Prologue

The floor was damp. A sound was coming from the trash can; the radio host called it "No Surprises." He whimpered in pain. In his mind, there was only grief, nothingness, and the continuously playing loop of "No Surprises."

He forced his lips together and began to hum a fractured melody that only existed in his memory. The hums were supposed to be smooth, but they came out as a wet, gasping rasp. 

—Such a pretty garden? —

Irony was a harsh mistress.

His hand wasn't just cut; it has turned to a ruined prop, hanging like a rotten sausage linked only by two pale tendons and some wet strings of flesh. He stared at the glistening white color slick with blood of his own bone. This, for the record, was going to need more than a butterfly bandage.

He was lying next to the quiet body, the grief he felt brought a sharper stab than the nerve pain. He screamed, not from his hot burning aching body, but from the realization. Someone was there, and that someone was probably the one who killed him but he didn't even think to look that person in the face. Nothing mattered to him anymore. The only thing he thought was that at least she was still breathing.

"Damn it! I couldn't even save myself properly, and I was supposed to be your damn hero?" He tried to laugh maniacally, but it devolved into a cough that tasted like rusty iron. "You saved my butt how many times? Three? Four?… I got one shot, only one shot at returning the favor, and I left you here on a floor that's ‘bouta turn into a human slip-n-slide." A wave of dizzying pain hit, making him convulse.

—Are you... kidding me... This much? Aw! Shit! I despise myself! —

He spat, slamming his head back against the concrete. "Just end it all! Kill me, you bastard! At least give me the cheaper version of death! Do it, do it right now!" he said furiously in an enraged tone.

He choked, the cough erupting not with air, but with a mouthful of hot, thick blood. His vision blurred, and it all began to fade into dark. The pain was still lingering but the volume of it was dropping fast as he finally succumbed to death.

[Well, congratulations, you made it to the credits. If you're wondering how a guy who just bought this delish monaka who’s standing at Fushimi Inari is still talking to you, that's fair. To answer that question—and show you how I got this deluxe membership to the Bone-Exposure Club—let me take you just a teeny tiny bit way back.]