The half-empty room was foreboding a sense of hollowness, the house does not feel like home to him anymore. Outside his window a lantern swung around the windy night, the smell of water hitting the floor, the rain. The boy still sat, seldom blank-faced without any goal. His eyes were beginning to set lower and lower, drooping as the minutes went by.
"I really wanna give in now...Staying up like this is making me lethargic.." he said as he slumped closer and closer into his sheets.
"I will- I will give in now…" finally giving up the little bit of resistance.
His tears befell his face, dripping slowly into the mattress he laid his body on. He was as close to dead as the living could be. Crying over nothing, crying over the pain of knowing tomorrow will exist. And tomorrow is coming very soon. The boy saw the window, just before his eyes went black, it had opened on its own. Maybe the storm had pushed it through
Max, the boy in question, fell into an ocean, his slow descent made the feeling all the more dreadful. As he plunged, he felt the water, yet the temperature was not cold. The feeling was not present, his sense of touch was non-existent. In his mind, he thought of swimming, yet his hands never moved, his body was simply sinking downwards to the abyssal plane below.
"Close it.. the entrance is open...hehe.." a ghastly voice was tenderly speaking, beckoning him to close the window.
He chose to sink deeper instead of listening, rebelling against the thought brought about by the voice. The wicked entity was beginning to raise its voice, it began shouting at Max, the shouting became a booming warning, louder and louder as it got closer to him.
Soon the voices became multiple, the choir grew from ten, shortly to a hundred. As he swam deeper, the choir chanted the same phrase over and over again. His ears began to ring as the chanting grew louder, he felt the vibrations of the sound through the water, he felt the undying desire of the choir to wake him up. The voices distort his organs.
The deafening voices turned into hands reaching out, trying to pull him up, the chanting had stopped, they'd begun to resemble the voices of his friends. The water was feeling colder and colder, the rising pressure suffocating him from the outside. He panicked, he panicked knowing he could finally feel, the numbness of his dream had disappeared.
His lungs began to fill with water, he swam up but never moved, his friends murmuring all their promises to him repeatedly. Narcosis was bubbling in his veins, and the decompression began to consume his ability to see, almost drunken by the sea. His vision started to blur as all the things around him began to fade into nothing but perpetual darkness.
"I surrender, let m-me, rest..." he could only let out a silent cry, the restlessness could only scream in voiceless words of fear, no, anger? No, just the despair of knowing tomorrow will still exist.
The day ends, up comes nothing but clouds, for the sun has been blocked by the rain.
The dreamer's alarm had gone off, time reading "7:30". He woke up to his final alarm, they'd had all set-off. Max opened his eyes, disappointed in himself and his inevitable tardiness in class. Shortly after however, he noticed his window pane's sway in the wind, the sound of water droplets outside falling on the leaves, and the overhang overhead his window.
"Category 3 Typhoon has officially made landfall in several regions near the Aichi prefecture, all schools in "CHUBU" coastal region one, has canceled their classes local-" shutting off the emergency alert system before it could even finish, refusing to listen unless its another earthquake coming by.
After finding out his classes have been canceled, his six hours of sleep was rather worth the late wake knowing he has finally gotten sufficient rest in the last few weeks he's stayed up late to sulk and think. He closed the windows and fixed his bed, not thinking too much of his nightmare.
As he was about to leave the room, he looked around, seeing the empty shelves that held his bag. The cobwebs formed underneath one of the platforms. His room's lightbulb had stopped working long ago. The wire dangled yet when he stared at his window. It was different, almost an alluring sense of danger filled its shape.
The vertical rectangle, the outcrop, felt wrong to him. Yet he paid little mind to its imagery and continued downstairs. His mom had made him breakfast, it was eggs inside a rice bowl. He packed the food bowl, cleaned his plate, and planned to give his food to his mom.
"You have less meals left in your life, you might as well eat this.." talking to himself as he thought of his mother's packed lunch, an urge to give it back to her.
Ring. Ring. Ring...
However, unexpectedly, his phone began to vibrate in his pocket. He was oblivious as to why anyone would ring him this early in the morning yet after seeing the name on his phone's banner, he felt anger. The terrified boy felt an unexplainable feeling of wanting to ignore yet the withdrawal and guilt had left him frozen for a minute straight.
He answered nonetheless.
"What? Why did you call?" his voice, with an obviously frustrated tone.
"I know you're about to take a bath right now, why don't we call?" she excitedly followed.
"Doesn't the idea excite you? Seeing us together, naked." the girl yet again, followed, desperately trying to get a likable answer from Max.
"No, Soran I have to go-… I have to do something else, I mean" talking in a dying manner.
"..Hey-hey? Let's meet up instead!" her eager expression still shines through his monotone voice.
Their bickering continues, trying to convince the boy to join her in doing anything. Max turns down every one of her requests, knowing it's another attempt to fix a problem that will only repeat, over and over again.
"Look I am tired as hell and the last thing I wanna do right now is be with you." furious of her endless trials, furious at how naive Soran can be.
