I never thought of this as the start of something, 'cause whenever my eyes opened, I just saw my end. The only state in which I could understand myself best was:
Dead.
"Ahhhhhhhh!!" A bone-chilling scream of a boy no older than 4 reached the depths of a black well.
Splat!
"What is it? It is so wet, so warm," the child said, touching his own blood.
"Freeze his brain," a very old voice came.
"H-hic... please don't. I will be a good boy, a very good boy," the boy said, biting his hand.
I didn't open my eyes after what happened to me, and I don't even remember what happened with me. But after that, I couldn't understand myself; neither was I dead, nor was I alive. So which state am I in?
"How beautiful you are, I just understand when my head is on your lap, Mother." A very little giggle came from a boy admiring his mother.
It has the same warmth, the same as hers. Why? Maybe 'cause my blood is a half-mix of hers. It even has her scent. How good is it? But why is she going far from me? Why?
"Please, Mother, please, I beg you. I will never grow hair, my nail beds will always be empty, and I will respect everyone. Please don't leave me in this dark," the boy cried.
"Why am I living it? This isn't me. It happened in front of me, not to me. Who is this, and why am I living his torture?" another boy said. Is it 'cause of the darkness?
The darkness is consuming me, eating me bone to bone, my bleeding hand in front of me getting consumed.
"Heh!" the boy smiled.
What should I consider it? A relief? My belief? What is consuming me?
Why is this world rotating around me? Why am I falling? Is this the life of an ordinary 4-year-old?
No, it definitely isn't, 'cause I never lived beside an ordinary 4-year-old, right?
"Ushimoto," a boy somewhere in a Berlin hospital bed said.
"Are these my last moments? They surely are, otherwise, why would I remember Arashi?" the boy cried. "What is happening to me? Why am I dying, and who is Arashi?"
"But with this thought of dying, why do I feel this amount of relief? Why?" the boy laughed.
BRRRRR...
It feels like someone is cutting me piece by piece, but somehow it isn't hurting at all. My blood on my skin is warm, like sleeping on my mother's lap. How warm is it?
Suddenly, the person stopped cutting him and lifted—ONLY his head.
"Grab his hands and legs. Don't let him twist them more," a doctor said, coming near the bed.
AAAAAAAH!!
The boy on the bed twisted his arm at an odd angle to grab the doctor's neck.
CLICK!
All captured by a camera, behind which was a rotating chair, as someone rushed towards the room as soon as he saw this.
On the screen was that boy, his left hand twisted behind his completely twisted neck, which sat just below his legs at his tailbone, while his spine was in an arc.
"Why don't you let me die? Why!! AAAH! AAH!" the boy shouted.
"I was so close. My big brother was there, my only family," the boy cried.
"Lucian! Lucian, listen to us. Your big brother is in the camera room. He isn't dead; he is coming for you," the doctor tried to comfort Lucian.
THUD!
The gate opened and closed, leaving everyone in the hallway vaporized except one man, his face hidden. He wore a large brown overcoat, his hands covered with black gloves. In his hand was a stick.
"Sorry, Mr. Kuroha, but you can't meet him now," one nurse said to the man.
"The man who rushed into the room, is he his brother?" the man asked.
"No, sir. He is just here to get some real-life experience of this specific medical condition. We just used him as the patient's brother to comfort him," the nurse said.
"I never thought of this as the start of something, 'cause whenever my eyes opened, I just saw death," the man stood up.
"The death that consumed both my sons, but if one of them is returning, what exactly is your problem?" the man said, raising his stick.
"Sir?" the nurse said with an odd facial expression.
THOK!
The man tapped his stick on the ground.
CRACK THWUMP!
It felt like something started filling inside her skull until it burst like a balloon filled with blood.
But it wasn't only a single nurse; it was everyone present in the hallway.
"I can't meet you until you meet yourself again, but you are taking too long as you are the son of the clan head," the man said, walking.
