Going Back in Time

*DISCLAIMER: IF YOU HAVE A DEPRESSION OR SOMETHING SIMILAR TO IT, PLEASE CONSULT TO PROFESSIONAL OR YOUR LOVED ONES OR SOMEBODY THAT YOU CAN RELY ON. AND ALSO, PLEASE CONTACT THE SUICIDE PREVENTION HOTLINE IF YOUR COUNTRY HAVE ONE.

SUICIDE IS NOT THE WAY TO GO. THERE ARE PEOPLE THAT CARED FOR YOU, EVEN IF YOU CONVINCE YOURSELF THAT THERE AREN'T. I CAN'T REALLY SAY THAT I'VE BEEN THERE, BUT I'VE EXPERIENCED THE SAME WAY OF THINKING FOR A TIME IN THE PAST.*

"Why things never went my way?" said a 27-year-old man.

He had a short black hair and brown eyes. He wore short dark blue pants and nothing else.

The man was named Ray Purnomo.

Ray was sitting on top of his bed while muttering unintelligible words from his mouth. He sat like that for almost 4 hours, without moving his body even for just a little bit.

Ray has an illness related to mental health. He had a rough childhood, he was betrayed by his loved ones, and he just got fired from 2 of his jobs simultaneously for something that he didn't do.

He has money, of course, but he didn't have any drive to live the shitty life anymore.

So he resolved himself to just die, thinking that without trashes like him, the world would be a better place.

If he at least shares his thoughts with others, he would not resort to something this extreme. But he just didn't have any friends that he can rely on.

Ray's father and mother separated years ago, leaving him confused and devastated because his best friend and girlfriend just betrayed him not too long ago.

His choices were either to buy a rope or stab himself with a sharpened kitchen knife. Both will result in pain, but the temporary pain will get rid of everything else.

'It's just temporary.' he thought, so he went to the nearest construction store to buy a rope.

He bought quite a thick rope. He didn't want the rope to stress his neck too much.

When Ray wanted to pay, the cashier woman was confused because he only bought 1 rope. When the cashier woman looked at his eyes, however, she knew what Ray wanted to do with the rope.

She tried to be as supportive as a stranger possibly could, but Ray still wanted to do it. The cashier woman wanted to call the police to stop him from crossing the line but he was gone after payment. So she can only pray for good things to come his way.

Ray was having second thoughts on his way back. His heart was feeling a giddy sensation when the cashier woman tried to prevent him from doing what he wanted to do.

'No, she's just being nice.' He thought.

And so, by the time he arrived at his boarding house, he went to his room and found the highest point on the wooden foundation for the roof that he can use.

What he knew about hanging yourself, is either self-decapitation, asphyxiation, or instant death. He knew that it can cause pain that the thought of doing it made second thoughts. But he already resolved himself, he didn't want to be stressed by the things that he was currently having.

After he finished tying the rope, including the noose, he pulled his dresser under the rope.

He went up, put his head to the noose and pray that it didn't hurt.

His blood was pumping, his body was shivering, and his breathing became rowdy.

Ray looked down at the floor. He knew that he will be asphyxiated. But he didn't care.

So, he kicked the dresser away from him.

He regretted his action the moment the rope touched his neck. He was wiggling, trying to loosen the knot. Ray wanted to breathe.

He prayed and prayed, hoping that someone found him before it's too late.

But it was. Though it took him 20 seconds to blackout, it was an agonizing 20 seconds for him. But after that, it was darkness, peaceful darkness.

Despite how he was struggling to breathe, a fact that he wanted to live, he was happy that the darkness took him away.

Finally, all those stressing things, gone forever.

But there's still some of him that wanted to live. Little by little, that part influenced him.

He thought that it was already too late. I already died, he thought.

But he felt something shaking him, or specifically, his body.

'Didn't I die already?' he thought.

"...Ray..."

"...Wake up..."

"...Ray..."

It was a voice that belonged to someone that he hates, someone that betrayed him in his past life.

'This is probably the punishment for doing suicide.' he thought once more.

"Yo! Ray, Wake up!" said the voice.

Ray opened his eyes instinctively and said groggily, "What?"

"The teacher called for you. She said she wanted to meet you at the teachers' office." the man said.

"Teacher? Didn't I die?"

"Huh? Are you still dreaming? We're in class, bro."

Then, he looked at his surroundings. It was a classroom with wooden table and chairs fit for 2 people.

The room was painted in green. There were 2 windows in the room, one that faces a basketball-soccer field and one that faces the outside.

He still thought that he was dreaming. But the person that called him 'bro' really pisses him off.

"Stop calling me bro," Ray said unintentionally. His hatred towards the man's betrayal in the past ran quite deep.

Though, Ray was thinking about something else.

The man, called Brian Sutawijaya, was confused and a little panicked by the way Ray talk to him. Brian thought that he was caught cheating with Ray's girlfriend.

'Shit, does he know? No, he shouldn't have. He was still happily talking to both of us* before the class' he thought

Ray pinched his hand and it hurts. And then caress his neck slowly, trying to make sense of everything.

'Did all that was a dream? But the suffocation is real! There is no way I'm back in the past!' He screamed in his thoughts.

Ray was happy that he lived once more.

He remembered that Brian was calling him earlier, and he wanted to punch him so bad. But he relented because he didn't want to cause trouble in school.

Ray was still confused about him lived in the past, something that many people wanted but knew that it was impossible.

But the impossible thing happened to him.

Ray took it to the back of his mind because he needed to see the teacher that called him earlier.

He got up from the chair, ignoring Brian's existence and walked to the teachers' office.

Brian was sure that Ray didn't know about their* illicit relationship together. The reason he was panicked and seemed afraid was that he didn't want to face Ray's wrath.

