Chapter 10
Posted: 09/11/2020
Status: Ongoing
Around them, nothing but sand and piles of stone. Once, these stones were tall skyscrapers, standing proudly in an always-bustling city.
Now, you could barely guess they used to be buildings at all.
In the ruins, two teenagers watch the sun set with bitter expressions on their faces.
Gold eyes leave the sunset dirtied with huge amounts of dust in the atmosphere to meet bright red ones.
No words are spoken, none are needed.
Their linked hands refuse to let each other go.
They have nothing left but each other.
…
Izaya wheeled himself around to observe whatever had fallen so loudly just behind him. He quirked an eyebrow at the scene in front of him.
There, in front of him, was the famed Fortissimo of Ikebukuro, lying flat on his back and groaning in pain while a completely unbothered Mirai stood up from her place in his arms, unharmed. Behind them stood the hospital, with one window on the second floor opened.
“Were stairs too much for you, Shizu-chan?” Izaya asked flatly. Shizuo just shot him a half-pained, half-pissed glare.
“Fuck off, we were stuck.” He growled lowly then slowly got up to his feet with a groan. “Ugh. Hurts like a bitch though.”
“Yes, jumping off from buildings will often do that to you, Shizu-chan.”
Shizuo just showed him the finger. Izaya smirked.
“Where d’you go anyway? There wasn’t any elevator.”
“Yes, there was, you just don’t know how to use your eyes.” Although Izaya would have rather preferred throwing himself and the wheelchair down the stairs than have lived whatever fuckery he had just gone through, thank you very much.
”…No there wasn’t. We looked everywhere and didn’t see any.”
“Yes, there was,” Izaya frowned, “How do you think I left this place? …I can’t say that said elevator behaved like it should have, though.”
“Yeah, the hospital was weird too. The hall kept repeating, it pissed me off.” Shizuo rubbed the back of his head. It hurt a bit, but he didn’t seem to be bleeding at least. “What happened with the elevator? Did it break?”
“Ha! If only!” Izaya barked a laugh. “It’s more like reality itself broke! Look around you and tell me, doesn’t anything seem weird?” He spread his arms.
Shizuo didn’t have to look around much to see what was wrong. The street configuration was completely different from when they’d entered the hospital, buildings standing where they shouldn’t be, streets cutting off at some point and suddenly merging into another place altogether. And that wasn’t the worst of it, no. The more Shizuo looked, the more abstract it became, to the point he was gradually becoming dizzy. He cringed. Izaya smiled.
“Pretty horrendous, wouldn’t you say? And I’m certain the longer we stay here, the worst it’ll become.” Izaya’s smile became sharp and his eyes narrowed. “And if this keeps up, we’ll be next.”
“Argh, fuck!” Shizuo was having trouble standing up straight, the constantly changing scenery making his head spin. When he looked at Izaya, the raven at first appeared to feel fine, but he could see the tenseness of his expression. He was feeling it too. “Okay, yeah, we gotta leave, but how?! We’ve been trying to all this time, didn’t we?”
“It’s simple,” Izaya said and put his hands back on his lap, “All we have to do is wake up.”
Shizuo paused. Huh? Izaya noticed his confusion and elaborated.
“This place is too messed up to be reality, Shizu-chan. We’re dreaming. Or maybe I am?” He tilted his head to the side, looking pensive. “Perhaps you’re only a figment of my imagination. Perhaps I am in some sort of coma. Or perhaps our minds have been put in a simulation, as sci-fi as it may sound. Certainly, wouldn’t be any stranger than headless women on bikes, wouldn’t it?”
A dream. They were dreaming?
…In hindsight, it would explain everything that happened to them. Waking up with missing memories, the repeating days, the random flashbacks, the way their bodies were suddenly weaker.
…The way Tokyo, no, reality itself was breaking down as they spoke.
One odd detail remained, however. Shizuo looked over at the kid, whose expression hadn’t changed at all.
“Ah, so you’ve noticed. Maybe you have slightly more brain cells than I estimated!” Izaya piped up with a big smile. “You’re probably wondering where she came from, yes? After all, if this is a dream, or otherwise a construction from our own minds, she should have come from our memories, yet neither of us knew her.” He twirled his finger in the air. “This,” He pointed at Mirai, “Is our way out.”
