Locul de vindecare
Ren Tsuruga opened his eyes what felt like an eternity. He was falling, and he had no idea why. No, not like mentally, he was literally falling.
He was staring off at the sky from where he must've been flung. It was darkness around him. He couldn't move his limbs due to the force of the air hitting his body. And then suddenly, he landed on something really soft. He looked around him, blank. His head was throbbing, voices colliding and piercing his brain. Ren knew it wasn't normal to fall from the sky.
However, he didn't need to think so much about it, the door was thrown open at the far end of the dark room. Light flooded the room, making Ren shut his eyes due to the brightness piercing his eyes.
"Koun Hizuri."
Ren stopped struggling, frozen.
"You are Koun, right? Sixteen years-old?"
Ren swallowed his own bile and finally adjusted his sight on the slight outline of the person. A deep voice was asking him questions he didn't want to answer. He was tall, blocking most of the light. but he wasn't blocking the dim light so much. After what felt like hours, the man sighed.
"We don't have all day, young man. If you wish to get your questions answered and get out of here, you must answer my questions," he said tiredly.
Ren gulped, and decided he can't very well stay here even if he wanted to not answer of that man's questions.
"Yes, I'm Koun Hizuri. But I don't use that name very often. I use Ren Tsuruga. And yes, I am sixteen."
The man didn't make a sound, but the room was suddenly lit with white light that shot the sensitive spots in his eyes.
"Good. I think now I can tell you the rules of Locul de vindecare. First of all, let me tell you why you are here. I'm sure that by now, your head must've become clear," he said.
He was right, Ren could think more clearly now. He remembered standing on the sidewalk while chasing some guy when his best friend Rick had sacrificed himself to save him. He remembered days of mourning and simply trying to erase himself from existence. That's when his parents proposed to have him healed. He remembered signing a paper and then blacking out.
And then waking up while falling.
"My name is Lory Takarada. I was the man who had come to seal the contract. You will be here as long as you need recovery to heal. And then you would be given a choice to either go back, or stay here as a fellow healer helping others heal. However, let me make this clear for you: this is not what you call a rehabilitation center. Here you will train, learn skills to survive, and finally be given situations that are quite similar to the incident that took place in your life. And not to forget," his eyes darkened just a little, "You cannot escape. This place is where you face your fears, learn to be brave and train to be strong against anything that comes in your way. You may take a long time healing, but this would make you into a better person, change every weakness you have into your strength. "
He stepped forward, and Ren was struck by how eccentric his appearance was, a contrast to the way he spoke about this place.
"And lastly, you will be partnered. Not now, but after a year or two. When you pass tests and do tasks we assign you. I won't assure you that this is going to be easy, but," his eyes softened, a small smile breaking through his uptight posture. He looked like a leader that knew everything but chose to give a chance to see if everything could be changed, "I will always support you."
With that said, Lory stepped back. Behind him, a few ladies came forward.
"You can change your appearance, your identity. But you cannot change it again and again. You can change it only three times. So choose wisely. The other things will be told to you by your instructor. His name is Yukihito Yashiro. Although he won't help you with your tasks, he may guide you through your journey."
With that said, he sauntered out of the room, leaving Ren even more confused and suffocated under the chests of the women who were attracted to his good looks. No one can blame him for having blonde hair and green eyes. He was incredibly handsome, but he didn't feel happy about it.
As he looked at the dyes and other things, he decided that he must start afresh.
With new looks.
x-x-x
Ren wandered behind the women who kept giggling and trying to call out to him. They were blushing, and adjusting their appearances, especially their shirts, pulling at it and tracing their chest portion as if to tempt him. But he wasn't fazed even in the least bit.
He reached a lobby, where two women sat, typing seriously while they spoke into the microphone attached to their ear all the way to their mouth.
"...yes...Yashiro is ready to receive Ren Tsuruga...yes he would be here any minute now," one lady said, whilst looking up.
Her light blue eyes met his and she excused herself from the phone.
"Are you Ren Tsuruga?"
Ren nodded, unable to speak. How did these people know his every move? Were they watching him?
