Suddenly, everything stopped.
I opened my eyes again, and found myself in a strange place.
It's surrounded by an empty, blank white space.
Am I died? Is this heaven?
"Why are you here?" A deep voice spoken up.
I looked around, and found a strange, mysterious person.
Is he human?
"What? Who are you? Where am I?" I asked.
"Who am I? I am who?" That person said.
Suddenly, a strong wind blew into my face, forced me to blink.
It was just a split second, but after I opened my eyes again, I saw a completely different person in front of me.
It was Izumi Akazawa.
"Izumi? But you're...you're..."
"Dead? Yes." She said, still retaining her usual impulsive voice.
"So, that means I'm already dead..." I said.
"No, not yet..." Izumi said, which made me surprised.
"But you will be soon unless you answer my questions." She told me.
"What...what do you mean?" I asked her, she remained silent.
"Why didn't you try to survive?" She asked me.
She asked a question I don't understand.
I looked at the floor beneath me, trying to think of something to say.
"I ask you, why didn't you try to survive?"
What? That wasn't Izumi's voice.
I looked up, and saw Tomohiko Kazami standing in where Izumi stood seconds before.
"What the heck?" I bluntly asked out, feeling a little shocked from what I've seen.
"Just answer the damn question, you idiot." He, she, whatever it is, said.
I tried to keep calm and think of what to say.
"...I...don't know it, either..." I said.
"...You don't know? Are you really sure you just wanted to give up your life for no reason at all?" Tomohiko asked.
"I'm trying to find a reason!" I shouted out angrily.
"A reason for me to keep on living! But there's none!" I screamed, tears started flowing through my face again.
"...All my friends are gone...almost everyone. My aunt turned out to be the extra one. Is there really anything out there left for me? Even if I made it out of all this, I'll be haunted by this horror for the rest of my life..." I said sorrowfully.
"...I...I don't want that...I can't...live with that..."
"But you can still be living." I turned to see Tomohiko again, only to find Aki Matsui in his place.
"What about you! What about the others who didn't make it!? They all died for nothing! They died trying to kill each other! They died while trying their best to live! They died as enemies while they should be friends! Friends from the same school, same class, damn it! They're ALL DEAD!" I screamed again. I'm completely lost it now.
"What right do I have to survive all this while they didn't?! WHAT DID I DO?! I did nothing! I did nothing to save Izumi from the glass shards, I did nothing to save Takako when the wires strangled her. I did NOTHING to save you when you were stabbed to death by Kazami...I even failed to protect Mei..." I said miserably.
"I'm a bastard...I was always the survivor...I survived while those around me suffered...What did I do to deserve to still be living?"
I looked at Aki, no, now she's Takako.
"Tell me, even if I live, do you really think I'm gonna forget about all of this, pretend that all of this didn't happened and live a happy life?" I looked at her. Now she's Aya Ayano.
"TELL ME, DAMN YOU! ISN'T IT YOU WHO CAUSED ALL OF THIS IN THE FIRST PLACE, YOU FUCKER!? I KNOW IT'S YOU! YOU'RE YOMIYAMA MISAKI, RIGHT?!" I screamed to the top of my lungs.
I knew this being, whatever it is, is the cause for all of this.
And it had to be the only person, the person whose the curse originated from.
Yomiyama Misaki.
The figure of Aya turned back to the mysterious man again. He looked like a normal teenager, who wears the very Yomiyama North Middle School Uniform I'm wearing now.
"...What do you want from us...why did you do this...why...why don't you just leave us alone..." I asked, exhausted from continuous outbursts.
That figure...Misaki...stood quietly. I can't see his eyes, because his messy black hair covered it.
I've only started to notice that he didn't look like normal humans. His body seems a little transparent...
Like a ghost.
"I...don't know..." Misaki said.
"That's it...you don't know?" And with that, I rushed into him, trying to take him down.
He's trying to justify his actions, all the deaths he've caused, by saying "He doesn't know"?
The most. Stupid. Excuse. Ever.
But I passed through him, as if he didn't exist.
I fell to the floor, but I got back up.
"Why you little..." I ran toward him again, this time, I tried to punch him.
To no avail.
My fists passed right through him, everything I did just passed right through him.
I can't do anything...as usual...
There's nothing a loser like me can do...
"Let it all out. I know I deserved it..." Misaki said.