”…Huh?” Shizuo was dumbfounded. How had the flea arrived to this conclusion? The kid…Mari? Mari was their way out?
Izaya didn’t bother explaining his reasoning and instead met the now oddly focused eyes of the creature that looked like a child.
“You can get us out of this place, am I right?” He asked her.
“Yes.” She said, but otherwise did nothing, seemingly waiting for something. Izaya nodded in understanding.
“Very well, then.” His smile disappeared, and he spoke coldly. “Send us back to our reality.”
.
.
.
“Affirmative. Now removing subject M0 -alpha and subject R0-alpha from Data Collection and Alteration Environment. Please wait.”
…
Two young men sit together in the remains of what used to be a bustling metropolis. The one with eyes like blood sits limply between the legs of the other one, eyes open but glazed over and body mostly unresponsive. The young man behind him seems to be fiddling with something on his back, golden eyes entirely focused on the task at hand.
The young man at the front suddenly jolts awake. He trashes as his friend holds him down with slender yet abnormally strong arms until he slowly calms down. He doesn’t release him, however.
The red-eyed young man relaxes against the warm chest and gently starts petting wild, brown hair.
No words need to be said. They both think the same thing.
This is the third time this week.
They don’t have much time left.
…
With a full-body jolt, Shizuo opened his eyes as a gasp tore itself out of his body. He immediately closed his eyes again, blinded by bright lights right above his head. He could vaguely make out muffled sounds around him but ignored them, too preoccupied by the splitting headache he had woken up with.
Gradually, the headache slowly faded away, and with it the bright lights. He opened his eyes again and was met with a white ceiling.
He looked at it in confusion, then moved his gaze to look down at himself. He was strapped down to some table, various cables attached to his body.
He was also very naked.
He tried moving a hand, but his movements were sluggish.
The noise around him was becoming clearer, though not anymore understandable. There seemed to be multiple agitated voices, speaking in… was that English? It sounded like English. Too bad he didn’t understand a word of it.
He turned his head towards the sound and saw a group of people dressed in lab coats. They seemed to be arguing, until one of them spotted him looking and jumped away with a yelp, startling the others who then looked in his direction as well, and then had the exact same reaction.
They yelled at each other some more then all scrambled towards various weird machines all around him.
A few beeps here and there, and he suddenly was feeling incredibly dizzy and tired. That’s when he realized just what those strange people were doing to him.
They were putting him under.
Familiar rage surging in him, Shizuo grit his teeth and pulled. The supposedly sturdy straps broke away easily under the strain and Shizuo slowly lifted his body up until he was sitting down.
The people in the lab coats yelled some more. More beeping.
His head hurt so he tore away the cables there, then he proceeded to remove all the other ones on his body without a care.
His mind was hazy, the whole world felt like it went in slow motion. He vaguely registered the scientists(?) exiting the room, only to be replaced by people in dark uniforms.
What happened next was a blur.
The next thing he knew, he was surrounded by battered, bleeding (but alive…probably) bodies, and his own body was wracked with pain.
On closer inspection, he could see many holes oozing blood all over his body.
So, he was shot, huh.
Determined to get out of this strange place, and still very pissed, Shizuo approached the wall and gave it a swift kick, creating a makeshift door for him to pass through.
In the next room were more scientist-looking people, who all ran away in fear at the sight of the very bloody, very angry, and still very naked man.
He was surprised when he heard a female voice right next to him. It seemed someone hadn’t fled at the sight of the monster, but that wasn’t the most surprising thing, no.
The most surprising thing…was that the voice spoke Japanese.
“Some people are trying to work here; would you mind not destroying everything?” A woman in a lab coat asked, though it sounded more like a reprimand. She looked annoyed, then disgusted once she gave him a once-over. “Also please put some clothes on.”
He stared at her blankly, then promptly passed out right there.
“Oh, wonderful.” The woman, who had seemed vaguely familiar, sighed.
Author's note: ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