"Go through door 20 and tap on the glass door three times. Your instructor will know that you have come. He will tell you how the system works."
Ren nodded, glancing at the doors to his right. There were at least 20 of them. Four colors kept rotating. Blue, red, white and black. He was given the black door, on which was written, Melancholie.
On the white, Furie.
On the Red, Ura de Sine; on the blue, Vinovatie
He guessed the white and the black ones, anger and sadness. Maybe he was wrong, but he had a feeling the doors were dividing according to the emotion that overruled other emotions. And the one that threatened to consume them whole. He sighed as he entered the door told to him. He looked for the glass door and again found two types of doors. Glass and Wood. He knocked the glass door three times. It was opened by a young man who bordered twenty.
This man, had brown hair that fell just above his cheekbone and he had hazel eyes, lighter than Ren's current brown eyes. He wore spectacles, and serious expression. He assessed Ren, then looked right in his eyes, "You must be Ren Tsuruga," he stated. Ren nodded, still trying to understand his surroundings.
"Follow me," he said.
Ren walked behind Yashiro, as he looked at the corridors. They reached near a door where Yashiro turned the knob and stepped inside, announcing his presence.
"This is our room. You come here only to sleep, that is in the night. The only day that is a holiday is Dominica; which is Sunday in english. You aren't allowed to your room unless you are seriously ill. I will remain your instructor till you start to stand on your own feet. Then you would be own your own, your room would be changed. Once you're healed, or so think you are, you can either become an instructor, an organizer or go back to wherever you came from. Although till you heal, you have no choice but to stay here, once you choose a profession here, you would be allowed to visit the world once every four months."
"Your activities will keep changing once you master them. If you master everything they give you, then will be put in situations you have encountered in your life but don't want to go through them again. If you react to them positively, then they would release you early. At the end of twelve months, Lory Takarada, the President of Locul de vindecare, will test you if the directors pass you. If he feels that you need to heal more, he will allow you to stay another year, doing another set of things. Although this wouldn't be something you would want to do all your life, I think it would help you tackle situations better than before. There are four groups, each group has its own color and title. You are in Melancholie, black group. It is for people who have gone through something that makes them sorrowful and unable to live with their grief."
"Ren, this place may seem crazy to you, but this is the place you need," he said softly, making Ren wonder why the people here spoke to nicely to him. He was a murderer, and he had no right to be treated so gently.
He spent the entire day sitting in his room as Yashiro went to submit his form and get the schedule for Ren. He hadn't even come out of his room, as Yashiro had suggested, to meet new people. He said it would have helped him get comfortable in this new place. But Ren didn't want to associate himself with anyone right now.
He put his head in his hands, the tears finally falling down his cheeks. His entire form shook, he could feel something bubbling inside, threatening to constrict him and break him.
Ren didn't have the will to do anything.
x-x-x
"Tsuruga! Stop stumbling over your pants! Get up and start climbing again!"
Ren grit his teeth and refused to obey him. This director was getting on his nerves. Yashiro told him that his first task was to train how to climb a mountain. Ren wondered how that had to do with healing. He tried, but the rocks weren't big enough to support his weight. He was taller than average and he was strongly built. But he wasn't that quick. He was reckless. His patience stretched only by a meter. It didn't take long to infuriate him.
After getting insulted for about five times for slipping down again, he decided he had enough. He got enough spanking later, ones that made him bellow in pain.
He had two more tasks that day, one was archery and the other was swimming which came naturally to him.
But it only made him more angry and dark. By the end of the day, Yashiro got a first aid kit to treat the injuries he got while he got spanked. He didn't say anything, to which Ren was very grateful. But he managed to comfort him by telling some stories of the people who did rock climbing as their first tasks.
Ren didn't smile or laugh, but it eased his foul mood somehow.
x-x-x
Over the few days, he realized he just had to master Rock climbing, swimming, archery, firing with a revolver. Ren dropped the revolver he tried to hold it. It reminded him of the times he would get scolded by Rick. And it made his hands tremble, he would quiver before he would fire at the glass in front of him.
