After a peaceful night's sleep, Ren felt relaxed as he started waking up, albeit a little drowsy. He felt really comfy, like he could chill here for the whole morning.
Sadly, he soon remembered he didn't take a shower before arriving home from the trip. He sat up with a sigh, rubbing his eyes lightly as he remembered the dream that was still vivid in his mind.
"Whew… I feel like I had the weirdest dream of my life. There's no way I'd die so unceremoniously and somehow end up inside the world of an anime. *Yawn* That'd be crazy… huh, where am I?"
Now that he looked around, Ren frowned slightly in confusion. He had just woken up in a weird place. It was definitely not his apartment.
"What the… everything's as black as the void. It's like I'm in space, but with no stars…"
Wherever he looked, there was only pitch black darkness, as if he was swallowed by an abyss where nothing was allowed to exist. Gravity itself didn't seem to be affecting him, since even if he tried to move, he just spun in place.
Ren took a while to adjust his body, until it stopped spinning. He couldn't see himself, so he started touching various parts of his body, and even pinched himself on his forearm. The conclusion was that he still had his sense of touch and pain.
"I can't see anything, but my body is here. No missing limbs, and my little bro's here as well. As for my eyes… Ouch!" A/N: ("He asks the important questions imo.")
He had just tried touching his eyes and feeling if they were still there, and while he was thankful they were, his fingers directly contacted them in their open state.
"Fuck, it stings! Argh!"
After a few moments of rubbing and cleaning his eyes, Ren calmed down, trying to rationalize the situation with a now tearful gaze. For his next attempt, he closed his eyes.
"It doesn't feel like there's any sound here either… No, that can't be right. How can I hear my voice and heartbeat, then? Hmm…"
Once he started focusing on his hearing, initially everything was normal. After what seemed like a few minutes, more and more sounds started making their way inside his ears. There was some liquid sloshing about, something moving, and also sounds that seemed to come from his mouth.
Ren's brain started focusing on the sounds more and more, something he would seriously regret soon later. With no sense of place or direction, trying to find where they came from was a nigh impossible task.
"This is giving me the creeps, seriously…"
As the seconds, minutes, and even hours passed, the noise started making his skin crawl. Apart from some of the new sounds not really being ear-candy, it was very unsettling to hear something so near to oneself, yet not be able to determine where it came from, especially if this dragged on and on.
Ren was someone that prided himself on how good his ears were, having also trained a lot on how to properly use them as a musician in the past. This was like one of those challenges where he needed to distinguish different melodies and instruments from a cacophony of sounds, except there was no melody, and the instruments sounded gross.
"This has to be a dream… a dream…"
Even plugging his ears did nothing. Ren desperately hoped for all of this to be a dream, else he felt like he'd go crazy.
Though he couldn't see it, his chest was already heaving up and down erratically, and his back was drenched in cold sweat.
"Hah, hah… F-fuck, what kind of shitty dream is t-this! There should at least be proper lighting!!"
At this point, Ren hoped for anything that could give some kind of sense to this insanity. He wished desperately for something to change.
To his surprise, however, too quickly for him to process, a blinding flash of white suddenly shone through space. "What is t-this! "
It was like a giant star suddenly popped into existence right in front of him, and its light kept expanding, soon swallowing everything, including himself.
[...]
As the first rays of sunlight appeared, the darkness on the horizon slowly gave way to the signs the day would soon start as the faint smell of morning dew spread through the breeze.
Birds chirped atop trees and powerlines, and the previous silence of the night was suddenly no more, a cacophony of sounds taking its place. It was a peaceful morning.
Since today was a Friday, a different kind of enthusiasm could be felt in the hearts of the many inhabitants of Karakura Town.
Knowing the weekend approached always made people excited about going out to do something fun, visiting their parents and family members, or maybe simply relaxing at home. It was a much needed reprieve after a week of tiring oneself out at work and school.
As if to refute all of this, however, in a certain house near the Kurosaki Clinic, someone's morning was, in fact, not peaceful.
"Argh!"
Sitting up with a start and screaming at the top of his lungs, Ren opened his eyes only to find himself in an unfamiliar and yet, oddly familiar room. He was out of breath, and the same type of cold sweat on his back also made his bangs stick all over his face.
