolutely nothing.

It was an experience he had trouble explaining, the sound of nothing.

He heard nothing, he felt nothing, he saw nothing.

The only thing he could physically touch was himself, and that was quite a challenge seeing as he couldn’t see himself.

“Hello?” he said once more, and like he had expected, no one, not even himself replied.

This was getting boring, and tiring.

“Is this ****?”

Probably.

“Am I dead?”

He tried, tried to remember what had happened before this, but for whatever reason, he couldn’t. No matter how hard he tried, no matter how long he attempted to concentrate, focus all of his energy into remembering what had happened.

Nothing came out of it.

Nothing.

None.

“Nothing at all,” he said to himself, once more.

“This is hell.” For him at least.

His own personal hellhole, to which reminded him of the life he left behind.

Life left behind?

“Anything else?” the woman manning the cash register said, scanning all of his items.

“No,” he said, shaking his head. He had already bought the basic necessities, of which included things like toothpaste, food to stock him for the coming months and a lighter.

“It’s going to be eight thousand yen in total.” He handed her the money, and without a second glance, headed out of the convenience store.

It was a dreaded time, every time he had to step out of the comfort of his own home. He dreaded it, every single time.

Because, without fail, there was someone, somewhere, patrolling the streets near his apartment building, who knew who he was.

“I hate people,” he often said to himself. It wasn’t a hate more than it was a vehement dislike of all and any human interaction.

There was a single point in time, a piece of his past in which he liked to talk to people his age, converse with them about subjects he liked, he even….had a crush on someone far back.

But now, he was alone.

And that was the way he liked it.

“What happened next?” he asked himself. “Please, I need to know.”

He knew his answers probably reached the ears of only himself and the void around him.

There was no one there. Only himself, and the void.

“How’d I end up here?”

Oh right.

That question.

That was a tough question to answer, and as if by pure happenstance, he knew. His mind rushed back to that moment in time.

He stood outside of the convenience store, munching on what was probably his proper meal since a few months ago. It was a simple thing, a salmon rice ball that he bought on a whim.

Taking the wrapping off carefully, he bit into it and was almost tempted to groan out loud with how delicious it was but kept his pleasure under wraps.

He finished it in what seemed like record time, making sure not a single rice grain was left. The slight pain in his stomach alleviated, but he could still feel it sting a little.

“Bullseye,” he muttered, successfully throwing his piece of plastic into the nearest trash can. The already overflowing bin was treated to a new addition, and the added weight caused all of the contents concentrated at the top to topple over and spill all over the ground.

“Ah,” he said. “So that’s how it is.”

“Why are you showing me all of this?” He asked the void, to which, just like the previous times he asked it, didn’t reply.

Who was he to ask such a trivial question. Who was he to be here. Who….was he.

Those weren’t questions more than they were just his inner thoughts. There were no answers in the void. None of them were going to be answered.

Not now.

Not ever.

Never.

“Is this what I wished for?” he asked, himself this time. “My personal space of peace and solitude.”

Away from other people.

Alone.

Empty.

He was never happy when he was a child. When other children were running around having fun, he was in the corner, in his own world, separated from them, preferring to do his own thing.

It was a quiet life, one, he didn’t look fondly at.

He heard a miasma of laughter, and when he turned his head to look at what was happening, the event had long since passed, leaving him the only one left out.

“I want friends,” he said to himself every day. He wrote it multiple times in his personal journal, wishing to some faraway God to grant his wish.

“I want someone to talk to,” he said to himself, stuck in that little corner of his at the kindergarten. “I want….someone.” He wrote this wish right next to the one previous, circled it multiple times to put emphasis on it.

But, as the years went by, and many more memories passed by, his wish was never granted.

No one was there to listen to his wishes, other than himself. How can he grant his own wishes if he himself knew they weren’t going to be granted any time soon.

“You’ll find someone someday,” his mother said, draped in a white robe. She patted his head, her soft but wrinkly hands feeling oddly nostalgic when he looked back on it. “Do you know why?”

Before he could answer, she gave him a big smile. “Because you’re the best person in the world!”

“Really?” he asked in childlike astonishment, an emotion he had long since been devoid of. Tears streamed down his eyes, and that familiar warm hand, wiped them away. “Do you really think so?”

“Of course, Hajime,” his mother said, giving him a small kiss on the cheek. “You’re going to have a bunch of friends, maybe a girlfriend,” she said that with a wry smirk as he blushed.

