CH 5: A Part Of Me Is Dead And In The Ground PT 1

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Beep.

Beep.

It gripped me.

When I could hear the sound of morphine alarms.

I had it ingrained in my mind that when it came. Someone would stand up and turn it off.

I watched them as they made their way to the machine and flicked it off like a jaded salesman.

I watched them go back again without emotions expecting it too flare out of tune.

In a sense I found the entire process of their uncomfortable work to be therapeutic.

After all these pointless suicides. I was glad to be in a place that resembled things similar to the activities I know.

A place where normal people lived and worked and no-one had to go out and hunt gates.

A kind and boring life, but I felt that just staring at them made me wonder if I were really on the verge of losing my mind.

[ You have been drawn in to the past.]

It was hard to understand what exactly was enjoyable about returning to the past again.

I remember only demons here.

There were those stories of cultivations and how they'd go back and train harder and be stronger and have the pretty cousin or a beautiful aunty always by their side, but I had a very bad lower back and I was always hungry.

I almost had no money, because I refused to work for almost anyone. I had talents… but they were overshadowed by my slothful nature.

Which is why I could never truly immerse myself in the thought of what it would be like to time travel, but I enjoyed reading when someone else did it for me.

It was interesting to see what someone could do with such a miracle, but to do it just to stop a monarch invasion.

It sounded like the right thing to do… but I couldn't careless for what happens to me or my body even if the whole world was enslaved by a powerful country.

I would be satisfied for as long as I could live the way I want to live.

Then this body doesn't matter to me at all.

If you were transfered into another life.

What would you do?

That thought always crossed my mind and all I could think about was.

I wish to just live a little more, because I did not know what I wanted.

It was sad.

All I had ever thought about when I was in the dungeon was the million ways I could die and how I would go on and live again, but different.

Which is why the thought I had when I saw the icu room and how it appeared to be very familiar to the place I had visited 7 years ago.

I just felt a little dead inside seeing that.

Why would anyone wish to time travel to a time where someone you love will pass away at any given moment and live it all over again.

I didn't expect to holding onto an arrangement of visiting flowers again.

On a card written by my terrible hand writing.

The initials I had written a few hours before I went to the hospital to see Sera.

[ For Sera, Love Al. Dolly]

In front I could see her in deep sleep unaware of the tubes in her arms.

Sleeping so peacefully, but breathing in an uncomfortable way.

It pained me to know it was the cause of her pain killers.

I remembered the screams she had before I took her here, those were the worst moments I had ever lived, far more exhausting than suicide.

The machine flared again and I reached out to a nurse who had been checking her vitals. She smiled and stepped forward after I called out to her.

" You're awake? Good evening." She said.

" Good morning." I stared out the windows, from the cracks of the curtains it was quite dark, but my sense of time had always been that way.

Grey clouds meant morning to me.

I smiled at the woman, but I did not know what to say to her.

The words were there, but so suddenly it left my mind.

" I just wanted to thank you for what you had done yesterday." She said.

" Yesterday?"

" Yeah, My body feels much better." She flexed and rolled her shoulders together and then I watched her walk out of the room.

I looked down trying to remember what she meant by that.

One of Seras hands hung over the rail of her bed.

I walked by her side and I held onto her hand because it was the only comfort I remembered doing after a very exhausting day, because I stayed up all night.

Holding onto her cold hand.

Felt like heaven to me.

Then a hologram appeared before me.

[Error.]

[ Your transfer in the solo leveling time-line has been delayed.]

[ You have been transfered into a past life.]

[ All stats, titles and abilities and modification influences will be disabled during this period.]

[ You will be transferred to a different memory.]

Then everything faded, sight, taste, all of my sense dulled and my vision blurred.

"…"

I stood in a waiting room in front of a desk.

I thought I was high off my head when I saw sunlight bleed through the cracks of the window blinds.

"…"

I found myself standing before this beautiful girl with odd colored eyes.

She stared at the direction that wasn't me. I saw only air.

I thought she was one of those wackos who were lost in their heads someone who seemed like me when I tried to imagine what smut looked like from a fan-fiction.

But there was this dark and twisted fucking feeling in my mind that she resembled someone I knew.

That's was just how I looked at her when I saw her eyes and her dark colored hair.

The more I stared the more uncomfortable I felt as the realization that she resembled that person I had a crush on 7 years ago.

It was the first time I met someone dressed like an Italian hit man with the long black suit and she was just a receptionist.

I didn't know why a ICU needed one, but she was the first person everyone had to meet if they wanted to see their family.

Maybe it was because I was sexually deprived or It was that high going through my head when you see someone else act all confident because they are drawn into the past, but I wanted to buy a gun and just shoot my heart for thinking about this girl who left me.

For thinking that maybe this time I will get it right.

It was painful to see someone who was once your friend, right in front of you.

But with all that had happened, most of the memories I can not remember since it wasn't so important to me.

I leaned over the desk and imitated the way she looked at my side.

I stared at her invisible friend.

The colored lenses, the theatric mafioso look she had going on.

A name ran through my head.

Dolly.

I didn't know how I should feel.

The things with my sister and to see an old flame again. I felt stress.

I get why most people always desired to go back right to the start.

It really hits you that even after you lose someone.

You are still fond of the memories you had with those people even if that person may have hurt you.

"…"

All my attention was ripped apart when I saw her look at me.

" Hi…" I said.

" You never learn."

I felt cold when I heard the tone of her voice and the way she did not want to look at me straight.

For someone who doesn't always talk to people.

It was just that familiar memory I had with her that I started to understand why real life was not for me.

It was like loading into a save point where you thought you had started over before you went and did all the horrible things you could ever do in a dating sim, but loaded after the bad end with the villaness.

At least that's how I always thought about my relationship with Dolly.

All it took was one decision and everything was just a tragic ending that never ended.

I didn't know how else to explain that look she gave me.

I might I have done something that fked her over in the past, but for the life of me I don't know what it was.

All I know is something happen and things got uncomfortable and things just stopped between us.

I didn't know it was just so bad too the point that she just didn't want to be in front of me.

Memories they really did hide the reality of the world you lived in.

" Have you gone insane Al?"

She gave me this weird look.

" You're staring at them."

" I'm paying attention to your eyes now."

" You're fondling my breast and raping me in your head again that's what you only think about."

" How does that make you feel?"

" Exhausted." I answered as I thought over my whole life.

If I could just be a bit normal, then maybe I would have never thought in such a way, but although I did go through times where I fantasized about what it was like being inside of her.

Rape… That just didn't sit quite well with me.

" Handling a beautiful girl like me makes you exhausted?" She looked disgusted.

"Yes… It's very troublesome to imagine with all the vomiting, bruises and stench." I went along with her words, but she was so surprised at how I just spoke about it, but I detailed one of those dead people I saw in the dungeon and how he looked after being murdered by a sword.

" Holy fuck Al, I was talking about you staring at my boobs not your weird dead shit again."

It really got to me how I don't quite remember how close I was to her.

7 years may sound like a long time, but I was one of those sick twisted fucks with a distorted time sense, the problem was not the time, but the lack of everything not being so important to you.

You don't really focus much on the details like others, for something so little about people knowing you so well.

I was just blind to it all.

I lived the rest of my life having no-one around me and I was far from everyone.

I guess it really hit me in that moment.

" You know me so well. That's weird." I said.

Dolly just looked at me.

" So you still do it?" Watching people die. I wonder if the people who died in the double dungeon would count.

" Do you still watch those kind of stuff?" She said it uncomfortably.

I wasn't sure how I should answer.

