The Hero of a Thousand Deaths

  Part One:

  The Wolves Who Cried Boy

  CHAPTER FIVE

  By the time the boy made it back to his dorm, sleep deprivation and overstimulation had taken their toll. Once the door shut, his power-lines cut out. With nothing left to keep his engine running, Ryō let himself flop backward against the cold Sheetrock wall.

  Shhhhh. The boy slid down until his ass hit the floor.

  A profound weakness kept him planted where he sat. All Ryō could do was absorb a wide shot of his abysmal bedroom, disappearing into its emptiness. Per usual, the room was a blue-highlighted black swamp of depression.

  Across from Ryō, and glistening under the umbrella of the nightlight, was Emery’s letter. It beckoned him like the song of a siren...

  Emery...

  The boy two holes into the envelope with his bloodshot eyes. Not literally, of course. As he was still the same useless, powerless, family-less kid that he was when he arrived there.

  BADUMP-BADUMP-BADUMP. Ryō could feel his heartbeat pulsating from his temples, forehead, neck, and wrists. It was as though his heart had exploded into fragments and dispersed across his body at some point during the last 24 hours.

  Maybe that was his superpower––17 Hearts Kid.

  I would have some useless superpower like that...

  Before anyone could stop him, Ryō began World War II with himself, assassinating the unsuspecting Archduke Franz Ferdinand with three simple words: 17 Hearts Kid.

  Oh hey Ryō, what’s your superpower?

  Much like Germany, the boy fought this war against the world alone. By himself. And, at times, against himself.

  Oh, hey man! My superpower is that I can run a lot without getting tired because I have 17 little hearts instead of one big one.

  Stupid, Ryō groaned, grabbing two fistfuls of hair.

  At least they’d let me stay here if I had 17 hearts. At least then they wouldn’t kill me…

  The boy couldn’t stand another moment of living inside his own head. Using an exaggerated groan, he purged himself of responsibility and swallowed the arsenic.

  Whatever…

  Surrendering to his fate with a sigh, Ryō went limp and let his body slide down the remainder of the wall until only his head was off the ground. Although this position was far from comfortable, the discomfort the boy brought him distracted him from his psychological pain.

  Ryō felt both seconds away from passing out and like he'd never sleep again. He considered napping, but the existential cataclysm happening inside of him was far too boisterous. So, the boy just sat there, gazing up at the ceiling as though it was the one responsible for murdering his parents.

  Speaking of parents he didn't have: this was the first time since Ryō's Junior Heathen days that he could recall wishing he had a mom to talk to. Or a dad. But mostly a mom. The boy wished he just had someone who could help him feel not so alone in the world...

  KNOCK-KNOCK. Loud raps on the door vibrated the boy’s skull.

  “Sorry if you’re masturbating but I’m coming in!” Lara’s voice muffled through the door crack, “So if you are masturbating, now is the time to stop!”

  Ryō panicked at first, but upon hearing the sound of Lara unsuccessfully trying to turn the prude doorknob, he relaxed––the door was still on auto-lock.

  "Dammit..." She mumbled from the other side.

  “Please, Lara,” Ryō pleaded to the crazy woman panting in his door crack, "Just give me some time to myself."

  “No!” Lara barked back, “If I left you alone, you would cease to exist entirely.”

  BEEP. CLK-SCHK. Much to Ryō’s dismay, the noise of a flashing fob key precipitated the opening of his front door.

  Lara proudly showcased the master fob in her hand, “Ta-da.”

  Just as the woman finished saying, "ta-da," like a jackass, the door shut behind her and consumed the room in steep darkness.

  “Jesus, Ri-Ri––you fucking vampire,” Lara cluelessly searched for the light switch, “How the hell do you turn the lights on.”

  “You don’t,” the boy responded, “Just wait for your eyes to adjust. And also, I hate that you have a master key.”

  “Well, RiRi––none of the other kids even get to lock their doors, so the least I should be able to do is open your door in case of emergencies.”

  “This isn’t an emergency.”

  “Yes, it is––Ryō, where is the fucking light switch?! This is so weird having a conversation like this, I can’t see anything.”

