"Ah.... I really want to go home," I muttered miserably while on my way back.
The road home felt longer than usual. My body was weighed down by the exhaustion of a grueling day, utterly worn out. The only way to entertain myself in this hell was this: I pulled out my phone, my fingers moving automatically toward the comments section of a page dedicated to the anime Demon Slayer.
I was intently reading the followers' comments about the controversial character, "Douma." Some described him as a monster, others saw him as the embodiment of absolute emptiness. I smiled sardonically as I prepared to write a reply, unaware that this would be the very last act of my previous life.
CRASH!
There was no time to turn around. No time to escape. The sound of screeching brakes, a blinding light, and then a massive impact that shattered every bone in my body. I felt my body flying through the air like a broken doll. I felt my bones splintering and the coldness of the blood covering the asphalt beneath me. But the strange thing was, I didn't feel any pain at all during the process.
A few moments of silence followed, and then everything fell into total darkness.
I woke up. But I felt no pain. In fact, I felt nothing at all. I opened my eyes slowly, but I didn't find the white lights of a hospital or the anxious faces of doctors. I found myself lying on a hard, cold floor.
The room was pitch black. I tried to stand up, but I discovered I didn't even have the desire to move. I just sat there, plain and simple.
Truthfully, I didn't know why, but I felt an utter lack of will to move, to the point where I thought this might be some place in the afterlife.
One hour passed... two... three. I sat there for four hours—I didn't know the exact time, so I tried to guess. The strange thing was, I didn't shed a tear, I felt no fear, and no anxiety crossed my mind. There was a strange void filling my chest, as if I were accustomed to this.
As time passed, my eyes began to adjust to the deep darkness. The details of the room started to appear with eerie clarity. There were no windows, no furniture—just the faint light seeping from the bottom of the door. It was a completely empty room.
I looked back at the door... Am I really dead?
I raised my hand slowly, and with a hesitant motion, I pinched my cheek hard. "Ouch..." A real, sharp pain shot through my nerves. I took a deep breath and whispered to myself, "How foolish... I jumped to the conclusion that I'm in another world just because I've read too many novels. Saying that we don't feel pain after death is just an assumption made by the living—people who have never experienced death." A voice like a child's came out of my mouth, which was quite strange.
I raised my hand to wipe my face, but I froze in place. These were not the hands I knew. My fingers were long and slender, and my skin was unnaturally pale. I touched my hair and felt long strands falling over my shoulders; they looked silver in this dim light.
But when I wanted to see my face again, I realized the room had nothing in it, so I gave up.
Another long stretch of time passed; I had no way to measure it. Suddenly, a sharp metallic sound broke the silence—the screech of the door lock turning.
My body stiffened, but the door didn't open fully. A faded plastic tray slid through the gap at the bottom of the door, followed by the sound of the lock clicking shut with lightning speed.
I crawled slowly toward the tray. It contained poor, cold food, and its smell offered no appetite. [Is this food or trash?] I asked myself mockingly.
I wasn't really hungry, but I began to eat mechanically. Every bite confirmed that my senses were still working. As I chewed that tasteless food, an obvious thought flashed through my mind: "Why don't I just stand up and open that door?"
As soon as that thought brushed my imagination, something strange happened. A violent, sudden shiver surged through my body. My pale hands shook so hard that I dropped what was left of the food. It wasn't a fear I felt in my mind, but a primal reaction from this body, as if its cells carried the memory of an old terror associated with that door.
"What is this? Why am I shaking?" I muttered in bewilderment, trying to control my limbs. I shook my head hard to drive away that coldness.
After an unknown amount of time, the faint sliver of light from under the door vanished, as if someone were standing right behind it, blocking the only light in my cell.
A dead silence lasted for seconds before it was shattered by muffled sobs... it was the sound of a woman weeping with a heart-wrenching wail.
"I'm sorry... I'm so sorry, my little one..." she whispered in a trembling voice choked by tears. "If only I hadn't... if only I hadn't married that man, none of this would have happened... you wouldn't have been locked in this darkness..."
I suddenly felt a sharp sting in my chest—a strange pain I hadn't known, as if my heart were being squeezed by an invisible hand. I was surprised by my reaction; this woman meant nothing to me in my mind, but my small body was reacting to her voice hysterically.
Her sobbing didn't last long. It was cut off by the sound of heavy, violent footsteps approaching, followed by a middle-aged man's raspy voice, dripping with venom and hatred:
"What are you doing here, you bitch?! Didn't I tell you not to go near this monster's room?!"
"He's our son! He's just a child!" the woman cried out in despair, but her scream was cut short by a loud slap—CRACK!—her body hit the floor right outside the door.
Her terrified, painful screams rose, while the man began to act in a frantic, disturbed manner, mixing insults with incomprehensible assaults as he dragged her away from the door.
I lay in the darkness, my eyes wide and my breath hitching. That shiver I felt before returned even stronger, but this time it wasn't just fear... could I have actually reincarnated into this body? But that wasn't what I was thinking about; it was the voice that was crying just now while being beaten.
With every scream, a sharp pain carved directly into my heart. This woman meant nothing to me minutes ago, but now, with every "crack" and the sound of her body hitting the floor, I felt as if the blow were directed at me.
My chest began to boil with conflicting emotions: a raging anger mixed with a childish despair I couldn't comprehend. Suddenly, I felt a coldness trailing down my cheeks. I raised my pale hand in shock to touch it... they were tears. Hot tears covering my cold face.
"Why... why am I crying?" I muttered in a trembling voice, but the screams outside were growing louder, and the sound of that man's slaps didn't stop. I couldn't take it anymore. The void that had occupied my heart for hours suddenly exploded.
I forgot the shiver that was paralyzing my body. I forgot the primal fear of that door. I stood up on my small feet and felt a strange weight surrounding my body, as if the air around me had become dense.
I rushed toward the door with steps I could no longer control. I didn't think about the lock, I didn't think about the consequences; all I wanted was to stop that painful noise. I placed my hand on the cold door handle, and at that moment, I felt a powerful pulse emanating from my palm... a pulse that made the metal groan under immense pressure.
"Stop!!" I screamed at the top of my childish lungs as I pushed the door with all my might.