I knew I should had at least said the right thing and told her what anyone who looked out for you wanted to hear ' No I've changed.' but did it really matter?

They were just dead people after all and I don't remember their faces.

I looked at the time on the clock and I just wanted to get out of speaking about it.

It sounded like a big deal to her. I just couldn't feel anything about it.

Those memories were with me a lot longer than our friendship so I just smiled.

" I'm here to see a patient."

" Could you please help me?" I asked.

The look in her expression just dulled a little after I ignored her question.

She had to really look at me as if she couldn't understand the person in front of her.

That look as if you are seeing something different.

Her fingers blurred across the keyboard, but I thought she wanted to say more.

A lot of flashes and her opening applications one after the other.

" Whats your name?" She asked, but then she cut herself off.

" Al."

" I know."

I got this sudden sense that people who work in fast food restaurants placed in more enthusiasm when speaking to you and those who know you.

At least they showed you openly how much they hate you while working. That's if you fucked them over.

This rapist-thinking-bitch emitted this energy as if she was pondering murdering me.

She looked exhausted behind the computer and then she looked to a person on the other side of the desk.

" You've been busy today?" I asked unsure how to go through a conversation she shook her head.

" It's been a tough day. Like what always happens." She went on with her work trying ignoring me.

She tried too, but I was apart of her job, her customer.

" You're very pretty when you look troubled."

She glanced at me from the side.

" Don't do that."

She had to stop typing to say it clearly.

" You don't mean a word you say."

Girls, real life ones were exhausting, but Dolly was something else.

Miss Healer was an angel compared to this callous-vixen-rapist-thinking-not-accepting-compliments ... bitch, but I didn't know what a bitch meant although I said it a lot.

I was used to the terms that people used, people who once surrounded me used it. It just stuck with me since high school.

I didn't believe Dolly was a real bitch.

" I get it." I thought the worst part about being back in the past again was not remembering what really happened, but then there was this new addition called.

Exhausting interactions.

I knew I fucked up, but who'd want to return to this rude welcome?

"…"

I barely stared to the ground. I just thought that dying seemed much easier than speaking to and old friend while waiting to hear the death of your family.

I've been through this all before and I was more tolerant to her because of the life I've lived.

" You look like you have something on your mind." I asked.

"…"

She relaxed a little and placed her fingers over the keyboard.

She looked me in the eye and said.

" The person you wanted to see…"

I didn't really think much about her tone when she said those words, but that sense of realization that dawned on her face after I spoke.

" Her name is Sera and she's my little sister."

" You're her brother…?"

I know I've lived this moment only once in my life, but to hear it again.

It sounded quite foreign to me.

" Yeah."

She stared straight to the desk.

The moment she mentioned her name that's when all that energy I had seeing Dolly after long time.

I was almost at the point where all of it just drained.

I couldn't stand the look she had been giving me for some time. I remembered a better one, one that was happier and didn't look so defensive.

I looked up to the security camera and the door for the waiting room where the doctors and nurses went to, to have a cup of coffee.

I thought walking into that place and making myself a cup off it will ease this shitty atmosphere like how drugs just placed you in a new high.

I wanted to get all fked up and wash the stress.

It was really something I don't want to remember.

Dolly started with the name tags and I watched as she punctured my code through a tag.

I reached out for the tag that was placed upon the desk.

She wasn't the worst of vibes. I was just bad company for a sociable individual holding onto a personal grudge.

It was a hard work speaking to a receptionist who had a bad history with you.

I tried to fight a way the heat coursing through my head. It made me sleepy.

I looked to the seats where a little boy was staring up to us, barking in a high pitch voice.

" He was doing that since the moment you walked in." She said.

" ..."

Dolly was extremely beautiful, by why was her personality so shit now.

" Why do you always look at me like that Al?"

" Like?"

"..."

" L-like you…" She didn't know how to say and clicked her tongue.

" Like you want me." I couldn't hear a word she said after that all I thought was how she would mention something about rape, but she looked strangely at me.

" Al what happened to us?" There was this way her eyes aimed at me accusing me as if I had the answer to it.

I smiled like I had always done to something I don't understand.

" I don't remember." Earlier in my life I was haunted by the thought I would always lose those around me, because I saw many people die on the news and people will speak about death on the weekly.

It happened a lot in the small town I lived in. Tourists will come over and they would just die in many different ways, but it was a luxurious place.

The deaths that happened was always made by someone who was excited and did not follow the laws off this place.

I became too used to the idea I might always be on my own eventually that the fear of no longer having people by my side faded with every passing year, and every fading life.

I found replacement for people in the form of distractions so when I heard those words.

I felt nothing, for all the years of living on my own.

It almost felt like it was just yesterday to me.

Like the ruthless passing of time never existed and I was the same as I was 7 years ago.

Drawn into the past again, but I didn't feel like I came from the future.

There was just this thin thread that told me.

This world is not your home.

That was the only thing stopping me from just immersing myself.

I didn't want to fake being someone who I could no longer remember.

Which is why I treated Dolly the way I had 7 years in the future.

We were just… ghosts and strangers in a different time.

I raised my voice and smiled.

" It's so good to see you too."

I walked to an area near the reception desk and extended my hand through a open hole in the glass window.

"..." I punctured my finger through a scanner that processed fingerprints or family id's and the light flickered green.

Dolly was busy signing through a list of paperwork.

I knew our time for conversations ended after she had asked that odd question.

After what I had said.

I had a strong feeling that's what made things awkward.

"…"

The moment I saw the the tip of her pen reach the edge of the paper sheet.

I made the decision to leave.

I walked to the seats and I noticed the boy who barked to an older man who speaking to him.

I made myself some water at the water machine right next the two.

As I filled the cup, a short vision of blood filling the glass emerged in my memories.

The entire cup was filled with the blood of a person who I don't remember.

I waited for that memory to subside, but I waited a little longer to make sure It wouldn't show up again and I drank up.

"…"

Then I thought about the conversation I had with Dolly on how I watched people die.

If she knew the things I've done then I don't think she would have looked at me the same.

It really hit me that I was back in time.

I just remembering sitting down and ignoring everyone because of the bad news with Sera.

The kid and his father. They spoke to me because I appeared to be having a very bad time, but this time the man just looked at me with those same concerned eyes, but he didn't approach me like he had done before.

I approached them with a smile.

" Ciaosu~" I signaled a sign of peace.

Then I heard the boy bark with this big smile on his face and he ran around me.

Because I did not remember his name.

I mused through my memories of being in this place.

I think of a young boy with a splinter straight through his pinky and there a terrible infected hole over the joint of his thumb.

It wasn't so bad as I remembered. Time seem to have healed a small bit of the infection.

His right had was bandaged and he looked lively compared to how I remembered.

This was a lot better.

Sometimes it was good to see a person smile.

It made me want to smile too, but the taste of blood in the back of my throat spoiled the mood at least the memory off it made me remember.

The little boy looked up to me and barked with this strange gleam of curiosity in his eyes.

" How are you doing Pinky."

I reached out and shook his small hand.

Arf— Arf—

His father spoke for him. A bearded man who wore circular glasses.

" He's doing better." He smiled holding his son.

He looked worried about something.

" Have you been… well?"

I had this feeling it had to do with something I don't remember.

" Better." I said.

" Better is good…" but there was something on his mind.

He had this intelligent look in his eyes when he thought deeply about something.

He wasn't old, but I felt like he was always observing everything around him.

It was always the eyes he looked at and then there actions. I wonder why he did that.