"Haah, hah, hahaha… What the fuck… Was that… Hah…"
If he looked in the mirror, Ren would be shocked. He was trembling slightly, hugging himself, while his face was now etched with a look of primal fear, much evident from his widened, slightly tearful eyes that seemed to have witnessed something horrible. That was a look he would never expect to have, considering what he already went through in life.
Looking around, Ren realized he must be inside the house he dreamt about, the one where Ashikawa Ren lived prior to his reincarnation. This only made him feel more confused.
Not wanting to close his eyes, he took a few deep breaths and tried to relax. After a few minutes, he was able to recover some of his usual composure.
"...So it wasn't a dream…"
The negative feelings he was pushing back threatened to resurface once more, but this time, Ren was able to reel them in instead of moping for who knows how long.
He analyzed his room again. Two beds, one girlier than the other, a nice TV and a complete mess everywhere. There were snack bags thrown around, clothes and trash lying about, and various books strewn across the table.
"I should take this chance and do some cleaning…"
[...]
Feeling restless, Ren decided to get up and do a light cleaning in the house. He was used to thinking while moving his body, a habit learned from the harsh physical training he was forced to endure. Thankfully, there was more than enough time.
The whole time, he was silent, and though he looked focused on the task at hand, his mind was somewhere else completely.
'That was scary… to think I'd cut such a sorry figure after a nightmare…'
It felt real, like he was really present in such an abyss. Just remembering gave him goosebumps.
'I was too confused to realize at the time, but those unpleasant sounds… were my own body.'
They actually weren't something entirely unfamiliar to Ren.
Among many things, he enjoyed acoustics and sound engineering a lot, and they were one of the reasons he spent a lot of effort transforming the spare room of his previous life's apartment into a home studio. He even went the extra mile back then and built something akin to a professional recording studio at home.
'I once visited a room that could isolate and absorb almost 95% of all sound there. After being inside and alone for a few dozen minutes, I started hearing a lot of weird shit back then as well.'
It was part of an assignment he did for college. Once he was out, the people who worked there laughed at his state and explained that the absence of sounds could make them hear things that normally would be too quiet and get lost among the sheer amount of noise present in their lives.
There were even cases of people almost going mad after staying for nearly an hour inside that kind of room.
"That used to be one of my top 3 worst experiences. Well, I should probably update them now, heh…"
A low chuckle escaped his mouth as he tried cheering himself up.
Soon, he finished cleaning his room and the living room. The rest was still pretty tidy, so Ren took a bath and made something to eat. Thankfully, there were enough supplies for a small meal: water, some eggs, cheese and onions. He went for scrambled eggs, and settled for a few glasses of water as "dessert".
His cleaning routine ended up bringing some unexpected benefits, since he found a wallet with enough money to last for a few weeks inside. It was supposedly his, so no problem there.
"Whew, I was getting worried about lunch, but at least something good happened this morning."
With a smile, he finished eating and got ready to leave.
"Yesterday, I asked if it was okay to arrive early, and they told me it's okay. I could use the extra time to take a proper look at the school's curriculum for the first years."
He also intended to ask the teachers for some advice later, just in case. Though Ren graduated from high school with flying colors once, that was more than 5 years ago, and he was in a different country now.
A few minutes later, Ren left through the front door.
[...]
The streets were already starting to get some movement by the time Ren left. Some stores were already getting their doors open, and sometimes he would see a cherry tree along the way.
As he walked, lost in thought, he felt a nice fragrance and looked around until something caught his eye: a flower shop, already open, but the owner was nowhere to be seen.
"Hm, I could maybe bring one for that little girl, Akane. I bet she'd enjoy it."
He approached the varied assortment of flowers on display, their beautiful colors and scents helping lift his mood after the bad start he had today.
He took a pair of roses in his hand, a pink one, symbolizing happiness, and a white one, which meant innocence.
"I remember how the little ones once made memorize the meanings of each flower in the garden, else they wouldn't talk to me anymore. It was a pain to get it right, but to think it would be useful like this…"
Remembering the boisterous little girls that often annoyed him to no end with their stories, after he was already tired of the other kid's pranks, broke a smile on his face. He brought the two flowers near, closing his eyes for a moment as he got lost in thought.
"Nice choice there."
A voice sounded very close to his ears, as a young woman was now standing beside him, leaning very close to his face.
"Whoa!
—
Extra Titles: ("In and out of the abyss.", "It's important to clean one's room sometimes.", "The weirdest morning in decades.", "The universe conspires against you if you plan to go to school early.", "Useless knowledge can be useful sometimes").