Love

Love.

Love.

Love.

Love.

Love.

Love.

Love.

Love.

Love.

Love.

Love.

Love.

Love.

Love.

Love.

Love.

Love.

Love.

Love.

Love.

Love.

Love.

Love.

Love.

Love.

Love.

Love.

Love.

What was it again?

Didn’t my parents… love… me?

No, he said they didn’t.

But he was always lying. I read about a lot of things he lied about.

So, did they?

Did they love me?

I need to know. Where is he?

I’ll find him.

I rose from my bed, instinctively walking toward the door.

A single touch by my hand let it disintegrate into nothing but a black puddle below my feet.

Someone in a lab coat coincidentally passed by the door as I stepped out.

“Where is he?” I asked him.

He was too afraid to speak.

“Where is Satoru?”

“Doctor Wada is… he’s currently out of town; I think he mentioned Tokyo a while ago.”

“Thank you.” I stepped closer, my pointer finger barely grazing his skin.

Within moments, he disintegrated into nothing.

I felt a rush of sorts. The same kind of ecstasy as in my dreams. It was heavenly. I couldn’t possibly stop now.

Multiple armed guards ran toward me, commanding me to turn back with their rifles pointed at my head.

I continued walking, and they began firing at me . Their bullets, however, all vanished as soon as they came near me. I couldn’t even control it.

A single snap of my fingers sent forth a black orb with the same purple hue as in my dreams. The beauty before me was astounding. It filled the entire hallway, slowly encroaching on the guards.

They screamed in terror briefly, before falling silent forever.

I continued my leisurely stroll through the facility, until I felt a something sharp piercing my chest. I looked down and saw a simple knife sticking through my chest.

Someone stood behind me, pushing the blade as deep as they could before I managed to turn around.

I could suddenly see the endless nothingness from my dreams again. The pain quickly faded.

Is this it? Heaven? It’s perfect.

I could feel my feet leaving the ground, the ceiling above me simply vanishing into the void.

I kept ascending higher and higher, seeing the real sky for the first time since arriving down there. The stars were truly stunning.

A few bullets flew by from below me, but I couldn’t be bothered. The bleeding from my chest had stopped, and for the first time in my life, I felt truly relieved. The air around me was fresh, and inhaling it felt like one of the greatest things I could ever do.

Compared to the stale air of my room, it was a difference between heaven and earth. Something otherwise unattainable.

I looked down on the factory of torment below me, and I almost threw up again.

I held both of my hands to my chest. I could feel the urge to release the endless nothingness upon them. A large sphere began forming between them, growing ever larger by the second.

I simply released it, watching its slow descent in total awe. It moved downward with such incredible grace, unbothered by any and all matter that collided with it. Small droplets of black liquid began forming on it, accelerating faster than the sphere itself.

After gazing upon it for a moment that could have been a beautiful eternity I didn’t want to end, it finally made contact with the ground.

In less than a second, the comparably small sphere grew so large it encapsulated the facility in its entirety. Heaven itself let out a scream of agony, piercing my eardrums.

All that remained of the facility after the brief glow was a perfectly spherical crater in its place.

A single tear fell toward the ground, reminiscing the life I had spent locked up inside it.

I slowly reached back down to the ground, touching it with my bare feet. It was as cold as the sphere inside my mind, releasing a soothing feeling.

There was barely any exhaustion on my part at all. I could dance around the crater however long I wanted. I began twirling pirouettes in the black goo that filled the center of the sphere, the feeling of ecstasy slowly fading.

Now was not the time to rest, however. Surely someone like them would come back to hunt me. The tenth twirl later, I stepped out of my beautiful creation. As I looked back on it, another word came to my mind. Pride. I was proud of what I had just achieved. A true milestone to happily look back on later in life.

I started walking in the general direction the wind carried me. Based on the landmarks I saw from up there, I had to be very close to Hiroshima. The easy part was done. The actual hard part was getting from there to Tokyo, finding Satoru, and making him feel.

I continued walking until my legs gave out. Somewhere near a narrow road, I fell to my knees. From the distance, the sound of an approaching car filled my still bloody ears.

My attire may scream suspicious, but I’m sure if I asked nicely, they will take me closer to Tokyo.

The car actually came to a stop beside me, an older woman rolling down her window.

“Are you alright? Do you need help?”

“Yes, actually. I plan on going to Tokyo to visit a relative, but I seem to have gotten lost on the way. Could you maybe take me to a station or something?”

“If you’ve already gotten lost, I wouldn’t worry about getting to a station. And in your condition? I can take you there, but I would recommend you first get something to eat for your own good. I know a place really nearby. Get in, I’ll take you.”

“I can’t pay you, though. I have no money.”

“That’s fine. I can pay for it. Helping a lost soul on the road was actually written in my fortune this year, so I’m more than willing to help you out without compensation. Besides, isn’t it good manners to help a stranger in need? I suppose your generation doesn’t get it.”

I entered the car and we drove for exactly fifteen minutes, judging by the clock on the small display near the steering wheel.

We exited the vehicle in front of a small, traditional house, and she served me food that genuinely had my tastebuds melt in my mouth. I had never eaten actual food before, so this was an entirely new sensation to me.

“It’s delicious. Thank you so very much, I can’t think of anything I could do to ever repay you.”

“It’s fine. That reminds me, you haven’t asked your name yet. Would you tell me?”

My name? Yuri. But according to the books I read, Japanese people have family names added to their given ones. All I could think of was the endless nothingness within me. Void. Emptiness.

“I’m Yuri Utsuro. And thank you for the meal, again.”

“Alright then, I’ll take you to the station now.”

A short drive later, almost having reached the station, the car accelerated without warning and lost control.

It crashed into a nearby telephone pole, the old lady flying out of the windshield and into the pole. Her skull had split open from the impact. I barely managed to climb out of the wreckage unharmed, but an odd creature suddenly appeared before me.

A woman floating slightly above the ground, clad in a white silk. She simply stared at the corpse of the old lady, shifting her sights towards me shortly after taking in her fading breath.

She slowly approached me, only stopping once it was too late. She was within my grasp now. With a simple touch, she disappeared into the void.

I turned back toward the car and took the wallet kept safe inside the glovebox. I acquired the necessary funds and placed the wallet next to her out of respect.

The rest of the way to the station was an easy walk, and I managed to hastily buy a ticket that would take me to the next largest station, from which I could directly commute to Tokyo.

A brief train ride later, after entering the express train to Tokyo and sitting down on the seat I had reserved, I dozed off.

I need to forget. All of it. I can’t go on otherwise. I should live an actual life. Satoru will meet his maker soon enough. I shouldn’t let his actions dictate my behavior any longer.

I reached deep into the sphere inside the endless void of my inner mind, grasping what felt like strands of fabric inside. I tore them out, slightly relieving my mind by each strand removed. The more strands I pulled, the better I started feeling.

I don’t need any of it. I want to feel it just one more time. I want to feel love. Just once, and I can die happy.

I barely awoke shortly after the train reached my destination. A fresh start, in Tokyo.

As I walked out of the station, I could see an intriguing sight. A book with two drawn women on the cover, holding hands. I didn’t know why, but that quickly became my next goal in life.