Someone who met him would think he was someone important, maybe his clothing made him seem that way, but he was just almost like any parent who walked here.

Unfocused eyes and dark circles underneath them.

He had the aura around of someone who had seen a lot of shit, but the icu had a way with messing with your mental.

It made him look unhealthy and sick.

I don't remember ever seeing them again. This might have been my last time I spoke with them in my life.

" What have you been doing since the last time we met?" He asked.

Telling him about being a No-life, suicidal dumbass and a highly unsociable person did not sit well with me.

It sounded like a terrible resume giving to a job location of all the things that turned reunions into a sob fest.

How I was would and my history would be the last thing I would ever say about myself.

So I spoke as if I was only speaking to myself.

" I got rejected by the receptionist."

He looked at her and then to me with a slight smile on his face.

He didn't seem to believe it, but he waited and listened to the rest I had to say.

" She's a nice girl." He replied.

" N-nice? I don't think we are speaking about the same devil here." I think of what could have been nice about Dolly.

Not a single thing went through my mind at the potential she could ever be a good person.

I looked to the witch who would stare back from behind her desk, but then I thought about it properly.

Her body and her beauty…

No, nothing could alter the things I knew about her.

" I believe. I have terrible luck when it comes to beautiful people." I laughed about the irony that It might have always been that way.

From all my memories whether it be a friend or someone I liked. I seemed to always fuck up all the good I had going because of my ' personality.'

But courting girls from visual novels was different I always seemed to have a harem of goddesses by my side, it's just real life that made it difficult.

All it took was one thing to happen and everything went wicked fast.

" Do you have any advice to spare when it comes to being normal?" I always wondered if the reason things were like this was because I did not do the things others did.

Like dedicating your hours of your life to labor or knowing how to drive.

At the end of all my thoughts I just found myself flicking Dolly off with the middle finger for glaring at me for too long.

Mr Pinky seemed amused between our interactions when she retaliated in the same way.

I saw how he touched his sons head after the crude sign language we shared.

I looked at Pinky then I asked his father.

" What is it like being a father." I was very curious about it.

"…" I could never see myself having a kid, the crazy things that go in my mind just won't allow me to live in a stable way.

What kind of human being would I be if I went on to have a kid and decided to just end my life on a whim.

It was a sad thing to think about, but I was very afraid at the thought of having kids despite always being interested in acts of sex, like pornwha.

It was like I had a lot of sins and if I had a kid they would just be surrounded by them, but I was most afraid of something else killing them.

I've seen it happen before on many occasions in my life.

" Actually don't answer that." I told him.

I was just talking to myself again.

I had this eternal image of Sera sleeping in that hospital bed.

" Yeah. I don't ever think I could be a father." There was a period of time I imagined being with Dolly.

A job, a house, my own piece of land even if it took years reaching that dream.

I imagined myself being happy, but I had different dreams too… I was a drug dealer who made billions of the lives of those who died, a dictator who ruled an unknown country, and someone who ran execution sites internationally for a callous deity.

It was the dreams. They changed all the good I thought was left in me and added something else there.

I had and unnatural obsession with the world I can't unsee.

I developed dead eyes and uncomfortable view on life after being on my own for so long.

" I think I'm losing my mind."

" Talking about losing your mind is not normal."

I looked at him.

" It's always been that way." Before I'd take some medications to help me think certain thoughts and feel certain things.

I guess after this day. It was the starting point for it.

" My sister..."

She's going to pass away.

" Is she alright?"

I wonder why my life could mean so little to me, but I felt angry knowing my sister will die.

" The doctors. They are taking care of her." And she won't make it.

I never noticed how cold I spoke about the circumstances of my sister.

It was as if I were trying to explain to someone about the meaningless deaths I went through in the dungeon.

I picked certain details and kept certain details out of the explanation, because I knew it didn't really matter to the person who heard.

They weren't me and they weren't always there.

Knowing she will never breathe again.

Death should be a sad thing, but I believe something about it faded after going through the process of it more than once and seeing it happen.

I didn't want to learn I had become unfeeling to the passing of someone close to me.

It almost felt like I had never lost anyone before.

Mr Pinky showed how uncomfortable he was.

I could see it from the way he just stared down in thought.

Pinky intervened the awkwardness by cracking one of my fingers.

I thought he was a very bright kid. He understood things very quickly and noticed the atmosphere I was in.

I noticed Pinky staring up to the sky outside the picture framed window.

I saw his eyes and how they were crying.

I cleared them with his shirt because he didn't seem to notice.

I remembered a saying from a foreigner. He said something that in their culture one of the old stories his father spoke about was those with pure hearts would unconsciously imitate the emotions others were feeling.

I might be sad, but I don't feel it.

" Stay strong." It was the only words he could say to me.

" Always." I replied, then I heard a woman call out a name.

" Al?" A short Asian woman stood by the door.

I stood up from my seat.

" Please follow me." She said.

I turned to Mr Pinky.

" It was nice venting to you again."

" Again?" He laughed a little thinking I was telling a joke.

" It has always been a pleasure to speak with you too, Al." I don't believe you, but I smiled.

" Son, say good bye."

Pinky reached out with his small hands and gestured 'Hello' instead of waving farewell.

" S-see yo… neex—" I thought I imagined it from reading his lips. It was as if he were imitating the way we spoke but something always go in the way.

I thought I saw him try to say 'See you next time'

I wrapped my hand over his.

" Bye-Bye."

Then I walked away and waved good-bye to Pinky, who never stopped signaling 'Hello.'

I walked slowly when I reached the reception desk. I had to sign in with my name, because I was visiting a patient, Dolly wasn't sitting there.

" Hey." I heard a voice and I turned to look behind me.

There was a bouquet of flowers glaring at me.

I looked at the person who held them.

The witch Dolly stood in all her glory, the flowers made her outfit seem out of place.

" How could you visit someone without giving them anything."

" This is for Sera." She said.

They looked just like the flowers I was holding onto before.

White and red flowers.

" Would it be rude if I just gave them back and just walked away from you right now?" I thought it would be funny, because it was different than accepting them like I had done before.

She stared at me as if she wouldn't have the thought of it happening.

"…"

She looked at the flowers in her hands and then gave it to me, rather she shoved it to my chest.

" Yes. That would be rude."

Then we saw a person standing the front of the desk.

" I have to go. Work."

I took the flowers.

" Thank you." I heard her say. It was something I was going to say, but I left it at that and just walked away.

I thought maybe I should have said a little more.

A stranger had done the same the last time I visited this place.

I mused through the potential options of someone giving me flowers or being there if I ended up here in this place.

The thought of it seemed strange. To wake up in a hospital room.

I couldn't imagine it. If I ever thought of going out that way. It would mean I had done something wrong.

I followed the woman who stood near a door at the exit of the waiting hall.

"…"

I followed her and I thought of the life I lived before all this.

Sera's funeral.

Me watching everyone I know go away before it happened.

It wasn't all bad. Nothing really happened.

My sister died and eventually I believed I did as well.

If there was a hell for idleness I'm sure I was there dreaming off all the lives I could have lived.

It had been 5 minutes since we left the waiting room.

" So I was speaking with—— about—— sera——"

The woman had a way with talking on her own.

She carried the entire conversation. I watched the rooms that belonged to people in the worst conditions.

We passed almost 10 rooms by now. She mentioned how they were occupied but she didn't belong in this section.

"…" As I listened to her mumble about her life I would say things as if I were interested in what she had to say.

I wasn't in the mood with conversations when I knew we were getting closer to Sera.

