"Fuuu."

I sighed as soon as I took off my sneakers, the feeling of liberation I felt was really comforting, my toes could finally touch the ground and move freely, released from their prisons.

I'll have to wear them for a while, at least.

My degree was about to start, so I hope this experience becomes less recurrent.

In today's world, there are so many job options that I wouldn't have to worry so much.

The most important thing is that, right now, I have to get ready to go to the party that mentioned earlier...

I got up and started looking for clothes with enthusiasm, these moments of relaxation would come to an end at some point, but they would certainly come back, at least that's what I thought.

...

"Bye, dad."

"Take care."

I nodded goodbye and closed the door of the house, now I just needed to walk a few streets to get to the party, I left my cell phone at home and I only had a few coins, I didn't bring many because I didn't think it was necessary, but it shouldn't be a problem.

I walked through the streets singing some song in my head; today the day was cold and the sun was about to set, with the last source of warmth saying goodbye I looked at it from the horizon with the shape of the houses framing it.

Everything was calm and silent, I wished just for a moment that I could enjoy it like this for as long as I wanted.

But the sun didn't care about my thoughts and left.

…

The party was fun, I rarely visited these places because I preferred quieter environments, but this party was being held with the students from my school, so I decided to join in too.

After a round of conversation and a few games, I decided to get away for a while. Looking around, I soon found a place, it was a secluded corner and not too noisy, even though I liked to talk, I felt like my 'battery' was running down fast, so I needed to relax a bit.

I told my colleagues where I was going, and saw that they were too focused to hear me, so I shrugged and moved to a chair that was there.

There were only me and three other people in the corner, me and one other guy were just relaxing, while the other two were a couple cuddling and making fun of each other. My eyes momentarily stopped on them, I had no interest in seeing other people's lives like this, so I looked away.

"Hello"

A greeting suddenly appeared next to me, I turned around and saw that the other guy who was relaxing had come over to talk to me, I didn't really want to say anything, after all I had moved to this place precisely so I wouldn't have to, but I still needed to be polite.

"Hi"

It was the only reply I made, I would have liked the man to get the message that I didn't want to talk, but instead he continued.

"You know, I saw you from afar and you seemed to be enjoying yourself, why did you come here?"

'Looks like I'm going to have to talk after all'

"I came here to relax, and you?" - I asked, glancing at him.

"I was waiting for someone to come here so I could talk to them, you could say I'm a bit scared to talk to others, and those two are in their own world"

He said, pointing at the couple.

"What if no one showed up here?"

"I was sure someone would." He said this but didn't bother to explain his certainty.

I raised an eyebrow but just looked at the ground and said.

"Good for you"

"Good for us" - His face showed a big smile.

To be honest, I was slightly bothered by that smile for some reason, but I didn't let it show and acted as if it didn't bother me.

Maybe I should get out of here.

"Do you want to play a game?"

"..." - I look at him with confusion.

Having gained his attention, he made a face of apparent satisfaction.

I hadn't noticed until now, but this man was nowhere near the average age that everyone here was, we were around 16 to 19 with a few passing that, this was a party for the students of our school after all.

He had a black hair with few white strands in the sides of his hair, he had deep eyes that if you didn't look with attention could think that they really are black, sitting down, there was no way of telling his exact height, but could be said that was something around 5'8 if he was standing up.

He wore a black suit with a red tie, his pants are black just like his suit, but there was some white points through his suit and pants. The little white points in the pitch black of his entire clothes made it look like stars in the infinite universe.

The appearence of this man caused to me a bit of strangeness, even if people from outside could come, this man looked to be in his 30s, his clothes didn't match the atmosphere or anything, nothing gives any hint from why this man would be there, this man being here seemed... out of place.

"It's a bit of a mind game so to speak, one of those like 'in this situation, what would you do' you know?"

"What's the situation?"

I wanted to try to end the conversation quickly to escape from the slight discomfort I was feeling, it could be that I was just finding ordinary things strange, but my heart couldn't stop feeling that way.

"Do you play?"

"?" - I raised an eyebrow in confusion.

"I mean, those computer games for example"

"Oh, right, I play from time to time"

"Great, the question is if you were to go into the world of any of those games, what would it be?"

Why was a 30-year-old man asking me that?

"Well, there are lots of places, maybe Pokemon would be cool"

"Pokemon? Well it's not a bad place at all, but what about a mystery game, like one where you have to find the culprit, something like… Danganronpa"

The name suddenly came out in the middle of the conversation, and I sensed that the man had wanted to talk about it from the start.

His eyes had reflected some kind of emotion, but I couldn't recognize it.

"If you ended up in their world, what would you do?"

'Being in Danganronpa I could only cry to be honest'

"Maybe I'd try to save them" - Despite my thoughts, I said other thing, wanting to save them wasn't a lie or something I created to disguise my intentions, if I could save those characters I would certainly try, but I don't feel like I really could.

