There was nothing at the moment after the eyes were closed.
Nothing but a flowing feeling of endless cold, that froze the boy's mind simply by its blow, thereby making Daniel seem somewhat tranquil only in arcane… All of which clearly just a mere sign of acceptance toward his own impending death, yet the boy has little idea of what he's waiting for, or what would even come to him next after the darkness.
For then out of anything he could have ever guessed, the crimson arrived with such a searing sensation as if it was desperately in craving for something; the voice was soft when it spoke, ["For nothing but a reason…"]
["I can't do the thing unless you have one for the spell, Daniel!"]
["So you have to find it somehow…"]
["I need you to find even just a little bit of it for me to save you…"]
["For this dagger to save both of us!"]
Little Daniel was startled to open his eyes, to get a bit away from the dark and the red as he heard the strange sorrowful young girl's voice, whispering a plea for him to find something he should already have in his tiny grasp… But the fog in Daniel's mind obscured such important matters from his very eyes and ears.
And since his father who had just walked past him did not seem to hear the same thing he had heard from somewhere that was supposed to be close to the both of them in the living room, Daniel decided to solely assume it was only his own imagination all along.
And instead found himself suddenly being complained by his father who then said to him, "The wound on your hand… The blood… Don't spill it on the floor of my house. Go find a rag or something to cover it, you hear me?"
"Yes, father."
He spontaneously answered while bowing down as politely as possible, deciding to let his eyes follow his father's steps as the man walked out of the back door house. Leaving Daniel who had just arrived home from his elementary school to be alone in silence… Something that may have actually happened once when he was very young in age.
Which also implies that what he's witnessing is nothing but a mere glimpse of the past, and he is not actually present there as he realized the strangeness quite too early.
Thus, Daniel then opted to go with the flow. Assuming things like this were almost certain to happen to normal people when they are about to die, like what he often saw on television if not from the internet… Until someone finally came to protest what she had just witnessed along with the boy himself, only from somewhere unseen. As the young girl then whispered, ["Where's the rest of them?"]
"Eh?! Who's talking?!" Little Daniel twisted his head here and there, taken aback by of course, the bizarre echo he was hearing from within his own mind.
["Who? Of course it's– Wait… What– I mean, Daniel, we've been here before!"]
"Oh, have we? Ah, yes… I guess you're right."
The boy nodded his head as he spoke, realizing something vague in his own memory. "I've probably asked you the same thing before, haven't I?"
["Yes, you have… But then why the hell are your eyes still wandering around?"]
"Coz I'm pretty sure I heard your voice from somewhere a little to my left…"
["No! What are you talking about!? Daniel, I'm not– I said, stop looking for where my voice came from, cause I'm not there!"]
"Ugh… Fine. I'll stop. But still… Who the hell are you, anyway? I mean, you haven't introduced yourself to me yet… Or have you?"
["..."]
"Well, damn… You have?"
["Daniel…"]
The girl's voice was soft before she took a deep breath as if to settle herself down, just for a moment until the right time came for her to continue, ["You've asked me the same thing dozens of times already. Or perhaps… Are you really at your own limit right now?"]
"Oh… Yeah, no… I'm fine." Even before the question was finished, the boy responded calmly, albeit strangely.
["Huh… Okay, good. And if so, then I'll ask you once more… Where's the rest of it? Where are your memories before and after this point?"]
"I don't… Know… I forgot, I guess?"
["What?! No! Not again! Please just try it at least for once, Daniel!"]
Without even a second thought, the voice decided to immediately revert to its previous nervous tone she had been trying to hold back.
["I mean, it's not that hard! All you need to do is to try to remember something before or after, anything other than this short bits you just showed me like a hundred times already!"]
"Hundreds of times?! What are you talking about?!"
["..."]
The voice appeared to be taking quite a moment for itself again, to calm down after what Daniel had just asked… Only to then sigh and take charge of the conversation like always, so it yelled, ["Alright. Forget it. Daniel, Listen… As I said before, we don't have many seconds left to stay here for long, so there'll be a bit of a change in the plans…"]
["I'm going to need you to give me the authority to enter your mind, so we can find it together… But you must do it quickly!"]
