Thunderous, thrusting pain envelopes my head as I awake, my vision a blurry mess. I sway up, making my headache worse.

Where am I?

A chill breeze envelops me as my surroundings begin to form, and I find myself… in front of a school? What am I doing here? How did I get here? Why did I forget? Was I drugged? I can't remember. I feel even more nauseous as I stand up.

It's dark…

And the only guides illuminating my sight were the dim moonlight… and some white, yellow thingy I could barely make out. I rub my eyes in an attempt to improve my perception.

Actually, now that I'm squinting at it, it seems to be a person.

Maybe they can tell me what's happening. Perhaps even a way out… Or they could be the one responsible for my kidnapping, who knows.

I don't know what to do, should I approach them to ask questions? Should I run?

Well, guess they wanna make that decision for me.

Our distance shortens.

My heart is desperately ripping out of my chest.

I can't decide whether to hide or talk. No, it's too risky, I gotta make a run for it.

I flee, but when I look back, they're nowhere to be seen.

I turn my head in relief… to find them standing in front of me.

It's a girl?

I freeze…

I'm too scared to run away again, it's useless anyway, she'll just teleport or whatever the hell she did again.

A frail, tranquil voice caresses my ears, "It's okay."

My dizziness intensifies as the ramming in my head gets more violent.

Her stony, golden eyes were the last things I saw before blacking out again.

I feel like I'm wasting my life.

I've never really been a social person. I want to be, but my social anxiety gets the better of me, every time. Every single day feels the same. Sometimes I ponder on what the point is, the point of me, of my life-

"Hello!? Goto! What's the answer!?" The teacher shoots me an annoyed glare.

"The answer to what?"

He signs, "Nevermind." And gives up on continuing the lesson. Looks like I wasn't the only one not paying attention. Everyone's talking about that Girls Dead Monster concert happening tonight.

Should I go? For all one knows, I could make some friends during the concert! Heck, possibly at least one… or none.

Since I couldn't decide whether to go or not, I settled for just standing outside the main entrance to try and listen in as much as my hearing allowed me to. I'm not a fan of crowds anyway…

And as I expected, I can't hear a thing, oh whatever!

A sharp bang pierces my eardrums.

What was that!? A gunshot!?

It sounded not too far from here!

An abrupt, tremendous pain interrupts my panic as I start to recollect the events from the previous night.

I remember…

I remember the fact that I don't belong here, that I've been attending this school as if I was a normal student here, but why?

My fractious thoughts are interrupted by a brown haired male student bumping into me and accidentally dropping what looked to be some sort of weapon. He briskly picks it up.

"Sorry!" He runs off hurriedly.

Nothing about my situation makes sense, but my circumstances aren't gonna change if I just keep running and waiting. I learned that the hard way. I need to act now, but the thing is, I don't know how.

In any other situation, I would've definitely minded my own business, but that's not the case here. I have a hunch that if I follow them, I can get answers.

The booming gets louder as I draw near the battle scene, and to my horror, I spot a group of students unleashing a barrage of bullets at- Is that a bazooka?!

This is insane! What are they shooting at? The large cloud of smoke makes it difficult to pinpoint their unfortunate target.

In a trice, the humming of fans echo through the night sky and the storm of bullets is soon replaced by a gale of… food tickets?

Food tickets fly everywhere in turbulent synergy as they fall like snow into the many hands around them, including mine.

The armed students head for the cafeteria.

They might be dangerous… but then again, my options are limited, and I was getting hungry anyways.

I arrive at the boisterous cafeteria and cash in my ticket.

Everything here looks ordinary, It's so crowded though.

I explore around for a bit.

With some luck and about fifteen minutes, I manage to spot the havoc causing students. The fact that they were wearing different uniforms from the standard ones made the search ten times easier.

Okay! Gotta do this! Just go up to them and ask some questions, but I have to make sure I don't overstep their boundaries.

I walk towards the infamous table, my every step losing momentum.

Perfect!

I see an empty chair next to one of the band members. I had no clue they were in on this whole thing too.

And here I am.

"Um.."

The band member notices me. The other students were too busy chatting it away to acknowledge my existence.

"Sorry, is this seat taken? I kinda don't have anywhere else to go…"

"No! Go right ahead!"

"Ah, thanks."

Alright, time for a little interrogation, but I can't be too forward, gotta ease into it.

"So.. um! Don't you think this school's kinda weird?"

She looks up from her food and only then realizes I was striving for a conversation.

"Weird how?"

"Well… you know, like the fact that those guys over there were firing guns and bazookas, but everyone else seems to not care or even acknowledge it." I point to the table next to us.

"HUH!?"

Whatever conversation the other students were having dies down without notice and they all turn to look at me.

I've gained everyone's attention through my little outburst. Last thing I needed. I got too excited, so much for easing into it.

"Wait. I thought regular NPCs weren't programmed to care about what we did."

"What? NPC? Programmed? What are you talking about?"

"Oh! Uuuh…"

"Are you human?" Another angry looking band member from across the table opposite of me asks.

"...Yes… Aren't we all? Haha…" Damn! I'm freaking out! And those bad eyes of hers aren't helping in the slightest! I shouldn't have done this…

She turns around and signals to another female student with a bow. She points in my direction and I'm met with a pair of emerald green eyes. The girl studies me for a moment before carrying on with the conversation. They seem to come to an agreement on something before concluding their discussion.

The mean eyed student attends to her meal once more, "Your food's getting cold."

"Huh?"

