"Fuck"

I thought as I stood there. It was a windy day. My blonde hair was waving to the left of my face. The sky was grey, a common autumn day in stockholm. I was brought back to one of my favourite tv shows, a specific episode I no longer remembered the name of. It was a poem that one of the characters recited on a stage.

The weak breeze whispers nothing

the water screams sublime.

His feet shift, teeter-totter

deep breaths, stand back, it's time.

Toes untouch the overpass

soon he's water-bound.

Eyes locked shut but peek to see

the view from halfway down.

A little wind, a summer sun

a river rich and regal.

A flood of fond endorphins

brings a calm that knows no equal.

You're flying now, you see things

much more clear than from the ground.

It's all okay, or it would be

were you not now halfway down.

Thrash to break from gravity

what now could slow the drop?

All I'd give for toes to touch

the safety back at top.

But this is it, the deed is done

silence drowns the sound.

Before I leaped I should've seen

the view from halfway down.

I really should've thought about

the view from halfway down.

I wish I could've known about

the view from halfway down—.

I'd used this as motivation. The fear of commitment still present as I lean over the red railing to look at the ice cold water.

"If I land face first, will I be knocked unconscious?" I think to myself, looking deeper into the abyss that was the water. My thoughts are now consumed by the swirling abyss.

Why was I thinking logically when my problem was entirely rooted in my emotions? I had no idea why I wanted to not live anymore. I wasn't tired of waking up, I had friends who cared about me. I think at least. I may just be a bit mentally ill. I stopped forming emotional relationships with people. I made fun of people's insecurities if they told them to me, and yet, people still told me their secrets. I wasn't hideous. Only thing I thought was wrong was my being. But that didn't bother me all that much.

My thoughts were interrupted by a vibration in my pocket. I picked up the vibrating brick of electricity. It was Joseph.

"Yeah hello, Ckahte speaking." I said, placing my fingers to the tips of my eyebrows.

"Yeah you know who it is. What are you up to?" He said, just the way he said it I could tell he didn't care about my answer.

"I'm on the west bridge, I'm gonna jump off." I said nonchalantly.

"Yeah good luck with that. Anyways, you wanna come see Hov1 with me and Ellie on the 28th?" He asked.

"Uh, yeah sure why not." I said looking forward onto stockholm.

"Ight, I'll see you there" He said before hanging up.

"Heh, maybe I'll float by when the concert starts." I thought as I placed back my phone in my pocket.

I had a faint smile on my face as I raised my arms and yawned. I turned around to face the busy road.

"Au revoir, Shoshanna!" I yelled before leaping backwards headfirst towards the water. A bit cringe to go out with a movie quote wasn't it. The joke was that I won't be seeing them again. I was a bit funny, but really not. The man from the poem was stupid. He had to see the view from halfway down. I, however, was facing the sky. A grin was plastered across my face, praising myself for being smarter than an animated character. I closed my eyes to escape the depressing sky before I met the water. The poem was sorta accurate, it took a while to actually land. And as I did It all came to a stop. Holy shit. I'd been knocked unconscious. I was going to die in a matter of moments. Although I don't think I should be this aware when being unconscious. I was actively thinking. But everything was black. Oh god was this the afterlife? Just nothing but my consciousness? Why was I breathing still? Why do I have to breathe in the abyss? I took a deep breath.

"Cough cough" I went when I released the breath I was holding. Suddenly I could feel my arm again. I was still numb from the torso down. My eyes fluttered open. I was laying face down in some rocky grass. My face regained feeling. And it stung. I placed my arm to the rocky ground below me. I could push myself up with a bit of effort, but not forward. I was stuck. My legs were stuck. I half turned around to look at what was restraining me. I was met with a sight. My legs were frozen solid in what looked like black ice, and my right arm was gone.

"Fuck!" I yelled out loud. I heard rustling in the snowy bushes behind me. I turned quickly to see what it was. Out of the bush stepped what I can only describe as a skinned velociraptor. It looked like a hypebeast, it's beak yellow and eye sockets hollow.

"What the fuck is that?" I asked god. It looked at me, tilting its head in confusion. We looked at each other for a few more seconds.

"Well well, could you tell me what day it is?" I asked, resting my head on my elbows. The creature released a tiny noise at me. Unintelligible to me at first. But suddenly, I was enlightened.

51

"Fuck is 51 supposed to mean?" I asked it again. This time I got no response.

"Do you know how to play chess?" I asked, and was met with a confused expression.

"Don't worry I'll teach you what I know." I said as I pointed at the chessboard that was now in front of me. I didn't have to actually move the chess pieces. They sorta played a game on their own as I explained the game to the creature. I don't even know if I explained it correctly. Me and the creature were in the middle of narrating the match that was currently ongoing when my legs slid out of the holes they were in. My feet were broken and the skin on my legs was wrinkled. I sat down, facing the water and just thought for a while.