  “I’ll tell you if you promise to leave.”

  No response.

  Once Lara finally gave up on finding the light switch, she crossed her arms and groaned out her concession. "Fine," The woman yielded, standing in silence and waiting for her eyes to acclimate in the boy’s private coffin.

  The pair quietly breathed the same air for a few moments. Then, Lara began to adapt to the shadows. She surveyed the room with a heavy squint, stopping the reconnaissance once her sight fell on the blue umbrella of the nightlight, “Ooh what’s that?”

  Horror befell the boy when he saw what she was eagerly approaching––the letter!

  “Stop!” Ryō cried, hurtling towards Lara, “Don’t open that!”

  This only made Lara move faster. The woman bolted towards the letter, grabbing it off the floor.

  "A letter?" She did her best Dora the Explorer impersonation, "A letter––this is a letter!"

  The instant Lara held the envelope up to her eye-line, the boy snatched it from her hands.

  “Hey!" Lara failed to snatch it back.

  "It's mine!"

  Lara halted, stapling her hands to her hips. "What's in that letter, Ryō?” She asked with the stringency of a concerned mother.

  Ryō couldn’t have made his reluctance to answer any more obvious, casting his gaze to the floor and half-turning away from her.

  “Ryō?”

  Knowing he had to respond, the boy searched for a believable alibi. It didn't take long for a plausible excuse to come to mind––

  “Okay, fine," Ryō groaned. "It’s my suicide note. Happy?”

  “Absolutely ecstatic,” Sarcasm bled from Lara's Ryō-centric eyes.

  An awkward silence ensued. Caught in a weird stalemate, neither Ryō nor Lara wanted to make the first move. They were both on edge, itching in the tension and unable to fully trust one another until this Mexican Standoff was over.

  Growing in confidence, Lara took the lead.

  “Well,” the woman said as she began inching towards the boy, “You’re not dead and those letters are meant to be read so... I think I’ll just take a––”

  Attempting to catch Ryō off-guard, Lara lunged for the letter before finishing her sentence, "Peek!"

  Unfortunately for her, the boy slyly quarter-turned––

  CLATTER-THUD. Lara's momentum sent her flying past him, causing her to trip over the floor-bound alarm clock and crash into his bed.

  “Dammit Ryō!"

  Still on the floor, Lara twisted her neck to make eye contact with the boy, "Why is your alarm clock on the floor?”

  Ryō ignored her and instantly began tearing the letter to shreds.

  Rip-rip-rip-rip-rip-rip...

  Watching the boy maniacally shred the letter into a million pieces humored Lara more than it pissed her off. She surrendered with a chuckle, shaking her head as she hoisted herself back up to her feet, “You little son of a bitch."

  Once on her feet, Lara softened. "Why wouldn’t you let me read it?” She asked.

  Ryō shrugged, “I-it’s the first draft, and I don’t know how I’m going to kill myself yet, so...So, I don’t want you to be, uh... waiting around with high expectations.”

  “Waiting around with high expectations,” Lara repeated the boy's response under her breath, laughing. “Ryō, you and I both know that you’re not going to kill yourself. All you ever do is talk about how scared to death of death you are.”

  Whether he liked it or not, Ryō knew she was right. Whatever...

  The boy snorted and diverted his gaze, embarrassed yet again. Embarrassed that Lara wasn’t even worried about him because the woman was so certain that he wouldn't kill himself. And she was right. No matter how badly he wished he could stop existing, Ryō knew he was too much of a wuss to actually kill himself––and this was the most painful slice of the humiliation pie to swallow.

  “Come on.” Lara drifted towards the door, gesturing for him to follow her, “Let’s go for a little walk.”

  She exited the room, holding the door open and waiting for the immovable Ryō.

  “I saidddd...” Lara poked her head back inside the room, “Let’s go for a little walk. I’m not mad at you or anything so hurry up and walk with me before that changes.”

  Ryō sighed out his reluctance and accompanied Lara out the door…

  Where is she taking me?

  Ryō traveled a safe distance behind Lara, who lambasted the floor with her heavy skipping.

