Chapter 7
Reality's Destruction
"The number you have dialled is not in service, please check the area code and dial again." I was in the hallway, standing in front of another payphone. Well, to be honest it wasn't really a payphone, and if it was I wouldn't have had any money to place a call. It was more of a 'patient use' phone. Anyway, after bandaging my hand, I asked the girl where the bathroom was. She told me that it was just down the hall, so I left the office and went to do my business. On the way back however, I spotted the phone on its metal stand and decided to make another call. I had been hoping that an error had occurred, that someone had simply been on the phone when I had called my house, but the result was the same. Disappointed, I placed the receiver back on the hook.
"Who were you calling?" The sudden inquiry made me jump. I found the girl standing next to me. I took a deep breath.
"What did I say about sneaking up on people?" A sliver of annoyance seeped into my tone.
"Sorry, I was just wondering who you were calling." I hesitated, not sure how to answer her question.
"Were you calling a relative?" I hesitated a second longer.
"Yeah," I replied, "I was calling a relative." It was only half true, but I wasn't going to tell a somewhat unnerving girl that I was calling my own house. For all I knew, she could press redial, get the answering machine and... And what? What exactly could she do? How could she call my house and get the answering machine when I couldn't even get past the third ring? What exactly could she do with a non-customized, automated message? Besides, this wasn't some 'state of the art' phone I was using; in fact it was a rotary phone so it didn't even have a button for redialing. All there was to dial was a spindle type deal. The last and only time I had used one of those phones was sometime back in 2004, when I had called my mom's cell from my sister's music school.
Speaking of which... I picked up the receiver again, dialled the number and hoped to God that she would pick up. "The number you have dialled is not in service, please check the area code and dial again."
"Fuck." I slammed down the receiver just hard enough to make it ding slightly. I took another deep breath, shaking my head a little as I let the air escape with a sigh. I turned and looked at the girl, who was looking at me as if she was peering into my soul. I remembered an important question that I had been meaning to ask her for the past half hour or so.
"So, um," I started to say, suddenly realizing that I had another question to ask. "What's your name?"
"It's Rika." On top of sounding mature, her voice had a serious tone to it.
"Rika..." I echoed. It was another name that sounded familiar. "Have I met you before?"
"I don't think so, why are you asking?" I hesitated, sighing before dishing out the truth.
"I've been having one hell of a night." I declared. "I'm getting Déjà vu left, right, and center. No one's answering my calls. I woke up about an hour ago in the middle of nowhere." I paused, "It's been a really crazy night." There was a moment of silence as the girl averted her eyes. My urgent question came to mind again, and I was about to ask it.
"I have something important to tell you." She said, looking back up at me.
"Yeah," I began, almost cutting off the end of her sentence, "you're not a regular kid, I got that. It wasn't exactly hard to figure out when you lost your childish act back in the parking lot, but I need to know something." She grinned at me.
"You're right," she admitted, "I'm not a regular fourteen year old kid, but there's more to it than that. I'll explain back in the office." She then turned and started walking toward the office.
"Wait, you're fourteen?" She turned around to face me, her grin having given way to a more annoyed look.
"Yeah, why?"
"You just don't look it." She gave me a look as if to say 'The hell do you mean?' "You're short. Like a nine year old."
"So, you have a problem with that?"
"No I... It's just a little..." I fumbled around in my head, trying to find the right word.
Unbelievable?
"Come on," Rika turned and began storming down the hall, "we don't have a lot of time."
"Hey, I need to ask you something!"
"What?!" She turned back around to face me, looking even more annoyed and possibly angry.
"I... crap, what was it?" I looked down at the floor and scratched my head, trying to retrace my train of though.
Shit, I forgot. It was moments like these where I hated having ADD.
"What do you want to know?" Rika asked impatiently.
"I forget." I admitted.
"Then come on." She turned again and continued to storm down the hallway. I let out another sigh before following.