"...I can't even hurt you... you're already dead..." I crumbled.
Misaki stood over me.
I looked up, but I saw Junta Nakao instead.
"You coward... don't you dare mock me with those you've killed! Don't you dare make fun of them in front of me! You son of a bitch!" I tried to raise my fist again, but I can't...
At last, I collapsed at Junta's feet.
"I don't know...about the curse..." Junta said, but it wasn't his voice.
It was Kubodera-sensei's.
"It was very weird...back then...I didn't even know that I'm dead. I was just...I just went to school just like normal...that day. But nobody spoke to me. It's as if they never see me. I finally realized that I'm already dead when I'm watching the afternoon news in the cafeteria, where I saw my house burned in flame last night, and there were no survivors, not even my parents..." Kubodera/Misaki explained.
"I was stunned, shocked, even frustrated. Why haven't I learned about my own death? Back then, I didn't know what to do. I don't even know why I'm still there when I'm supposed to move on..."
He changed into Yumi Ogara.
"And so I stayed, with no purpose...I stayed with my friends, watching them from afar while they resumed their normal lives. I could tell they too were shocked by my death. Though I never admit it, it's a known fact that I was very popular throughout this school. My untimely death affected all of them. Every day when they should be laugh, chat, play together after school became silence. Even the teachers always tried to avoid conversations that involved me."
She became Kenzou Kawahori now.
"But one day...out of the blue. There was one of my friends. A name I long forgotten, because I don't want to remember...He called out to me..."
"It was just a simple day like every day. I, who have nowhere to go, went to school as usual, just to be with my friends. As I'm sitting down on my seat which was left empty since my death, he called out to me..."
"That guy, that friend of my started talking to me. It was kinda strange. I knew he can't see me, yet he still continues to speak to me. More of our friends then gathered, they look at him strangely..."
Kyouko Kaneki then continued.
"One of them asked him 'Who are you talking to?' and he replied 'I'm discussing with Misaki-san about what to do during the school festival. Right, Misaki?' and then he smiled at me."
"One by one, my former friends began calling out to me. They started imagine that I'm still alive. That nothing ever happened to me. Eventually, the teachers also became to be like the students. It was very strange, but it's nice that I finally have someone to talk to. To tell them about my feelings. The Yomiyama North Middle School started recognized me again...and then that day came..."
Suddenly, the voice changed to Makoto Ouji's.
"The Graduation Day. We're all having a great time. A big party, a fancy festival, an awesome concert, everything was perfect. I felt like I was alive again..."
"At the end of the party. We had a group photo taken, where I was part of them, too. The next day, I found that the photo they've taken has me on it. Me, who was supposed to be dead..."
"It all went downhill from there, everyone was terrified by my appearance in that photo. I tried to explain it to them that I was really there, but they didn't seem to hear me anymore. Suddenly, I disappeared."
Kensaku Numata continued explaining Misaki's pasts.
"Then the next year came. The new students found out that there's one extra student in the class, and there's one table short...but I knew the truth..."
"The new student, I knew her before. She died in a train accident two years before I died, and therefore was my senior. She didn't seem to remember anything, and acted like normal, making friends with the students of the Class 3-3. However, the calamity then soon happened..."
"I don't know how it started, nor how to stop it...but it appeared that the existence of the extra one, the 'Dead' person who didn't realize that they were dead, just like me, brought the curse upon this school. Sixteen people died that year, and she, my senior, the 'Dead' one, disappeared after the Graduation party ended..."
Keiko Numata then appeared in the place of her husband...
"And the next year came, and there's a new dead person again. But this time, it wasn't a student. It was a teacher who committed suicide forty years ago. But none of the teachers at school seemed to have recognize him, treating him as if this was his first day at this school..."
"You probably get the picture now. The Calamity happened again, and again, and again..."
Keiko changed into Ikou Takabayashi...
"And more people died...and died...and died..."
...into Sanae Mizuno...
"And I can do nothing to save him...and her... and them..."
...into Yukari Sakuragi...
"Then ten years ago, the class came up with a plan to stop this Calamity. They decided to treat one person as 'the Extra one', treating him or her as if they're not existed. You should already knew that..."