  Clop-Clop-Clop-Clop. The desolate halls whined under each bouncing footstep, lamenting the woman as much as the boy lamented the halls.

  "Come on Ri-Ri, we're almost there!" Lara chimed, hurrying around the corner and disappearing into the adjacent hallway.

  Ryō groaned and followed after his keeper, "Again––where are we going?"

  He never received an answer. Only once Ryō turned the corner did the boy realize he'd been asking the wrong question. God dammit...

  For the second time in two days, Ryō found himself in the Junior Heathen's corridor.

  “Lara, why are we here?”

  Ssssshhhh. Lara reversed to shush the boy, then skipped over to one of the classrooms––a separate one from the class Ryō had subbed in earlier.

  Why is she being so annoying?

  Ryō groaned, watching as Lara approached the classroom door and placed her master fob onto the transponder.

  Cha-Chink. The lock unsheathed.

  This is so fucking stupid... I just want to go home...

  Lara rubbernecked to give him one final coy smile before swinging the door open to unleash a circus of memories.

  Woah…

  A flood of nostalgia dampened the burning firestorm inside the boy. This classroom wasn't just any Carlisle School classroom; this was Ryō's first Carlisle School classroom––the one he attended during his early days as a Junior Heathen. And though he'd last entered it about a decade ago, the room remained oddly unchanged.

  Iridescent and swarming with colors, postered arts and crafts decorated the walls with childlike wonder. In the corner were cubbies; familiar bubbly names were scribbled over their centers. There was also still the same blocky projector occupying the intermediary point between the rows of miniature chairs and the teacher’s domain. Despite all the glitter and levity being in reaching distance, this world now seemed lightyears away from the teenager set to be a man.

  Albeit there was an initial wave of captivation, Ryō quickly found himself dumbfounded by how nothing had changed. Regardless of all the familiarity, the room suddenly seemed obscured, frozen in time. Even the mural of the Omega Class students' tiny handprints still hung on the lateral wall.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Weird, he thought. Have they not used this classroom since...

  Operative questions occupied the boy's attention. Lara, meanwhile, was captured by something else––the whiteboard. Upon approaching the board, a massive grin smeared across her face; there was still something written in bold marker:

  Congratulations Junior Heathens!

  The woman admired the whiteboard scripture like an archeologist who'd just discovered a relic from a bygone era.

  “Do you remember when I was your substitute teacher for a week?” Lara asked, sentimental.

  Ryō was too lost in a train of thought to hear her––or at least fully hear her. He strode over to one of the miniature desks in a trance.

  Even weirder… The boy observed, wiping his finger across its surface. Not a speck of dust...

  His curiosity was piqued. So they still come in and clean this place?

  “Ryō?” Lara prodded him into acknowledging her existence.

  “Uh… No. Not really, no.”

  Ryō's mouth may have responded, but his head remained in the clouds. There was something about the room he wasn't digesting, and this indigestion was now constipating his ability to think straight. No longer fixated on the curious case of dust retention––or enamored by the allure of nostalgic childhood fodder––the boy tried shifting his focus inwards... to no avail.

  Hummmmmm. All at once, the dull humming frequency of the Carlisle School augmented and absorbed Ryō.

  His visual field swirled around him, distorting the world into a fuzzy daze. Everything became obscure, out of time, and out of reach. The boy's skin even began to feel different on his bones. Like Alice in Wonderland, Ryō simultaneously shrank smaller and grew larger than the life he was living.

  What is happening?

  What is this feeling...?

  Why does it feel so fucking familiar?

  A harsh new gravity weighed heavier on the boy––it was almost as though the ghost of his eight-year-old self was still trapped in that classroom. Hibernating for the last decade, this missing piece of Ryō's soul had returned to haunt him. The mysterious force commandeered the boy's body and possessed his mind, flooding it with living reiterations of a forgotten past...

  What am I trying to remember?

  Although the catalog of downloading memories was hazy and indistinct, they evoked within Ryō a specific and beguiling feeling: hope. More specifically, the feeling of having a bright future on the other side of Tomorrow instead of a brick wall.