I forced myself to imitate a memorable character I had read about in a well written fan fiction just to make the conversation believable.

It was about a voiceless man who had an addiction with conversing with other people.

In his head, he thought he had a voice and he never realized he wasn't saying anything.

I ignored the things she mentioned about Sera, but she mentioned how concerned she was about the people who worked with Sera this morning.

I remembered walking through this hall hoping for the day I'd return home with Sera and return back to the hospital check ups and not ICU visits.

The old Al was angry with everyone, but I was standing on the edge of my mind.

I approached the kind lady who guided me and tapped her shoulder.

she turned around.

" Yes Al?"

" Do you think you think there will be a concern with the operation today?

The look she gave wasn't something I would like to see in someone who was taking care of my sister.

She was worried about something and I had faint understanding it might have to do with telling them how to do their jobs.

I understood that I did not spend my entire life for this job or worked and study hard hours to get here, but this was my fucking sister.

Although I did not like her answer. I smiled.

" It's alright. I will ask the doctor when I see them."

She smiled uncomfortably.

" I'm sorry."

It was all the same. The way she apologized was no different than I remembered.

The conversation was different, but she reacted the same. It really vexed me thinking that maybe no matter how much I tried to alter things, the out come would always be the same.

Maybe it was the way I looked, but she reacted differently.

" I will tell them what you had said, but I can't promise anything, I just work here."

" We will try our best. If that means anything."

" We will do what can to help Sera."

When I heard those words.

I found myself being enthralled by the bleak humor that all they could was just not enough, but she had a kind heart.

I expected life to just destroy her intentions.

Like it always had done for mine.

" Thank you so much." I said, but the horrors I lived through that time was right behind those curtains.

After years of being born a disable.

The medicine they've been injecting into her arms.

The way her body reacted violently because of it.

"…"

It was like watching the boy hanging by a coat hanger.

If it were to happen to someone else in the world. I would not think so much.

If it were to happen to me. I would desire for it to happen quickly.

If it happened to someone close to me.

I wouldn't know how should I feel.

For all the wicked shit this life had done to her.

She deserved to live a little more than being here.

' Al… I know you don't like it when I cry, but can you stay with me?'

' Al… You're back. Come sing with me…'

' Al… were you at work again?'

' Yeah.'

' Al!'

' Hold on Sera.'

[ A memory has faded.]

"…"

I turned into a curtained room and the first thing that hit me was the sound of morphine alarms singing out of tune.

—-

I stared at my sister with tubes in her wrists and and a mask that assisted her to breathe uncomfortably.

I watched the people on shift who sat down in their seats behind their computers and I leaned over the rail till my head rested against hers.

She looked the same just different.

" Hey…"

" It's Al."

I checked her vitals and other numbers I could not understand.

I had already came to terms with this a very long time ago so the emotions and things I wanted to say.

I've done them.

I just wanted to be with her with the time she had left.

There was a saying I heard once. I was told she was just sleeping, but she could hear the things I said. Her eyes were closed, but she was awake.

It must be terribly lonely being in a dark place in complete silence.

So I spoke about my time in solo leveling.

" You know you would never believe me on how beautiful Miss Healer was in person."

" Long red hair and she had a devilish body, sexy and her eyes. They were blue."

Not once had I mentioned about the moments I killed myself or about how I already lived this before.

I tried to stay away from those thoughts, but I spoke about the things I heard in the future about people around me and the events that happened.

Even if she wouldn't believe it. I told her everything about the different flavored ice creams I tried and the new trends of music that became popular with the teens and how the world outside was infected by a terrible illness that plagued everyone even to this day.

There wasn't a lot I could say to her. So I spoke about the time I got out and tried to run that food store we talked about running and how I tried to buy a truck and a gas tank and a cheap stove and how hired my first worker to drive me to the streets where I could start business.

In the end me and him were our only customers and we ate everything by the end of the day and we became life long business friends because of that.

The curtain for the room pushed open and the doctor who came to check on her walked forward.

"…" I watched them as they tampered with the bag hanging over her bed, and them checking her vitals.

" The numbers look good."

I watched them as they worked and ignored the sound of the morphine alarm that flared out in the silent room.

I stood by her side. Holding on to her cold hand just listening on how he seemed happy with everything he was seeing and explaining to them what they should do.

My sister slept because of the drugs they fed her body.

I combed some strands of her hair over her eyes behind her ears.

"…"

She would be a beautiful woman, but her body hasn't aged since she was 15.

We have the same birthdays, I thought it was funny that we were born on different dates, but she claimed that her birthday was on the same day as mine.

It had been that way for years.

Lucky the operations were free or what ever it was they did.

Because she was a disabled. We didn't need to pay anything.

They were special here.

" Hello."

The doctor approached me dressed in shorts and a collared shirt that tourists wear on vacations and even if it were cold he wore sandles.

I politely smiled.

" Hi."

He looked at the vitals.

" The numbers are good, I like what I see. Her breathing was below 50 when you came in, but it's better."

" Because of the machine." I added.

" Yes."

Despite what I had said.

" Her lungs don't look so good."

Then he showed me an xray off it and there were certain places that were brighter than others.

I knew what they meant and what he tried to say to me.

Expect for the worst to happen.

Although he didn't want to fully say it. I knew it just from the image he showed me.

Because something will fail inside of her.

My memories only accepted such an outcome.

" Her nervous system has deteriorated, The infection in her lungs—"

"…"

" The most we can do is delay keeping her on the painkillers for a few more days and see how she will go, but—-"

Doctors were always just trying to be professional. I understood that.

Looking at Sera made it harder.

"…"

I didn't want to listen to anymore.

As much as I desired to see a different perspective.

This was nothing more than waiting for her to die.

I didn't want to think in such a way.

This was a cold dream.

Dreams were like moments or memories you've seen, sometimes you've been there and most of the time.

You find yourself in foreign places.

Reliving similar moments like the first you lived.

If one day my body would not make it.

I would like to be transfered in a dream.

I'd wish for nothing more than to live every moment as if It could continued again and again.

I would take it for granted like I had done the first time. Maybe it would be worst there, but a dream was different.

Anything can happen and if I didn't like it.

I could choose to wake up and start over.

In a dream...

Things can be different.

And It wouldn't have to be so hard.

To live the way I wanted too.

If I ever thought of living at all, because I had an obsession with life even though I would always think of things ending.

—

There was something about the monitor for Sera's vitals that made me stare at it.

It gave off this feeling of I remember getting in the dungeon.

That chill in the corner of your mind at the impending doom something dangerous were to happen.

The feeling of doom made me think of only one person who would die.

My sister.

[ The death of a loved one isn't always a tragic ending.]

[ Sometimes they can leave you in a heartbeat.]

[ Sera died from a failure of the heart.]

[ You have gained experience.]

Then the alarms flared and I stood before the chaos. I decided that I didn't want to be in that place and not because of the notification, but the way the doctors and nurse went into panic.

I saw how they rushed over to my sisters body.

I just left.

Down the hall. To a vending machine where I bought me an iced drink with the spare coins I found in my pocket.

I sat on the chair as the feeling of doom lingered over me and I just drank bit by bit wishing I had went for something bitter.

I remembered the times I smoked when I wanted to ease the pressure I had on the day.

I looked through the hall to the room that held Sera and I left.

I walked out into the waiting room and I thought about the flowers I still had when I passed the reception desk.

I thought decorating the desk was the best way to rid off it.

I noticed someone sitting lost in her head with her arms on the desk just looking at the same place I remembered a few hours.

