'No results,' He narrowed his eye and closed the laptop no longer wanting to look at the endless amounts of empty search engines. 'But how can that be?'

Crossing his legs, the teen wiped at his eyes with the back of his hands feeling his body sag from exhaustion. He hadn't gotten much sleep the night before mostly due to his ongoing nightmares, but also the note had over taken his mind.

All he could think about was the invitation to Inaba City and the way it had been ripped to shreds. He didn't understand why he would have no memory of receiving it or even going to the destination. His curiosity only grew as the hours ticked by and soon enough he found himself typing away at his mother's laptop with coffee being only thing that kept him going.

And all of the research, all of the leads, all of the searches had come up blank. It was almost as if Inaba City never even existed in the first place. But in the back of his mind Nezumi knew that it had to have been real, that there was no way a city could dissapear with a blink of an eye.

There where no news reports of anything happening in the city and most maps had just blank unnamed terrain where it had remained. He had searched into the government own national website and cleaned the archives open to the public out with every trick in the book he knew of and still found nothing.

But he couldn't shake the feeling that he had been there.

"This is insane." He mumbled rubbing at his forehead. "This is absolutely insane, am I just losing my mind?"

Growling he moves the laptop off off his lap and fell back against his bed rumbling his school shirt in the process. He didn't bother to fix it gritting his teeth as he allowed his frustration to come through. The whole situation was beginning to piss him off.

Sleeping was almost impossible with his nightmares waking him up every hour, his memory had been splotchy recently with whole days worth of time disappearing, his body felt weak and he often found himself bleeding from wounds he didn't even remember getting. It was almost if his entire body was falling apart around him and it just made him sick to his stomach.

He shivered and looked at his alarm clock. Only seventeen minutes left before he needed to get ready for school and he felt like he had been hit by a truck. His mother would kill him if she found out he skipped school and he dreaded having detention for the ninth time that year. Going in late wouldn't work either, eventually his mother would catch onto him.

'Goddamnit.' There was no other choice, he would have to go. Even his paths held the same answer with all of them ending with his suspension to his mother beating the literal shit out of him.

To school it was.

•••••

Nezumi regretted his choice.

His head was held up in hands as he watched his third period teacher drone on and on about the government and Americans, typical for something as boring as world history. It felt like the world was inacting some cruel punishment on him by not allowing him to fall asleep and he silently begged for the class to end. If boredom didn't kill him first, jumping out a nearby window would.

Increasingly self deprecating thoughts had also appeared to be a side effect of what was happening to his body. He struggled to keep from completely breaking down and not even the gentle embrace of his phone didn't help. Everything felt like a tidal wave hitting him full force with all the emotions his paths could even begin to express.

And it wasn't even like he could control it no they just came to him in the most random of moments. When he sat in homeroom all he could hear was the conversation from a path he chose the week before and he had to hide in a bathroom stall until it subsided. At the end of second period he had been walking in the hallway only to remember a decision he made on his sixth birthday about picking out what outfit to wear.

The whole situation was horrifying and adrenaline inducing all at the same time. It was like he was on a bad LSD trip and the effects had only just kicked in. And to make matters worse he knew his classmates had to have noticed something was up, besides him being fully awake for once.

Everyone had been staring at him nonstop and multiple people had come to him to see if he was okay. It had only just hit him that maybe being so unsocial could really bite him in the ass instead of protecting him. He groaned again and held his head against the wall. Today was horrible and he still had three hours left before school was out.

"Now class I would like one of you to tell me what the meaning of this historical symbol. Tsugiyoshi you've been awfully quiet today so why don't you try and answer."

'Historical symbol what are they...' Nezumi's eyes landed on his textbook and his headache seemed to grow once they met the image.

He couldn't move. His body began to feel heavy and buckled under his weight hitting the ground. Nausea overcame the growing panic that filled his mind as he felt his fingers begin to tingle. Then his legs. Then came his arms.

The ground felt warm under his body began to soak itself in it's own blood. He could hardly see anything by then with his killer's heels barely visible as they connected with his head. A puddle had began to grow under his body and silently hoped someone would come to his aid.

But all his hope soon died out with perfectly manicured fingernails coming down and scraping against his neck. Hands that looked like they belonged to a porcelain doll choked the life out of him with there owner facing him head on.

Cold rage met wet desperation as the two at one another. He could taste the saliva that dropped down onto his lips as the older teen strained in there effort to kill him, almost as if the action pained them. It tastes sour, but not in a good or bad way, dampening his already blood ridden tongue with it's taste.

He wanted to vomit but his throat was collapsing within itself from his killer's force. Tears gathered in his eyes but they couldn't fall as it felt as if his blood vessels where going to explode. A blade sat at his side, a umbrella at his other and a fallen boot behind his head.

They had struggled for what felt like hours. He had barely dodged there attacks before subcoming to exhaustion while they slack from lost of adrenaline. They concrete beneath them was now full of bullet holes and displayed on a canvas of blood, body fluids and sweat.

Eyes. That was there power and now there greatest weak point. He hadn't been thinking as they came charging at him with there blade, he ducked and aimed the spear at them without a second thought. It was only after he opened his eyes did he release what he had done.

It looked kind of soupy now, the socket pooling with blood and yellow sticky puss. He was thankful that it didn't drop into him to and struggled to take in his last breath.

Black dots had begun to dance in front of his eyes and stars clouded his vision. His thoughts became mushy as he felt all of his paths shutter and collapse within themselves as they lost there host. He felt them all form into one, that moment, and closed his eyes allowing him lungs to burn within him once again.

"Tsugiyoshi!" Nezumi shuttered and wrapped his arms around himself his face wet as tears fell onto the textbook pages. "Tsugiyoshi are you okay!?"

"Tsugiyoshi-kun?"

"Maybe somebody should go get the nurse."

"Sensei he's not playing around! He looks so pale!"

Looking up from his textbook he met the worried gazes of his classmates and teacher. His hands felt clammy, with his breathing labored with each breath he took. He needed to get out of here. He needed to get away from these...these horrible memories.

Authors Note: this sucks so bad