  Did I peak at 8 years old? Fuck… that sucks.

  Ryō couldn’t recall any limpid details, but the recollection of being lauded by his instructors was strong enough to engender a profound sense of loss within him. He compared and contrasted the ogling smiles of the past with the scornful faces he now received in the present. As a kid, students and staff members alike looked up to him rather than at or through him. Back then, his presence felt welcomed––accepted. Now, it felt derided––ridiculed.

  That said, his peers and instructors weren't the only ones whose perceptions of him had changed over the years––Ryō remembered the difference in how he used to look at himself in the mirror. As a kid, he wasn't concerned by his appearance or reflection. But now? Now, the sad teenager in the mirror was all he could see.

  It stung Ryō––it stung him that his whole life had been one exponential landslide. A purging avalanche that slowly built momentum until it crashed down on him, leaving him with nothing. Literally. Not even a future.

  Tears welled up behind the boy's eyes.

  Why am I here?

  Ryō hovered towards his old cubby, soul-crushingly pensive. The boy couldn’t tell if the room was causing him excruciating pain or excruciating relief––maybe both, but it certainly hurt more than it soothed him.

  Why the fuck did Lara bring me here?

  Although the nostalgic memories had initially tasted sweet, they ultimately manifested inside Ryō as a poison.

  “I brought you here for a reason, Ri-Ri, don't worry." Lara's words floated in from behind the boy and tapped him on the shoulder, "I was...well, I came in here this morning to get some privacy, ya know? So I could roll around the floor bawling at the idea of you being forced to leave in peace..."

  The woman laughed, hoping Ryō would laugh with her, but he didn't.

  "And..." She continued, "Well, I found something I wanted to show you before you...ya know?"

  Annoyed into participating, the boy groaned and turned around, painfully unprepared for what he was about to see. Whatever threadbare piece of rope that kept his heart buoyant in his chest finally snapped, dropping the already damaged goods into the pit of his stomach.

  “I know right now you feel like all your dreams and goals are dying around you, but––and I may be a crazy old bitch for saying this,” Lara smiled and displayed a cardboard star the size of a bowling ball to Ryō, "I still think you can accomplish your first-ever goal".

  Printed on the top section of the craft was a playful prompt:

  My Dream When I Grow Up

  "Wanna read what you wrote?" She asked, extending the gold star out to the boy.

  With Ryō unmoved and unresponsive, Lara took action for him, placing the old arts and crafts project in his open palms.

  The instant the star made contact with his skin, a tripwire was set off––

  Again? The boy was in disbelief. Despite going over a decade without crying, he now found himself sobbing for the second time in less than 24 hours.

  Struggling to see through blurry dashes, Ryō's eyesight was far too infracted to read the handwritten response of his younger self. But the boy didn’t need to read it––he remembered what he'd written on that shitty little cut-out gold star like it was yesterday:

  When I Grow Up I Want To Save The World

  Snot now joined the tears slithering down Ryō's lips. His sobbing gained more and more momentum with each passing second. The boy's snowballing emotions quickly captured Lara, mopping her into the depths of his propelling depression.

  “God dammit...” She wiped her wet eyes clean, “I thought I could count on you not crying.”

  Out of nowhere, a switch flipped in Ryō. A feverish aura began to emanate from the boy. There was a black shade over his eyes, the weight of the world pulling his face to the ground. His fists were clenched and you could almost hear the tears sizzle on his fajita-plate cheeks.

  Lara approached Ryō, but he backed away. The boy squeezed his fists so hard that one of his index nails cut a bloody half-moon into his palm. Trepidation encouraged the woman to continue her motherly pursuit of attempting to wrangle the boy into her arms.

  “Hey, Ryō… Are you–”

  “STOP!!!”

  The boy screamed with a ferocity neither of them knew he had in him, quite literally shaking the walls... and quite metaphorically ripping Lara’s soul out of her body and tossing it out the imaginary window. Judging by the woman's agape mouth and pleading eyes, Ryō well and truly was the little brother she never had––the little brother she wanted to protect.

  Unfortunately for both of them, the last thing the boy felt at this moment was protected.

