Red

"That will be 400 yen" I said, glossing over the protruding fake identification card, and then up at the obviously underage boy fidgeting nervously across the counter.

"Ah, yes, here" he quivered. I grabbed the money and waved him off as I pushed the beer towards him. If you're going to fake your ID, then at least be confident about it, do it with strength, be a man about it.

Hastily grabbing the bottle with trembling hands, he raced out of the store with relief, meanwhile another customer walked in. My societal contributions were really shining through, a whole 400 yen. What was I even doing here again?

Snapping my gaze to the digital clock behind me, I groaned. I still had three more hours today. What a waste. What's the point of life if you're not going to have fun with it?

Hearing a clicking behind me, I started to turn. "Yes, how can I help you today…" I groaned, and put my hands up as my heart began to race. I thought this neighborhood was safe. These establishments needed to incorporate better security, I was sick of staring down a barrel every month. It wasn't a comforting feeling. It was terrifying.

A tip, if you're going to rob the place, do it on the next guy's shift, we'll have accumulated more money by then.

I looked at the bag of chips in his hand. Averting my gaze in nervousness, I looked out the window where I found a young man urgently speaking on his phone as he hid his bottle of beer. I couldn't hear him, but then again, I didn't need to.

A moment passed as the man holding the gun regarded me for a moment, then, his voice boomed across the small store, echoing slightly.

"Get on the ground and give me all your money!" He pushed his gun closer to my forehead, and adrenaline began to pump through my veins, my instinct telling me to flee, to hide, to not die.

I took a step back, but quickly regained myself as I fought to take control of my own body. Opening the register, I blurred over the money.

"Hurry up!" My eyes dilated and I could feel my heart pounding in my chest, my body feeling warm and my senses rushing out, as if my spatial awareness had become a sense as strong as my vision.

I grabbed the cash in stacks and lifted them to the counter. Pushing them towards the man with haste. But I must have made a mistake somewhere along the line as I felt an impact dig in and out my shoulder.

I fell on the back wall directly behind me. Lifting my good arm to grip the wound, my eyes widened with anxiety and helplessness as I saw shining blood escape through my fingers. I crumpled to the floor, my legs growing too shaky to be considered sturdy.

Too focused on my wound, I didn't feel my breath growing faster and faster. Looking up at the man, he had a terrified expression on his face, twisting and contorting it as he looked at what he had done. His gun still aimed at me, trembling.

"I- I'm sorry, I-" he sloshed out, tears quickly flooding his wide eyes.

You're not allowed to cry. You shouldn't need to rob me.

"I- just needed some money, I'm sorry, I'm sorry" he shook, the realization of what he had just done truly setting in. Would he go to prison? Would he be executed? What now? What had he done?

I looked up at him, no emotion filling me as they all canceled themselves out. with a panting breath, I felt my shoulders sag and my head fall to gaze at the iron painted tiles. The old, poorly painted wall being the only thing I could lean on. No thoughts ran through my head, it didn't feel real, but it also felt all too real.

I was usually more on guard than this, why had I let myself get shot?

It was now that I felt my pounding heart, my rushing breath, my racing adrenaline. Only, now, it wasn't pounding, nor was it rushing, nor racing. It was all slowing, softening, drowning. I didn't even feel the searing of the bullet. I felt nothing, too overwhelmed with what had just happened. With what was going to happen.

I heard paper sliding across the counter and falling, and then rushing footsteps that tapped with desperation to leave, to get anywhere not here. I could see my vision closing in on me, as if I were already trapped.

My body grew limp, it's fuel abandoning me. The earlier pulsing heat now extinguished, replaced with a cold numbness that reached from the tips of my head to the bottom of my feet. My fingers rested on the warm floor and I slumped.

I heard the distant echo of sirens, but by then my breathing turned unsteady, and then stopped entirely, My vision with it. I hadn't the strength this time.

Yet, not all was dark. A ray pierced my vision, so blurry yet strong that I wondered if I had really died. Then, a chilling breeze brushed my delicate skin. It was… refreshing.

My senses began to return, I was starting to feel my body, the gears in my head began spinning once more. My heart, I could feel it. My breathing was steady.

The muffled air of conversation stretched out towards me, joy, relief, and disappointment snaking each word. But it didn't matter, none of it mattered.

"Wie-irf uex ighen-an, ur-" their words blended together as a result of my handicapped hearing. Their dialect, I couldn't depict.

"Iech-il, ofie, iergh eux-ll ni-ogh-exss iern" Another voice, this one softer, responded.

"Ur-ght, fierbz shi-ghx" the voices continued to build off one another, but I ignored them, instead finding myself entranced with the world in front of me. When was the last time I had truly seen color?

I watched as the world pushed away the cage and filled my vision with bright hazy colors. As if everything had been tweaked to blur, I could no longer find a center of focus. Instead, I found myself gazing at a collage of shapes and colors that I had never bothered to appreciate before.

It felt so… surreal. Like all the stress in my life had piled up just so that it could be disintegrated here. I was in a trance, almost.

Something about a near death experience really made you appreciate life more.

Except, was it a near death situation? A smirking voice in the back of my head asked.

I pulled myself away from the colors of the world that sang out to me, ignoring their chorus. Something… Felt different. I didn't feel like me. As if I had been stripped of my own identity. I drew worried.

It was like… my own sense of proprioception was telling me something was wrong. Something was wrong. I felt fundamentally different. I was different. I didn't know how, but I was different. I was other.

What now? No, what happened. Anxiety once again planted its seed in my heart, an unsettling feeling tugging at it.

Did I… really survive? Controlling my own motor functions was akin to a man trying to control a puppet with one hand for the first time. Add to that blurry vision, a tugging feeling of a fundamental change… was I really me? I felt more dead than alive.

Could I have been hospitalized, and perhaps I had simply lost connection with a part of my body? No, this was on a far larger scale, as if my own brain had changed.

This wasn't my body, was it? A clear, sinking feeling of dread blackened my eyes once more, and it didn't feel as if it would go away. If this wasn't my body, was I really me? Who was I, if half my identity had disappeared?

What am I now? I searched my vision, ignoring the bright colors, cutting them off. I focused on the silloughets above me. People. Look down at me, looking down on me, they looked… Ginormous. And I felt insignificant, helpless.

Was I a newborn? If so… had I reincarnated? Or was I just an infant who had been infected with the memories of a stranger? Was there a real me?

My eyes stopped stagnantly and I stared straight ahead, up. Someone, I don't know who, stared back, unmovingly. Our eyes locked, theirs clear and boring, mine blurry and desperate. They were above, I was below.

I had an entire life ahead of me. And here at the beginning of it all, something fundamental broke. Where was I?

-Proprioception: the perception or awareness of the position and movement of the body-