"One, two, three, push!" Two figures wearing black suits gritted their teeth before pushing a white bed. Their destination? The door. Unfortunately for them, the bed wouldn't budge. Yuki and Azam let go of the bed and let their exhausted bodies fall onto the white marble floor.
They had planned to use the bed to reinforce the door.
"We don't know if those guys can get inside or not," Yuki had said moments earlier, which convinced Azam to follow through. But even with Azam's strength, the bed didn't budge. Not willing to give up, they then moved to the other furniture. Unfortunately, it seemed like one of this room's laws was that the furniture couldn't be moved.
"Lets rest for a minute, I'm exhausted." Azam said, his body laying on the floor. His suit had three of its upper buttons open, leaving his upper chest bare. It rose and fell in a hurried rhythm as Azam caught his breath. Yuki, who was equally exhausted, sat on the bed.
"Let me summon my knife. Just for protection." Black mist swirled into Yuki's hand, and within a second, a black kitchen knife materialized out of thin air.
Azam just nodded and let out a big sigh. He had finally, finally sunk into the situation he was in. He hadn't fully believed it when Yuki said it, but somehow, the girl seemed more sane than he was the longer he was in this place.
He was dead now, and now he was stuck with this girl in a strange dimension. Remembering something, he scratched his head in frustration. Arghhh, my money!! he screamed in his thoughts. Calming down after a few seconds, his head lay on the floor once again. Ibet Hisham's the one taking it now. Wiping his face, he let out a relieved sigh. Azam didn't care if his friend was the one taking the money after he died. After all, Hisham had been the only one on his side after his family had disowned their own son.
I wish I could have stayed alive just a bit longer. Just enough to spit in their faces some more. Azam tried to close his eyes, letting his mind get lost in his thoughts. However, it was immediately interrupted when he realized Yuki had been staring at him. "W-what?" he stammered, his hand covering his bare chest.
"Where do you think I'm looking at, idiot?" she chuckled. Azam, embarrassed, quietly buttoned up his shirt again. "Anyway, you look quite gloomy now; that's a first," Yuki said. Azam just scratched his head before forcing out a smile.
"It's nothing. I'm fine, see?" A bright smile carved itself onto his face.
"Quite the opposite for me," she teased, but Azam kept his smile. Seeing his reaction, Yuki continued, "You said you died in a boxing match, right?"
Caught off guard by the sudden question, Azam let it hang in the air for a while. Rubbing his chin with his fingers, he shook his head.
"I don't think so. I think I died on the way to the hospital, actually." Azam tried to recall his last moment alive. He could definitely remember Hisham's grim face as he accompanied him in an ambulance. "How about you, Yuki?"
"Me? Hmmmm, I don't quite remember most of my living life." Azam raised one of his eyebrows.
"I see..."
"But... I can remember bleeding out and suddenly I woke up in a strange desert." That piqued Azam's interest.
A desert?
"A strange desert? What do you mean?"
"I don't know. It was strange and gray and..." Suddenly, her ears rang. The ringing came with a stinging sensation in her head. Grunting in pain, she tried to force herself to remember. "Ugh... I've already forgotten most of it, but I remember walking in there for hours and hours. Just then, I crumbled to dust and woke up here in this very room." It was strange; her memory was still vivid, but some of it just seemed to be fading away very, very fast.
"That's weird. I remember dying and immediately waking up in my room," Azam said. Yuki just nodded her head at the weirdness of her own situation. However, her head was now in too much pain for her to be thinking too deeply about it.
They stayed silent for a while, letting each other get lost in their own thoughts.
Yuki began to interact with the system a bit more, trying to see if it had any secrets. Tapping away with her finger, she accidentally clicked on one of her Recollections: [Snow White].
The screen turned blank for a flash before displaying a new page. At the top of the screen, an image appeared. An ethereal black knife could be seen; however, its appearance was a bit stylized, looking more like a skill icon than a realistic image. Below the image, text appeared, showing the name of the Recollection in a strange, alien alphabet.
[Snow White
"In the middle of a winter, a young girl ■■— The figure lay there bleeding
■■■■—And the girl left the world."
Recollection effect: Summon a kitchen knife]
"Wait, what?" She examined the text again. The whole text was in an alien alphabet; however, a huge part of it was barely readable. "Azam, come here."
Hearing his name called, Azam quickly got up. "What?"
"Try reading this."
Azam leaned towards her and tried to read the text.
"What?" he muttered. "What language is this?" Rubbing his eyes, he tried to read it again. Shaking his head, he stood up straight once more. "I don't know. I can't read it. Well, I can't read most of it, but I can read the name. The text in the middle, however... Yeah, I'm not exactly a linguist. I don't know if that language even exists."
"Wait. Try yours," Yuki said, tapping Azam's shoulder. Azam clapped his hand once as Yuki did that.
"Wait, you're right. How do you do it?"
Yuki showed him how she did it. Azam nodded and followed. The screen turned blank before flashing a new screen. Both of them tried to look at what was written inside it.
[Boxer's Greed
"A greed born from a man who threw away his family, his friends, his passion, and even his life for money, and all he got was nothing. Behold the tale of the man who let his greed consume him."
Recollection Effect: Azam threw away his strength for money; in turn, he can throw away his money for strength.]
Stunned by the description of the Recollection, Azam stared at it for a moment. Clenching his fist, he turned off the screen. The screen flickered before disappearing into a faint black mist.
"I was reading that," Yuki said, her tone even.
"It's nothing. As you can see, my description is readable, right? Hmmm, I wonder why yours isn't," he said, forcing out a smile while tapping his chin with a pretense of curiosity.
Seeing the action of the man, she sighed. Yuki continued to study the system. The strange language both did and didn't make sense; it wasn't that she didn't understand it, but more that she was forced to understand it, as if the meaning of the word was being projected into her mind.
Carefully, she traced her finger on the cold floor, mimicking the strange alphabet. But even that didn't work; the alphabet was too complicated, and some of it didn't even look like it was able to be written. As if lost in thought, she continue to scribble on the floor.
She was interrupted by a sudden knock at the door. Both Reapers looked at each other, alarmed.
"Yuki, didn't you say that sound wouldn't be able to travel from outside?"
Yuki nodded, her hand gripping the knife tightly, holding its sharp blade towards the closed door.
"Yeah, because when we close the door, the sound of the motorcycle engine stops. So I thought that each room is its own separate space."
"So how can someone knock on the door?"
Azam had already assumed a stance, ready to face anyone coming from the door. Don't be an enemy. Their focus was unshifted from the door, waiting to see if it would be knocked on once again.
Suddenly, the system flickered, breaking their focus from the door. The screen minimized before being turned off. Within a heartbeat, the screen changed, displaying a black screen with a white alien text written on top of it.
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