The door opened behind him, a man, dressed also in white, but with some metal thing around his neck, approached his mother. “Mrs. Yuta, your daily check-up.”

“Oh, I see.” She had a frown on her face, but it was quickly faded with her signature smile as she turned towards him. “You can leave now, Hajime. Mommy’s going to do something important.”

“I wanna see,” he said, climbing on top of the bed and clutching her hand within his. “I don’t want to leave.”

Instead of getting mad, she smiled, but he could see that she was getting more tired by the minute. Tiny, miniscule fractures started to appear as his mother was struggling to keep her strong façade. “I’m sorry Hajime, but you have to leave.”

“Mrs. Yuta, I’m afraid we cannot continue with him in the room,” the man said once again, this time clutching what seemed to be a clipboard of some sorts.

“No!” he yelled out. “I want to stay with Mommy!”

“Hajime, stop,” his mother said. “Please, for me.”

He stared at her, and she stared back. His eyes and hers met and he could see the beginnings of tears in her eyes. “For mommy.”

And the memory ended like that, like the many before, with him hollower than when he had first started.

Is this what his life is now? An ever-looping spiral of his memories, and what had happened in the past.

If this is what life is, if this is what he had to deal with in the near infinity that is his life now, then he would rather keep living.

“I don’t want ****,” he finally said, tears falling down his eyes. “If this is hell, or whatever the fuck this afterlife is, I don’t want it!”

And then, it started.

His final memories.

His final…..living moments of life on Earth.

The memories of his ****.

It was approaching midnight, and he hadn’t moved from his place since a few minutes ago.

Why wasn’t he moving? Why wasn’t he going home?

Home…..

Was it really home?

The place he slept at, the place in which he ate at, the place he had been trapped in for the bitter part of his teen life.

Why.

Why did he ever think that place was home.

“I want to leave.” He tried to say, but the words never came out of his mouth. Instead, he sighed.

Did he want to leave? Leave this hellhole? His own personal hell?

He thought it was safe in there, wrapped in his own little world in which the outside world was just a distant and painful memory.

A place where in which hours and hours and hours of his life was wasted trying to distance himself from the world with anyway he knew how.

No, that wasn’t home.

But it was the only place that he knew.

“Oh, a cat,” he said, looking at the street besides the convenience store. It was empty, devoid of anything whatsoever, except for a small black cat crossing it.

It crossed the road with no problem, and with a little swish of its tail, disappeared into the night.

“Such an easy life.” A life without worry, aa life of blissful existence fueled only by it’s own desires and aspirations.

A life, he didn’t have.

And he will never have.

Never.

And so, he stood across the road, with only a single streetlamp illuminating the whole area around him.

There was a truck, it was slow moving at best, but, it would take a while for it to arrive to where he was.

A normal person would’ve looked left and right, as that was the basic rule everyone knew from childhood.

Look left and right for traffic, to avoid getting hit by any stray vehicles. That was the rule.

You would’ve been an insane person to not follow them, someone who had little to no regard of the rules that governed our very society.

Maybe, he was one of them.

And when he saw that truck headed towards him, instead of staying where he was and watching as the truck drove past him, or crossing the road before the truck arrived.

He….walked to the middle of the road and….stood there.

And the next thing he knew, there was a flash of light, and then…..nothing.

“That’s it?” he asked. “That’s what happened?”

Disappointment, or a feeling close to it, filled his entire being.

His **** was quite lackluster.

“Pretty lame,” he chuckled to himself. “I thought my own **** would’ve been more dramatic.”

He honestly expected something cool to happen, maybe an explosion, or confetti. Anything really.

****…..

“It’s not that fun, after all,” he said.

What was he supposed to do now?

Sit and wallow in silence? Talk to himself?

What was there to do in an endless void of reality? Fated to float in this empty stretch of time space until presumably infinity.

**** would’ve been better than this.

Better than sitting here, relieving his past memories.

Living would’ve been better than this. Anything would’ve been better than this.

Anything.

“Anything?” a voice rang out through his ears. “Anything, you say?”

“As I’ve said before, anything would be fucking better than this,” he said, presumably to himself. Maybe it was a mental hallucination his brain made to make the passage of time more bearable for the foreseeable future.

“Hmm, is that what you want?” the voice said again, and this time, he could actually see that it wasn’t his own voice speaking back to him. Instead, it was someone feminine.