  Plop-Plop-Plop. Spit and tears splattered against the floor with every big heave of oxygen Ryō took.

  Unable to bear another second of living in this damned world––the damned world he would soon no longer be a part of––Ryō sealed his eyes shut and stared into the dark oblivion awaiting him. Half of him wanted nothing more than for it to all be over. The other half, however, desperately yearned for there to be so much more.

  Plop-Plop-Plop-Plop. The boy clenched his fists and gritted his teeth, trembling in place like a precarious toddler on the verge of exploding back into a tantrum.

  Lara decided to give him some breathing space, and smartly so. She studied Ryō in silence, attentively waiting for any signs of an opening. When the boy's hyperventilating gasps finally began to soften into shallow, shuddered breaths, the woman was called to action.

  "It's going to be okay, Ryō..." Lara reached out to him with a gentle hand, "I promise, okay?"

  The instant she touched the boy, the entire deck of cards collapsed––

  THUD-SCRT. Ryō flung himself backward, clattering into a desk.

  “Stop!” He screamed again.

  “Ryō, please…please just talk to me,” Lara entreated him with outstretched arms. “You can talk to me, okay sweetheart?”

  “NO!” The boy aggressively wiped the tears from his eyes before shouting again, “Why?! Why are you making this so much harder?!”

  His words choked Lara.

  "Ryō, I-I don’t know…" It was her turn to start bawling, "I-I just––”

  “You just wanted to help! I know!” Ryō seethed, “But you never help! All you ever do is make shit worse!”

  His words petrified the poor woman. Frozen by shock, her limp arm remained outstretched, lingering in the space between them as the boy stormed toward the door.

  "Ryō..." Lara pleaded.

  Before the woman could stumble after him, Ryō whipped around and glared at her. Black warships had replaced the boy's normally solemn brown eyes, and he aimed these new cannons directly at his keeper.

  “Don’t follow me!” He shouted, “Just stay here, leave me alone, and give me some FUCKING SPACE for once in my life!”

  The normal angsty energy of a typical, healthy teenager had evaded Ryō for most of his early adolescence. But now, under the right stresses, his well of untapped goblin-mode destructive potential unleashed itself in one fell swoop––

  CLATTER-CRASH. The boy crowned his transformation into the Puberty Goblin by chucking a desk across the room. Although Ryō's show of force was belligerent, the boy didn’t aim his four-legged artillery shell anywhere near Lara; he just wanted to give the woman something to think about if she remained hellbent on following after him.

  The fear tactic worked: Lara froze where she stood. Choking on muted cries, the woman had nothing left to offer the boy besides a look of sorrow.

  SLAM! Ryō damn near ripped the door off its hinges when he slammed the thing shut.

  A heavy silence captured Lara. Left alone in the room, she cast her wet eyes to the floor. The woman's wandering gaze drifted until she found what she was looking for: the crumpled-up gold star.

  Abandoned and deformed, it perfectly embodied the mangled state of her broken heart.

  "Oh, Ri-Ri..." Lara sniffled, wiping the snot from her nose with the cuff of her shirt before bending over to pick up the wounded little arts and crafts project.

  Holding back tears, she flattened out its damaged creases in a futile attempt to fix what was already broken beyond repair...

  Having been consumed by rage, Ryō hardly remembered a single detail of his journey back to the dormitory floor. After the events of Chair-Mageddon, everything cut to black. It felt like he'd abruptly woken up from a nightmare––the boy would have thought the whole thing was a dream if it weren't for the fossilized tears that stained his cheeks.

  Whatever torrential storm was brewing inside Ryō now settled. Enervated by the comedown of his earlier eruption, the boy lay flat on his back, numb. Numb enough for the looming dread hanging over his shoulders to finally fall dormant.

  Despite this analgesia of mind and body, Ryō could still feel the volcanic fodder bubbling under the surface. Everything felt hot, even if he was finally cooling down.

  What the fuck...

  What the fuck just happened?

  Did that really happen?

  Am I dreaming?

  What a shitty dream...

