Chapter 2: Death

yawns

A jobless, middle-aged man stirred awake from his slumber.

He glanced over at the clock on the wall, its surface marred by several cracks.

Tic Tok Tic Tok

The echoing sound emphasized the emptiness of his tiny, rundown apartment. Even the smallest noise reverberated back to him.

"It's already noon?" he muttered, disappointed.

Reluctantly, he dragged himself out of bed, even though he would have preferred to stay in it forever.

"Let's get some air," he sighed, pulling open the door to his cramped balcony.

A warm gust of wind hit his face, causing him to groan. "Ugh, this heat is unbearable."

He had always preferred the cold. Anything warm made him feel stifled and uncomfortable. He quickly shut the door and headed to the bathroom, splashing cold water on his face.

"Ah, that's better." The cool sensation brought some relief.

He wandered into the kitchen, hoping to find something edible. However, the sight of cockroaches skittering across the floor and the stench of rotting food greeted him instead.

"Not much to eat here," he muttered. The decaying food and pests were a fitting representation of his life—falling apart, ignored, and left to rot.

As he turned to head back to his room, his foot caught on something, and he stumbled.

"Ouch!" he yelped as he tumbled to the floor.

Looking down, he realized that he had tripped over his old, archaic cell phone.

"Great... just what I needed."

He picked it up, inspecting it carefully to see if it still worked despite the cracked screen. "Thank goodness, just a crack."

But as he fiddled with it, the phone suddenly powered off. "What? No, not now!" he yelled, his frustration rising.

After a few more attempts to turn it back on, he finally gave up. "Could this day get any worse?" he muttered.

And, as if on cue, his phone rang.

'The phone's on? Display maybe-'

He hesitated for a moment before answering since the shattered screen didn't show the caller ID. He assumed it would be another one of the loan sharks hounding him for money he couldn't repay.

But it wasn't.

The voice on the other end was soft, belonging to the nurse, trembling with excitement. "Your sister... she's awake!"

The words hit him like a bolt of lightning. His sister, who had been in a coma for years after the car crash that claimed their parents' lives, had finally woken up.

"What? Are you serious?" he stammered, his heart pounding in his chest. Tears welled up in his eyes as the shock gave way to overwhelming joy.

He thanked the nurse repeatedly before ending the call, his heart racing with emotions he hadn't felt in years.

"I can't believe it... she's really awake," he whispered, tears streaming down his face. For the first time in what felt like forever, a glimmer of happiness sparked in his soul.

Without a second thought, he bolted out of the door, not bothering to lock it behind him. He ran down the street, his legs moving faster than they ever had, all the while thinking about how he'd finally see his sister again.

But life, as always, had other plans.

As he sprinted across a crosswalk, his vision blurred by his tears of joy, the sound of screeching tires cut through the air. He turned his head just in time to see the blinding headlights of an oncoming truck.

Yes, it was Truck-kun, but one knows what it means when you get hit by a truck.

BANG!

The world spun. Pain shot through his body. He felt his limbs go numb, the sensation of being thrown like a ragdoll through the air. Time seemed to slow as he drifted into the dark abyss of unconsciousness.

'This can't be happening…'

'J-just when I was getting a tiny bit of happiness... God stole it away,' he thought bitterly as his mind began to fade.

"It's unfair... It's unfair..."

The words echoed in his mind, over and over, as he felt the light leaving his body. The cruel irony of it all—the fleeting moment of joy being snatched away in the blink of an eye.

"It's unfair..."

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