How to Fight Burnout

Eventually they had to leave that darkness, otherwise it threatened to consume them. After hours of sobbing in Tomita’s arms, Izhari shut down and fell into a deep slumber. Tomita took that as his chance to move, and though he did not know the correct direction, he knew he had to start the journey out of The Void.

Every step caused ripples of light to drift from his feet as he moved towards their cart, which was floating on its own a few hundred meters away. Once he had reached the cart, he confirmed their inventory was still in order. Only then did he remember that they were nearly out of food. Now, there would be no replenishing supplies in Currtasi. They would have to find some other village along the way, which meant rationing what they did have so that they could make it until then. Tomita braced himself for hunger-ridden sleep in his foreseeable future, but didn’t dwell on the concern.

Instead he spent all of his energy on figuring out how to get them out. This abyss couldn’t be that large, since the kingdom it had destroyed was relatively small. So Tomita set about moving in the direction that his instincts and memory were telling him was the way he had come. Even if it wasn’t, he would simply trace whatever edge of void awaited until an opening appeared or Izhari awoke.

In the darkness and emptiness, time felt like an unraveled spool of unused thread. It was impossible to know if he had been walking for days or minutes. Hunger had set in, but Izhari was still unconscious. Tomita didn’t want to eat without her, so he resigned himself to drinking etherdrop. His tolerance was already rising, so an occasional sip did little more than calm his nerves. But that was enough.

Continuous flickers of footstep ripples chimed across the expanse of black and whispers of panic did begin to sneak into Tomita’s mind, but he continued forward nonetheless. All the while, his manager had barely moved. It was getting harder to see her in the darkness, but Tomita could hear her steady breaths and occasional whimpers.

Walking gave Tomita time to reflect on what had happened, and in many ways, everything from the last three months. There in the silence, he was able to finally come to grips with his reality. This was all real. It wasn’t some strange post-death hallucination or hell. It was another realm and he was beholden and connected to this strange, broken, violent, tragic, gentle being.

Connected.

The word surprised Tomita and moved something unrecognizable in his spirit. Had he ever used that word before?

Wasn’t that what he had always wanted? Just once. Just once he had begged the universe for some form of true connection to another, but Tokyo’s seas of people and hordes of exhausted workers had never allowed him such a connection. Not even for a moment.

Tokyo was becoming a fleeting dream. Thinking on its familiar streets and alleys, on the streaks of neon reflecting in August rain splashes, on the cacophony of Shinjuku at 3 a.m., all of it made Tomita realize that those memories were fading. His mind was dulled from years of drinking, and something about this place was making him forget what he had been before. The leech was somewhat to blame, but Tomita imagined it was also just some strange phenomenon of this realm. Eventually, he would likely forget all about the Kanto region and his first life.

If he lived that long.

For the first time since his arrival, Tomita imagined dying in this land. Would he just be transported to some other mystical land? Would he finally meet something akin to this void? It didn’t scare him, but he wasn’t ready for it. That was an unusual situation for someone who had already died once. It took killing himself to find any form of reason to keep living. It wasn’t healthy or admirable, but it was the truth for him. Izhari had become his reason for living.

This world had not endeared itself to him. Its fate was only of slight concern to him. No, Izhari’s quest was his guidepost and purpose. Whatever she decided, beyond anything truly monstrous, he would support.

“Tomita?…” she whispered from the darkness.

Her voice pulled him from his thoughts and back into the present.

“You’re crying…” she whispered.

Truly, he had not realized it, but somewhere in the midst of reflecting on his new world and struggling to remember Tokyo and realizing he felt a connection for once, Tomita had began to cry. His occasional sniffs and the confluence of melancholy in his spirit had woken Izhari and now she was turning to him in concern.

“I’m okay. I’ll be okay,” he smiled.

“…Was it me? Did I scare you or break your spirit?” Izhari asked in honest concern.

“No, no, manager please don’t think that,” he replied.

“But I was so… so… I became something unrecognizable…” she sighed.

“But you still knew me and listened to me. You paused to heal me, and you heeded my concern about innocent children,” Tomita replied.

“I’m sorry I put you through that. We never should have come to this place.”

Tomita shook his head. Up ahead, a faint glow appeared.

“No, you needed to learn about your past. I’m sorry it was as horrific as it turned out to be, but you needed to know what happened to you. And! And a-and you now have memories to help find the Shores of Time!” he explained.

“I guess I do… we should set out as soon as we exit this,” she exhaled.

Tomita did not like that idea. His manager seemed half dead, and he himself was beginning to feel hints of fatigue. Up ahead, the glow was becoming larger. Tomita began to walk faster towards its white pulses.

“I think we should rest, manager. We don’t have a specific deadline for this quest, and I fear that pushing ourselves would only lead to burnout.”

“Burn out?” Izhari asked.

“It’s a phrase. It’s what we called exhaustion from overwork. You’d just reach a point where you couldn’t do anymore, and you lost all productivity. I don’t want to risk that happening to you,” said Tomita.

He had reached the glow. It wasn’t an orb. It was a single slit in the fabric of space and time.

“Izhari, is this an exit from this place? It’s a streak of light.”

“I believe so. I’ve never summoned so much of The Void before.”

Shape and form was illegible, but it was there on the other side. Light and warmth peered through the tear and shined into the darkness. That was enough for Tomita. He inhaled then paused.

“Izhari, can you make yourself invisible for just a little more? Just long enough for me to see what is waiting for us on the other side?” he asked.

There was a deep, slow inhale, and Izhari vanished from sight.

“Okay, let’s go!” Tomita whispered as he stepped into the stream of light.

There was no feedback, noise, or physical resistance. To Tomita’s immense relief, they exited the darkness and returned to reality, once again at the end of the path where the living wall had previously began.

Tomita let out a laugh and exhaled a sigh of relief.

“Izhari we did it! We’re back!”

Pearlescent golden light shone through the omnipresent rain clouds, casting faint hints of warmth onto Tomita’s skin as Izhari returned to visibility. Never had he been so grateful for overcast skies and light rain.

Izhari pulled her tunic hood down to let the raindrops fall onto her fur. Only now could Tomita fully see the burn marks of medic infused tears that had left black streaks under her eyes. Claw wounds were still raw and red. She seemed even smaller than before. But she was there. Tomita let her exist in neutral for a moment, then extended his hand to her.

To his great relief, and to hers as well, Izhari let her cheek rest on his knuckles as she closed her eyes and let the rain run down her cheeks.