  Caught in a trance, the boy didn't realize how hard he was pinching the skin of his forearm... until it punctured. Only once a trickle of blood leaked from the laceration and licked his thumb with its warm tongue did Ryō's consciousness reanimate.

  Ow.

  Surprised by the sudden sensation, the boy angled his arm above his head to assess the injury––

  Plop. A droplet of crimson water plopped onto his cheek.

  Something about the sight of blood calmed Ryō. Perhaps that was because it reminded him of Emery.

  Hmmm...

  The boy contemplated the red substance seeping from his forearm like an aspiring art student watching Bob Ross draw a mountain. How did Emery first discover that her blood was special?

  On cue, Emery-related memories boomed and sparkled in his mind like a fireworks show. These bursting visuals exploded and filled his skies with new shades of emotion, one after another. After a minute or two of passive sightseeing, a particular memory detonated, illuminating the boy's wide eyes with colors unlike any he'd seen before.

  Did Emery know she could use her blood to freeze things before the kiddy pool trial?

  There's no way that she just instinctually knew she could do that...

  Maybe the only reason she knows how to use her powers is because of all those weird experiments they force her to do...

  Wait a second––

  A single thought ejected Ryō from his mental movie screening:

  Does that mean my blood might be special too?

  Suddenly, a zippy energy swam through the boy and electrified his veins. An influx of endorphins coaxed him into wishful thinking. Wishful thinking that quickly turned into delusion. The delusion that maybe––just, maybe––his average blood was supercharged all along, he just hadn't realized it yet.

  Okay, concentrate…

  Ryō held his breath, focusing all of his senses on the blood dripping from his forearm. You can do this...

  He widened his eyes and concentrated using every strand of his being. Within seconds, a resounding heat began emanating from deep inside the boy. His extremities tingled as this warmth billowed and swirled through him, beaming from the crown of his head to the tips of his fingernails.

  That's it!

  Ryō buzzed, harnessing the power of the mysterious, primordial energy burning inside him.

  I can feel it...

  I can feel it coming...

  He closed his eyes and tensed the muscles in his back, absorbing the effervescent force until it vibrated every atom in his body.

  That's it...

  Just a little more...

  Although the boy was desperate for oxygen by now, having not taken a breath in over a minute, his determination strongly outweighed the usual desire for comfort––

  Come on...

  Come on...

  Push!

  ––and there wasn't a chance in hell he was about to risk awakening his superpotential for a measly breath of fresh air.

  I'm so close, I can feel it...

  Yeah, I can feel it!

  I can feel my superpowers activating!

  "Unhhhhhhhhh..." Ryō moaned, squeezing his asshole shut and pushing with such force that the veins in his neck and temples began to protrude. "Unhhhhhhhh..."

  Despite all the effort, the climax wasn't coming, prompting the boy to dial up his anaerobic exertion to the maximum.

  "Unhhhhhhhhh-UNHHHHHHHHH..."

  He sucked his rectum into the depths of his stomach and unleashed one final, mighty roar, "AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

  The echoes of Ryō's scream faded into silence, carrying with it whatever remnant sliver of hope he had left. His tactical constipation attempt had been a failure––a failure showing no signs of a second attempt being worthwhile. The Universe had answered his question, and its answer was no. No, his blood was not special. Just like the rest of him, it was average.

  Maybe even below average…

  Ryō groaned and stood up. Being kicked out of a Hollywood daydream made the return to his dark reality all the more painful. Before the boy's capitulation had the chance to begin, however, a loose drop of blood spurred his attention elsewhere––

  Plop.

  Glancing down at the red, wet health code violation on the floor, Ryō no longer had time to worry about menial things like life and death. After all, he had a greater enemy. And the fear he harbored toward the Grim Reaper paled in comparison to the horror he felt in the presence of his mortal enemy: Germs.

  "No. No, no, no, no, no..."

  Ryō's germaphobia kicked in quicker than a kangaroo at a Muay Thai competition. He barreled over to his desk cabinet and yanked it open. After aggressively sifting through the contents, he removed a bottle of hydrogen peroxide and a package of bandaids. Like a seasoned professional, he simultaneously ripped open a bandaid with his while pouring peroxide over his wound.