Thump...
The man that sat in the camera room put his elbow on the table and started writing.
"....I don't understand it. What could possibly happen to a boy of that age that he is lying in a hospital bed, and every time he wakes up, he is at an odd angle? The whole hallway is full of dead bodies; it feels more like a paranormal case than a medical one. In these 11 days, every day feels like a burden—same pattern, same number of dead bodies. If any investigator came and found out how many bodies are there, they would hang me. But if I have recognized the pattern, then the phone near him will ring in 2 minutes...
Well, I was wrong. I failed to recognize the pattern...." the man stopped writing.
RRING! RRING!
The phone near Lucian rang.
Beeeeeeep...
Lucian picked up the phone.
"Hello," Lucian said in a voice that was almost breaking.
"Going to school tomorrow? If you want, I will give you tips," a voice came.
"Please... hic... hic... I don't want any money. I don't want anything, just end this," the boy cried.
"Toma, you know I got a secret. Can you keep it? Swear on the one you'll save," the voice stopped.
"Better look at it in your pocket, taking this one to the grave," the voice continued.
"Please, I can't keep it. I am not Toma. I accept myself as a loser. Just leave me," Lucian cried.
"That is it, the secret. Loser, you are trapped now. You will die in your own body and will never come back!" The voice laughed.
"No, no, no," Toma threw the phone away and lay on the bed on his back.
But the more he tried, Toma saw nothing—just the darkness consuming him.
"AAAAAH!" Toma shouted as he picked up a blindfold.
Gulp...
"Now you know what I see when I open my eyes."
A voice came like a whisper directly into Toma's ears.
His heart stopped beating. He got goosebumps, his eyes widened, his face lost its color, then...
...In the darkness of his blindfold, a light shined.
His arm—wait? It wasn't his arm, but that of the person he was pretending to be: a boy smaller than his age, holding the arm of a child older than him with manacles on his arms.
[White screen]
"Big brother, are you also a slave now? Haha," the boy laughed.
"Oi, Toma, you are insulting my legendary Judicium Eternis, and when did you learn to see out of your blindfold, 'no-eyes'?" the elder brother laughed.
"Hey! Don't call me that, big brother, otherwise I will be very angry," little Toma pouted.
"Oh! So what will my little no-eyes do?" the elder brother said, tickling Toma.
Blink.
A white projection of Lucian saw his hands, and then he saw them not seeing him.
"This isn't me. I never had an elder brother, and I was currently in the hospital. What place is this?" Lucian said to himself.
"It feels like a story he wants me to listen to and see—the other boy, Toma," Lucian said, following them.
Ahem!
A voice of an elder reached these ears.
"Toma, Karn, see what your father brought," a servant said.
THUD!
Their father slapped the servant.
"Is this how you address the future clan head?" their father said.
"I am very sorry, young master," the servant bowed his head in deep apology and fear.
"An elder, no matter what, sitting wherever in our clan hierarchy, must never bow to a child."
Karn, the elder brother, stepped forward.
"I knew it the moment I saw him: the aura of a sun, a vest that could absorb any attack, and earrings so shiny they could blind an enemy. This boy is the real deal," Lucian said.
"You ungrateful boy, you..." The father stopped.
"Can't even blame you; it is because of the people you live with and the curse you have bound yourself with," his voice was very calm but chilling.
"Dare you call Arashi something, and Judicium Eternis a curse? Once that boy is in the field, the only competition he will have is God," Karn said, his voice filled with respect.
"You are wrong. These Ushimotos will never be able to accomplish what we accomplished, and this Arashi is just a piece of trash in front of Toma," the father said without a change in his tone.
"Once my Toma is 12, which would be the year 2010, he will defeat your Arashi and cut off his head," his father said in a deep voice.
"You...." Karn stopped.
Grip!
"Big brother, please no," Toma grabbed Karn's clothes.
