Chapter 28: What Comes After
I woke before the alarm.
For several seconds, I remained still on the couch, staring at the ceiling.
The apartment was quiet.
No screaming.
No gunfire.
No dead pressing against the windows.
My body felt rested.
My mind felt less cooperative.
Something sat at the edge of my awareness.
Several things, actually.
The pistol on the low table.
My wallet beside it.
My phone resting near my shoulder.
The keys I had apparently dropped onto the floor before falling asleep.
I knew where each one was without looking.
The sensation had survived sleep.
That was useful.
Slightly disturbing.
But useful.
I reached down beside the couch.
The keys returned to my hand before I had fully extended it.
A brief scrape.
A blur.
Then metal rested neatly against my palm.
I stared at them.
"Still working."
Good to know.
I sat up slowly.
The pressure behind my eyes from the previous evening had disappeared. Whatever strain my Sigil caused, a night of rest had been more than enough to clear it.
My body, meanwhile, had already decided it wanted breakfast.
That was a simpler problem.
I drank some of the bottled water, ate two rice balls, and stood beneath the shower until the last traces of sleep left me.
When I returned to the living room, the phone showed several unread messages.
The sender's name was Kenta Arai.
I opened the conversation.
The previous Hiro had known him for several months.
Not from university.
They had apparently met at a gaming café, added each other afterward, and occasionally exchanged messages about new games, restaurants, and whatever else people discussed when they were friendly without being particularly close.
There were jokes.
Several failed attempts to arrange another gaming session.
Long stretches where neither of them said anything.
Then, late yesterday afternoon:
Kenta: Found something you might like.
Below it was the invitation to Darwin's Game.
A few minutes later:
Kenta: Supposedly there's real money involved too.
Kenta: Try it and tell me what you get.
The later messages had arrived after the registration.
Kenta: You opened it?
Kenta: The snake thing surprised me too lol
Kenta: You awake?
I read the conversation twice.
Then typed:
Hiro: Yeah. Just woke up late.
The reply arrived less than a minute later.
Kenta: Good. I was starting to think you hit your head.
Kenta: What kind of Sigil did you get?
I looked toward the pistol.
Hiro: Still figuring it out.**
Three dots appeared.
Kenta: Fair enough. Mine took some getting used to too.
Kenta: We can grab food sometime if you want. Easier to explain the game in person.
Hiro: Maybe. I'll let you know.
Kenta: Sure. No rush.
That was all.
Friendly.
Normal enough.
He had invited me into a supernatural murder game, but apparently that qualified as normal now.
I gave him the benefit of the doubt.
I also told him nothing useful.
Both decisions could exist at the same time.
I placed the phone down and opened the notebook.
The rest of the weekend was going to involve considerably less trust and considerably more testing.
—
By Saturday afternoon, I had confirmed that my Sigil cared about ownership.
Physical contact alone was not enough.
I discovered that using the fire extinguisher in the apartment hallway.
I rested one hand against the metal cylinder and concentrated.
Nothing.
No awareness.
No connection.
It remained an ordinary fire extinguisher belonging to the building.
I tried the same thing with an umbrella left in the communal stand downstairs.
Still nothing.
Then I returned upstairs and picked up a pen from the desk.
The pen had presumably belonged to the previous Hiro.
Which meant it belonged to me now.
At least, that was how I chose to look at it.
Mine.
Something settled into place.
Faint.
Simple.
Certain.
I placed the pen on the kitchen counter and walked into the living room.
I could feel it behind me.
When I called, there was a soft click against the counter.
The next instant, the pen rested between my fingers.
That became the first reliable rule.
My Sigil did not control random objects.
It recognized possessions.
Exactly what counted as ownership remained less clear.
The wallet, keys, phone, clothing, and everything inside the apartment responded easily once I accepted them as mine.
The hallway fire extinguisher did not.
Neither did the abandoned umbrella.
A bottle of water I had purchased worked immediately.
A spoon from the apartment kitchen took slightly longer.
Legal ownership might matter.
Personal acceptance might matter more.
I did not yet have enough information to decide.
The second rule was easier.
Once something was claimed, I knew where it was.
Direction came first.
Distance followed, though less precisely.
Close.
Across the room.
Down the hallway.
One floor above.
The pistol remained the clearest presence.
Perhaps because I had carried it through another world.
Perhaps because I had relied on it.
Perhaps because it had already belonged to me before my Sigil existed.
I did not know.
Orientation came with the connection as well.
I could tell when the pistol rested barrel-down inside the shoulder bag.
I could sense whether the phone lay screen-up or screen-down.
I knew when the keys were spread across the table instead of stacked together.
Not because I saw any image.
I simply knew.
The third rule was Recall.
That part required little further testing.
Claimed objects returned when I genuinely wanted them.
Not when I performed dramatic gestures.
Not when I said the words aloud without meaning them.
Intent mattered.
The route did not.
From the bedroom.
Around furniture.
Through an open doorway.
Down the apartment corridor.
A scrape or blur would register, and then the object was already in my hand.
No collision.
No painful impact.
My arm moved automatically to receive whatever came.
Even when I left a claimed coin on the rooftop and walked down two floors, the result remained the same.
A faint metallic sound echoed from above.
Something flashed past the stairwell landing.
Then the coin sat between my fingers.
I looked up the empty stairs.
My Sigil had found the route without help.
I stopped that test there.
The connection had weakened slightly with distance, and I had no interest in discovering the limit by accidentally launching a coin into someone's face.
Saturday evening revealed another function by accident.
I had claimed too many small objects.
Coins.
Pens.
A flashlight.
Two kitchen utensils.