"The 51st of what?" I asked no one. Where the fuck was I? A text bar popped up to my right.

"Maybe it's week 51." It read. That made just a bit of sense. It was snowy, and it was October when I died. I sat there for a while just existing. On my chest was now some sort of mark. I'd describe it as the dark sign from darksouls. After a while I realised that it was really cold. My trousers were frozen from the knee down, and I was only dressed in a crewneck and t-shirt. To be honest I was probably going to die again. I pulled my knees to my chin and waited. Eventually I fell asleep. I woke up again with a gasp. My eyes shot open and I was shot from my previous pose. My darksign was shining bright as ever and the ground was still snowy and cold. I noticed that my feet were now dry, and flexible. I placed my arm in the snow and raised myself. Surprisingly easy it went. I was now standing. I looked around to try to get a grasp of where I was. The tiny creature was gone, and the chessboard too. Over the water I saw a giant city like 6 miles away. I could walk that. It was black Ice so I didn't really have to worry about falling through, not like I cared anyways. To all other directions were forest or water and I didn't feel like freezing to death again so I started walking.

As I walked more creatures accompanied me. One was like a bird, one like a dog, and one like the tiny dinosaur from earlier but just a bit different. As I walked I whistled. I was In a strange place, I'd been dead for weeks, And I was in all likelihood highly schizophrenic. And I didn't care.

"I'm so-I'm so reborn, I'm movin forward. Keep movin forward, keep movin forward" I sang out as I walked.

" Ain't no stress on me Lord, I'm movin forward." Someone said from behind me.

"I'm so-I'm so reborn, I'm movin forward. Keep movin forward, keep movin forward" We sang together.

"Whatcha doing traveler?" Said a pink skinned girl with ice skates and a thick winter jacket as she zipped past me.

"I'm trying to get to land. I don't know where I am." I stopped to talk to her.

"Well, you're in Musutafu." She said as she stopped in front of me.

"That says nothing to me. Last place I remember was stockholm." I said.

"Eh, how'd you get here then. You're in Japan." She tilted her head in confusion.

"Oh I fell into the water and woke up knee deep in black ice. Also, I don't speak japanese." I said pointing to my legs.

"Oh god. Maybe we should get you to a hospital? And you're speaking just fine? She said, even more confused.

"I'm, sorta, fine to be honest. I'm really cold but I think I'll be fine." I said nonchalantly.

"Oh yeah definitely, you look like you're going to die any second." She said with a concerned voice

"Oh well. Where's the closest hospital?" I asked.

"Let me take you there. My name's Mina By the way." She said as she waved for me to follow her.

"The name's Ckahte. You look very funky." I said, referring to her appearance. I had no problem with cosplayers. She was doing a good job as well, her eyes were all blacked out.

"Thanks, It's my quirk. Your Solar eclipse looking thing is cool too." She said, probably referring to the darksign on my chest.

Could she see that? I thought that was one of my new hallucinations. Wait, were all of my "hallucinations" Just real. No. What was this quirk thing she mentioned?

"Fuck is a quirk." I asked.

"You don't know what a quirk is? Are you serious? Quirks are like superpowers. They can be anything really. They are usually hereditary but can mutate. Have you for real never heard of anything like it?" She said, Stopping to turn around and give me a confused glare.

"Nah. I ain't never heard of em. This rising sun shit was just there when I woke up. And you mean to tell me people look like aliens now? What year is it? What day?" I asked, even more confused.

We looked at each other in confusion.

"Yes." We both said simultaneously.

"It's the 23rd of december 2397." She said, waiting for my response.

"What the fuuuuuuuuuck. Are you for real? I fell in 2020. I'm fucking captain america times fucking 4." I Said, severely confused.

"Oh my goooooooooohd!" We both said in unison. If what she was saying was true I was so fucked. My entire life was going under as we spoke. And I was like 90% sure that I couldn't die

Timeskip 4 months

I was fresh out of the psychiatrist's office with a pair of diagnosis. Half of the crazy shit I was seeing was due to severe schizophrenia which I'd already guessed that I had. Crazy shit like the automatic chessboard, and text bars giving information. My mind was FUBAR

Fucked

Up

Beyond

All

Repair

And the second diagnosis was the reason I was fine with it. ASPD.

