Forever Haunted From the Start

Why did it all have to come to this!

He threw his back against the door, with hopes that his small frame would be enough to prevent their pursuer from breaking through.

The air from his lungs had depleted from the run, and his knees were beginning to buckle from the stress.

The girl trembling at his side, buried her face in her knees.

As a loud banging began on the door, he felt a warm crunch in his ankle and he realized that he must have sprained it during the pursuit.

The pain was excruciating, and everything inside of him kept crying for him to reach down and tend to his injury, but he knew that if he moved away from the door for even a second, the two of them would surely lose their lives.

None of this was supposed to happen. I was supposed to fix everything!

From the moment that he was transported back to the summer of 1993, Jun Hiroshi’s mission was clear. He was to do everything in his power to prevent the death of his childhood friend Suzume Fusho. Yet they found themselves in an ordeal far worse than either of them could have ever anticipated.

“Maybe it’s not too late. There’s gotta be a way out of here. A way for us both to escape before he-”

After one final slam against the door, the banging stopped, and for the first time that night, there was silence.

A strange warmness began in his lower abdominals and started to spread throughout his core.

Huh, what’s going on..? I know I’m scared, but why do I suddenly… feel like I gotta take a piss?

“H-hiro?!”

That voice that once beckoned his name out of love, was now calling it in fear.

He was only able to begin to comprehend her terror when he saw that she was pointing at his torso.

Moving his hand to his stomach, he came to realize that he had been impaled by a spear. Crimson red stained his fingertips as they latched onto the foreign object, weakly attempting to pull it out. The more he tried, the more it tugged on his innards.

W-when did this happen…? How…did it happen?

His fingertips pulled at it, desperate to just be done with this. The ferocity at which he gripped it was enough to draw out even more of his life's essence. Though his mind had yet to realize the gravity of the situation, his body had gradually grown weaker due to the amount of blood loss. It had appeared as though the shock of seeing his internal tissue exposed rivaled the pain inflicted by the wound itself.

The muscles in his arms tensed, and with one final heave, he was able to yank it out of his torso, with the cost of him harshly falling to the floor.

On average, in order to die from exsanguination, someone must first lose up to 40 percent of their total blood count, and judging by the pool of blood that surrounded him, Hiro knew that he was well on his way there. Despite this, he valiantly fought against the call toward a neverending eternity to help the person he loved most.

“Listen to me closely, Suzume. You’re going to need to leave me here.”

He remembered that the counselors cabin had a backdoor exit incase of emergencies.

Although in an unconventional way, their pursuer disarmed themselves by thrusting their murder weapon through him.

If Suzume could escape through the backdoor, she’d surely have a chance at warning the others.

Yet, as his shaky hand signaled her toward the exit, his eyes widened, brimming with sheer terror.

It was in that moment that he finally realized that not only was the backdoor wide open, but standing in the doorway, illuminated by the pale moonlight was none other than the camp’s urban legend killer himself, Tetsuo Kurosawa.

His vision was fading fast, the last of his consciousness rapidly depleting. Through his hazy vision, all he could see was Suzume turn to face the masked killer. The discordant sound of ringing echoed throughout his ears as he desperately tried to make out what she was saying.

Suzume, what the fuck are you doing! Run!

He wanted to shout at the top of his lungs, to warn her not to get any closer, but the blood accumulating in his throat was too much for him to bear and he almost choked.

All that he could do was lay there mercilessly as the masked figure slowly crept closer to her.

They moved with an air of uncertainty, as if hesitant to get closer. Whether that be out of curiosity or could it be that it was playing with its victim, Hiro didn’t know.

All he knew was that the person standing before them was responsible for ruining the perfect ending that he had worked so hard for, and he despised them for it. If he hadn’t lost all this blood, he would have surely put up more of a fight.

The boy wished for a chance to save her, only to end up throwing her and everybody that he held dear into a far greater peril.

“Hey Hiro?”

Her voice cheerfully called out to him.

Tears welled in Hiro’s eyes as he weakly looked up to get a better view of the girl.

She had turned to face him and was smiling with that same dopey smile that he had come to love over the years.

They weren’t the reason for his tears however, they spawned when he saw the hatchet that the masked figure was holding above his head.

“Thank you. For trying to save me.”

With just one hand motion, her head had been removed from her body.

Her head rolled over to him, stopping just shy of his face, and their eyes met for one final time.

Her body fell to its knees, before it collapsed.

“S…suzume?”

He had finally lost all movement in his body aside from his stuttering lips as he tried to make sense of the imagery before him

The killer just stood there, and tilted his head, observing their final moments together. Staring patiently, as if waiting for something.

“This can’t be real…”

The familiar flurry of television static filled his vision signifying that his consciousness had finally run dry. In the end, even with him traveling back in time to prevent her death, he felt himself to be a failure due to her suffering an even worse fate.

Yet, he was still somehow able to hold onto even a shred of hope with his final thoughts.

I promise you, next time….

I’ll make things right.