  "Ow-ow-ow-ow..."

  Once the wound was taken care of, Ryō used a disinfectant wipe to scrub the drying blood off the tile floor...

  Just when he finished eviscerating the blood stains from existence, the boy noticed yet another violation: Lara had left some shoe-stain smudges behind from her earlier visit.

  "God dammit, Lara..."

  After maniacally scrubbing the soiled spots, Ryō came across an even worse infraction, "No––fuck!"

  With all the insanity going on, he'd become a villain in his own home.

  "God dammit, Ryō..."

  As it turns out, the boy had uncharacteristically forgotten to remove his own shoes before entering the bedroom––and nobody likes a hypocrite, not even a hypocrite.

  "No-no-no-no-no-no..."

  Once the OCD kicked in, there was no stopping the boy. He embarked on an eccentric mission to deep clean every square inch of his room…

  Ryō scrubbed the walls…

  Ryō disinfected the door handle, then the entire door…

  Ryō polished his shoes until they were sparkling…

  Ryō reorganized his already organized desk…

  Ryō... ran out of things to clean.

  Now what?

  Given his dorm room was kept perennially immaculate, it didn’t take long for the boy to fall into the despair of having nothing left to scrub, clean, polish, or disinfect. Without an enemy to vanquish, his search for purpose quickly evolved into an odyssey of self-harm. He pinched, gouged, twisted, and generally mutilated every inch of revealed skin...

  Within ten minutes, Ryō's forearms were polka-dotted with circular bandaids. Staring up at the empty ceiling, he had nothing left to fill his time but introspection. So, he introspected.

  During the next several hours, the boy vivisected every detail of his existence, going through each document and file that composed his terrible life...

  Was there ever a purpose to my life?

  Would I be better off just killing myself?

  No, I might as well let them euthanize me.

  At least then it would be painless...

  Is that how much of a pussy you are?

  You’re just going to roll over and let them kill you?

  It's not like I have any superpowers to stop them…

  And if I had superpowers, I wouldn’t even need to stop them…

  Why am I such a fucking loser?

  Why is this my life?

  Did I do something to deserve this?

  Of course you did––you weak, useless bitch!

  You’re useless!

  You’re scared of fucking everything, and that’s why you’ll never be strong!

  That's why you’ll never have a single fucking use in this world...

  That's why you deserve to die.

  But do I?

  Do I really?

  Do I really deserve to die?

  What does, "deserve to die," even mean?

  Deserve to die…?

  The last question prompted the lyrics from the Warsong to ring in his ears.

  "Together we rise, together we die..."

  What total fucking bullshit.

  I never rose, and now I’m going to die alone…

  Ryō finally grew tired of engaging with his intrusive thoughts, too weak to keep the battle going. A consummate exhaustion swept through him like nothing he'd experienced before. Despite being more mentally, physically, and emotionally drained than he'd ever been in his entire life, sleep still seemed lightyears out of reach, stuck in limbo.

  What do I do now?

  What the fuck do I do now?!

  By happenstance, Ryō's wandering eyes landed on the trashcan. Soaking underneath the blue spotlight of the nightlight, white jigsaw pieces of what used to be Emery’s letter were drizzled over the other bits of litter like paper snowflakes.

  Oh fuck––Emery!

  The boy startled into an upright position and frantically searched for his alarm clock.

  Oh shit––it’s almost 2 am!

  The time had come. Ryō had no choice but to inform Emery that he was being released. He had no choice but to explain to the girl that she had gotten him all wrong––how he was just a useless loser who would be helpless in aiding her escape.

  I guess I'll just tell her the truth, he sighed.

  At this point, all the boy wanted to do was get it over with. Ryō figured if he zoned out and recited a rehearsed apology to Emery, letting her down wouldn't be that painful––right?

  Hell, I'll be dead in a week anyway...

  The boy shrugged away his anxiety with another sigh, then laughed at the unbelievable situation he found himself in.

  And there's something about knowing your death is imminent that makes disappointing people seem a whole lot less scary...