Which I didn't really get since I was an extrovert. And anti social didn't really describe me all to well. But that's just my opinion. In the period from when I first woke up to here a lot has happened. I had to explain to the government that I had basically just appeared out of nowhere. There were up to date records of my existence. And surprisingly, they didn't think I was a spy or some shit, and they gave me a japanese ID. Crazy I know. But you know what is even more crazy? The girl I met when I was walking across the ice has a really nice family. A family who after getting to know about my unfortunate circumstances, let me live with them. Me, a person who by all accounts, is not entirely there mentally. They said it gave me character. They all looked like aliens to me. And I felt like one. So I guess I was a perfect fit. I was also taken to one of those quirk doctors to try and determine what the fuck it was. Results were, inconclusive. My personal guess is that it makes me immortal. This was however not the only result. They discovered that I had one of them quirks. Not really what they looked for but a welcome surprise. I can imagine that quirkless dudes get bullied, a lot. The one I got ain't that special. When I activate it I split one second up into 24 individual pieces. I get to take my time and make my 24 moves which gives me a major speed boost. When I touch people they have to do the same, but they only have one second to do it. And if they fail, they just stand still for a second. Pretty useful in my opinion. It was also when I was with Mina that I discovered my new favourite profession. Fuck becoming an engineer. I'm going to be a hero. And my first step into doing that was attending The best Hero school in Japan. And the good thing is, you don't have to have a proven middle school education to join. All you had to do was pass a little exam with a practical part. Easy right. Mina was going to apply there. And she's as dumb as a bunch of rocks. So I was pretty sure that I would be able to get in too. That's assuming that she's going to get in. But anyways. It was march 2399. Almost the turn of the century. And there was 1 year left until the entrance exam. And I was not just going to sit around and do fucking nothing for twelve months. So I made my new mom and dad sign me up for middle school. Something they had no problem doing. They were my legal guardians and I shared their last name. So I was going to be no problem right. I was correct. It was all smooth sailing getting me enrolled into the same school that Mina goes too. This and that led me to standing outside of a classroom in mustafa private middle school. With a few legal papers in hand, and a good spirit, I was told to come in.

"Okay class, this is our new student, Ckahte Ashido. Please be nice and welcome them with open arms." The teacher said as I opened the door.

"I'm going to give you 10 min-"

"WHAT IS UP CLASS. AS YOU ALREADY HEARD, THE NAME'S CKAHTE ASHIDO. AND I'LL BE HERE WITH FOR FOR THE NEXT YEAR. Any questions." I yelled, Interrupting the teacher.

"Yeah, what he said. You have 10 minutes." The teacher said, slightly annoyed at being interrupted.

"Let's go teach. Aight first you in the uniform, Black spiky hair." I said, pointing to a person in the back of the class.

"Uh, we already have a person with the last name Ashido. Are you two related by any chance? My name's Eijiro Kirishima by the way." He asked formally.

"Well Eijiro, Yes. We live in the same house." I said holding out my hand to show my open palm before switching to a thumbs up. I saw around 10 more hands lift after I said this.

"I am however, adopted. That is why I haven't been here before." I said turning my thumbs up into the air and raising my index finger. Almost all of the hands that were raised before.

"You, blonde dude." I said pointing towards someone in the front.

"What's your quirk?" He asked pretty bluntly while pointing towards my sigil. I'd understood that quirks were a semi sensitive topic. Like a mental disorder or something. But hey I had nothing against it.

"I call it lag. I can basically teleport by dividing a second into different pieces and choosing what I do in every single one. I can also make others follow this rule, but if they don't do it in 1 second they just stand still. Lag." I explained. I looked to the back of the classroom to see that Mina, hand in the air, leaning back into her chair.

"Mina, why are you raising your hand?" I asked, preparing for a dumbass question.

"Yeah,,, Are you single by any chance?" She asked teasingly.

"Yeah,,, Fuck off." I said mirroring her tone. Smile and all.

"But, I am single." I said, pointing to the air. And that was really all of the memorable questions. There were some more about where I'd been before getting here and shit. Nothing worth writing down. I was instructed to sit down next to some black haired kid with a middle part like mine in the middle of the class. Before I sat down I raised my hand to the side for a handshake. He turned to me and raised his hand for a fistbump. I shrugged in confusion before meeting his fist with my own. Then I sat down. School wasn't too hard. Maths was still the same. So were almost all subjects. Except fucking history and japanese. I fucking hate history, with a passion. First off it was completely different from the history I remember, and, there was all this shite about quirk history as well. And japanese you can probably guess why I had trouble with it. I could sometimes relly on my fucked up brain to give me appyfonies. But that is rare nowadays. School was also a place where I'd draw images of the things I saw. I guess not thinking for quite a while leads the mind to wandering. The things I saw never said anything. Sometimes they'd utter something in gibberish but i rarely understood. They didn't talk but that didn't mean I got nothing out of them. One time, a demon came into the classroom during a lecture and gave one that was 10 times better. Like I actually understood. He comes in every now and then to give better lectures when I'm not understanding anything. I appreciate it. I think I learned Japanese 10 times faster because of him. And when it came to tests, I just winged it really. And it would work out. I think I had a higher grade average than Mina by the end of the year. And that was my proudest achievement of my academic career.