Before My Eyes

There wasn’t much I could do at that moment. I was too far away to physically protect her, and so my only option was to divert their attention towards me in hope that would let Izumi run to safety. How would I then deal with all three of them? I didn’t know, but at least it meant ensuring Izumi was safe.

“Izu—”

As I went to shout, a hand clasped around my mouth, holding it tightly, clearly in an attempt to stop me from bringing attention to myself. Whoever this was, their other hand wrapped itself around my waist, violently dragging me to the ground.

At that moment, I couldn’t tell if it really was punitive, or whether, instead, it was an act of desperation. That, however, wasn’t a concern to me. Whoever this was, whether they were protecting me or they were working in collaboration with the three men attacking Izumi, my goal didn’t change — saving Izumi was the only thought that crossed my mind.

I continued to scream underneath the hand, not stopping myself from spitting all over it in an attempt to force them off of me.

It didn’t work, nothing did.

Even my arms that flailed around and at times hit against their body didn’t change the fact that I was still easily being man-handled.

My eyes remained pointing forwards as I saw the three men finally put their hands on Izumi…and drag her to the ground. As her screams magnified, so did my wishful cries underneath the mysterious hand.

A kick to the face. A heel to the nose. Izumi’s nose started bleeding, her face looking drowsy and telling me that she was close to passing out.

Again — another kick to the face.

This sight was disgusting enough already, but I realised that the three men were taking their due time with this all.

That fact didn’t just hurt me because I could tell the three men were enjoying what they were doing, it also crushed me because the scene was so prolonged it reminded me how time I had to save her. Yet these hands just wouldn’t let me.

But amidst this terribly distressing scene, where the hell was Ren?

No — don’t tell me…he—he had been killed before Izumi?

There weren’t any signs that suggested so. I hadn’t heard any loud noises on my way back to the camp through the forest, and the men didn’t have a drop of blood on their clothes until they started torturing Izumi.

He couldn’t be dead. There was no doubt in my mind that he would have at least put up a fight against them.

Those thoughts were confirmed soon after I watched Izumi being thrashed against a tree.

“Taro….please…you have to stop resisting. Please...calm down.”

Those words anxiously grazed my ears from behind. The voice was familiar. No one else in this place would've known me as Taro. After all, in this world I was Sabar.

There was only one person who knew me as Taro.

That was Ren.

My eyes rolled back to confirm my horrors.

It should’ve been obvious. How had I not recognised the hand that clasped around my mouth?

He spoke again with a pleading tone. “Taro, you have to stop…please, we can’t do anything.”

His words had the opposite effect that he had wished for. His attempt to calm me down only made me writhe and cry more. Now that I knew he was the one holding me back, it made me hate what was happening all the more.

Why couldn’t he just let go of me? Was he really going to let Izumi die like this? After all she had done for us, was he really refusing to save her?

My eyes bulged as I looked at him, hoping that my eyes would tell what I couldn’t with my mouth. However, upon looking at his face, I could see a level of pain in his face that almost matched mine. The pain written on his face evoked sorrow, while mine more starkly evoked an emotional desperation.

While his pained expression told me that he struggled mentally to hold me back, it was inevitably for a good reason. Just as Ren had done several times, everything he did was well-thought-out…I just wasn’t able to immediately grasp it.

There was nothing else I could do but watch as Izumi was brutally slaughtered before my eyes. Though I had never seen quite a horrific sight, my eyes remained glued to what was happening. For some reason, I couldn’t help but watch.

Every moment, every scream, every violent blow that was thrown gave me an extra second to wish that something was going to happen. That someone else was coming to save her. Perhaps a new character that hadn’t been introduced into the game yet.

Neither of my wishes were answered.

My suffering prolonged as Ren never let go, and Izumi was left to die…alone.

The three men had clearly had enough fun, and substituted their fists for daggers — all of them heartlessly taking a turn to massacre her body.

Perhaps this was all part of the Being’s sickening plan to force me to relive the last moments of Junpei’s life. Perhaps this was his payback against me after I had refused his offer.

If it was, it had certainly worked — I never wanted this memory to replay in my head ever again. If only I hadn’t gone to search for the wood Ren told me about, then I would’ve been able to save her.

Izumi’s cries gradually slowed, and, eventually, they stopped. Her arms; her legs; her head; they all ceased in their frantic movements as she lay in her own pool of blood.

Though blurred from the tears that filled my eyes, I could see the three men finally walking away into the distance, before they suddenly vanished from plain sight. They didn’t look around for us; they didn’t linger after murdering Izumi; they simply left the sight of the crime, leaving nothing behind but Izumi’s wounded body.

That’s when Ren finally let go of me.

I immediately raced towards Izumi’s lifeless body, hoping that, somehow, there was a way to save her.

My boots squelched in her blood as this demonic nightmare continued.

I reached her, falling to my knees upon seeing her stale eyes and ripped body. I picked her up, holding her in both of my arms as her head rocked to the side left unsupported.

And before I could even say goodbye, her body began to fade away.

She disintegrated in my hands…and disappeared from existence.