Dolly was dressed in casual clothing if a school uniform was considered casual, she still looked like someone in a mafia wearing it.

I didn't know what a real mafia looked like, but the exotic black suit and old person who had a lot of mental barriers was just my image off it.

I thought it was much better to let her be and think of things ending.

If something could make me happy. I don't believe speaking to another person about it would do it.

But in the end we were once friends. SO I didn't choose to ignore her.

" The flowers were perfect." But I didn't want to be there not with someone like her or at best anyone.

I just walked away with a heavy heart that if I stepped out the door.

It would be something I have to live with.

There was slight compulsion to stay and just talk my feelings to Dolly.

Then there was this other side of me that just laughed at the thought off it.

In the end I turned away as I thought that was normal.

——

A few day passed.

[ Hello, I've talked with the Bishop about your request for Sera to be buried at the church, We—]

[ You have blocked a number.]

Sera's funeral…

I've been trying to get to a place to bury her.

A place where no-one would just walk into, a place that's always taken care off.

Somewhere private. We didn't really have a home, if rentals apartments were considered a place to live. You just can't bury someone on another's land.

It just wasn't right.

Then I thought to bury her at her mothers was sick and twisted idea.

We weren't on good terms.

After all these years of ignoring her existence.

The old me hated the idea of going out to meet the person who seduced our mother in leaving her children for dead.

I still felt on guard because of it. It was a terrible idea, but the best one.

So I got changed into the best clothes I could find in my old shitty apartment and got someone who knew how to drive to drive me to the northern district.

Where there were only the rich and the wealthy, filled with tall houses on a hill and leading up a mountain with large fields of land and luxuries cars.

All that wealth didn't seem that appealing to me. Maybe it once did when I actually gave a fuck about life, but things change and you get used to somethings.

We drove into one of the drive ways of a two story house. A place I had only went to once in my life to visit her.

I didn't really have any fond memories of being there.

It was strange to think such a good looking place like this, to only have been used as a parking spot.

The better area was at the back.

When It came to that manipulative woman.

I expected nothing, but absolute rejection, but I stepped out of my cheap rental car and followed the path to the front of the house.

I was worried that one more step and I may just go back home.

I watched her workers cutting the lawn on a large machine back and forth across the lawn.

It was strange to see a person driving and not walking up and down pushing a lawn mower.

I walked up the stairs and knocked on the door twice.

"…"

Then a lady opened it. A very beautiful woman with long dark hair with green eyes dressed in only a robe.

She looked at the car drive out from the entrance then at me amused for all the years I avoided her.

I was standing in front of her door again.

She just casually leaned against the side and showed her barely naked body.

" Al."

"…"

" You're not the kind to say hello."

" Go on." She said.

" Sera died…"

" A few days ago."

She showed no emotions, but she listened intently to what I was speaking about.

I knew that she hated meaningless conversation.

" Would you take care of her, here. Please."

" Take care?"

" Her body."

"…"

" You want to bury her."

" Yes."

" If it's for her daughter. I will allow it." It was the tone of her voice that sounded distant.

I reached for my wallet and took out some few hundreds of dollars I had taken out from the accounts I remembered.

I don't know why I had money in the savings account for Sera.

The money saved was for the most worst scenario and to support her.

I emptied the wallet into my hand.

I pulled out 12, 100 dollar bills.

I didn't really think much about the cash that slipped through my fingers.

I didn't recognize the currency.

" This is nothing, but a small portion of it… I will send all of it to your account right now."

She looked at the plastic I held, but there was this emotionless feeling I felt from her when I spoke.

" You always find a way to disappoint me Al."

She pulled onto her robe and leaned against the door.

" It's the only thing I can give to you." She didn't think of it like that.

This money. It was nothing but a sense of weakness in front of her, something she always liked seeing in others.

Usually it was the opposite. The smart people would often prey on those with poor circumstances and give them gifts and help them out subtly to get what they want, but I poured out money because it was all that I had.

" You're very intelligent Al."

She reached out her hand and caressed mine holding onto the worthless plastic.

" Everything has a lingering price."

" Good will."

" They're never free." She said in a depressing way.

She took the money and placed into my shirt pocket.

" Al. Do you want to know what I told your caretaker when we first met?"

And then she pulled on my hand.

She raised her lips to my ears and kissed my cheek and placed my hand underneath her robe.

I felt my fingers linger against her thighs and how it was slowly reaching closer and closer to her pussy, I latched onto it's side when I felt it knowing that she was trying to use me.

She smiled when I caressed her skin and how she stood up on her feet and reached my ears.

" Comfort me."

" And I'll will take care of everything."

I looked at my hand covered by her robe and her fit body hiding underneath it.

It didn't arouse me, but my fingers caressed her thighs and I would play with her inside watching her emotionless reactions as they dug in and out of her very slowly as I heard her slightly moan uncomfortably.

No lust.

No desire.

Just a transaction to get something I desire, but I didn't like the way I felt.

Morals wanted me to stop doing it. My mind didn't really care anymore.

I was too drained from life.

A contract with the woman.

An emotionless sexual transaction.

I felt cold inside as I thought about it.

Most people always thought they would do it with a beautiful girl who was madly in love with them and wanted to make love like how they did in fiction, but life taught me how easy those people walk out of your life very quickly.

So love didn't make any sense to me.

At the end of the day. Walking for a minimum wage just to fuck a pleasure worker was the only way I could see myself getting any sex.

Fucking the ex girlfriend of your dead parent is not any different from that.

I already made the decision when I got here.

That Sera will be buried even if the things I had to do could disgust me.

I did it again.

"…" To see her body tense from something as small as just pushing in a finger inside of her and massaging her inside.

Porn made the real thing appear so bland, so easy.

Maybe it was just the chemistry that made it hot.

She stepped forward and I embraced her body and kissed her on the side of her lips.

" That's not enough Al." She bit back and pulled out the bottom of my lip.

One kiss and she already made it seem as us fucking in that house on what ever object that was inside was the final destination.

I heard her workers machine.

She turned around and open the door and guided me inside.

I stood still and looked at my body.

It worried me.

"…"

I was fucked for having the experience and stamina of a No-Life.

I thought about my lower back and the big belly I had wasn't there anymore, but all I could think about is how I never exercised my waist and thighs for sex.

I never lasted more than seconds to just get rid of the lustful feelings I had.

Now I was running into sex without any physical experience.

Sexual urges? There's a little devil that wants to go inside of her, but If I wanted emotionless sex.

I'd rather fuck my own hand.

The way she stood at the door with those playful manipulative eyes and that body.

I wondered why burying Sera mattered at this point.

I might already be dead.

It doesn't really… matter…

Nothing ever mattered and yet.

I did these things because I wanted them to happen.

" I was wondering…"

" If we could have something to eat first and do it after."

" You want to go on a date…?"

" Maybe… Dinner, Yes."

"Al… This is the only way we can communicate." She grabbed my hand and I touched her chest and she made me squeeze them.

" There is nothing you can do to fix what already happened. You chose this remember."

" It could be better…" I thought.

She just smiled.

" Better than sex?"

" Better…"

Then I heard her laugh.

" Well, after I will think about it."

She pulled on my hand.

" Come inside."

"…"

" Come."

——

[???: Hey Al. Do you know any good animes?]

[Al: I don't watch them anymore. I told you, I read webtoons now.]

[???: Right… Then what are the best mangas you've read?]

[Al: They're not the same.]

[Al: Try solo leveling. It's what I'm reading now and It's has really cool art, only 64 chapters are out, but I'm still on the double dungeon arc.]

[???: Double dungeon? Is that a spoiler?]

