Chapter 5

Four and a half years later...

Leo looked at the sky and sighed. There was a gentle breeze which lightly ruffled his dark hair. He stared at the white, fluffy clouds for a long time, ignoring the sun's rays which were a nuisance to his eyes. When he couldn't take it anymore, he covered his eyes with his right hand to shade his eyes from the luminous sunlight. He exhaled deeply and rolled over to his right where Suki's tombstone was positioned.

'Wow, Suki. It's really been nearly five years. I cannot believe we've come this far.' He thought, then smiled.

He remembered how elated he was three years ago when he was accepted into Kyota's University of Scientific Research and Techology (KUSRT - the S is silent) he was fifteen years old when that happened. He was also one of the youngest students who attended that school with a scholarship. He worked his way up to the top, suffering many sleepless nights and acquiring permanent circles under his eyes. During his studies, he came to realize that he had to stop relying on textbooks and human theories to solve his problems. After all, nobody had really discovered anything about life after death, so why leave his verdict to such ancient history?

He had taken the Robotics elective for fun on the first year of his admission, but found out that he was deeply intrigued by the science. He went deeper into it and found out that, possibly, with just the slightest chance, the study of quantum physics could help him with his quota. He started building a machine that studied the brain activity and converted it into waves which could be translated into a series of complex equations. He called it the Brain Translator. So far, he has been able to decipher how the brain reacts to certain emotions and situations, which of course had already been discovered, but he cross checked and discovered that all that he had accomplished was correct. He had never felt so happy and accomplished since Suki's passing.

Unfortunately, things went downhill after that.

After experimenting with several guinea pigs (which were not harmed at all during the process) he decided to put them in a situation which would cause severe emotional trauma, and study the signals that their brains released. He wanted to put the guinea pigs in a near death situation so that he could see how the brain responded to those signals. He obtained different results for each guinea pig, which frustrated him, because hadn't changed the process that each guinea pig underwent at all. He attempted and attempted the process, even accidentally killing a guinea pig (which he had a short memorial for) but all his efforts came to null. When he was finally reaching somewhere, he hit a brick wall.

Then, one day, it suddenly occurred to him. He was present when Suki's father, Mr Yamamoto, passed on last year. He gazed intently at the heart monitor whilst Mr Yamamoto's pulse decreased and realized that the little green line on the heart monitor did not descend when his heartbeat went down. When Mr Yamamoto died completely, the green line just disappeared midway.

This contradicted everything Leo thought he knew. Wasn't the green line supposed to drop to the very bottom of the screen if a heartbeat ceased? Why did it just disappear suddenly? What really happened when a person dies?

The funny thing was that nobody questioned it. A few years back, Leo would have just shrugged it off as something normal but now he knew better. He did a little research on it and found out that the developers of that machine designed it so that the line did drop to the bottom when a person's heart rate ceased. Leo wondered why the hell the developers did not see anything wrong with the way the line disappeared. He later discovered that the developers decided to ignore the little glitch, because in the end, whether the line disappeared or dropped to the bottom it still meant that the person was dead.

After discovering this, Leo was blessed with newfound hope. He started designing and putting together a machine (which used the mechanics of both his Brain Translator and the heart monitor) that could try to read what happened to the brain, mind and body when a person died. It was solely built on conspiracies and far fetched theories, yet he believed that there was some meaning to what he was building. He got the permission to experiment on ailing animals which were already meant to die, and achieved results which were exactly what he'd hoped for, (but like I said, far fetched). With time, he gained confidence in his work, and he'd hoped that all that he was doing wasn't a lie.

Leo believed that a person didn't actually die when they died.

He believed that they travelled somewhere else, or perhaps, woke up somewhere else, and were still living and breathing in some alternate universe.

'If only I could get to that other place' he always thought.

Let's not beat around the bush.

Leo believed that Suki was still alive somewhere.

Leo was a hopeless dreamer. He always found the good in people rather that the bad, and he knew it would bring him to his death one day. He was very superstitious and believed in many supernatural beings. But perhaps that was because he'd learnt that in the world of science, nothing was impossible.

But still.

That didn't mean that what he believed in was false.

After experimenting with countless animals (who were not directly harmed by Leo himself) He came to a decision.

He'd test out his own machine for himself. He'd connect himself to his machine, stop his heartbeat, and allow the machine to take him to the other side.

He wasn't really sure that it would work at all. The machine could shut down completely during the process, as it did countless times because of the over-surge of electrical power. It could also lose connection to the brain, which could put Leo in a coma if not taken care of. He didn't even know whether the machine was capable of sending him to the other place at all. It's not like he had ever sent anything there before to tell him what's it like at the other side.

I would be lying if I said Leo didn't have any doubts.

I also know what you're thinking. How stupid is that, throwing your life away?!

Leo thought that too.

In truth, Leo had nothing to lose. He'd lost everything the day that Suki died, and it's not like he had anything to look forward to for the rest of his life. His whole life, and existence, was centered around discovering why human beings existed, and how would he be able to do that if he wasn't willing enough to take risks?

Still, it was a long, long, shot. And Leo knew that pretty damn well. But like I said, he really had nothing to lose.

Leo gently caressed Suki's tombstone and smiled weakly.

'Don't worry, Suki.' He said. 'I'll find you soon. I'll find you, then I'll bring you back here, then we could spend the rest of our lives together like we planned we would.'

He kissed her tombstone lightly and smoothed out the lilies that lay at its base. He then got up and left the cemetery, counting the days until he would reunite with Suki again.