And Thus He Became an Abyss: Part I

That promised tomorrow didn't come for Hazuki. As Hazuki left the park that night, he received a phone call that his grandfather had collapsed on the living room floor. Hazuki raced to the nearest hospital, where his grandmother was waiting. Doctors and nurses rushed by them amid beeping monitors and calls over speaker systems. Stale white light ensnared Hazuki as he sat there in a panic. His grandmother couldn't speak. Shakes rattled her terrified body as tears fell down her face in silence. Night passed into morning. Surgery was undertaken in desperation. The surgery failed.

Footsteps approached Hazuki and his grandmother as they sat in the waiting room chairs. Caution and defeat echoed in every footfall, and Hazuki felt his chest begin to crack under strain as he anticipated what was coming.

"Oh no. Oh god no," his grandmother whimpered as she looked up at the somber doctors.

Hazuki's grandfather was dead. And in the grief that erupted afterwards, his grandmother's heart seized. Her arm locked in pain as sweat began to mix with her hysterical tears. She collapsed forward, and Hazuki fell to the ground to save her, but it was too late. No one could reach her in time, and her head hit the ground with a cold thud. The sound of fragile skin slapping on the tile floor in full force echoed across the room.

The seams of reality seemed to be tearing around Hazuki as doctors and nurses immediately flooded in to begin administering aid. The glare of the sterile white lights seemed to be burning into Hazuki's retinas as he wept without realizing it.

"Help her! Help her, please!" he screamed out as they hoisted his grandmother onto a bed and whisked her away without a word to him.

Then he was left alone in the waiting room. Now there was no one with him. Terror pumped through his body with such force that it felt as though his skin was being peeled off with a dulled knife. Even his teeth radiated with unseen pain as the white light blinded his eyes.

"No, no, no, no, no…" was all he could whisper as the world collapsed around him.

Unable to calm his shaking body, Hazuki resigned himself to pulling his arms around his chest and balling up in the chair.

Hours went by without a word, then it happened.

The footsteps returned. Only this time, Hazuki caught the sound of concerned adults murmuring as they walked. Hazuki looked up to see a horde of doctors and other grown-ups in work attire approaching him.

His grandmother's heart had exploded from grief. She was dead. In one night, everything that remained had been taken from Hazuki. He was alone.

The day that followed bled between truth and hallucination. Soon, Hazuki's eyelids were raw from the unending stream of tears. As he was still a child, government supervisors arrived in hours to tell him that he was now a ward of the state. They would be taking him home briefly.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"Since you are still a minor with no living kin, you are now in the custody of the state. We will be handling funeral arrangements, but will need your sign-off. Cremation will happen after the funeral, and the remains will be taken to your family gravesite," said one of the supervisors.

"But… what about my grandparents' house? What about my school? What about-" Hazuki stopped as his thoughts raced to Naoe.

"I have to tell her…" he whimpered.

"Is this a person you can call?" the supervisor asked.

Hazuki realized he had never gotten any form of contact from Naoe. She had always just been the girl at the plum blossom tree. He shook his head in defeat.

"Unfortunately, we are not able to take you to any other locations besides your home, the funeral home, and the gravesite…" another supervisor said.

So, hours later, Hazuki was surrounded by government guardians at his grandparents' house. He had ten minutes to pack up a single suitcase or trash bag of belongings and say goodbye. Entering his bedroom felt like a stranger breaking into a hotel. It was now unfamiliar. Devoid of warmth or happiness and merely a place to rest. Absent-minded hands fumbled to grab a random variety of clothes that were haphazardly thrown into a small suitcase on the floor.

Hazuki looked around the room to see if there were any mementos he wanted to take with him. As he scanned his belongings, nothing elicited any emotional response. It was just stuff now. Hazuki slowly sat on the floor by his suitcase and began to weep once more.

"Oh god no," he cried alone as he fell to his side and lay on the ground in defeat.

Sobs came uncontrollably, and Hazuki did not fight them. Grief returned in full force. It was a sorrow he had not known in years and had hoped never to experience again, yet as he lay there on the floor feeling his tears run against his mouth, he feared it might never unmoor itself from his bones ever again. Sorrow mixed into his essence and became a part of his very being. A new numbness began to stitch itself into the fabric of his soul, and he almost let it consume him. But then an image flashed in his mind.

An image of Naoe smiling at sunset.

It jolted Hazuki like a charge from a defibrillator, and he sat upright in an instant. He had to go see her.

Hazuki leapt up and bolted for the door, but the guardians were there.

"Are you ready to- Hey?!" called out one of the adults as he ran by them.

"Hazuki, stop!" called the other as he shoved through them with all his desperate might.

The doorway burst open as Hazuki stumbled out in delirious fervor.

"We've got a runner!" one of the guardians said as they began pursuit.

Hazuki's mind wasn't clear as he sprinted down the steps and to the street. He had to see her.

"Hazuki no!!" screamed an adult as Hazuki leapt onto the road without looking.

But it was too late.

He had jumped without gauging his surroundings and did not see the incoming work truck passing by.

Before he had even planted his feet, his left leg was struck by the full force of the vehicle. Bone snapped instantly as Hazuki flew through the air like a ragdoll. Pain unlike anything imaginable burned through his leg and torso as the asphalt ripped at his skin upon landing. Everything shattered into nothing, and reality faded into dreams.

The sterile white light returned in nauseating doses. Noises and voices beeped and murmured. Hazuki's hands were tied to the sides of a bed. Needles entered his arms. Warmth and void coated his being as all feeling vanished, and he became a husk.