[Al: It's the beginning of the story.]

[???: Tell me about it. Need the details.]

[???: Is there cheating? and Threesomes?]

[Al: It's not porn.]

[???: Sure.]

[Al: I'm being honest.]

[???: Just like you always say you don't run out off storage space on your pc downloading it.]

[Al: I download webtoons.]

[???: You download depraved shit called Ntr.]

[ Al: I'm learning how to draw...]

[???: Is that a fucking excuse? I hear you Ntr scum.]

[Al:…"

[Al: You know what I think about it. Just read in a different language.]

[Al: I already told you, but why do you keep reading through the folders I name /NTR/.]

[???: …]

[Al: I name them because you're a SSS snooper.]

[???: You demon.]

[???: … Just tell me the details.]

[Al: Just some artist with really good art.]

[???: So it has good art? Summarize it.]

[Al: …]

[Al: The usual things Koreans write. People dying. People cheer leading the MC. And someone who is meant to be dead, survives and becomes the protagonist. The nations competing propaganda.]

[Al: I hate the way the side characters cheer lead him.]

[???: It sounds bad from your explanation.]

[???: It's like you don't want me to read it.]

[???: Next time I ask, put more enthusiasm into your explanation.]

[Al: You're reading a text message -.-.]

[???: Emojis are not emotions (-.~)_/ ]

[???: I will keep it in the library, but have you heard?]

[Al: Heard?]

[???: Theres a Yu gi oh tournament in the city tomorrow night. You can use your anti-meta deck to beat the lightsworns and Burning Abyss piece of shits.]

[???: I mean abusers.]

[Al: It's not Anti-Meta. It's a… Soul-farm-absorption-negation-control deck.]

[???: Wtf is the name so long.]

[Al: Because I haven't named it yet.]

[???: Then make up a name. What about Sacrificial Devil?]

[???: You sacrifice your monsters for an advantage and you steal the enemy's soul by winning the duel with Seal.]

[Al: It sounds really bad. And Sacrifical Devil is not even a card!]

[???: Do you think with your third leg? Make a custom card, name it, give it effects, do what ever.]

[???: Do what you had done the last time you modified the Seal Of Orichalcos.]

[Al: Yeah, but I won't be able to use it.]

[???: Who cares. The worst thing that would happen is some tight ass would call the judge and you'd drop from the duels that night.]

[???: Pull the card out once and beat the shit out of the guy your facing.]

[Al: And get banned from the shop?]

[???: There is always different places we could go to Al.]

[Al: but not a place close to an Internet cafe and a pizza shop that's open from 3 am to 1 pm.]

[???: That's why we call a Uber.]

[…]

[???: So are you coming tomorrow night?]

[Al: It's my sisters birthday. I can't come.]

[???: Oh shit. Shit. Sorry.]

[???: Say happy birthday to her for me yeah.]

[???: I still haven't gotten to meet her.]

[???: You should invite her out with us on our duels.]

[Al has left chat.]

I took a long drive to the northern district.

Things changed after that day. More sex, more dates at resorts and more intimate actions, but it turned out that she was the best medicine for all the wicked shit that has been going on in my life.

She was good at making you feel happy and anything you wanted she will get it for you.

That was the power of wealth.

Anytime she would open her body for you. In her house, at a resort she could tell what you wanted and will provide for you.

The thought that someone like her being single was just something strange to thing about. I just never asked her if she had any relationships with anyone after my mother.

It didn't really matter to me, but there was night where after sex we sat alone on her balcony and I stared at her fields smoking on cheap cigarettes and then she spoke a bit about her time with my mother and how she was the one who had taken care off her through the worst moments of her life.

She seemed happy speaking about it. The truth was I don't remember her being apart of my life.

I don't remember much about what happened after.

I found myself staring at the ground with black patches in my memory and her fit body soaked over my cock.

It was the first time I thought being with someone felt good, sex was hot and sweaty, but being with someone who never asked questions about what happened and just thinking on pure lust.

It kind of made me sad.

I thought about the reasons why I didn't have this before.

I pulled into the house and saw one of the workers who would come every week pull out the drive way.

I learned that she would pay for people from over-seas to come and work for her. The jobs she gave them were odd, but she payed double the price.

She got mad once when I told her about the way she was spending her money. She didn't care if she went bankrupt.

It was all an effort to make someones life easier she said, but I felt there was more to it than just that.

Her workers were rather strange people, but they got the job done and seemed always happy being here.

These days. I spent most of my time watching them work on Sera's new veranda and her court yard.

That woman did more than just allow me to bury her.

She decided to build a new house at the back just for Sera, but… I thought it would take too long, but she insisted and decided on a small court yard for Sera temporary before the new house was built.

Sera had her own courtyard.

I was grateful, but all these good things just for more sex. It felt like I was just using her, but she was happy by just that.

I walked up to a tree and pulled out a chair from underneath one of the tables nearby.

In front of a Black Monolith with the photos of Sera plastered onto it hidden behind a clear glass that protected their frames.

I rested an arrangement of blue-red and white flowers below and sat down staring at the field of grass of her new home.

It was like I was living in some sort of dream, the good ones where there were only happy endings, but I didn't feel that way. It seemed almost unreal to me as if it would just fade if I closed my eyes and waited for the next day to come.

I'd be in hell again.

I gripped my hand as I thought about everything that happened with that woman and she had always helped me.

Despite the amazing sex I have everyday and delicious dinners and luxurious activities and resorts and nice bikes I get to drive and the presents especially the amazing blow jobs.

" Sera, You're brothers life isn't going so well."

The reality was that I had always been someone fucked up and that won't ever change even if there was a good life before me.

" I've made some sins since you have gone away."

A good life wasn't enough to fade everything I knew away.

I got involved with the wrong people again.

" I know how you always wanted to have someone to take care of me."

" You won't like the person whose been taking care off me, but she's a kind person when she chooses to be."

" The funny thing is how she mentioned having kids and I know how you always wanted to be an Aunty."

"…"

" I'm sorry."

" I can't stay."

" I pray things are better where you are."

" I hope it's better than here."

"…"

I poured myself a drink.

" Happy Birthday—-"

"—-To us."

To drink up to this despairing life.

——

[ There have been several day light abductions in ??? Street.]

[ Mass shootings have—]

[—evacuate——]

" Hermano, There are 14 enforcers running turtles in the western districts."

"… turtles?"

" Modified jeeps or pickup trucks." I spoke out for the middle aged American looking man.

He had his hands bound and sat on one of the tent chairs.

I pulled my rifle over the table and turned up the radio.

" Hermano, Why are you speaking to this gringo."

I looked at the bikes outside with soldiers surrounding them ready to move to a different location and the masked man who ordered them.

I turned to my friend.

" Your accent sounds like your Scottish."

" You acted like Hitler before. What changed?"

" Different people, different faces! Look at him. He believed my charm."

I looked at the man. He looked like all the others we had met.

Scared and very hungry.

" What happened to the pigs?" I asked.

" The Muslims shot them, We won't be having ribs for the next few days."

"…"

I played with the rifle trigger.

" They were poisoned."

" Who did it?"

" It doesn't fucking matter who did it."

" We searched and no-one is saying shit."

" They're saying it's the locals who set the pens on fire."

" But I don't believe those putas."

" Why don't we just kill the fuckers who took the shift. Can't trust them. They aren't like us."

" If we hurt one of them."

" They will rat us."

" Then we die."

" It will be a glorious death!"

" Not over fucking pigs." I told him.

"…"

" Fucking pigs."