"You need to get out of town." Those words, spoken in an urgent tone, formed the first thing that Rika said to me once we were back in the office.
"Wait, what?" I spun around to face her. I think that statement would have caught anyone off guard. "Why?"
"Because something bad is about to happen."
"How do you know something bad is gonna happen?" I asked skeptically.
She averted her eyes once again, looking back up at me after a few seconds.
"Will you think that I'm crazy?"
"Pretty much everything that's happened tonight has had some level of crazy to it." I stepped over to the desk and took a seat on the office chair. "So, throw your worst at me." She hesitated.
"Well for starters, this isn't a normal clinic."
"How so?"
"There's a compound underneath it."
"Like in 'Resident Evil'?" I expected her to answer with a 'yes' and continue on, but she cocked her head slightly and gave me a quizzical look instead.
"What's 'Resident Evil'?" The question seemed rather ridiculous at first, but then I remembered that she was two years younger than me. So while I was being scared shitless by the first in-game zombie, she was probably playing with dolls, watching cartoons, or something along those lines.
"It was a survival horror game that was released on the Play Station One back in 1998." I explained. I again expected her to acknowledge it and move on, but she didn't. She gave me a certain look that reminded me of the mystery girl from school, the kind of look that you would give someone after watching them walk through a wall. An uncomfortable silence formed, one that I felt inclined to break but at the same time I wouldn't dare to say anything. The clock on the wall behind her counted the seconds as they passed us by. Then finally, she took a metaphorical sledgehammer to the silence.
"What do you..." she began forming the question but stopped, continuing a moment later with a seemingly different question. "What year..." she paused again, "What year is it?"
"What year?" this question sounded even more ludicrous, "It's 2013."
"No, it isn't," she shook her head as she said it, eyes widened, "it's 1983."
I sat there, stunned. I wanted to say something like 'you gotta be joking,' but previous unexplained events loomed over my head. Of course, it was possible that this was just another strange dream; that at any moment I would wake up and find myself on the couch, or even better, on the computer room floor with Mr. Flemmet rushing to my aid. I hoped for the later, but my surroundings seemed too real, and the throbbing in my hand had been very, very real.
I abruptly stood up, turned, and took a few steps toward the bed against the back wall. I whipped back around, hoping that it had only been a joke.
"Please tell me you're joking." Rika shook her head again.
"So, what? Did somebody shove me into a time traveling DeLorean and send me to 1983?"
"I don't know. I don't even know what a DeLorean is, let alone how it can time travel." The clock on the wall caught my eye again, its hour hand on the six and its minute hand just after the one. It was nice to finally know what time it was, but something about it began to tug at my mind.
"Is there really time travel in the future?" I peeled my eyes away from the clock and looked over at Rika. Her shocked expression had partially given way to one of curiosity.
"No, not that I know of anyway."
"Then what was that about the time traveling... thingy?"
"The DeLorean?" she nodded, "It was a car used in the movie 'Back to the Future,' and... I don't know. I guess I was using it as a form of speech or metaphor." I found my eyes returning to the clock, there was something about it that-
No, it's not the clock, it's-
"What is the movie about?" I ripped my gaze from the clock and looked back over at Rika.
"You'll find out in a couple of years or so." I once again found myself staring at the clock. It was the key to something.
I think it was a question.
I kind of have a couple of questions to ask you.
Oh?
So, um… What time is it?
It came back to me in full force, I looked away from the clock and asked it.
"Hey Rika, where am I?" There was a pause before she answered.
"You're in Hinamizawa." Saying that 'I felt like I had been hit with a brick wall' would be using an already well-worn cliché, not that someone can nonchalantly hit you with a brick wall anyway, you're more likely to get cancer than to get hit with a brick wall. A better way of saying it would be; 'I felt like I had been running around in the dark at full speed until I collided head first with a brick wall' ; and that is exactly how I felt. After overcoming the initial shock, my mind began connecting the pieces. The Observatory, the yellow payphone, the name Takano, the clinic; they were all clues. Even Rika was a clue, the biggest of them all actually. I was in Hinamizawa, the setting of that show, the place where a single girl's death meant 'Game Over' for everyone, the town that was destroyed over and over again, the world that was stuck in an 'Endless Eight' style-
"...Time loop." I said to myself.