I feel there were too many better people than me for something like that.

"It's a good attitude, but it wouldn't be as simple as just showing up and saving them, right? We have to take things like language into account" - he said.

'Did he think of this theme and get it stuck in his head or something?' The man really seemed to have developed this idea in his mind and it seemed that he wanted to express it to someone, which would explain being at a party of young people at least, hardly anyone older would know.

"Let's say you show up there with the ability to read, listen to and speak Japanese, like an automatic translator in your head, all sounding like English" - As he spoke, the emotion in his eyes grew.

"That's pretty powerful, but what about writing?" - I asked.

"Well, it's not like you really know it, it's more like something that lets you talk to everyone."

"Right."

"And let's say you have one more thing to help you, like a system, I hear that young people today love that idea"

'A gentleman talking about stories with systems... I think I saw something different today, no doubt... but with a system? Maybe even I'd get somewhere.

"A system would put an end to the difficulties, right?" - I asked.

"Well, you're right, but it would be slightly different from the usual"

The man stopped talking for a moment and came back with a question.

"With all that, would you go to this world?"

'And drown in danger? I'll pass'

"Hm, I'd say no, there are safer worlds than Danganronpa and I have important things here"

"Haha, good answer, so let's change the scenario a bit, let's say your responsibilities here are over, if you were to leave, your family would live their normal lives, having, for example, forgotten about you."

"So I would cease to exist here?"

"Yes, in a way, your family would have another child, your friends would have another friend, things like that, you know, it might sound a bit disheartening, but you'd be free to live in another world"

"So I'd be replaced?" - I didn't like that idea.

That last part of the conversation made me angry, how could it be normal without me here? I know they would sense something was wrong.

This irritation made me try to end the conversation immediately.

"Well, in that case, I'd accept."

I got up as soon as I'd answered his question and, without saying goodbye, started to leave.

Although it was rude, I didn't mind.

I didn't look back, but I could feel the man's gaze on my back... his expression was unknown.

"Hey, where are you going?" - One of my colleagues saw me and asked.

"I'm going home, I remembered I have something important to do."

"Oh great, I'll see you tomorrow"

"See you tomorrow"

'Yeah, I can't just be forgotten, there are people who know who I am'.

As I walked down the street feeling upset, something started vibrating in my pocket.

Trim! Trim!

'What's making that noise?

I reached into my pocket and pulled out a... flip phone?

I looked at it in confusion for a few seconds before flipping it open, its small screen showing a drawing of a phone and an 'unknown number' being displayed.

I didn't know whose phone it was, but I wanted to answer it to say that I had suddenly found this cell phone and didn't know the owner.

I looked over the buttons for a moment just to be surprised by them, there was no numbers that would have in a normal phone, rather there was strange buttons without indications for what each one does.

'What's all this?'

'Trim! Trim!

'That phone won't stop ringing?' - I thought it was strange that the call wasn't stopping, who was calling to hold on for so long?

Without thinking too much, I pressed a phone button(one of the only ones normals) and put the phone to my ear.

"Ah, look -" I started to say, but...

"Enjoy"

'Ziinnnnnnn...'

A buzzing sound hit my eardrums, like a bell warning of a catastrophe, the colors of my vision were consuming everything, with each color trying to overlap the others. I felt myself being disassembled like breaking glass flying to different directions, and then reassembled in an instant, as if someone had put each piece together and glued it back together.

No pain was felt, I felt nothing, it was as if I didn't exist, but suddenly this feeling of numbness was swept away, as if a bucket of cold water had been thrown in my face, my senses returned.

I was no longer in the same street, but in an unfamiliar alley, the formerly dark sky was now painted red, the air felt dry, I was having trouble breathing even standing still, I had trouble telling if it was because of my state or the environment.

I stood stunned, before I knew it my body was wet with cold sweat, I didn't know what I had experienced but I felt dizzy.

My legs weakened and I fell to my knees on the floor. I concentrated on my breathing after noticing my poor situation, i started to inhaling and exhaling carefully, breathing in 80%, stopping, and then breathing out the last 20% to finally exhale.

That was a technique to calm yourself that I had watched in a video and start to use until becomes a habit.

After a few repetitions my breathing improved, even if it wasn't 100%, the after-effects of the experience I had suffered a few moments earlier were finally wearing off.

I wiped the saliva that had involuntarily come out of my mouth with the sleeve of my blouse, before looking around; the alley I was in was completely desolate, I couldn't hear a sound even in the distance.

It looked like an abandoned city with no life at all. I stood up and looked towards one of the exits from the alley.

In the distance there was a large screen showing the face of a bear, half of which was white and the other black.

The bear had a demonic smile on one side, its eyes were cold, and I felt as if they were looking at me, mocking my situation.

I didn't want to admit it but... I might be in a very bad situation.

"Shit"

Do I at least get a coffin?