The golden rays of the sun illuminated the horizon as the clock struck 5 am. The rope hung securely on the pull up bar on the door way. I leaned back on my chair as I looked towards the scenery for the last time.
I slowly stood up as I could hear my parents return from their late night shift. Murmurs filled the hallway. With a click I heard their door close.
I looked towards the rope in the same self reflecting nature I had been doing since midnight.
I gazed at the door, past the rope that would lynch me. A gaze filled with a myriad of emotions only a dead man could decipher.
Pain
Regret
Sorrow
Reluctant Rage
A plea of comfort
My door had been unlocked the entire night. Truthfully he had wished his parents would have barged in. To notice the non existent hints he had never given. He knew how it was his fault, he knew if he had wanted such an outcome that he should have actually opened up.
He traced his finger on his suicide note as he stood from his coffee table and slowly approach his other coffee chair under the rope that would take his life.
Each step he took the louder the thumb of his own heart sounded. The ringing in his ear from the sheer fear and anxiety seemed to only get louder.
As he got on top of the chair and almost in a dazed state placed the rope around his neck. The beat of his own heart seemed to be the only thing he could hear and feel in the moment.
As he stood one step away, his feet mere millimetres from the edge, a moment away from the last stage of his tragic tale,
He took the step and-
-The world seemed to slow to a crawl, he almost seemed at peace until the pain set in.
Accepting the void that seductively called for him to accept the cold and welcoming embrace of death. This time,
He did
The rope tightened around his trachea and squeezed.
A sudden almost animalistic desire to stop it took over his consciousness. his hands reached for his throat but with the rush of adrenaline in an almost out of body experience he thought to himself.
"Was this really worth it? Was this truly the outcome I truly desired and wanted?"
"Yes"
"If so, am I ready to meet whatever awaits my damned soul? Am I ready to bathe in the eternal flames of retribution in hell?"
"Yes…"
"After all, it is a punishment beyond human comprehension. I don't think I could even think of it…"
As the internal battle raged on his vision grew foggy and his mind grew dull.
In his last moments his mind raced all the possible afterlife's yet he knew such efforts to be nebulous and meaningless.
His vision slowly grew hazy and all the fears almost immediately went away.
Bathed in the glow of the sunrise he smiled in content.
His suicide became a part of the growing statistics and his smiling corpse forever etched into his family and friends and so, on July 24, 2022; Baek, Jungheok died.
{-}
Or it was supposed to be, I imagined death so much it almost feels like a memory. On the multiple outcomes I thought up in the adrenaline high he hadn't thought of it to be so… dark, and when I meant dark, I truly meant absolute silence, a deprivation of his senses, a true void.
Actually am I truly 'seeing'? After all, I haven't felt anything up till now. I haven't felt any sense of touch, smell, heard, nor have I (thankfully) tasted anything.
?Day 24?
My -unreliable- internal clock, clocked in the amount of 24 days… Or so I think, while I'm on the topic of 'think'. I have been thinking. Was that final leap of faith really worth it? The crippling loneliness of this 'void' has not been so kind to his psyche.
Or that's what should have been, yet as he thinks of his family he doesn't 'miss' them nor could he cry for their company. He could… Yet why was it that he yearned for them in a manner befitting his woeful life and not of the desire of true isolation.
?Day 25?
I wanted to scream, I had no mouth, but I had to scream. I had tried and tried to think of anything beyond what I thought of before my 'passing' yet I couldn't. I couldn't recall my life before my death nor could I recall further. I could muse myself like this but…
Perhaps this was my hell, they gave me the ability to ponder but limit my humanity to one of a man that had buckled under the misfortune of a blessed life.
I had no shortage of food,
I had a phone,
I had enrolled in a private school,
I had a loving little sister,
I was blessed.
Ah… what a cruel joke, the fragment of humanity left in him in his own prison of a mind. Any lack of emotion, but he was granted his fleeting emotions in the snapshot he was given.
In his soul he cried.
He had no mouth but he screamed.
?Day 28?
In my mindless musing and occasional attempt at deducing where he truly was, a part of him didn't accept the 'hell' theory. This seemed far in his favour then it did satan. He couldn't feel anything, other than his misplaced and simply wrong emotion. His skewed loneliness was just that, a misinterpretation which meant he couldn't bask and drown in the void.
Almost as if he was a soul, a wisp and not a being with a brain…
While the appropriate reaction couldn't be had, in his heart/core..? He'd like to think that he was hyperventilating.
He was a soul, he had no brain from the very beginning.
?Day 35?
A BEAT
The sudden sound of it had broken me out of my vegetative state. While he had discovered that he was a soul he couldn't even begin to fathom where he was after all he didn't even have a brain but on Day 35 -yes he has been counting down the seconds- on the dot of 00:00 -i had to abuse the lack of any sanity on my part-
I felt AND heard a thump.
Was I alive?
?Day 40?
Each passing day fragments of my past life have been slipping through. Like a gallon bottle being drained through a water gun's nozzle. A weird analogy thought through thanks to a memory of me in a water park.
?41?
A minor but interesting tidbit is that I felt happy. As dumb as it sounds even to myself, fact of the matter is that i wasn't sad in this void. I had simply been so because of my snapshot memory given to me was that of my suicide. My memories given while daily and in snipbits, were photographic in quality, and included details even my brain wouldn't have processed.
?55?
I had deduced that the memories needed to be remembered by my body and retained in my soul to be remembered. While the portion where the soul retained these moments was an assumption, it had made sense to me since where else do these have been stored, I had no brain to begin with. While your body may grow foggy in details your soul never forgets.
?190?
I… slept and dreamt…
Up till day 189 my mind had slowly restored itself. The implications of a mind forming had not been lost to me. Counting had grown into a difficult but not impossible task. However sleeping had confirmed that-
-I was inside a womb and i was a fetus
?Day 240?
Each night I dream of different moments in my life.
Each day the loneliness,
The losses,
The regrets,
The cracking resolve.
They all made themselves bare as my mind formed. The soul's lack of anything had made it bearable. He couldn't think of anything, nor could he think about the moments in life where it made him feel like he wanted to kill himself, the trauma, the humiliation, the days where he simply wishes he hadn't woken up for.
Everything in photographic quality was laid bare in his mind.
{-}
On 1895, December 29, a healthy Japanese boy was born in a small rural town.
To the loving young couple, Hiyashi Fuyuyama and Sakura Fuyuyama.
{-}
Authors note:
Hiyashi means日(Hi) Sunshine 妥(Yasushi) Gentle
Sakura while basic is foreshadowing
Fuyuyama just means 冬(fuyu)Winter 山(Yama)Mountain
Expect a possible chapter this or next week.
If you enjoyed this prologue please share your thoughts in a polite manner if possible in a review, and a little warning I'm writing this for fun so if I do not update in my semi-promised 1-2 week update schedule I am sorry in advance and if you want I'll write you a personalised apology letter, dm me for further details.
Additionally I tend to switch between 1st and 2nd POV while I will try my best to keep it 1st or any other and keep it consistent for you my readers. I am but 1 person so if you notice any errors please inform me kindly or fix it in your own noggin.