"…"

" Al, do you ever wonder what kind of life you would have if you didn't follow me."

I thought about the woman I left and how she tried to find me.

" I'd probably be in a grave." I told him.

" Nah, You wouldn't do that to me."

He pushed the rifle aside and sat in front of me.

" You hate the sound of animals being slit and you tense at the sound of bullets, how the fuck can someone like you die."

" You're a fucking coward." He laughed bitterly to himself.

I thought of the irony of what he had said.

"…"

" It's a good thing."

" That means you get to live just a little longer." He pushed out a red packet cigarette from his vest and smoked it and I watched him walked beside the American and placed a new one between his lips.

" You see that Al."

" That is called kindness, the shit they play on that fucking radio."

" All bull shit and lies." He took a huff.

I stared at the American who relaxed a little, but I couldn't look away from the cigarette he was smoking.

Black paper with a purple line over the tip.

" You have a twisted sense of it." Kindness? The cigarette was laced with bliss.

Almost immediately the American was rocking on his seat, nodding in and out.

" Do we have to give them over each time. They're just going to train him and send him to death."

" That's kindness. We treat them like friends, and then we leave them for dead."

" Their just…"

He tossed a bundle of cash on the table.

" Money." I said.

" That's right Hermano."

" It's all about this eternal bliss." He sniffed the bundle off cash, but I wasn't one to agree with it.

I never understood the value of money. He didn't like the way I looked again. Always had a problem with someone who didn't prioritize money over everything.

At first we were just going to run a food stand outside some sort of market and live that way and then in the next moment we were peddling things to different districts and then we ended up with another job, but I didn't like this one.

" Then you tell me what else is there to die for."

"…"

" See, The American agrees with me."

"…" The stench of bliss from his breath stunk like the smell I got used to when it came to this room.

He sat on the side of the table and flexed his hands.

" Why don't we play that game like when we were kids."

" Yu gi oh?" I asked.

" I remember how we use to always go to those tournaments."

" The money we wasted opening those boxes. 120 dollars for a few pieces of paper."

" Imagine the money we could have spent on socks and these." He raised the cigarettes between his fingers.

" Life wouldn't be so bad. If I had saved it more, but I lived a great life." He told me.

I saw him smile as I thought about the only things he had spent his wealth on was better clothes and rental apartments to fuck high class girls who bought the idea he was rich and I was someone who worked for him since we were little.

The worst part was he was hard working for it, but blind to all the things he can attain if he just sat down and thought about what he wanted.

Who in the right mind would spend 500k on an Internet cafe expecting for pretty e-girls to come there and fk the owner on the first night.

" But fuck... Those days were fun." He said.

" You bought 3 boxes every week." I told him about the stupid shit he always does with money.

" I bought you cards and I had a taste of those nerds friends who roamed like shy girl friends."

"… You got rejected almost every time and made me drop from some matches, because you touched the girl the shop owner liked."

" That fat whale was busy and she looked bored always waiting at the counter."

" I just introduced myself." He laughed.

" I made friends Al."

"…"

I looked around the filthy room mocking his words.

" Where are they?"

" Who knows? dead, or somewhere peaceful."

" Then they're not your friends."

" Why are you being a bitch about it."

" Because you always bring up the past."

" You do that every time you're bored." I say.

Then I went on with the previous thought.

" If they ever thought of you as a friend, we wouldn't be here."

" But you're here."

" I just couldn't stand the thought of you going on to do something stupid alone."

" What if you die somewhere I don't know?" I told him.

" How do I tell your sister that her brother died chasing after skirts."

He laughed a little, but he was thinking over it.

" We could have just stuck with the food stand."

" What's wrong with this life." I asked wondering what got him so angsty all of a sudden.

He was silent.

" Too much work."

"…" It wasn't anything really. Just running different locations. Sending out scouts. It wasn't as hard or maybe I learned to live in that kind of life.

" Pick up a card."

"…"

He just looked at me and then the table.

" Ok."

" You're the one who said we'll play."

"…"

" Don't tell me you don't remember what deck you had back then?"

"…"

" We don't need the real thing." I imitated the way people shuffled a deck of cards and he followed the same. I picked up 5 cards and placed my hand on the table.

" How the fuck could you just mock my friends and ignore my bleeding heart."

" Because you always tell your dry sense of humor to the wrong person."

" Shit."

" We already know how to play this game."

" Just alter your reality a little bit."

He just looked at me and rolled his eyes over to the American.

" Hey gringo. Come and play."

The American looked faded and leaned on his chair, as if he couldn't sit up on his own.

" Then he yawned his self to shit." I heard him say.

" Tch. You already know I'm not good with my imagination Al."

" Why don't you use your memories."

He looked to his cigarette.

" Shit man I only took this thing to relax. Why do you want to make my head hurt again."

"…"

He reached out his hand on the table.

" So whose going first?"

" Wait we do it in the language we made."

" Do you remember it?" I asked him.

" Les, Mer, Sores." He said those three words.

" Rock, Paper, Scissors."

" 3-2-1."

" Sores."

" Mer."

I win.

——

We were turned on by the people we worked for.

One thing led up to another and people had their own thoughts.

" I'm going to murder them."

" Every fucking one of them!"

"..."

They hired two amateurs to abduct foreigners and expected them to die or be killed.

We took the job seriously.

I don't think they expected us to abduct a large sum of people and that gain a lot of attention.

" Al, we are going to fucking die." He had this guilty look on his face.

"Maybe."

I stood over the body of a kid I knew. He had a hole in his head from my gun.

" Those sick fuck who worked for us. They're probably hunting with them." I heard him say, but I was just cold because I knew the kid personally.

I looked to my old friend.

" Who exactly did we work for?"

He looked at the ground and spit.

" Siphon." I ripped aside the kids shirt where I saw a mark seared disgustingly into the boys throat.

How we marked pigs, this body was marked just like them.

" They are using them like pigs." I told him.

The children were left for dead and the adults.

I didn't want to think much on it.

They might be hunting us too.

" They are using the fucking kids Al!"

" Al!"

No matter who died or who was killed. It didn't stopped them from hunting us.

I looked at my friend then to all the trees where we had been shooting.

We had no other options but to reposition and fight anyone who came to kills us.

All we knew is that we had to run anywhere our feets could wander too.

Then I saw the boy move although he was going to die.

I aimed the gun to his chest.

"…"

No matter how much we tried.

There isn't a second chance for us.

Bang! Bang!

"…" I turned around to my friend who just stood there with tears on his face. He could barely look at me or the body and I decided to pick up anything the kid had on him.

His gun, his knife and the drugs that hid in his pockets.

" This isn't right…" There was no mercy to us anymore.

This is how we will live and die.

My friend was in his own sheltered world.

I guess it was because I knew something like this environment that I didn't really feel it like he did, but the first time always fucked you up.

" Why did you do that?" I stared at him.

" Why did I shoot him?" I thought about it.

" Mercy."

I pulled him through the bushes, but my body was not working well because of the rain and the cold.

Everything in my lower limb was pain and I could not feel my feet.

I wanted us to go on to a place where we could see everything, so when they came we could kill as many as we could.

We were going to die. That's how I saw this situation.

So I didn't think about escaping, but kill as many as I could to increase our time in this place.

I couldn't go on with him haunted by the things we had to do.

Killing a kid meant nothing I told him.

If that person is there to kill you. Shoot them.

So that you may live a little more, but I don't know if the things I said mattered.

The more shootings we encountered as we ran.

The less and less I saw him willing to go on.

