THE END OF NORMAL LIFE
It happened on a completely ordinary day. The kind where you go to school, chat with your friends, take classes, go home and play video games, eat dinner, take a bath, and go to bed. At least, that’s how it was supposed to go.
That day, I rubbed my eyes sleepily while I walked to school.
I’d stayed up late playing online games the night before, and now I was paying for it.
Once I got to school, I stifled a yawn as I entered the classroom.
“Morning.”
“Good morning.”
“Mornin’… What’s up? You look hella tired, dude.”
I greeted my friends in class, Kyouya Sasajima and Kanata Ooshima.
These two played the same video games as me, so they were basically my gaming buddies.
“Yeah, you’re not gonna believe it. I formed a pick-up party with Baldie himself yesterday.”
“For real?!”
“Yeah, for real. So I pretty much pulled an all-nighter.”
“No way, dude. You serious? When was this? After I crashed?”
Kanata had played with me for part of the evening. He logged out before me, though, saying he was going to bed.
“Dammit. If I knew that was gonna happen, I would’ve stuck with it a little longer!”
He seemed genuinely disappointed. But I’d only been looking for a pick-up party in the first place because he’d signed off. If he’d stayed, I probably wouldn’t have wound up with Baldie at all.
“So? What was it like seeing Baldie up close?” Kyouya’s question brought back memories of Baldie’s heroic deeds.
“That guy can’t be human, yo,” I said. “Would you believe he dodged a Besbel Witch’s magic and just charged right at it?”
“Damn, leave it to Baldie. They don’t call him Skanda for nothing.”
“Nah, no matter how good a speedster you are, you need a good arm to pull off a trick like that. It always comes down to this in the end!” Kanata smacked his own arm as he spoke.
True enough. Even if I had the same stats and equipment as Baldie, I doubt I could manage the same feat.
“Ahh… I wanna get reborn into a game world!”
“You wish, pal. Wanna do some level grinding after school?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“I’m in, too. Let’s train somewhere really tough!”
Just as our conversation was wrapping up, the school bell rang, and we all scattered to our desks.
We had no idea that we’d never get to make good on that promise.
“Huh?”
When I got to my seat and began preparing for class, I realized my pencil case wasn’t in my bag.
After a moment’s thought, I recalled taking it out to scribble down some game info in my notebook. I probably forgot to put it back.
“Ah, crap.”
“What’s wrong?” Yuika Hasebe, the girl with the desk next to mine, responded to my grumbling.
“I forgot my pencil case.”
“Oh, did you? Well, I suppose you can borrow these, then.” Hasebe handed me a pencil and eraser.
“Thanks.”
“Mm-hmm. You owe me a piece of candy.”
“C’mon, you’re charging me?” I groaned, but I smiled wryly and waved a hand in acknowledgment nonetheless. Of course, now I know that this was just another promise I wouldn’t be able to keep.
Then, during our Classical Japanese lesson, it happened.
So tired… I was fighting a losing battle against my overwhelming drowsiness.
“All righty, then. Pay attention, pleeease! Next is page thirty-seven of the textbook, starting on line one. Let’s see… Let’s have Ms. Shinohara translate it, shall we, since she’s peeking at her cell phone in the middle of class?”
“Huh?!”
Hearing her name, Mirei Shinohara squeaked and scrambled frantically to conceal her smartphone.
In the seat next to her, Kengo Natsume was suppressing a smirk, but he was clearly fiddling with his phone, too.
“I wouldn’t be quite so smug, Mr. Natsume. If Shinohara can’t answer, then you’re up next, okaaay?”
Our teacher—Ms. Kanami Okazaki, though we all called her Ms. Oka—had noticed Natsume’s hands, too, which triggered some chuckling around the classroom.
Natsume’s face turned red, and he scowled as the class laughed at him.
The person laughing the hardest was Natsume’s closest friend, Issei Sakurazaki, who had turned all the way around in his front-row seat just to point and laugh.
“Now, nowww. Quiet down, please, claaass. Your answer, Ms. Shinohara?”
In the end, neither Shinohara nor Natsume was able to answer, and another wave of giggles rippled through us.
The mood of the class stayed relaxed as Ms. Oka began to read aloud.
To me, her voice might as well have been a lullaby.
I knew that if I didn’t do anything, I’d doze off in no time, so I looked up from my textbook.
Almost all the other students had their eyes on their books.
Most likely, they figured that if they slacked off they’d end up like Shinohara and Natsume.
Ms. Oka was usually very kind and friendly, but if she caught you skipping class or goofing off, she could be merciless.
Meanwhile, my eyes stopped on a particular student.
What caught my attention was the girl sitting in the seat to the front-left of mine. We called her Rihoko, but that wasn’t her real name.
It was short for “Real Horror,” with “ko” on the end to make it a girl’s name.
She was super-creepy, all skin and bones, with a pale and permanently dour face.
I don’t like to trash-talk people, but even so, something about her didn’t sit well with me.
As if to spite my valiant battle with sleepiness, she was blatantly napping on her desk.
Uncomfortably, I pulled my gaze away from Rihoko.
And then I saw it. The crack.
I don’t think anyone else noticed it.
In the middle of the classroom, above our heads in what would normally be empty space, there was a rift in the air. I don’t know what else to call it. Not only that, but it was expanding by the second. The tear looked like it would burst open at any moment.
Although I was staring right at it, I was so dumbfounded that there was nothing I could do.
Even if I had been able to take action, it probably wouldn’t have changed what happened…
The crack split wide open. At the same moment, I felt intense, terrible pain.
And then I—no, we—died.
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