How It Should Have Ended

Word Count: 1,003

All I remember when the bookcase fell on me was that it was warm.

It was a pretty useless thing to remember, in my opinion.

When I woke up, I wasn't awake enough to know that I wasn't awake.

I felt sleepy and could hardly keep my eyes open. When I closed them I felt a hand touch my forehead. I opened my eyes to see Naru smiling down at me.

Why was there something really wrong with that picture?

"Naru?" I said, "You're back. I'm so relieved…"

The smiling Naru frowned. "No, I'm Gene."

Hm. That didn't make any sense. I must truly be exhausted.

"Eh? Who?"

"Eugene Davis. I'm Noll's twin brother."

"Who's Noll?"

"Naru. I'm Naru's twin brother."

"Are you really? What a plot twi—"

"Stay with the program," Gene said gently, smiling again.

"Oh, right."

"Mai, when you wake up there's something that I need you to tell my brother. Concerning the whereabouts of my corpse."

"Wait. You're dead? How sad."

"Please don't use up my screen time by having me explain. Now, listen carefully…"

I listened as carefully as my spinning head would allow me to carefully listen to him tell me where he was. But it was so hard. I felt sleepy and his lovely voice was lulling me to sleep.

"Mai," I heard his voice insist as I fell into a real sleep. Or woke up from my fake sleep, whichever you prefer. "Don't forget the directions."

So, of course, I promptly forgot them.

…

When I woke up, Monk, Ayako and John were staring at me as if they had nothing better to do with their time.

I couldn't stifle the noise that had emerged from my throat. "Eep!" There was just something generally creepy waking up and finding people staring at you.

"Hey, you're alive," Monk said. "I thought you had died."

"They wouldn't let me call the hospital," Ayako said, "Because apparently having a bookcase fall on top of you and you being knocked-out for how many hours isn't enough to call the hospital for!"

"But see? She's fine. Now she has to thank me for making sure she didn't get a hospital bill for no reason," Monk said.

I put a hand to my head. "I feel woozy."

Ayako stomped her foot. "Now, you see you stupid Monk? She probably has a concussion!"

I actually didn't feel that bad. But there was a nagging feeling in the back of my mind. Like, there was something that I really should try to remember, because it felt really important.

But I couldn't. So oh well.

…

And thus the day continued as normal. Except that I had to run to my house to change into my school outfit and get my books, and then run all the way back to school without stopping to eat. I tried to sleep while running, but it wasn't working out too well. What? I was tired. I stayed up most of the night and then the other half I had a dream about someone who-was-not-Naru that I was still trying to remember.

Yep. Just a normal day.

When I got back to school, I was met by Kuroda.

"Are you okay? Any injuries from yesterday's obvious ghost activities?" she asked.

"Well, after the bookcase fell on me, I had a really weird dream that I'm still trying to remember, I have this large bump on my head that may or may not be concerning, and I keep thinking that I have a dead twin."

"Hm, sounds lovely. I'll see you around." And thus, Kuroda wandered off.

I went to my little circle of friends, only to hear that they had heard from Naru while I had been left in the dark. I was so depressed that I wasn't even listening to them until I heard Kuroda's and my name being called over the speakers, asking us to come to the principal's office.

What did I do now?

…

Once we got there, we practically went right into the hypnotism ritual. Except I really wasn't paying attention to Naru.

Because once I had gone into the hypnotic sleep, I started to semi-remember something important.

Gene. Naru's dead twin brother. The only reason that Naru was even in Japan for.

"Hm," I said out loud, and Naru gave me a pointedly annoyed look.

He flicked the lights on probably just to mess with me, because it hurt when my eyes adjusted so fast.

Ritual's over. Everyone's departing.

I chased after Naru.

"Naru, did you come back to the school last night?"

"No."

"Hey, Naru, do you have a dead twin brother?"

Naru stopped and turned so fast that I ran into him. "What?"

"Well, I was just curious…"

"Why would you even ask something like that?"

"Am I right?"

"That's beside the point… anyway; did he say anything as to where he was?'

"Hm? He did, but I don't remember."

"Can you possibly get anymore useless?"

"Stick with me through the rest of the series, and you can find out."

"That's not likely, because after I drill the information out of your head, I'm going back to England."

"How are you going to get it out of my head?"

"I have my ways." Naru smirked and it was scary.

I decided that maybe I should try and think a little harder.

….

And thus, I remembered the directions after Naru knocked me out and I met up with Gene again. Naru retrieved Gene's body from the lake, and went back to England. He didn't even bother to finish the autosuggestion test or the haunted school case.

All the other people that had helped in the incident went home, and we never made contact again. And I lived my life as a normal teenager without a strange part-time job.

All because Gene had decided to tell me exactly who he was instead of leading me on. Yeah, just think of what would have happened if he had lied to me?