"Authority? My mind? How?! You have to explain everything from the very basics so I can understand, you squeaky noise! And I don't get it… What is it you want us to find anyway?"
As he waited for an answer, the boy seemed puzzled by the thing the little girl's voice was asking earlier. But for some reason it was instead her unseen presence that didn't confuse him as much no more, hence why he meant to allow the voice to continue, to answer the question he had just asked… Only unfortunately, a sudden weariness now began to impair the boy's consciousness and his eyes sought to close even more, as Daniel forced himself to repeat his own question, "You want us… To find… What?"
["..."]
["That's it… There's the sign… As I feared the most, this is no use."]
["Your mind had blurred too much already, too foggy, it's even way beyond help!"]
["But, fine. I'll do the thing… Another taboo that I will yet to break."]
["I'll get my own hands even dirtier if I really have to, just so you know, Daniel… It's my one and only backup plan after all."]
["And that's why, I will now reassemble your own broken memories by myself…"]
["All I know is this is going to hurt like hell. But ready or not, here I come!"]
"Be ready for what?"
~~~~~
Suddenly the boy was swallowed by yet another darkness.
His breath was short and his legs lost their balance as Daniel's footing turned into dark wooden planks, surrounded by walls with the same pattern on each side that even the roof itself and all appears to be made of the same one single oak tree; a quite narrow chamber along with Daniel still hugging the floor, right in the middle of it.
Completely unaware that hundreds, if not thousands, of empty photo frames had appeared all over the wooden walls from the dust and air around his very presence, each trembled from the millions of unsettling memory fragments belonging to the boy himself… Crept behind the fibers of every wall and the obscured ceiling.
And even after all of that, it would still be more fair if only there's one who could see how such a poor mind was currently being torn apart by his pile of the past: By every punch, kick and strangle he got from his father, as well as his mother's constant closed lips and averted eyes, as if he himself was merely a blurry illusion to her very own confusing thoughts.
Of how his aunt and everyone else around, stared at him with remorse for themselves, believing they should have done something back when he was not yet born to prevent Daniel from appearing in front of their own eyes only a few years later.
And the pity he received from his older sister, whom he unavoidably despised as someone that was truly adored by everyone, especially by both of their parents.
Someone who is inversely proportional to how bad he is as a person, yet at the same time the girl could only watch from the small gap of her bedroom door of how her father tortured Daniel with fear, worry and sadness, since she couldn't think of anything to do to make things right which causes Daniel to always feel nothing but hatred, jealousy and contempt towards.
A pity from such a weak disquiet angel, out of everyone Daniel knows, that was just too irritating for him to accept… So irritating that he even had the heart to hurt the girl with all of his cruel words and how he would always push her down to the ground, for each time his own big sister simply wanted to aid the boy's wound whenever her father wasn't around and to give him a hug for he never got one from anyone, not even from both of their same one biological mother.
And in the end, it was his regret that hurt more than even the pain of the wound he carried on himself… Regret for another scar he caused to his one and only sibling that he had been trying to make up for all his life.
But it was now unachievable, since the person was gone forever…
Thus, all the memories are now neatly displayed, filling each of the frames without leaving anything out in the void. Likewise the uproar and the trembling have now also subsided.
The calm after the storm that finally arrived… Tranquility that seemed quite hollow to Daniel but he was not upset, as the same thing was also what had now managed to restore the shattered bits of himself.
So the boy then stood upright…
His gaze fixed at such an inviting photo frame that standing out among the others, filled with the cheerful grins of two elementary school children. A boy and a girl of the same age with another pouting boy whose head they were caressing mischievously… None other than Deo and Fanya, with their gazes at Daniel always felt as if both were looking at something that would be very painful for each of them only if they lost it.
The same thing that the boy had once seen in his older sister's eyes on the crossing bridge, where tears flowed heavily due to such a deep sadness… At the same moment when a weak sentence was delivered to him… A plea filled with nothing but despair.
"A reason for you to live…"
"I'll be your reason to live, Daniel… For as long as it takes until you find someone else."
"Therefore, you must live… Do whatever it takes to survive, Daniel! Do it for me, your sister… And for the one who will come!"
["And now you got it… Right, boy?"]
["So now wake up!"]
~~~~~