"Huh?"
I suddenly realized that I had been blankly staring at the wall to the right of the clock. I looked over at Rika, who was giving me a questioning look. I knew what I needed to do.
"Rika, what day is it?"
"It's June 23rd."
"When is the cotton drifting festival?"
"It was a couple of days ago."
"Shit," I headed for the door, "I gotta leave town."
"Hang on, I haven't finished explaining-"
"I have a pretty good idea of what you got to say." I said, turning back to look at her, "Now, I'm getting the hell outta dodge before this mini doomsday starts. You can tag along if you want, but I don't know how long you'll last." I left the office and jogged down the hall toward the stairs. Rika caught up with me halfway down said stairs. "So, you gonna make an escape attempt?" I asked between breaths.
"I've got nothing better to do."
I'll take that as a yes.
We soon reached the room with the window we had used as an entrance. Rika climbed out first, and I was planting a foot on the windowsill when a car pulled into the parking lot.
"Get back inside!" Rika ordered.
I quickly ducked back inside and crouched under the window. I heard a car door being opened and shut.
"Hi Takano." It was Rika's voice.
"Hello Rika, this is a wonderful coincidence I was just looking for you." I hugged the wall as I moved to the corner of the room right next to the window. I then carefully looked out into the parking lot.
"Were you inside the clinic?" A woman, who I instantly knew was Takano, was kneeling in front of Rika and spoke in a friendly tone.
"Yeah, I was in the middle of a walk and I really needed to use the bathroom." Rika was back to using her childish voice.
"Is that so? Well, this should teach for trespassing." I saw a small flash of light and I heard a sound. I didn't know what it was at first, but I got the idea when Rika fell to the ground.
A man wearing an army looking uniform then exited the car.
"What the hell are you doing?!" the man yelled.
"Relax," Takano countered, raising what looked like a pistol with a silencer on it, "She'll live long enough for what we need her for. Now, open the door for me." The man did as she said, opening the rear passenger side door so Takano could put Rika's limp body on the car's backseat. The man closed the door and got back in the car. Takano was making her way to her side of the car, when she suddenly stopped and stared in my direction. For a second I thought she had seen me, but she continued toward the car's driver's side door and opened it. After a few seconds, she closed it and started walking toward the window empty handed.
There was nowhere to hide in the room, so I spun around and made a dash for the door while keeping my head down. I should've gone a bit slower to make room for error, because I tripped on a nearby office chair. The chair fell with a loud thud, its wheels rattling like a tambourine, and I found myself stumbling out the door and into the hallway. She would have had to be blind and deaf to not notice. My foot steps echoed off the walls as I bolted for the nearest door on the opposite side of the hallway and burst into the room beyond it. I didn't bother closing the door, I just rushed over to the window and forced it open before climbing through and booking it into the mass of trees beyond.
After about five minutes of wading through thick overgrowth and climbing over bushes, I was happy to reach an asphalt, two lane road. I took a moment to brush off the twigs and catch my breath. Then, the rectangular glow of the phone booth once again caught my eye. I had practically gone in a circle, a drunk, deflated circle. I ran up to the booth, grabbed the receiver, pushed down on the phone hook, and dialled 911.
"To make a call, please insert 25 cents or more into the slot."
"You've gotta be fucking kidding me." I put the receiver on the hook and searched my pockets for the old coin, only to remember that I had left it in the coin return slot. I quickly grabbed the coin, picked up the receiver again, pushed the coin into the slot, and redialled 911.
"We're sorry, the number couldn't be completed as dialled. Please check the area co-" I slammed the receiver down on the hook.