"Don't try to run. We have some visitors coming, and they also have a child. Maybe he will also defeat your Arashi," the father said.
Gleam...
Judicium Eternis shined as Karn swung it directly at his father's neck.
"You will face very bad consequences for this, Karn," the father said.
"I was born from them, and I know how it feels. Be a real man. Father never disrespects a man who's not in the room," Karn said, removing Judicium Eternis.
"Excuse me, can anyone tell me what's happening?" little Toma asked in confusion.
"Toma," Father shouted for the first time. "Come with me. And I heard you tried to open your blindfold," his voice got louder.
"No, I was just..." Toma tried explaining.
"Shut up, don't even try it again, understood? Now come with me."
"...and you," Father turned towards the servant. "Karn shouldn't enter the house for the next 11 days."
"But master, he is already gone," the servant said in fear.
SPLAAASH!!
Because of his zero practice in a blindfold, little Toma fell into the nearby pond while Lucian's projection watched everything.
"Pull him out and send him to the place we are meeting with the Sterlings," Father said and turned.
GASP!
COUGH! COUGH!
Toma woke completely wet inside a bathtub right next to his room.
"What happened? Wait, you are the security who sat on the camera," Toma said, wiping his face.
"You are right, but I wanted to ask you something, Toma," said the man.
"Who? Toma?? And who is that?" The boy asked.
"You. I saw your medical application, and also your ID, and both stated the same name: Toma," the man said.
"Are you high on this bright, beautiful morning? My beautiful mother named me Lucian and gave me her surname Whitmore, which has no Toma in it," Lucian said, packing his things.
"Jokes enough, see your ID…" the man was shocked, as the name on the ID was Lucian.
"But everyone, every nurse said your name was Toma and you are very rich," the man said in confusion.
"Which nurse? And I am rich? Hahaha, my dad is literally a car mechanic, and who keeps this Japanese name, Toma, in Berlin?" Lucian said, removing his wet clothes.
"The nurse was killed yesterday," the man mumbled.
"Lucian, for how many days are you here for?" the man asked with hope.
"Days? I was here to take medicine. It would be minutes," Lucian said, changing clothes.
"Got you! See these footages of over 11 days," the man stopped, as there was no footage of more than 15 minutes.
"See, I...." Lucian stopped as his eyes fluttered rapidly, turning his vision into a complete blur.
Exposing everything around him as a blur, the noises then suddenly stopped. He opened both of his eyes.
No one was there; the man had left.
Taking his things without looking back, he walked away. The door shut behind him.
Inside the bathroom, completely motionless in the bathtub, was the man, his face completely destroyed.
Dead.
"See, see that's Lucian, how good-looking he is. Oh! I am dying," a group of girls said as Lucian crossed.
Ah! Walking in the crowds of Berlin with earphones on my ears. What am I even doing? Just replaying a conversation I never had.
But did I introduce myself? I apologize for that, but where should we start from? Okay.
"Hello! My name is Lucian Whitmore, old enough to go to middle school but mature enough to do side hustles to get my medicines," Lucian said at the reception.
"And so what should I do? What are you here for?" the receptionist asked.
"I am here for doing the side hustle. See, I had a registration," Lucian said with an awkward smile.
"First of all, there is no registration for a boy named Lucian, and moreover, there is no registration for over 11 days. The last applicant was Toma…. Toma Kuroha 11 days ago," the receptionist said.
"But..." Lucian was interrupted.
"Either way, we won't take the applicants who are not healthy and take medicines," the receptionist said.
"It is not that type of medicine... At this point, I won't even justify. Just, I need this. I..." Lucian said, suddenly losing consciousness.
Suddenly, Lucian's eyes opened while lying on the ground, looking as far as his eyes could see, where just dead bodies...
So I did what I would have done, what I do, what Toma Kuroha... No, who is he? I did what I, Lucian Whitmore, do: I ran. But when did I start running?