Chapter 1: Fin

TWBH

I feel as though I'm drowning - my breaths come up quick and shallow, filling my lungs with the metallic tang of blood. Outside the jagged windows of the car, I see the rain splatter into the dark asphalt. It's disappointing - lying under a hydroplaned car in the middle of the night is not really how I imagined my life would end.

But how else could a disappointing life end but in an equally disappointing manner?

Something stirs on the broken edges of the glass. I blink, hazy patches of white and grey flickering in my sight - the tell-tale signs of too much blood loss. A pair of dark and narrow eyes stare back at me. My eyes are blank, unflinching even in the face of death. Nothing seems to faze them.

The rain is seeping through the window now. A flood is building quickly. Thick strokes of crimson red mixes with the rainwater. My breaths become lighter. My body registers the threat to my life. If moving crates in Seiyu and holing up in my room is even a life in the first place.

I'm correct though. I'm not alive. Not really. I'm just existing. I'm just Syren the Existence, not Syren the Life. I'm just a faceless guy in a magnet train. Just another statistic in the yearly number of highway accidents.

And to think - I'm only in this situation because I wanted to get a limited copy of the latest WoW expansion. If I didn't want to be the first in a long line of hardcore NEETS, then I would be lying on my bed right now. Safe, eating a bag of junk food and you know - not paralyzed and bleeding to death. Happy stuff.

But I wonder - now that the darkness closes in.

Would I be really happy? Would I be really happy sitting in that damp and sticky room, sitting on a tattered chair and sitting on yesterday's dinner? Would I really be happy filling the shelves at Seiyu with fresh stuff and putting on a smile for the latest customer?

My life is a blur - nothing but a series of scenes. Of vignettes where I sit in my room alone and watch others pass me by. I haven't seen my family in years. I don't even have a girlfriend. My only friends are my guildmates on WoW.

No. I'm not happy. I'm not satisfied.

I don't want to die.

I don't want to die.

I don't want to die...

The water reaches my nose and the rain starts to trickle into my lungs. It's getting harder to breathe. Asphyxia hits my head like a plane. The world darkens, the hopelessness of my situation dawning on my animal brain.

I'm not Syren the Life. I'm just Syren the Existence.

I'm just Syren the Lie -

Is it so wrong to want to be something more?

For once in my life, I want to be Syren the Life. I don't want to simply exist. I want to live.

I want to live.

I want to live.

So please. If someone is listening -

In that exact moment, a hand tears through the abyss.

TWBH

"Well, they got you too, huh?"

I blink. The disfigured man smiles crookedly at me, showing rows of yellowing teeth. He is dressed in loose rags stained with dirt and blood. His beady eyes peer into mine, searching for something within. It reminds me an awful lot of my job interview at Seiyu - the guy just looked at me, shook his head in disappointment and told me I was hired. Looking back on it, it was a one-way ticket to hell.

"Uhhh... yeah," I say. "They got me too. Whoever they are anyway."

The frail man shakes his head. "You haven't heard about Vincent and Victor's posse? They've been terrorizing the countryside for years. Taking women and children, killing them strong men I tell you."

I glance around. Four black walls surround us. Not exactly walls. They are bars to a cage - a cage designed to imprison humans. The cage is covered by some sort of dark cloth. Probably so we can't see where we are. So we can't signal for help.

The man with the yellow teeth sighs and slumps against the bars of the cage. We're not alone. In one corner, there's a middle-aged woman cradling a boy. She glances suspiciously at the two of us, holding the naked boy tightly. In another, there's a hooded man. He is lying flat on the floor, a bowl spilling suspicious green liquid by his side.

The corner farthest away from us hides a little girl. She is dressed in a wide cape and a small ribbon that barely covers her chest. Smoky blonde hair, fair skin, deep purple eyes, thigh-high boots on short legs... Where have I seen her before?

The girl returns my stare. "Stop looking at me like that. It's creepy."

I swear I've heard that voice before. The girl who is dressed like a prostitute scowls and mutters something about men and dragons. Strange. Doesn't she know that fairy tales aren't real? Or maybe she's into roleplay. Certainly, there's a slim possibility that I've seen her in a cosplay convention before. One of the few that I'm invited to anyway.

But then again, if this is some sort of fevered dream, then all bets are off. Who knows. Knowing my sick imagination, she might even transform into a dragon and eat me. Please don't. I'm already paralyzed and bleeding to death in the real world. I don't want fantasy me to be charred barbecue.

"Sorry," I say. "You just seem familiar. My name's Syren. It's a pleasure to meet you, Nowi."

What?

The world shifts. I stumble and crash head-first into the dense stone. Static buzzes in my head - my own distorted scream echoes in my ears. I'm aware of how painful my throat is. I'm aware of the hands - my own hands, clawing at my neck.

The world rearranges. I blink in confusion. I'm looking at the man with yellow teeth once again. His beady eyes meet mine.

He stares questioningly at me. "Well, they got you too, huh?

The automatic response leaves my lips. As if I've already given it a hundred times before.

"Yeah," I say. "They got me too. Whoever they are anyway."