Maybe it was because they were kids, maybe it's because his morality was killed because I forced him to kill one of them.

I wouldn't know what it's like to be someone who always thought about the right things in times like these.

I didn't want him to keep stopping us from moving.

It was like I could live longer if I were on my own and he was just existing.

The funny part was how I didn't really care about my life.

I guess it was the only reason I had in sticking with him.

[ You're vision has blurred.]

I smoked a few things just to ease my mind even if the scent could kill me.

It was getting harder and harder to breathe.

Running. Falling in to cover. All I thought was to make sure I was the first to be killed, but because he was here.

I couldn't stand the thought of dying. It vexed me that the only thought I had was to have killed the both of us before everything would end up like this.

Then a sound roared.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

All I saw was blood, a lot of it spilling onto the ground and my head sunk down in the dirt.

I couldn't feel a thing, my arms were numb and my head felt heavier.

" Don't stop—-fucking move Al!"

He pulled me up from the back and tried to drag me forward.

" They're that way!" We heard the voices of adults.

" I said move Al!"

" Al!"

Hearing him scream in anger. It got to me a little even I felt angry for not being able to do what he had said, but my body… I just couldn't feel it no more.

There was just a crippling feeling of doom I sensed as my lower back burned intensely.

" Run. Get away from here or we both die!" I pushed his hand away and pulled in the rifle.

" I… I will cover you." He squirmed as he said.

" I will cover…"

I aimed the gun to his head.

" Don't make me shoot you." There was fear in his eyes at the sight of me holding the gun and aiming it at him.

The sound of a gun fire went off in the woods somewhere.

They were moving closer and I knew…

It was scaring him.

Over my shoulder.

" It's okay." I said.

" We both know what will happen."

" Just pretend. I died. You can do that for me right?"

He couldn't look me in the eye when he heard it. He stormed away from me and turned his back to me.

" I'm sorry." I heard him say.

" We're friends." I told him.

This is the right thing to do.

I didn't understand why it was so hard to leave me. In normal circumstances there wouldn't ever be time to react or do anything.

He just looked so lonely standing there and I hated the thoughts of how he would choose to stay here and die with me.

That would drive me more mad than shooting him.

Which is why I did not let go off the gun.

"You know they will come." I told him.

"…"

" I will be with Sera."

Then darkness again.

I felt someone holding my hand.

I couldn't hear him.

" Run… go far away from here." I said.

But it all felt like thoughts to me.

Like I was thinking of them.

I just kept talking to myself for awhile.

Praying that he just chose to ran away.

It would be good if that we were true.

" Make kind choices."

"…"

" Live a kind life…"

I don't know if some minutes past.

Then I managed to see again.

A pale sky full of storm clouds over us and the cold chill from the earlier rain soaking the back of my hair and body.

I felt that I was alone and I felt incredibly scared as my mind expected someone to come.

Waiting to die.

Not wanting to live.

That feeling felt so empty as if I was expecting to be executed.

Then I saw a small bird just sitting on a branch on a high tree.

Bang! Bang!

Then it flew far away from the close gun fire.

A black bird in the sky.

Bang! Bang-Bang!

I pulled the rifle to my side as it was the only thing I had.

' Al… can you help me draw.'

' What would you like to draw?'

' Anything pretty.'

' Why don't we try a butterfly.'

' Why a butterfly?'

' They are always surrounded by beautiful things.'

' I like it.'

' Sera, hold my hand.'

' Ok!'

[ A memory has faded.]

I looked at the gun in my hand.

Something over me.

I thought I imagined a Sera who was normal, staring down at me with this sad smile on her face.

Angels didn't talk, they were just beautiful and watched over you. I remembered a priest tell me once.

They came when they knew you were on your way to heaven, but I had done so many sins in my life that I believed this was hell tempting me to let go.

I just smiled to the figure I saw as she sat down by my side and waited.

Waited for what ever it was that will come to claim my life.

' Cough… It hurts…'

' It hurts!'

' Sera… stop hurting yourself!'

'I'll call for help.'

' Pick up!'

' Pick up!'

' Sera! Sera! No Don't…"

' Yes. Hello?'

' Help me...'

' Help my sister…'

' She's sick and she needs help…'

[ A memory has faded.]

' I promise…'

' Someone will save you…'

' Just..'

' In time.'

' Someone will help you.'

' I know they will.'

[ A memory has faded.]

As if to show me it was time.

Sera stood up and tapped my head.

Then I saw someone wearing a mask standing from behind a tree.

It had a smile painted with an apathetic expression looking down.

" You look like a dead man." He said in a muffled voice.

He drew a gun and fired over my head.

The bullets went straight through Sera's body and she stared to the side giggling at what he had done.

I felt like he had thought my friend was using me as bait. He stared around the area and then motioned to the woods where two soldiers walked with the guns at the ready.

He took a deep breathe in.

" Don't take this personally."

" I didn't feel like coming out here, you've both been very good to me."

" We have rules."

" I don't hire anyone and let them go. Your friend knew that."

" But he didn't tell me about you."

" You know I think you tempted me in hiring you."

" When you shot those children."

" It told me that you had a place in our world."

" I sent more and you killed them just like they did to my pigs."

Then I heard him speak in another language.

The soldiers they bought a man forward. His head covered in a cloth and blood, so much blood all on his shirt.

Soaked and beaten.

His hands were cut off.

" I'm going to show you something."

His men walked forward with a gasoline can. They beat the stranger to the floor and dunked his head in oil and then set his head on fire.

" This is what will happen when I find your friend."

He squirmed screaming, like a whistle and I hear the way his skin crackled from the torch placed against his head.

The man who ordered his burning sat down next to me forcing my head to look at the person burning by my side.

I looked up to his mask and he just seemed so focused on the person burning that he didn't seem to care about anything.

When ever I pulled my head away.

He would force me to stare at the scene again.

Like we were just watching a fire burning.

His soldiers were laughing when the person struggled, but he was held down with the back of his throat stepped on by one of them.

The man stopped screaming and that's how I knew he was dead, but his body twitched strangely.

Then then person made a gesture.

He cracked his index finger and then his thumbs.

The men brought out the machetes hanging from their pants and pulled his limbs and started to chop into his legs and I turned away.

But I heard them throw the pieces of his body to the bushes and the trees.

One by one until the person let go of my shoulder.

" I won't do the same thing to you."

He moved away and walked to where the others left.

" When we made the deal."

" You're friend asked me to spare you."

" I keep my promises."

Then I saw the American we abducted from before and he stepped up holding onto my rifle.

His eyes looked like he was on Bliss.

" But not my workers." The man said and he just walked away.

"…"

" Remember to mark him."

Bang! Bang! Bang!

—You have been——

[???: Hey, Al you up buddy?"]

[Al is typing…]

[???: You type to slow. Look I got this wicked idea.]

[???: After spending time reading through your deck profile.]

[???: It just came to me.]

[???: Why don't we make a system. The kind that allow us to do what ever we like.]

[ Al is typing…]

[???: It's gonna cost a lot of fucking money though, like more than what we can get in 40 years.]

[ Al is typing…]

[???: I got into contact with a friend-of a friend-of a friend, who works for this very rich family, and they mentioned the idea to them.]

[ Al is typing…]

[???: The company they are apart of. They're quite big. They deal with body modifications, but there's also some wicked shit about them working with things like immortality or execution sites.]

[???: It's bull shit okay, and no I won't ever put you in danger, but I'm willing to bet our futures on this.]

[???: So tell me.]

[???: Are you in with me?]

[Al: Always.]

[??? Is typing…]