"Eventually, I figured out that since my class's actions in '72 caused all of these Calamities. I was the dead person who refused to rest...I was a ghost that's still alive...because they...my friends, my teachers, everyone...refused to believe that I'm dead. Since then, the other 'Dead' people mysteriously came back from the dead, and arrived into this godforsaken school...because their closest ones still remembered them. Some of the 'Extra ones' were even victims of their last Calamity themselves."
"But the dead must stay dead...and since they won't...the living must die in their places." His/Her voice trembled...
I finally looked up, I saw Izumi Akazawa again.
"I didn't...I didn't want any of this! I was just...wanted to be happy with my friends! I didn't mean to kill them! I DIDN'T KILL THEM! PLEASE! BELIEVE ME!"
And then Izumi/Misaki broke down.
"...Every year...I could only watch...those who could've been friends...turn...on each other...died...hating...themselves..."
I stood up, looking at Izumi/Misaki.
"It was only too late...that I realized how to end this curse forever...to stop these pointless deaths..."
"During my Graduation Party, everybody was happy because I was there, but after that, they left me once again, because they were terrified of me, my appearance in that photo..."
Izumi/Misaki took a deep breath.
"Action must equals Reaction. Sir Isaac Newton once said that a long time before..."
"The same applied to our relationships. For all the happiness, there will be sadness. For all the gain, it was not without pain..."
Izumi/Misaki looked straight into my eyes.
"...The solution is that one class must sacrifice themselves to join the 'Extra one'. To be his or her friends in the next life and beyond...for the Dead cannot rest without the Living giving them peace, and the Living cannot live as long as the Dead cannot rest. As long as one person from the previous class remained, the curse will still remain in effect...now and forever."
What the hell?
"But that will never happen...everyone just wanted to survive...I can't...I can't ask them to do this...no one in their right mind will just ask for death...and they...they are still young...they still have a long way to go in their lives...I can't just ask them to give it up..."
I looked at Izumi/Misaki. S/he was still crying, his/her body started shaking. I almost pity him/her...
"We're all going to die either way, right..." I finally spoke up.
"...There's still something much more worse than death...".
Izumi/Misaki looked at me confusingly.
"You saw it yourself...they kill to survive...just like savages..." I continued.
"Your friends, my friends. They all died hating each other, and the survivors carry on the despairs and nightmares of the massacre..."
"Who would want that kind of life? It isn't even deserve to be called life..."
Izumi turned back into Misaki again. He finally stopped crying.
"Satoshi, is that you?" He asked, showing me a shocked face.
Who's Satoshi?
"You're...you're supposed to be dead!" He screamed out.
I walked toward him, but he crawled away from me.
"Go away! I didn't...I didn't kill you! I didn't mean it! Don't...don't hurt me! I'm sorry!" His eyes were filled with fear.
"If it means betraying my friends, killing my loved ones, just for me to survive...I don't want that kind of life!" I continued.
"Wha! Not you too, Hikari!"
"Life is about living, not about being mindless slaves to the wrongs of nature, or the horrors of men! Even if we die, at least we can choose how we die and how we live."
"Get away from me, Kazuya!"
"That's why I will choose dying, not because I lost my faith in living, but because I believe in it!"
"Stay away! Toshihiro!"
"I believe in my friends, I believe in their right to live, to exist! Even if it's a bad life we got by ourselves, it's still better than a bad life given to us by some freakish supernatural things!"
"I'm sorry! Akemi!"
"That's why I'll die here! With them! With the only friends I ever have! With those I've cared for and being cared in return! I won't let them be my nightmares, but rather join them in creating a new dream for all of us!"
"Get away! Ritsuko! GET AWAY FROM ME!"
I finally reached him, I raised my arms up, and found them to be transparent.
It's almost over now.
I hugged him, my arms finally connected with his body.
"You've done enough, Misaki-kun. You can rest now..." I told him.
Misaki stopped freaking out.
"Everyone is waiting for you...let's go meet them..."
Misaki's tears started flowing down his face again.
"...Th...thank you...Kouichi-kun..."
He smiled happily, maybe for the first time in decades...
I've misjudged him once before. I thought he was just a vengeful ghost that haunted the living. But no, he's been suffering for far too long, even longer than us. He's a witness to numerous massacres he failed to stop...all of which happened partly because of him...
Just because of a little mistake that created a large rift between life and death...
"Rest in peace, my friend..."
And then he disappeared, and the whole world gone white.