Pain came first.
Not suddenly, but with eerie patience, as though it had been waiting just beneath the surface, waiting for the exact moment his awareness returned so it could tighten its grip without resistance.
It began as a distant pressure that dull and tolerable before sharpening with quiet cruelty into something precise and invasive.
Kiyotaka remained still.
It was not a choice. It was just that he simply could not move.
As he laid, seemingly next to the book he had bought from library out of interest, his thoughts came first, assembling themselves in calm succession, unaffected by the chaos raging somewhere deeper in his nervous system.
Awareness returned the way light would seep into a dark room, not all at once, but in slow increments.
He recognized the pain's location immediately.
It was radiating from his right temple.
It did not pulse randomly, rather it was throbbing in measured intervals, each wave layered atop the last, like ripples in water disturbed by something heavy beneath the surface.
He attempted to move his fingers but nothing happened.
The command left his mind clearly but it never reached its destination.
Somewhere between intention and execution, it had vanished completely!
His body was not obeying him, but he did not panic.
Kiyotaka turned his attention inwards. His breathing was shallow but steady, his hearing functioned normally as he could make out faint ambient silence, broken only by the quiet presence of stillness itself and his mind was clear, save for the mind numbing pain.
'Sleep paralysis?' he thought.
It was the most efficient explanation. The mind awakening before the body and temporary disconnection, however, the sharp pain did not fit that criteria.
He dismissed the thought, after all, speculation without evidence was inefficient.
He focused on regaining control instead.
A lot of time passed as he tried to do it. He could not measure the time precisely, but soon he felt it in the subtle shifts within his body as sensations returned first to his back, then his shoulders, spreading outward like warmth returning to frozen limbs.
Finally, he opened his eyes. His vision blurred immediately, unable to stabilize itself.
And then, sight of color came first.
It was red. Red cloaked in darkness.
It filled his field of view like a thin veil stretched over reality, muting everything beneath it.
He blinked slowly as his vision began to return and the world sharpened.
In front of him was a desk. Its surface was worn, uneven in places where years of use had carved faint depressions into the wood.
An open notebook rested at its center. Its pages were yellowed, and to the left sat a small stack of books, aligned carefully, their edges flush with one another.
To the right was...
'A revolver? Looks quite ancient but well maintained. Hmm...'
His gaze lingered on it for a moment.
He shifted his attention outward, allowing his eyes to move naturally, collecting details without forcing meaning onto them.
The lamp mounted on the wall was unfamiliar in design. Its metal frame enclosed glass panels, and pipes ran into it directly from the wall itself. There were no visible wires.
'Gas lamp...?'
He had seen them before—in photographs and in books. They were relics of an old era. He looked toward the window and saw the moon.
His eyes widened as he looked at it.
Red.
It was red.
Neither tinted by atmosphere nor obscured by cloud, but naturally red.
It hung in the sky in a horrifying manner, making Kiyotaka's mind race.
He stared at it for a long time, not because it frightened him but because it contradicted everything he knew.
He stood abruptly on instinct, his body reacting before his thoughts had fully settled. At the same time, pain exploded behind his temples, his balance failed, legs weakened, as if unable to support his weight.
He dropped back into the chair.
He exhaled quietly without panicking.
His body suddenly felt very weak.
He waited and Then tried again.
This time, he moved carefully, distributing his weight slowly, allowing his muscles time to respond. The result was that he could stand easily this time.
The room revealed itself fully now that he was standing and looking around fully. It was small and barely large enough to hold the essentials of living.
There was a bed against the wall, a cabinet and some cooking equipment.
Slowly, he approached the mirror.
So far he had thought that he was kidnapped and put into an unnatural enviornment to mess with his mind, however, the pair of eyes and face staring back at him in the mirror totally threw that assumption out of the window.
The person looking back at him had black hair, brown eyes, thin frame and an ordinary face.
Kiyotaka leaned closer.
For the first time, he was so confused that he was unable to catalogue his thoughts. What befuddled him even more was the wound. The wound that had torn through the skin at his temple, leaving behind a darkened opening where flesh had separated unnaturally.
Blood had dried around it, forming irregular patterns across his skin.
Beneath it was some kind of subtle movement.
He watched it without expression but underneath the layer of composure was confusion piling up on itself.
Slowly, Kiyotaka raised his hand to his chest. His heartbeat met his fingers.
Then he lowered his hand.
He did not understand.
He turned back with a blank look and touched the hole in his temple. He realized that the flesh was stitching itself back into place.
'What kind of hallucination is this? What kind of agent did they use to make everything so realistic... No, I am succumbing to denial. This really is real. But how... Hmm, that shouldn't be my thought process. Since it has happened regardless, I should see what I can do now.'
As his eyes looked down at the revolver, he opened the chamber and found 5 bullets inside it. Right beside it, the diary that had yellowed pages moved once with the air and a page with something scribbled arrived in front of his eyes.
He looked at the text and then at his bloodstained hands.
'Suicide, hm? Looks like it, but the text... Everyone will die, including me, feels like it is not that simple. Did someone kill "me" or well, this body's owner and painted it as suicide? My head hurts too much...'
Clutching his head, Kiyotaka sat down and started to try to make sense of things. Soon, an influx of information flooded his mind.
With his eyes red and headache subsiding, Kiyotaka finally came to terms with what has happened.
'So... it looks like I am Klein Moretti now.'