Remnants of You

Shiyo Hiyoshi, a man who has lost everything he loves in his life, and one who decided to throw away his current life and responsibility to escape and seek a new start.

He’s on his way toward Chiba City, still having a gut full of grief, loss, and emptiness. He seems not to care about anything anymore, only wanting to begin a restart of his life.

His vehicle is out of gas as he pulls over to a nearby Gas Station that was already on his route.

He looks at a picture of Sheena and him within a picture frame while he’s leaning on his vehicle being pumped with gas.

He looks up into the night sky. It’s dark, but the stars are out.

SHIRO : “Some people say, you become stars once you die.”
SHIRO : “If that’s true.. then, Sheena.. I hope you’re looking over me through one of the billion stars I’m looking into right now.”

He gently hugs the picture frame.

Suddenly.. He feels something behind the frame. It was hard, a little rough.

He turns over the picture frame to see a tooth, a fang of a human, that was taped over behind the picture frame.

SHIRO : “Is this..”
SHIRO : “Sheena’s fang..”

Shiro remembers the moments of Sheena always being so proud of her little fang. It was one of the highlights of her face whenever she’d smile.

He takes off the tape and takes the fang, holding it within his hands.

SHIRO : “I remember the day you broke this part of your teeth.. You fell over because of our cat, you tripped over Mitty when you were carrying our dinner..”

He laughs, with a hint of sadness in his tone. Such a small fang of Sheena made him keep remembering how life was before he had lost her. Shiro was broken, but feels relieved to remember small moments of them being together.

He puts away the fang into his pocket as he takes off the gas pump from his vehicle before continuing onto the road headed to Chiba City.

It was dark out, almost around midnight. He’s approaching an overpass bridge on Mito Rte Road. There were no other cars around but his on the road. He was alone.

While driving, he takes out the fang from his pocket, reminiscing about it again even while driving.

Suddenly.. He feels his vehicle suddenly shake, as if something had gotten on top of it. He looks over his side mirror to see a beast. A beast with four arms, a quite large body with its rib puncturing its own skin as well as its face being filled with eyes as its mouth, steaming with smoke, is wide open with its flesh and skin being stretched from the sides.

He was horrified. He only begins to drive faster to try knocking off the beast from his vehicle, but it only gets worse as the beast stretches one of its four arms onto his window beside him, and it shatters it, almost hitting Shiro. Shiro immediately leans back onto the driver’s seat to avoid being hit.

SHIRO : “OUT OF ALL TIMES.. REALLY NOW?!”

He grabs a gun stored within the glovebox of his vehicle and attempts to shoot the beast from his window, only for the bullets to be absorbed by the beast.

SHIRO : “FUCK..!”

He pulls over on the side of the road in a rush as he gets out of the vehicle. The beast doesn’t seem to move until he begins shooting it on its head, resulting it becoming aggressive and chasing after him.

SHIRO : “SHIT! I GOT NOTHING AGAINST THIS!”

Shiro tries to run away, only for the beast to stretch two of its four arms, releasing a slash onto his back.

SHIRO : “ACK..!”

Shiro’s movements slow down as he begins to bleed rapidly from the back. He looks behind him as the beast rushes towards him. He releases a punch onto the face of the beast right before it tries to bite him, causing the beast to be caught off guard for a short time.. allowing Shiro to run and make some distance..

There wasn’t much choice. It was to either run away and seek help or die, the same kind of death that cost him his lover.

He was panting, still trying to keep a distance or to at least find some place to hide. He was nearing an overpass bridge where there were ladders for him to climb on.

The beast was onto him. It was rushing towards his direction. He looks back as he tries to climb the ladder, still badly bleeding from the attack earlier on his back. As the beast jumps towards him and releases a heavy punch with one of its four arms, knocking him over onto the middle of the road.

His rib fractured, his back still bleeding, and almost clinging onto his life, he coughs up some blood while trying to stand up and looking into the eyes of the beast. His attempt to stand up was only interrupted by the beast jumping down towards him and biting down on his shoulder, before he passed out.

…

…

…

Shiro wakes up in a place where it’s seemingly warm. The place is unrecognizable. It’s words to describe the place can only be ‘something that hell would probably be.’

He looks around him. The place is covered in fog, bones, and the smell of blood.

He sees a faint figure of a woman appear by the fog, one similar to Sheena’s.

As the fog clears up. Sheena was right in front of him, holding his face. Shiro looked into her eyes, in total disbelief.

Sheena looks up into his eyes, her eyes were almost tearing up, but she gives Shiro a look of relief.

…

He wakes up, back to where he was, lying right under the beast. He was panting. His wounds had cleared up, and his bones weren’t fractured anymore. As he looked up at the beast with its mouth in front of his face, dripping blood onto Shiro’s face.

The beast was covered in thorns. Thorns that were crimson with gold-like veins… It was dead, out of a miracle.

Shiro pants. His eyes were in total disbelief.

What Happened?
How is he alive?
How did the beast die?
Why are his wounds healed?

Many questions stirred up in Shiro’s head as he lay under the beast’s corpse, covered in thorns, still in total disbelief.