"For fuck's sake!" It took me a few seconds to noticed the writing on the front of the pay phone. Sure, I couldn't read it, but there was bound to be an emergency number on it somewhere. I began scanning the lines of Asian lettering, looking for anything that resembled numbers. Suddenly I saw the headlights of a car on my left, it's tires screaming as it came to a halt. It was too late, I jumped out of the phone booth and made a run for the trees. Gun fire erupted, glass shattered, a bullet lodged itself in tree as I passed it. Then I felt it, the excruciating pain. A bullet had made contact with my right shoulder, and another was in my left leg. I stumbled and nearly fell, but I managed to regain my balance and kept running as best as I could. In an attempt to throw them off, I made a hard left. I was soon back on asphalt, crossing another two lane road, and then I was back in the woods. I kept running. I was beginning to feel light head. Then the ground suddenly fell away and I fell down a steep incline. I tumbled down until I reached the bottom, hitting my head on one of many rocks.
I stared up at the night sky, my back on a bed of rocks. My glasses had fallen off during the fall, so the stars above were blurs of light twice their normal size. I felt incredibly weak. I had a killer headache, I could barely move my leg, and my left hand was absently applying pressure to my bleeding shoulder. My heart, which had been literally running a marathon, began to slow its pace. The pain grew sharply, but not in my leg or shoulder.
Why the fuck does my gut hurt?
The realization soon dawned on me. Lifting my head a bit off the ground, I looked down the length of my body. I saw that my right hand was placed to the left of my gut and just above my hip. Lifting it slightly, I saw that the bandage underneath was soaked in blood. I lowered my head back down. I hadn't been shot twice, but three times. All the running had given me an adrenaline rush, and now it was fading, leaving me with the pain of taking a bullet to the gut. I wanted to say something meaningful, even a cheesy one-liner from an action movie would've worked if in the right context, but I couldn't think of anything except for-
"What a hell of an ending…"
Is this really how it'll end for me? I thought, at the bottom of a ravine after some nonsensical situation? Because it's definitely a hell of a way to go.
"At least I have a nice view." I mumbled, continuing my staring contest with the stars.
A sudden noise emanated from above my head, the sound of rocks shifting under someone's weight. I tilted my head to the left and got an eye full of my surroundings. The bed of rocks I was laying on had a width of about ten meters with an incline at the opposite side. A slow flowing river split the bed in two. The blurred image of a bridge spanned across the ravine. The sound continued, but I didn't see anyone approaching. I listened as the sound grew louder. Then it walked up, stopping a few centimeters from my nose. It meowed in my face.
"You again?" the black cat raised a paw and licked it before brushing it over its head, "Go away, I don't feel like getting cat scratched." Instead of obeying, the cat hopped up onto my chest, walked around in a small circle, laid down with its tail curled around itself, and started purring.
How inconsistent...
I released my grip on my shoulder and moved my hand toward the cat. When it was a about five centimeters away, the cat rose its head and stared at it.
"Easy..." I moved my hand closer until I was petting the cat's head between the ears, it continued to purr, "There you go." I pet it some more and gave it a good head scratch.
"What do you know," I said weakly, "You're not a bad cat after all."
That sound rang in my ears again, someone - or something - else was headed toward me. I figured that one of the two, either Takano or that army guy, had finally found me and was arriving to finish the job.
Just get it over with...
"I guess this wasn't the right one, huh?" I stopped scratching. That wasn't Takano's voice I heard, and it certainly wasn't a guy's voice. It was the voice of a girl, a familiar sounding voice. A girl walked into my line of sight, a girl with a head of shoulder-length black hair, a girl wearing a black hoody. She was the last person that I expected to see.
"What..." was all I could manage to say. I tried to form more words, but talking suddenly required an extensive amount of effort.
"Don't strain yourself," she said, kneeling down next to me. Regardless of what she said, I strained myself, I soon forced my mouth to form the question.