A notebook.
Several pieces of clothing.
Their presence crowded the edge of my awareness.
It was not painful.
Just irritating.
Like trying to remember where too many browser tabs were open.
I picked one of the pens and focused on ending the connection.
Not mine.
The awareness disappeared.
I placed it across the room and tried calling it.
Nothing happened.
I repeated the process with the remaining unnecessary objects until only the useful ones stayed connected.
So claims could be released.
Good.
I did not need to spend the rest of my life sensing every sock I ever owned.
—
Kenta messaged again on Sunday morning.
Kenta: Any luck figuring it out?
Hiro: A little.
Kenta: Nice. Some people get really strange ones.
Kenta: I'm free this week if you want to meet. No pressure.
I stared at the screen for a moment.
Hiro: I'll check my schedule.
Kenta: Sounds good.
Still friendly.
Still casual.
I left it there.
The morning's experiments involved an old backpack.
It was mine.
The connection formed easily.
Recall worked normally, though having an empty backpack fly into my hand was less useful than it sounded.
I placed it on the floor behind me.
Calling it back would only bring it into my grasp.
Instead, I focused on keeping it where it was.
Behind me.
A short distance away.
The backpack lifted.
Not violently.
It simply rose from the floor and settled into position behind my right shoulder.
I took one step.
It followed.
I stopped.
The bag stopped.
I turned around.
It moved with me, maintaining the same distance and position.
I stared at it.
The backpack remained suspended in the air.
"Huh."
I walked through the living room.
The bag followed.
I entered the kitchen.
It adjusted around the doorway.
I stopped suddenly.
It halted without touching me.
That was considerably more useful than retrieving objects one at a time.
I added a bottle of water.
Then two books.
Then several more.
The bag lowered slightly beneath the added weight before returning to its original position.
The pressure behind my eyes increased, but only enough to notice.
I carried the test onto the rooftop.
The backpack followed several steps behind me as I walked around the open space.
Anyone watching from another building would have assumed the wind was behaving strangely.
Or that I had purchased the world's least discreet drone.
The bag maintained its position until I deliberately released the command.
It dropped.
I caught it before it hit the ground.
Carrying groceries had apparently become optional.
I recorded the result without thinking too deeply about it.
The next discovery came from throwing a pen.
I aimed for an empty cup on the kitchen counter.
The pen missed.
While it was still moving, I focused on correcting the path.
Its trajectory shifted.
Not much.
Just enough.
The pen curved slightly and struck the rim before falling inside.
I tried again.
The correction became smoother.
I could not launch the pen from rest without recalling it toward myself.
I could not hold it motionless in the air.
But once something claimed was already moving, I could guide it.
Limited adjustments.
Direction.
Rotation.
Small corrections.
Coins worked as well.
So did the unloaded pistol when I tossed it onto the bed and altered the way it turned before landing.
I wrote down another rule.
My Sigil could not replace movement.
It could influence movement that already existed.
That distinction felt important.
The flashlight revealed the final basic function.
It rested on the opposite side of the room.
I could sense it.
Recall it.
Keep it following me.
Then I focused on the switch.
The flashlight turned on.
I froze.
Then turned it off.
On.
Off.
No physical contact.
The same worked with the shutter button on the phone's camera.
I could activate it.
I could wake the screen.
I could trigger the alarm.
I could not navigate menus, type messages, or perform anything requiring several precise actions.
Simple mechanisms only.
By Sunday evening, the notebook contained several pages of observations.
My Sigil could claim possessions.
Sense them.
Recall them.
Release them.
Keep them following a relative position.
Guide them while they were already moving.
Activate simple mechanisms from a distance.
That was the foundation.
The limits remained mostly unknown.
Range.
Weight.
Quantity.
Resistance.
What happened if another person held a claimed object.
What counted as a willing gift.
Whether stolen property could truly become mine.
Those questions could wait.
The light pressure behind my eyes had returned after hours of testing.
It was still minor.
Most of the exhaustion came from concentrating for most of the weekend.
I ate, drank water, and went to bed early.
For once, I used the actual bedroom.
—
The alarm rang at six-thirty on Monday morning.
My hand reached for the phone before I fully opened my eyes.
The screen showed a university schedule.
Two morning lectures.
Lunch break.
Another class in the afternoon.
I stared at it.
Then got up.
The routine came naturally.
Shower.
Teeth.
Breakfast.
Clean clothes.
Laptop inside the university bag.
Notebook.
Wallet.
Phone.
Keys.
The pistol remained inside the shoulder bag beneath an ordinary jacket.
By seven-thirty, I stood near the apartment entrance dressed like any other university student preparing for another forgettable Monday.
For a moment, the normality almost worked.
Then I looked at the lecture schedule again.
Darwin's Game.
The Sigils.
The players.
That was only the beginning.
Something waited after it.
Creatures.
An invasion.
Cities falling apart.
Humanity fighting for more than points and rankings.
The memories were incomplete.
Images without reliable dates.
I did not know how long the world had before everything changed.
Years, perhaps.
Less, perhaps.
Either way, surviving other players would not guarantee anything.
I looked down at the university bag.
Lectures.
Assignments.
Attendance.
I had already done enough school in my first life.
Second life.
Third life.
"Yeah. I've had enough of school."
I removed the bag from my shoulder and placed it beside the chair.
The apartment became quiet again.
I sat at the table and opened the notebook to a blank page.
For a while, I only stared at it.
Then I picked up the pen.
It was time to make a plan.
End of Chapter 28
___
Author's Note:
Enjoying the story? Leave a review and send some Power Stones. The stronger the support and ranking, the faster new chapters will come.