No. I couldn't have. But maybe someone else already has. In a rusty corner of my mind, there's some sort of awareness as to what really is going on. The one corner that remembers my desire to live exerts its best effort to puzzle out my current situation.

The short man shakes his head slowly. "You haven't heard about Vincent and Victor's posse? They've been terrorizing the countryside for years. Taking women and children, killing them strong men I tell you."

The static increases in volume, the weight of a life-threatening situation crashing into my brain. Faculties that I have never used before strain in effort. The static is telling me to hurry up. I don't want to die. It hums, understanding my plight. It whispers something to me - something inaudible but somehow important.

I survey the cramped cage. The four iron pens of our prison surround us and the gaps between the bars are too small to squeeze through. The cage is just big enough for five people to lie down. It's covered by a dark cloth that stops whatever light from entering.

I'm not alone. There is the middle-aged woman with the naked boy, the passed out drunk and the girl dressed in revealing clothes. The woman is giving what little warmth she has in this freezing temperature to the shiverring boy. The girl stares blankly at the ceiling, tapping the steel floor with the flesh of her index finger. She is hidden by the shadows - with only her bouncy blonde hair and vivid lavender eyes giving her away.

Where have I seen her before?

The familiar girl's glances sharply at me. "Stop looking at me like that. It's creepy."

I avert my gaze. I've heard that voice before. Scowling, she mutters something about men and dragons. It's strange that I'm dreaming about a girl half my age. I swear - I'm not a pedophile. No matter what kind of reputation NEETS get.

"Sorry," I say. "My name's Syren. It's a pleasure to meet you-"

Nowi.

My lips close before I could finish what I want to say. A memory of a shrill scream flashes in my mind's eye. It's telling me not to continue that statement - unless I want something really really bad to happen. I heed my instincts.

Escape. That's my objective.

Escape from what?

The static hums.

The child-like girl scowls cutely, crossing her arms over her flat chest. "My name's Nowi. Now leave me alone."

Nowi. Where have I heard that name before?

I don't care. I need to escape. I need to live.

I tip toe towards the door to the cage, careful to not make any sound to alert my captors. The rusty black iron bars draw close. My cellmates watch me curiously. The man with yellow teeth looks amused. Hey, I'm not the one just sitting there waiting for something to happen. Stop looking at me like that.

"Mighty foolish of you to try that, Syren," the man says. "These guys aren't happy if their prisoners try to escape."

He gestures at the middle-aged woman with a shrivelled branch-like hand. "Look at Lorna over there. She's payed the toll."

The woman glares at me as my eyes scan her form. She clutches the boy tighter. He moans as she lays a hand on his forehead. Hey, I don't care about the kid. I'm just curious as to what our captives do to prisoners who defy them. Her brown robes are in tatters, and I could see a bit of black veiny lines on her tan stomach. My eyes roam downwards, continuing past her legs -

Oh my god. Her leg.

Or rather, the absence of it. Lorna's right leg ends at her thigh, a few inches just above her knee. A scar lined with pus and congealed blood fills the spot where they apparently cut off her limb. It looks just like a rendering of a grievous wound in an R-rated game. Except this time, it's real.

Nowi's light voice fills the sudden silence. "Hey, stop staring at Lorna's legs like that. You're making her uncomfortable."

I look away and turn my attention towards the rusted gates to our cell. Clearly, these Victor and Vincent aren't that good at maintaining their prisons. Or they aren't concerned with faulty gear at all. I've read somewhere that rusty metal breaks easier than fresh ones. Maybe I should test it out.

The cell doors swing inward with an unpleasant creak.

TWBH

Hi guys. I swear this is going to bite me in the arse someday. But here it is - The Way Back Home. A concept that's been stirring in my head for two years, just begging to be written and published for you to read. As you can see, it's in a very not-Eren style. The entire book is in present tense, in first person point of view and in a style that resembles modern day light novels - namely Fate/Zero, Solo Leveling and Sword Art Online. It's also inspired by a lot of CYOAs on the internet. The Way Back Home is something of a novel experiment - a way to discover more about myself as a writer. Hey, if I'm going to improve my writing by doing zany experiments - I might as well share it with you, right?

Anyways, The Way Back Home doesn't have a concrete plot. Not exactly. The way I'm writing this is that I toss dice and look up the result on a chart. The chart contains possible events that might happen. Sort of rolling events in an RPG, keeping to the book's central theme. Fun fact: I rolled for where Syren would end up after he "died". The choices were Nowi's bandit captors, that field with Robin, the Future Past xenologue with Severa, the Bathrealm with Anna, out of the same portal as "Marth", and Naga's temple. Good thing that Syren lucked out and got the one where he is least likely to get discovered for his origins - not that the "system" would allow it anyway, seeing as it forced a hard reset after Syren mentioned Nowi's name out of the blue.

Well, if you were to choose, where would Syren have ended up?

Btw, be prepared to see familiar characters from a lot of different fandoms along with OCs. Who likes Sans? Who like Cthulhu?

Read and review. Eren out.

P.S. This gets updated on Tuesdays.

Edited on May 31, 2019: Fixed some small typos.