The Girl Born of Death.
Chapter one.
I wanted the knife to go in deeper-to rip and stab and pull out everything that was inside of me. My body longed for the cold blade to empty it out, and fill the hollows of myself with it's promising, sharp blade. I felt the fat, wet tears pouring out of my eyes as quickly as the blood gushed from the wound in my chest.
Why am I crying? This is what I wanted. I thought, twisting the blade and feeling it hit upon my ribs. Now I can be happy.
My hand recoiled and feel to my side, my legs feeling wobbly as I tilted backwards, my entire being shaking. With a thud my head hit the hard wooden floor. I can't see it anymore. I grinned, my vision blurring. I can't see a future that includes me.
"Look, another one." I heard a rough voice exclaim.
I stared up at an unfamiliar, yet plain ceiling with a single light fixed upon it.
Where am I? I looked around at what appeared to be a hotel room with a large, black ball sitting in the center and an outlook over Tokyo Tower.
"Is this that place people go when they die? That in between place, you know? Where you go if you're not evil or good?" I pondered, looking around at the people. This place is too boring to be Hell and too mundane to be Heaven. I concluded. There was a blond teenager who kept whining about getting some smokes, two suspicious men with bullet holes in their clothing, a man with glasses, an old politician I had seen a few times on TV, two high schoolers, a fair skinned girl with large breasts wearing nothing but a jacket that hardly covered her, a stupid looking dog, and a middle school sitting in the corner.
"We're not dead." The blond told me. He was a pretty boy with a young, feminine face. I wondered how he had died, but then his words registered in my mind.
"I'm..not?" I looked in my lap, spotting the blood covered blade lying their innocently as if it was saying, "surely, I could not have done such a thing to you, this blood is not yours"!
"We're all dead, this is the afterlife." The elderly politician countered. For someone who had just said they were dead, he seemed perfectly calm and pleased.
"You can be dead old man, I'd rather be alive, thanks." The blond bickered.
"The truth is, no one knows why we're here, but just before we arrived, we all had near death experiences." The man with glasses explained. "Why don't you tell us your name and how you died so we can see if there's any link to all of us?"
"You forgot to ask her." The politician nodded towards the sluttish dressed girl.
"Oh," The girl looked surprised. "My name is Kei Kishimoto." She told everyone. "And I died of..." He voice trailed off. "I died of suicide."
"And you?" The man turned to me.
"Mei Hanamaro-same." I replied, relaxed for being in the odd situation. We're all dead, it's not like we can be killed again. Whatever's going on isn't important. I thought with a shrug.
"Same?" One of the high schoolers raised an eyebrow. He looked like the unreliable type, sitting next to a tall yankee of a boy.
"I killed myself." I explained. "Stabbed myself right in the chest." I smirked and made a jabbing motion.
"Teenage girls these days..." I heard the old man mumble. The yankee shot me a sad look, almost like he pitied me. What for...? I thought to ask. It's not like it was a bad death. It was a good death.
I looked at my reflection in the shinny black ball. "Anyone know what this thing is?"
"No clue." The shifty looking high schooler told me.
I continued to stair at the ball, my blue and blond streaked hair was exactly as it had been before I died: perfect. My eyes looked more confident now, the plunge of the lade purging them of the bitterness and woe that had been stored up in them like money in a bank. I had on a sea foam green tang top and black skirt. My eyes darted back to the beautiful girl in the large jacket. Her hair was short, and her eyes cute and innocent. I couldn't picture her being a killer-because that's what we were, really, killers of ourselves. Cold blooded murderers.
My eyes lingered on the girl's masterpiece of a body. Jeez, the only other girl here has to be THAT hot, huh? Why couldn't there be one ugly one here to make me look better? I mean, really, what are those, F cups?!? I glanced down at my chest. Even if the wound was gone and had left no trace, my chest was still just as flat as a board.
"What do you think it is?" The brown haired high schooler asked as we walked over to the ball and stood next to me.
"I don't know." I passed off the question. "Does it matter?"
"I don't think that we're dead." He told me.
"I know I have to be dead, because I killed me." I justified my thoughts.
Pain. I didn't think you would be able to feel it in the afterlife, yet there I was, laying on the ground, my body aching.