"What... are you... doing here?" She smiled.
"I'm sure that you have more questions than that, and I'll answer them soon." she moved her right hand toward me, "But for now, you should wake up." Her hand rested on my left shoulder.
What?
My eyes shot open. I was staring up at a white ceiling that was met on the left by a purple wall; it was my ceiling. Sitting up, I looked around. I was in my bed, its covers twisted out of order. I swung my legs over the side and sat there.
"That was one hell of a dream." I finally said to myself, having stared down at the floor for the past twenty or so seconds.
Wait, what the hell am I doing in my bed? I fell asleep on the couch. Did I sleep walk or something?
Ding Dong. The sound of the door bell ringing echoed throughout the house. I glanced over at the digital display of my alarm clock.
11:23 am, must be Tyler.
I stood up and quickly slipped on a pair of jeans before making my way downstairs.
"Who is it?" I asked. I had one hand on the door knob and the other to the right of the door's vertical mid-point. I angled my head and pointed my ear toward the door.
"It's Dayton." Hearing the name 'Dayton' doesn't give me a positive mental visual, especially when accompanied my a certain voice. Right then I pictured the back-stabbing-son-of-a-bitch that was an old friend; but why was he here? Better question; how did he even know where I lived? He was never interested in coming over to my house (something that I'm now thankful for), so we always went to his place to hang out.
Hesitantly, I unlocked the door and cautiously opened it. Sure enough, there stood the son of a bitch himself.
"What the hell are you doing here?" The words left my mouth in a tone that was somewhere between annoyed and pissed off. He look at me as if I did something unexpected.
"What do you mean?" he asked, a nervous smile stretching across his face, "I'm here for the arcade trip."
"Who the hell invited you?" He gave me a confused look.
"You did, yesterday at school."
"At school? Last I checked, you were still at that hell hole James Anderson."
"What are you talking about? I transferred to LSS at the same time you did." I'd had enough of his bullshit.
"Fuck you and get the hell off my property." I slammed the door in his face and locked it.
"Dude, what the fuck?!" I heard him say through the door. Turning around, I crossed the landing and started back up the stairs. That's when I heard the wind chime. To anyone, this would seem insignificant; and I don't blame you. Wind chimes are kept outdoors where the wind has full rein on them, producing various notes. However, our wind chime is indoors, hanging from the ceiling to the right of the front door; and as you know, the door is shut tight. The next thing I noticed were the keys hanging on the key hooks, they were swinging back and forth. The swings were slight at first, but they gained momentum with every second. Then the shaking set in. The coats on the coat hooks were shaking, the closet door was shaking, the mirror above the storage bench shook itself off the wall and shattered on the floor, the keys jiggled violently, the hook that the wind chime hung from broke, sending it to the floor. Everything was shaking, I could barely keep my balance.
Holy shit, it's an earthquake! shot through my mind.
I used my hands to brace myself, each hand on each on the two walls, and started to climb the stairs. Looking up, I saw the chandelier swinging back and forth. Without warning, the light fixture broke from the ceiling and came crashing down, breaking through the wood and carpet, and fell into the storage space below. I traversed the newly formed hole and continued my climb. Reaching the top, I found that the family photos had fallen off of the fireplace mantel, their frames shattered. The T.V. and lamp had fallen over, the painting that hung above the couch had fallen to the floor also. I scanned my surrounds as they fell to pieces, looking for a save haven from the madness, and spotted my bedroom doorframe. I stumbled toward it, securing my ground by grasping both sides of the frame. As if on cue, the whole of my bedroom shifted and broke away. No, it didn't just brake away, it flung itself horizontally, descending into a void of swirling grey and black as it lost momentum. I immediately felt the suction, threatening to pull me into the void as I held onto the door frame for dear life. I tried to position myself in an attempt to backtrack into the hallway, but I slipped and got sucked into the void.