New Surroundings

Asahi frantically touched his face as he wiped away his sweat, after thoroughly examining his face, he knew it was no longer a dream, but he didn't want to believe it not to be, so he hastily rushed downstairs in the dark and tripped on the stairs on the way down, the fall made a large thud that ringed through the house which woke Asahi's parents up.

They rushed downstairs and saw Asahi rubbing his shoulder, "What are you doing up so late? You should be asleep." Asahi couldn't bring himself to tell the parents that he was a different person, "I saw a black cat outside.." He started tearing up in the middle of his sentence, "What is this?" He thought to himself, "Why am I doing this?" His face ridden with surprise.

The parents sighed, "Let's get you back to bed, you still have school tomorrow you can't forget that!" They lifted Asahi from the ground and carried him to the kitchen, they sat him down on at the dining table and went to open up a medical cabinet, Asahi's mother took out a plastic bag as he wiped away a tear.

"You need to be more careful, here let me check your shoulder." Asahi's mother touches his shoulder and he flinches slightly "ow" Asahi's mother lifts up his shirt and sees a small bruise on the spot where she poked, she starts rubbing a liquid on his shoulder which numbed the pain, "This should do it, you won't feel pain here anymore until tomorrow so make sure you tell me if anywhere hurts alright?" His mother smiled at him and he felt a familiar feeling he'd lost years ago.

"Now." She brushes her hands together and puts the bag back inside the medical cabinet, "What were you doing up so late?" Asahi tries to think of an excuse but can't because he still doesn't believe what's happening to be real, "I uh... I was suddenly awake so I.." Asahi's mother looked at him strangely, he tenses up wondering if he did something wrong.

But to his relief she just shrugs it off, "Let's get you to bed now, you need to get up early in the morning." Asahi breathes a sigh of relief and walks upstairs with his mother and father, "Did you have a bad dream?" His father asks, "No... it was a good dream." Asahi smiles and his father notices.

"Goodnight then, make sure you wake up early!" Asahi says goodnight to his parents again and heads off into his room, but he wanted to know more about the parents of a boy who he was watching for his whole life, he slowly opened the door again making sure not to make a sound and walked along the hallway to listen to what they may be talking about since he knew they were looking at him strangely.

"Don't you think Asahi is acting weird?" His mother said.

"It might be because he woke up in the middle of the night." His father replied.

"I hope nothing is wrong..."

Afterwards there were no more words exchanged between the two in their room, silence filled the house and Asahi crept back into his room, "So they still realised even if I tried to hide it... well I guess I wouldn't expect less from them." Asahi sits on his bed and wonders what might be going on, "This has to be a dream, there is no way that this is happening." Was what he wanted to think, but that would change the next morning.

The boy wakes up from his sleep, he feels tired that morning and goes out to greet his parents, "Good morning..." He says lazily as he scratches his eye, "Are you tired after last night?" The boy looks at his parents confusedly, "What happened last night?" The parents are shocked that the boy doesn't remember what happened but hide it from him.

They drive him to school, the whole time the parents were silent and the boy was leaning on the window imagining a figure to be jumping over houses and ducking under windows, "Have a nice day at school!" They tell the boy before leaving, in the car they discuss about last night, "He is acting weird don't you think?" At this point the father can't deny that he feels the same.

Later that night, the parents go to bed and Asahi does the same, but like last time, he wakes up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat and panting heavily, he couldn't deny the truth anymore, what he was experiencing was reality, he had figured out that the boy couldn't remember what happened when Asahi was awake, because for him, he was still asleep, unconscious.

But Asahi can remember and see everything the boy sees and experiences through his eyes, as if he were in his own body without control over it, but from what he saw in the recent day, he confirmed that everything was real, there were no tricks involved, he felt the pain of falling down the stairs, the awkwardness of making a loud sound at night, the pain of a bruise being touched, he felt it all clearly and remembered it all the next day.

For as far as he could remember, whenever the boy when to sleep, so would he as he was in the boy's mind, and when his mind is dormant so would he, but now it was different, when the boy was gone, he was there, but he still tried to deny what he saw, everything he felt, he tried to deny it all, because one piece was still missing, a very important piece, he couldn't remember it well, but he didn't feel happy that he may be getting another chance at life when she couldn't.

But he still felt it to be a possibility, and he did the same in his past life, he waited, even if there was the smallest chance he still waited, he knew it wasn't impossible, it was nowhere near ideal but it still happened, he met her, he couldn't remember her name however, he could only see an outline of a figure as well when he thought of her, "Who is this? Why is she here."

All he knew was that he waited until it happened, he was ready to leave everything if it meant that he was going to have a chance at it, but it only ended up making live a boring life, nothing eventful, nothing happening, he only lived as time went by and he only went with the flow, he didn't try to do something for others, he didn't try to do something for himself.

But this time he felt that needed to change, he felt that he needed to do something else, he still had the undeniable urge to wait, but he knew waiting again would be meaningless, he always felt that there was a chance in everything, that's why he waited for so long in the first place, but this time he wanted to do something, he wanted to change how he lived and not how we was going to adapt to his new surroundings and wait again.

Never again.