"Shit, what just hit me?" I rubbed my throbbing head. I didn't need anyone to answer though, I had already seen for myself. The ball had opened, revealing rows of boxes with names on them.
"Shit, that hurt." The boy next to me cursed.
"How can stuff hurt if we're dead?" I asked him, unsure of why I was now expecting answers from a sketchy looking teenager. I hardly trusted people my age, they were never as smart as me, or at least not most of the time.
"We're not dead." He seemed agitated.
I looked away from him, not wanting to get on anyone's bad side if I had to spend an eternity with them. Something caught my eye when I looked away-it was the insides of the black ball. A suitcase like item with my name written on it in bold black ink. Mei Hanamaro.
Music was ringing throughout the room, eerie exercise music that almost made my ears bleed as I flicked open the case to reveal a shinny, rubbery, black suit.
"Should I put it on?" I wondered aloud. Everyone else seemed more interested in the rows of guns that were inside the sphere, yet no one seemed to bother with the suit other than myself. I glanced over a the boy next to me to see the case in his hands as well. The box read "Kei Kurono".
"You're name's Kei, too?" I laughed. "Two Keis, and your name rhymes with mine, too"
"Yeah." It almost looked like he was blushing. I figure he wasn't the type to get many girls, with the way he had been staring at Kei Kishimoto only moments before.
"I'm going to put it on." I announced.
"It looks kind of stupid, why are you going to?" The blond smoker laughed. "Or are you into that sort of thing?"
"It just seems like we're meant to put them on." I told him. "I mean, I'm not going to question anything anymore. What's the big deal if I put it on, it's not like anyone living will see me."
"I'm living." The boy told me.
"Me too." Kurono chimed in.
I sighed. "Is there a bathroom in here?"
"No, but you can us the hallway. None of us will bother you." Kurono's yankee friend assured me, glaring at the two shady men with bullets holes in their clothing.
The suit was tight, and not tight like my favorite pair of skinny jeans or that tube top I bought when I was twelve and still try and squeeze into on the hottest of summer days. It was skin tight, as if it had been made by someone who knew my body even better than I do I slipped my black shirt on over the bottom, slightly embarrassed at how the rubber suit clung to my skin, showing off my every curve. I always thought my legs were my best trait, but wearing this suit makes me feel like I'm walking out there naked!
To my surprise, when I went back in the room it was empty. Except for Kurono, who stood there butt naked with the suit in one hand. His face fell and his free hand shot to his manhood.
"It isn't what you think!" He yelled, bright red, as beams came from the orb and undid his being like a thread being pulled from a Kurono shaped sweater.
"What happened?" I blinked, standing with all of the members from the room outside, the cold air not fazing me as it tousled my hair.
"Kei..." The yankee stared at his naked friend as he struggled to put the suit on.
"Don't get the wrong idea, Kato!"
So his name is Kato. I figured I should remember that.
"Half a million dollars?!" The middle aged man with glasses exclaimed
"I told you to keep it secret." I turned to see the owner of the new voice. It was the middle schooler, and for the first time I was that he was wearing a suit like I was under his hoodie and pants.
"What's going on?" I asked him.
"This is actually a TV game. You've all already agreed to it and had your memories altered by hypnotism. If you can catch the alien first, you win half a million dollars." He explained.
"Alien?"
"You were getting changed when everyone was looking at it. We have to defeat some onion alien, the picture showed up on the ball." Kato told me.
"It's name is Gantz." The middle schooler told me.
"Alright, awesome! Half a mill here I come!" I declared. "Wait, where's my gun?"
Shit! I got changed into the suit but didn't bother to grab the gun! This is bad but... I looked at the object tightly gripped in my left hand-the knife I thought had been the end of me.
"You can use whatever you'd like." The boy smirked. "There are no rules on what your weapon is."
Before I knew it I was running with the two gangster like men, the man with glasses, and the blond, rushing in shared excitement to where the alien showed up on a gadget one of them had snatched from the Gantz, as the dark youngster had referred to it.
I was fine with being dead but... but I'm great with this too! I thought as we all came to the door of an apartment, the man with glasses knocking on the door.
"Don't knock, stupid." One of the gangsters hissed, yet the door opened wide, and standing in the door way was the oddest thing I had ever seen. It was a little green man with an onion in his hand. An onion alien... just like that Kato guy said... I blinked. Things were getting weirder and weirder.