"Follow us after lunch and we'll explain."

"Eh… Sure, ok."

What a weird night…

In time, the students all get up to depart and I follow suit, well the girl anyway.

Some of them were giving me puzzled side glances though…

I can't blame them, since I'm basically some stranger following them for seemingly no reason.

After walking for about a minute, we stop at what looks to be their secret hideout. The student with the bow pauses right outside a door labeled "Principal's Office."

The others do the same.

"Hey, Hisako, why'd you bring him with you?" A friendly looking blue haired student breaks the uncomfortable quietness.

The girl named Hisako points to me, "Another human, but I don't know."

"You think they're a spy?" With an untamed swift of the hand, a large halberd promptly threatens my safety.

"Wh- NO IM NOT! RELAX!"

A red haired student makes an effort to intervene, "Noda…"

"Calm down Noda." The violet haired student saves me from my aggressor. She analyses me further before speaking again.

"How did you arrive here?"

"Oh um, well… I woke up… and… to be fair, I have no clue. A girl with silver hair approached me and from what I understand, I've been living here as a student, even though I don't have any recollection of ever enlisting here in the first place and for some strange reason, I've had amnesia until recently which is why I've been acting like everything's normal and-"

"Okay! That's enough, I believe you, so settle down."

She crosses her arms, "Anyway, to make things clear, Angel got to you and somehow made you believe you were a normal student here?"

"Uh, yeah, I think…"

"Well, good thing you found us. If you'd spent any more time attending class, you would've disappeared."

"Disappeared? By attending class?"

"Well, yeah. If you follow the rules and do what you're told, you'll basically just be giving up." She straightens herself and comes closer.

"You should join us. Fight with us. Assist us with our rebellion against Angel. That way, you won't have to disappear with your tail between your legs."

"Wait! Wait! Wait! Back it up a little, I'm still stuck on what you said about me disappearing. What do you mean I could disappear? What is this place?"

She manifests a perplexed face, "Oh, my apologies, I thought Angel would've informed you already…"

"Inform me about what?"

"This is the afterlife."

"What…? You mean like, heaven?"

"Well, I guess you're not wrong. This is a place where adolescents who died with regrets come to."

What? I died? This isn't making any sense.

"Are you saying I'm- all of us here are dead!?"

The blue haired student pats me on the back, "Pretty much! Crazy right? We also can't die in this world since we're already dead, this guy can vouch." he points to the red haired student who returns an unenthusiastic leer.

Bizarre… Freaky… Unbelievable… These people are dead serious…

"Wait, you don't remember how you died?" Her question fills me with so much unease I flounder.

"...We-well, I didn't even know I was dead… and much less how I got here in the first place…"

"And that makes two…" She gets absorbed in wonderment. "Alright, follow me."

The two wooden doors widen to welcome us into its contents… and welcome me into my new life.

At the SSS HQ

"Alright! Time for a second round of introductions! I'm Yuri Nakamura! This here's Otonashi! He's also a newbie, just joined earlier today, in fact!"

"Nice to meet you."

"He can't remember the details of his death either, so you're not alone in that."

"Hm, yeah, but let's not concern ourselves with that for now. I'm sure we'll get our memories back eventually." He lays his hand on my shoulder to reassure me.

"Heh, of course."

Nakamura persists without missing a beat, "That guy over there's Hinata!"

"What's up!" He puts his arms around Otonashi and me. "Looking forward to working together!"

Iwasawa, Takamatsu, TK, Hisako, Shiina, Noda, Matsushita, Ooyama, Irie, Yusa, Fujimaki… Crap, I can't keep up with all these names…

"Do we really have to do this every time someone joins." Fujimaki asks, visibly annoyed by the pleasantries.

Nakamura enthusiastically slams her hand against the desk, "Well, of course! The first step towards creating an effective unit is to break the ice a little bit! Plus it's good to know who your allies are."

Her lively twinkle takes me back to her "Okay, your turn!"

"Oh, I'm… [Full Name]. N-Nice to meet you all."

"You don't have to be so nervous, it's okay! We're all comrades here!"

"Yes! Sorry!"

"Alright, now that we got that out of the way, do you have any more questions for me?"

"Well, actually a few. What's this lingo you guys keep using? You know, like NPC and programming. I thought you said this was the afterlife not a virtual reality."

"Good question! That's the unique thing about this place. We can pretty much make anything out of everything. Every article you see kind of behaves like code in a way. We call the other students NPCs because they're just that, soulless beings with no free will."

That… makes sense, I think.

"Also, who's this Angel person you guys keep mentioning? Are they dangerous?"

"That's the student you encountered when you first got here, right? We nicknamed her Angel, but that's not her actual name. Angel possesses an array of different abilities outside of what a normal human is capable of, so we suspect she's some servant of God."

A servant of God? Is that really true? She seemed somewhat harmless and normal to me, but then again, I suppose a servant of God wouldn't look threatening.

"Um, so how come we still get hungry even though we're dead?"

"We may be dead, but we aren't exactly spirits. You can still technically "die", but your body has the capability of regenerating itself. Hunger, however, is not something the body can take care of on its own, so that's why."

Interesting!

"I also wanted to ask abo-" Nakamura quickly jumps and dashes to cover my mouth.

"Okay! That's enough questions for now! Goodness…"

Well… Guess that's that...

Nakamura exhibits a great, determined beam, "Alright everyone! Make sure you all get plenty of rest tonight and be ready for another day of rebelling!"

And with that, we depart.