Because Ray's anger was akin to a monster and Brian had seen it first hand, when some delinquent were bothering Ray's girlfriend, Nadia Fatimah.

That day, Ray and he were going to his house to finish homework when they saw delinquents, all of them were upperclassmen, was cat-calling and bothering Nadia.

"Hey, girl. You got a nice body. Let's play with us." said one of the delinquents.

Ray and Brian heard that. It didn't take a single second for Ray to run to his girlfriend and beat all of the delinquents.

Ray didn't stop beating them, even though the one that was cat-calling Nadia were already on the verge of dying.

He grabbed the man's head so hard that a sound similar to a cracked bone can be heard. Not only that, but Ray also kept hitting the man's head to the pavement.

It was a gruesome sight to behold that the police needed to take action before Ray took a life.

The rest of the delinquents, including the leader, had bone fractures. Their mouth was full of their blood, even one of them lost one of their eyes due to how hard Ray punched his head. It was safe to say that they were so afraid of Ray, they will not enter school anymore, not that they actually can.

Ray also got some injuries. What did you expect from 1 vs 5 people? Even though Ray was strong enough to deal with 5 people, he will have injuries nonetheless. He got some stab wounds too because the leader of the delinquents brought a small knife with him. One of the stab wounds almost pierces his heart if given another 5 millimeters.

Ray got suspended from school for a month and a house-arrest in hospital.

Nadia got traumatized as well, something that Ray didn't know and Brian took advantage of that. Brian calmed Nadia down and 'convince' her to have a relationship with him behind Ray's back. Because of his action towards her, she calmed down and agree wholeheartedly.

The reason why she agreed to have an illicit relationship was that she thought Brian was not wild like her boyfriend, much nicer, more handsome, and care for her. Even though Ray risked his whole life to protect her.

And Brian didn't want to be on the receiving end on Ray's beating. He can fight, of course, but not as good as Ray.

Ray arrived at the teachers' office. The look of the teachers when they saw Ray entering the room was... not appropriate towards a student.

They hated Ray because he became a 'delinquent' in their eyes by trying to enact justice by himself. All of them knew the result of Ray's anger, all those wounds on the upperclassmen were gruesome. So they didn't even care about injuries on Ray's body.

Because of how much violence involved, the media came and brought down the name of their school, even though its a public school.

The teachers will do everything to make him suffer, calling him out, giving punishments, etc.

The students knew of the teachers' discontent towards Ray, but they didn't do anything. Its a given though, because they were afraid of the possible consequences if associating with Ray.

In the 'past', Ray thought that he still has Brian and Nadia. But their betrayal was too hard for Ray's heart to handle.

But because the 'past' became the present, he simply didn't care anymore. Because he had almost 10 years of experience being scorned.

He walked to the teacher that called for him, a physics teacher.

"You finally arrived. Do you know why I called you here?" said the teacher

"My bad grades?"

"Yes, but not only that, you dared to not do your homework again. Do you want to repeat a year?!" The teacher made a fist and slammed it towards the table.

Ray's grade was horrible after he was hospitalized. He was so downhearted knowing about the hate that everyone gave to him that Ray didn't have the motivation to even put a single effort towards his studies.

But now, Ray was given a second chance and he won't waste it. He will be better than his future self and he will make sure of that.

"I'm sorry sir. I promised to do better," said Ray and it blew everyone's mind. Not a single person in the office expects him to apologize.

The physics teacher was caught off-guard that he can only say, "Umm... okay... you can go back to class."

And so, Ray went back to class. On the way back, he didn't notice that the world was frozen, more specifically, the time was frozen. Though it didn't take Ray time to notice such a big event happening.

Ray was afraid. How can he not? He was thrown into the past and now time was frozen. Ray hoped that he was not the one that causes it.

"Do not worry, child." a voice of an old man can be heard.

It was like the voice speaks directly inside his head.

"Who is it?!" said Ray

"I'm behind you, child."

Ray, still feeling tensed, threw a backhand punch. But his punch was blocked by a single finger.

"Wha?!"

"Calm down, child. I'm here to talk to you." said the old man.

The old man has a back-length white hair, blue eyes and a white beard that reached his chest. He wore a white dress, wooden sandals and a wooden staff on his left hand.

Ray took back his hand, rotated his body to the old man's direction and looked at the old man's eyes.

"Who are you?"

"Let's talk elsewhere." said the old man.

The wooden staff's head glowed and the scenery changed into a white space. There are a table and 2 tea-filled yunomi** and some senbei placed on a dark brown ceramic plate.

"Let us have a seat first."

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Hello everyone and welcome to my novel.

This is not my first novel nor the first time I upload one. I'll admit that I'm not even confident to say that I can finish this novel. But unlike my other scrapped and/or drafted novels, this is just an introductory to the real one that I wanted to write. So this novel will be quite short.

I'm not stupid enough to say that there will be upload schedule because I only write when I want to. But, I'm trying to write everyday so I can make this a habit of mine.

I'll admit another thing, I write for money. But because I'm just that bad in grammar, vocabularies, and writing in general, I decided to just write for fun and practice until I'm confident to say that I'm an author.

You don't have to worry, because I'm not going to ask for money or anything like that.

For people who didn't read the synopsis or the auxiliary chapter, there is a reason why I wrote this novel as a fan fiction instead of an original novel. Even though the story is going to be based our life, meaning no anime or video game characters will appear in real life, but same could not be said on another dimension though. I will use video games and/or anime powers so I don't think that putting this novel in Original is not a good idea.

Well, that's pretty much it. I hope that you will continue to read this novel until I managed to finish it.

And critiques are welcomed :D

Just don't be too harsh because I'm sensitive :p... I'm serious