I came to a halt in my never-ending lane of memories. Memories I could not recall perfectly, yet could not let go of either, as they were the only things anchoring me to what I once was.
The memories of my origins were mostly fragmented. It was strange how I could recall a meme I once saw on social media sometimes better than my own life.
But that had become my reality for as long as I could recall. Or perhaps only minutes had passed in my mind, which merely felt eternally stretched.
I couldn't say anything for certain. My mind was just as big of a mess as my life once was. The only things anchoring me were those fragmented memories—eternally looping, never completed. Sometimes joyous, sometimes sorrowful. Yet one thing was certain: I couldn't let them go. If I did, I wouldn't even be able to recall who I was.
I had long expected this to be my life—lost inside my own mind for eternity.
Until suddenly everything vanished.
Everything came to a halt, and for the first time in what felt like forever, the world became visible, understandable, and real to me.
I felt my breathing.
I could hear.
I could feel, smell, and see.
Everything felt alive again. For the second time.
I felt alive.
Until I realized I might not stay like that for long.
Before I could fully come to terms with reality, the scene in front of me froze me in place. What I saw made me question whether I was still hallucinating, or if this was a dream.
Had I even had one of those recently?
There were people.
Lots of people.
All of them frozen just like me, standing still, their minds seemingly numb—as if they had lost the very cognitive ability to think.
Is that what happened to me?
I questioned it, but the answer felt eons away. Even thinking that much made my mind feel slow. Sluggish. Heavy.
What's going on?
Has time stopped?
Is this another incomplete memory?
Forming thoughts felt like a struggle, as if even thinking strained my brain.
Just as I began to wonder if time had truly stopped, I felt a wisp of something flicker past me. Too fast to capture with my eyes. Yet every sense in my body told me something had moved around me—fast. Extremely fast.
Turning my eyeball alone felt like a Herculean effort. When I finally managed it, I saw that out of everything around me, one singular figure seemed to be moving.
Earlier it had been nothing but a shadow whipping around, darting between dozens of people, moving with a speed that looked unrealistic outside modern cinema.
I could only hold my breath in awe when that shadow stopped.
And revealed its magnificent form.
A man.
A very handsome man, panting as he came to a halt. Blood smeared across his face. His sky-blue eyes looked like they contained the entire universe within them. His white hair made him the most dazzling figure among everyone present, as if time itself had stopped for everyone else just to showcase the magnificence of the man standing there.
My eyes couldn't leave him.
My mind failed to recall who he was.
But my heart seemed to know.
My half-frozen heart thumped harder the moment I saw the white-haired man.
'Is this love ?'
NO !
Can't be. I'm straight.
Right ?
Damn these memories.
But internally I knew it, its wasn't something so boring as love at first sight. No...
Instead, I seem to know this.
I know what's happening somehow.
I've seen this before.
I told myself that with certainty. My gut feeling insisted I had seen this scene before.
Yet my fragmented memories refused to tell me where.
And then I saw it.
Blood.
My mind finally registered the blood on his face.
I finally realized where the blood came from—and it wasn't from the white-haired man.
No.
It came from the monsters he had fought.
With great effort, I roamed my eyes around and saw the evaporating corpses of many such monsters around him.
All slain by the panting man.
Normally, that realisation should have calmed me down, right?
All the monsters were dead. The good side had won.
But the relief I should have felt was nowhere to be found.
My slightly elevated heart rate never returned to normal.
This isn't right.
I know this… something is going to happen.
I know it.
And just as that thought crossed my mind, exactly what I feared took place.
Behind the panting man appeared an object.
A cube.
Before either of us could react, the cube exploded—transforming into something I could only describe as an object straight out of a sci-fi movie or a high-budget horror show.
It split into smaller parts, strangely enlarging while still connected to a fleshy substance at their core. They surrounded the man from one side, staring at the white-haired man with their newly revealed eyes.
I knew this…
I knew something would happen.
It felt obvious.
Just as obvious as the need to move away from such an object.
The white-haired man seemed to attempt exactly that.
But he was stopped in his tracks by a voice behind him.
"Yo, Satoru…"
A man in monk's clothing stood there. A tall man with long black hair tied behind his back, and a stitch mark running across his forehead.
"It's been a while."
My eyes widened.
The uneasy feeling in my chest magnified when I saw the man with the stitched forehead and the white-haired man—Satoru—pause in his tracks.
No…
Move from there.
Don't stand there.
MOVE!
I wanted to shout, but my mouth had lost its voice.
I knew something was wrong.
Maybe it was my fragmented memories. Maybe it was just my instincts.
But something big—something really bad—was happening.
For the first time, through sheer force of will, I truly moved my body. I tried to reach the white-haired man and push him out of the way.
But I had overestimated how much, or to be exact, how little control I had over my newly awakened senses.
I stumbled on the very first step, almost tumoring to the ground before barely managing to keep my footing.
I forced my body forward.
One step after another.
My mind still buzzed from whatever had happened earlier, as if it had been overloaded.
I wasn't fast enough.
Within seconds, the object clanged around Satoru's body, pinning him down.
Satoru?
How do I know his name is Satoru?
My mind reeled, still sluggish.
…Oh.
The dark-haired man called him that.
"You're not him. Who are you?!" Satoru shouted, trapped inside that thing.
What happened next was even more nauseating.
The black-haired man somehow opened his own head, revealing his brain.
And the brain had a mouth.
I shuddered at the absurdity of the situation.
Which meant the black-haired man was a monster too.
No…
Not a monster.
A curse.
Even I didn't know why that word came to mind. Yet it did—just like the instinct that had warned me of danger earlier.
The same instinct telling me that I knew what was happening here.
That I had seen all of this before.
I have to move.
Suppressing the nausea and the pounding in my head, I moved forward.
But not toward the two men.
Instead, I moved the other way.
I have to get out of here.
My instincts screamed that this place was not safe. The only saving grace so far was that no one had paid me any attention.
Slowly, with all my effort, I made my way through the crowd of frozen people.
My legs eventually carried me to a staircase.
Despite not knowing where they led, I climbed them.
One step after another.
Anything, as long as I got away from those monsters.
No.
Those curses.
Little did I know I was marching straight toward them.
I took my time—time my body desperately needed to feel blood coursing through it again.
Time my brain needed to start functioning properly.
And by the time I reached the top floor…
I saw the same horrors I had been running from.
Curses.
Lots of curses.
So many that I couldn't even see the exit on the other side anymore.
My breath stopped.
Breathing became heavy.
My legs nearly gave out beneath me.
What now?!
I dared not make any noise.
If I did, I would die.
For a moment I considered going back.
Maybe if I acted like one of those frozen people, I could survive.
Maybe the monsters below wouldn't notice me like earlier.
But my heart told me that would be gambling with my life.
My instincts screamed that going back was even more dangerous than facing the row of monsters in front of me.
Negativity flared inside me.
Despair.
Fear.
Both of them were forms of negativity.
And they triggered a chain reaction.
One by one, every curse in front of me turned their heads toward me.
I froze in place.
…They found me.
And as if some silent signal had been given, all those curses rushed toward me at once.
My scalp tingled.
"CURSE YOU!"