Her voice filled him with a sort of feeling he couldn’t describe. Sadness? Anger? Happiness? Hope? Despair? None of that fit what he was feeling right at this moment.

But what he did now, was that he had to make a choice.

“Maybe,” he said.

“Maybe is not an answer, dear mortal,” the voice chuckled at his voice. “Would you prefer anything other than being in this place?”

“Honestly, yes.”

“Hmm, I haven’t encountered humans like you before.”

“Humans?” he asked, confused. “Are you….not human?”

That was a stupid question, and he regretted saying it.

“I am not a human,” the voice said, with a touch of humor in her voice. “I am something beyond your comprehension with the ability to grant anything you want.”

“Why me?” he said. “Why not anyone else?”

“Honestly, I don’t know as well.”

That answer made his heart sink, and what he felt were tears but he couldn’t see began to drop from his eyes. “I see.”

“Just joking,” she said, booming her voice like a speaker system. “I remembered you Hajime, ever since you were a child. You used to write in a little journal right?”

“You saw that?” he said, blushing. “I-I don’t write in it now.”

“Well you should, journals are an important thing to have.” The voice seemed to be scolding him now, in what seemed to be a motherly tone of voice. It was….oddly nostalgic, reminding him….of his mother. “Never underestimate the power of the written word, as they are a manifestation of your inner emotions. Why are you crying?”

And like she said, he was crying, even more than before. “N-nothing.” He wiped away the tears. “C-continue.”

“Very well then.” The voice cleared her throat. “Well, when you were young, you wrote something down on your journal. A wish, of sorts. Do you still remember it?”

He paused, and recalled back to those times. “….Yes.”

“Say it, say your wish.”

“It’s embarrassing,” he said. “I was a child back then when I wrote it.”

“Yes, and now read it to me.”

“…..”

“Fine,” she said, annoyed. “I want friends, I want someone, I want mommy to come back. You wrote all of these right?”

The past, and the effects they had on his future, were present at first glance. He was alone, and he stayed alone. He never had someone to talk to, and that was true even to this day.

And his mother…..she never came back.

His wishes didn’t come true.

They never came true.

And they would never come true.

No matter how hard he wished.

Not now.

Not ever.

Never.

“Interesting,” she said. “So you doubt my power? Hmm, this is the first time this has happened. Most people I meet with grovel at my feet and lick them, well, first time for everything.”

“Who are you?” He said, anger in his voice. It was as if something had finally snapped inside of him, “Why are you even toying with me!”

“First time.” she chuckled. “You know, when people first me, their first thoughts aren’t to question who I am. I’m this mysterious voice in this void of memories. They would normally just take my offer right off the bat. I assumed the same for you….but you’re not exactly normal, are you?”

“What does that mean?” He asked.

“Nothing. Anyways, you want your wish to be granted or-?” she left her question opened ended but he knew exactly what was going to happen if he didn’t take her offer.

Eternity in the void.

Alone.

Without anyone in his life, other than himself.

This was no better than his previous life, except much darker and devoid of everything he ever held dear.

He had never been the most sociable person, and he attributed that to his poor communication skills. The few acquaintances he had made over the internet were mostly due to his skills in the game, absolutely nothing other than that.

And now, he had absolutely no one to talk to.

If he didn’t take this woman’s offer, he was going to stay like this forever.

Forever alone.

His mother’s hand caressed his cheek. “You’ll find someone, someday.”

And he knew his answer, he knew it deep inside him.

There was this slight feeling in his stomach that he would grow to regret his decision, but during the heat of the moment, he didn’t consider the implications to what exactly he was doing.

“So you agree then?” she asked, to which he nodded. “Well then, close your eyes, and you will be awaken in a place to which you’ll have your second opportunity in life. Good luck.”

“What’s your name?” he asked. “So I can thank you, if I see you again.”

“Probably not, seeing as you don’t even know what I look like, invisible voice and all. But oh well.” She giggled. “If I had to give myself a name, you can call me Discordia.”

“Well…bye? I guess,” he said, feeling his body returning. He could now see his arms, and his entire body. He felt nauseous, and lethargic beyond repair. “So, I just blink?”

“Recall your wish, and it will come true,” Discordia said. “Goodbye Hajime, good luck.”

He could feel her disappear, even though he couldn’t see her, the gut feeling he got whenever she was there was gone. He was still in the void, but it didn’t seem all that gloomy now.

“So, I just wish huh.”

“Let’s see how this goes.”

And with that, he was gone.