By the end of each day, he would get spankings for disobeying in at least one task. He learnt to grind his teeth and bear the pain. Some days were better than other days, like they would spare him showing rare mercy. He was unaffected by all that.
Ren learned new things like driving a two wheeler, using a firearm, even though it didn't exactly make him feel comfortable. He still laid wide awake in the nights, cursing himself and replaying the scenes to remind himself that it had been his fault that it has happened.
He finally mastered all of them by the end of three months, being deadly accurate, fast and light.
By the end of the first year, he was called into the office.
Lory took one look at him, and shook his head.
"You haven't prepared enough. You aren't healed at all. All the things you were made to do, didn't have any effect on you."
Lory walked past him, suddenly stopping right behind him.
"I know all these things aren't things that usually what you'd expect. You don't get things easily. And you are here to survive in the cruel world out there. This is not truly a healing place."
Ren didn't react.
"This place is hell. Here you are tortured until you reach your breaking point."
Ren stumbled in his steps, he hadn't even moved in his spot! What the heck did he say?!
He swirled around, meeting the grim eyes of Lory. As if he knew what Ren had been going through. As if he knew exactly what went on in his mind.
"I'm just kidding!" Lory burst out laughing, making Ren scowl. Ren was hating this guy every passing minute now.
He wiped the tears in his eye and looked at Ren seriously, all humor wiped out of his face.
"Koun, I know you had a dark past. But you need to learn to let go. You need to overcome your melancholy. Until then," he put on his cowboy hat, and gave him a brief nod.
"You will stay here and master whatever task they give you. And I believe that once you master them all, you would approach the same situation you faced a year ago differently. I'm sure you would be able to face it without surrendering yourself to the darkness like you did before coming here."
He didn't say goodbye, nor did he make Ren feel any better.
If possible, he made him feel even worse.
x-x-x
"Bye Ren, I wish you luck. And I hope you get a good person. Instruct that person to be a better person," Yashiro said gripping his bag. Ren gave him a smile, grateful for his companion, who stayed loyal to him for almost three years. Ren had stopped brooding in front of people and managed to master everything they threw in his path. Lory didn't force him to do more tasks, instead offered him to be an instructor till he healed. Ren was reluctant, but after facing the incident identical to his traumatic one, he knew he hadn't exactly healed the way he should. And Lory knew that, although Ren had no idea how.
Nonetheless, Ren agreed to be an instructor and for the first time after so long, he felt something that had died when he succumbed to the darkness surrounding him, genuine curiosity.
He waited in the glass room, the same door he was sent to. He now knew why there was a glass door and a wood door in each room. The glass door was meant for people who didn't need an instructor because they weren't that traumatized by the incident. Ren quickly learnt the things around him. The Red door was for the people who lost themselves to their own evils. The blue door was for guilty, they weren't here to heal, but learn their lesson and realize what they had done. And the white door was for people who can't control their temper at all. If Ren wasn't grievious, maybe he would've belonged to that group.
But he didn't. He'd learnt to control his temper and his other emotions. He learnt to show fake smiles and display emotions that made people think he truly had healed. But he couldn't fool, Lory. Although he met him only thrice in his life, he hated him yet depended on him. Last year, he'd almost lashed out on him, but Lory didn't stop him. This year he'd punched the older man for even suggesting to sleep with a woman. He'd said that Ren needed a woman to cool off his head.
Anyway, on the top screen, the name of the person appeared.
"Be ready, here comes the person you have to guide."
Ren braced himself, as he heard the knock three times.
And then, he opened the door to the story he thought was similar to his. Only, there was a petite fat teenager, with large amber eyes and a ugly clothes.
"Are you Kyoko Mogami?"
To be continued...
Author's Note:
Hello guys! This is gonna be a two shot fiction, because I don't have that much energy to write everything in one chapter. This had been going on in my mind for a long time, wondering in the night, till I fell asleep.
Finally when I thought I couldn't get it off my mind, I wrote it down.
I hope you guys like it. Please do leave a comment, favorite and follow.
Thank you!
Bye!