"So you still love her don't you?" poking into his innards, testing the waters for what he might say.
"She's prettier and I don't like her around." with a mocking voice, she kept the rocky conversation going.
Unexpectedly, the pent-up frustration had directly given Max the go signal to release a slurry of sharp words, the glass has finally shattered from his control.
"Yes, I do, was it not obvious?! Will you? Will you finally fucking cry again? Will I feel fucking down again because of you again?!"
slowly, his tired tone switched to an outburst of emotions, letting loose of things that should have been said a year before their relationship.
Max heard that Soran began to cry, her sniffling was distracting, his guilt left his mind. All he had to do was think of what she had done, over the years, the misery brought about by her presence. The faults, the cracks in their relationship. He ended the call after hearing her whimpers. His empathetic nature turned to pathetic anger, he took his towel and entered the bathroom.
The shower felt empty, the water drizzled down his body. He began to regret not taking the offer, maybe he could've seen something more with his own eyes. Yet as the water dripped, he felt more unease at why he would have such a thought. The horniness? The loneliness? He lightly tapped his head on the tiles of the bathroom walls.
His attempt to brush off the uncomfortable tension of thinking about her body, her face, and her personality was a life-draining task. The water suddenly ran cold, he jolted into his senses, feeling the sense of the water, the waves, and how the sea felt. The calmest sea he's ever swam was one that only existed in his dream.
The water stopped running, as the yellow tap was closed. The preposterous feeling of having no school meant he had enough time to put extra hours into his car dealership day job, he never really learned about cars and car parts yet all their assets are labeled, and his role, is merely nothing more than a salesman who provides.
He put his clothes on, nothing more than a hoodie with no shirt inside and a pair of tighter jeans. His silhouette is that of a lanky man despite his short stature. As he left the bathroom, he noticed the rain had worsened, and the window blinds grew more gray. Sunlight was drowned out by the weather.
"So much dirt on the side of the wall frame, Ahh-, I'll wash the pots and pans later."
Not long after he left his house and locked the door, he simply glanced at the window. It was seeking to draw his attention. The black metaphysical spirals that expanded on the side of his vision felt nauseating. The window was an illusion yet he was not to be fooled by nothing more than a simple part of his house.
The rainfall was ecstasy, the droplets of water, the blundering thunder that shook the ground, the sparks of lightning that hit through the tree lines, and the cascading fear that his window would open out of thin air again. It was a perfect day to go out, for his questionable outlook of course. His rusty bike had never seen the roads so empty in a very long time.
Streets that housed smaller cafes are still open and functional during the gloomy weather. A man was standing outside the cafe that Max would usually go towards during his shitty mornings. Yet today was different, today he'd enter that place with a goal, a determined goal that for once he's finally happy.
The Cafe was closed.
Max threw his two middle fingers at the signboard and apologized the next moment after being spotted by a worker.
"Are you okay?" said the man in barista attire.
They both look at the cafe doors, to see it's closed.
"Oooh-, I see your problem now... Nobody told me it was closed too." comforting the lowly student.
"Y-You work here? Yes?" the boy questioned if he was thinking the right thoughts.
"Yeah, apologies for coming here, h-here's an instant coffee." handing over the packet of powdered goodness, served in a caffeinated factory of bits and pieces of coffee beans.
"You need this more than I do..." said in a more lighter tone from his previous conversations.
"Just don't flip off the signboards, people might see and they might think this place is terrible." the worker followed up just before Max hopped on his bike to continue the commute.
The thankful boy felt embarrassed, the interaction had gone in the best direction it could go, despite its awkwardness. The moment was a form of kindness he rarely experienced from people. He expressed gratitude towards the man profusely. Almost shaking his hand relentlessly till it detached from its socket.
After a short ride, he chose to stop by an empty station. People usually flood the station at this hour yet today it was nearly empty. The few people passing by, draped in layers upon layers of clothing as if it was winter and the snow was falling. Max smiled knowing he was alone, waiting for nothing yet an idea crossed his mind.
An idea to head to work early and dodge the upcoming work traffic that usually starts near lunch hours. He rushed with his bike, pedaling through the wind. Distracted by the flowing wires upon post after post. The electrical panels, the dripping rain in the overhang. He was admiring the peace of mind offered by such revolting weather.
The petals flew in the wind, ripped from their stem, the leaves were falling. The trees violently hit the rebar of the unfinished buildings. Snapping their branches as they flew off into the sidewalk. Only now, did he realize the danger of what he was attempting to do. A bike during a stormy day was not as blissful as fiction reminds people.
With his back turned against the rain, he finally made it. The benign feeling he had over each and everything he crosses, repeats in his mind. The visuals of creation, the visuals of walking an empty street. All of which combine to form a picture in his mind. Just before opening the store shutters, a loud boom of thunder perplexes his thoughts.
Max enters the store, his mind still fixated on the idea of a lonely man roaming the streets. Writing down on a paper his ideas, the war-torn stories he's always lost himself in during his childhood. The buildings that resemble shells of their former glory, the cracked cement permeating the roads...