Chapter 1: The Punishment for Wanting to Die
"From tomorrow, you don’t need to come in anymore."
The words kept echoing in my head.
I had just been fired, effective immediately.
"Restructuring."
The reason for getting the axe could be summed up in that single four-letter word. Simple as that.
The company I’d worked at for five years made sugoroku, traditional Japanese board games.
In a world overflowing with modern entertainment, there was no way to keep selling something so outdated. Sales kept dropping, and the company was on the brink of collapse.
My layoff wasn’t surprising at all.
"...What am I supposed to do now?"
I had no family.
My job had been so demanding that I never had time for romance, so I didn’t have a girlfriend either.
My parents had divorced long ago. The mother who raised me died suddenly from illness when I was in high school.
I had no idea where my father was, didn’t even know if he was still alive.
A tragically lonely life.
All I had done was throw myself into work, but now even that last anchor was gone.
I’m so tired.
Was it strange that I started thinking that?
Instead of heading home on the train like I was supposed to, my feet naturally carried me away from the station.
"...This place might be good."
What caught my eye was an old eight-story apartment building.
These days most places had strengthened security, but this one didn’t even have an auto-lock.
"I don’t need a suicide note. There’s no one to read it anyway."
For some reason I didn’t feel like using the elevator, so I climbed the stairs step by step.
All kinds of thoughts floated through my mind and then vanished.
The company. My funeral. My apartment. And finally, my mother.
Her face appeared in my head, and tears naturally spilled down my cheeks.
"Mom... will you be angry if I go?"
My legs froze.
My trembling hand wouldn’t let go of the iron railing.
"What the hell am I doing?
When I got sick of living, now I’m scared of dying.
I’m such a pathetic piece of shit."
"What are you doing up there?"
When I turned around, there was a girl dressed entirely in white.
Long sleeves, skirt, shoes, everything was pure white.
She had very pretty features, but this wasn’t the time to be thinking about that.
I wasn’t even a resident. Climbing all the way up here, wasn’t this trespassing?
"Uh... um, I’m sorry!"
I bent at the waist in a deep bow.
But the girl seemed to find my posture incredibly funny. She covered her mouth, her shoulders shaking.
"Pfft... hehe... ahahaha!
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!"
What kind of reaction was that?
I stared at her, utterly confused.
"Haha... haaah, that was hilarious.
...Thanks. I got to laugh one last time and feel good.
Thank you, mister."
"Mister? I’m only twenty-four, hey!!"
The girl climbed over the railing and stepped onto a small ledge.
"What are you doing!? Get back here!!"
She shook her head and gave an awkward, forced smile.
"...Sorry for making you feel bad.
But I’m tired of this. I want it to disappear. I want to disappear."
With those words, the girl’s body vanished from in front of me.
It happened in an instant, but...
"Gotcha! Damn, that was close! Barely made it!"
The girl’s full weight suddenly hung from my right arm.
I tried to pull her up with both hands, but a human body is terrifyingly heavy.
At that moment, her sleeve slid down from the pull of gravity.
On her thin, exposed arm were countless scars.
The so-called hesitation cuts, self-harm scars from someone who had tried to commit suicide before.
"Let go. It’s fine now."
"No it’s not! Hurry up and put your foot on something and climb back!!"
The railing creaked loudly, maybe from age and decay.
There was no time. I screamed desperately.
"Please don’t die!
Is there anything more disgusting than watching a girl die right in front of you!?"
"...Isn’t that just self-satisfaction?"
The girl asked with a strangely calm face, but I had zero composure left.
My hands were about to slip from sweat.
So I didn’t think about anything and just spat out what I felt.
"Yeah, that’s right! It’s all self-satisfaction!
I just don’t want to regret anything, so don’t die for my sake!!"
I was at my limit.
The moment I thought that, the weight on my arm lightened.
The girl put her foot on the ledge and grabbed the lower part of the railing.
"I’ve stopped plenty of suicides before.
...But you’re the first person who’s ever told me not to die for his sake, mister."
"Haa... haa... Are you praising me for that?"
"Who knows?"
The girl smiled with composure as she placed her foot back on the railing.
Meanwhile, I was drenched in sweat.
"You’re this far up, so you should be fine now.
Well then, I’ll be going."
As I wiped my sweat and picked up my bag...
"Huh?"
With a heavy clank, the railing broke off.
Silently, the large railing, and the girl in white, began to fall.
"You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me!!"
I threw myself forward like a madman.
With everything I had, I reached out, grabbed the girl’s hand, and hurled her backward with all my strength.
"Ah....
I wasn’t thinking at all.
Below us was concrete.
There was no way to survive.
"Ah... wait, no way..."
They say you see your life flash before your eyes when you fall, but all I felt was overwhelming terror.
I wanted to kill the version of myself who had wanted to die just moments ago, this despair was enough to drive anyone insane.
Scary, scary, scary, scary!
The merciless ground rushed up to fill my entire field of vision...
"I don’t want to di....
.....
.....
.....
『Game Start』
.....
.....
.....
Those words reached my ears.
...Am I alive?
I slowly forced my heavy eyelids open.
Bright sunlight. The sound of a gentle breeze. Flowing water. A cat meowing.
The scenery that spread out before me refused to let me believe I was in a hospital.
It was impossibly beautiful, unnatural, and full of a strange sense of wrongness.
Comments