His Departure, His Death

“Mom! Mom, come look at what I drew!”

A young voice exploded into action. A young boy rushed through the hospital room and toward the lap of a faceless woman. Her features were almost deathly pale from her hands to her neck. Her limbs trembled every so often and her body was thin. Despite all this, there was no face upon her. Just a blank sketch of white that seemed to glitch in and out of existence. He hopped onto her and felt the poor woman buckle for a moment before she wrapped her arms around him and glanced over at his hand.

A drawing, a poorly made one of crayons, that showed three people. A man. A woman. A child.

“My, look at this… It’s beautiful, Fumihito. You’re an adorable little artist, aren’t you?”

She reached down and stroked the top of his head. The boy leaned in close and smiled, his eyes illuminated with optimism. He reached out and wrapped his arms around his mother once and held her close.

“Moooooom, I’m not adorable…”

The older woman chuckled and leaned in close. Even then, the young boy couldn’t see her face at all. Her faceless head was pressed against his temple. A chaste sensation warmed his cheeks. He looked up into her face, into the vacant void, and smiled.

“You always will be to me, my adorable boy…”

And still, he couldn’t see her face.

Just an empty void of black and white that stared back at him.

“Mrs. Hanada? Excuse us, but it’s time. Do you mind asking your son to leave?”

The older woman hummed softly before she stroked his head once more and glanced over at the nurses at the door. She shivered for a moment before she reached down and stroked Fumihito’s cheek once.

“You should go now, Fumihito. Your father’s just outside, alright? I’ll be right as rain soon.”

The boy paused and his face trembled before he looked up.

“Promise?”

The faceless woman nodded.

“Promise…”

“Hm?”

Fumihito’s eyes opened once again the moment everything buzzed back to life. The streets were endless with people standing before him. The road was clear. He looked around and noticed a few annoyed looks in his direction. Right, he had been making his way back from his father’s estate before he dozed off at the crosswalk.

The young man walked across the road amongst a sea of people. They were as expandable as he was. It was cruel for him to think of them like that, but it wasn't like he meant them any harm. In his eyes, it just didn't make much sense to connect to others. After all, if you connected to someone, you ran the risk of losing them. That was it. He furrowed his brows at the faceless woman.

How long had it been since he thought of that memory?

‘It’s nothing but a bad memory. Just ignore it and get home. Exams are next week and I haven't even gotten started on the material.;

Work.

That’s what he focused on and that’s what he dedicated himself to. He was Fumihito Hanada. A twenty-three-year-old prodigal student with a major in biology and a dream of becoming a doctor. He’d do anything to reach that dream. He had sacrificed much of his social life just to push himself as far as he could. Some people thought he was arrogant and some just assumed he had a hefty burden on his shoulders, but he never bothered trying to correct them.

No, he focused entirely on work because he wanted to save people.

He wanted to save people and that was all there was to it. He didn’t care if someone thought it was a beautiful thing, a holy goal, or something stupid. Saving people was the only thing he wanted to do. Once he became a doctor, nobody would die under his watch.

Nobody would give up on someone ever again and he would always make sure to fight against death at every corner.

He navigated the bright streets. His body was exhausted. It was an unhealthy habit of his, but he would rather be working than sitting around and doing nothing at all. It wasn’t long before the bright streets of Tokyo and the people began to vanish around him once he made it far enough to his apartment.

His eyes drifted across the landscape for a moment. Barren, desolate, and cheap. It was a good way of saving money and he didn't have to rely on his Father's money barring tuition fees. In a way, it was probably the only thing the two had ever met on equal terms before on. 

He opened up the rusty gate and moved on. The young man walked up the creaky steps and eventually made his way to the second floor before finding his door.

Some people would have asked why he chose to live in a cheap place like this when he had expenses to fall back on. He just liked the idea of nobody bothering him. Everybody kept to themselves, nobody ever talked to each other unless necessary, and everybody learned to mind their own business.

Once he stepped inside after unlocking the door, he was met with a barren living room. Aside from a few pieces of furniture, there wasn’t a lot going on for decoration. The walls had seen better days, there were boards nailed into the ceiling, and there were a couple of books laid out. Not a single photo or personal decoration was in place.

'Should focus on rest before I start studying later…’

He strolled past the main room into another small section of the apartment. There was a lot about his home that spoke about himself. Barely anything to tie him down to someone or something. The man loosened his tie and eventually crawled into bed. Laid flat on his back, he closed his eyes and thought back to the memories earlier that day. The memories of his mother.

He had tried so hard to push it to the back of his mind, but it just kept popping back up. There was a reason he couldn’t remember his mother’s face very well. He pushed it back the day she had died. The day he couldn’t even face her. The more he thought about it, the more he remembered why he wanted to work himself to death.

Because he refused to ever be like his father.

He refused to give up on someone else.

As Fumihito felt himself drift off into a slumber, some kind of itch began to spread across his body. It felt like something was clawing at his skin viscerally. The air had grown colder. His breath had grown heavier, almost as if each breath was harder to take than the last. His hands reached for his throat and his eyes slowly began to peer open. An inky blackness covered the room. It covered everything.

He couldn’t make out a single detail.

When he tried to rise, his body wouldn’t budge an inch. Sounds began to emerge from all around him. It sounded like wailing cries and moans from beneath. The itching grew across his body. It spread. Multiple itches claw at his body and skin over and over again. His heart sped up and the world around him was illuminated for a single instance.

There, right above him and in the air, was a ghostly figure bathed in purple and decorated in gold. He couldn’t make out a face. The only thing he could see was an endless pair of eyes that stared at him curiously. 

They blinked.

He blinked.

Everything became black once again and his heart froze.

When Fumihito next awoke, he stood before a grave.

There, right before him, was a grave. His eyes looked around and spotted more of them. There were hundreds of them all over the place. He wasn’t in his apartment anymore. His shoes were sunken into something wet and muddy. The young man glanced at a series of candles laid around him and a bright red circle painted onto the floor.

His mind was starting to fade.

Kneeling right behind him was a figure prostrated on the floor.

“Oh, I beseech you, Shepherd of Souls…,” a female voice spoke up.

‘What… just…’

His heart slowed and his body began to fall.

‘Happened?’

Fumihito’s body slammed into the ground moments later.

“Accept this contract and grant me knowledge of the forbi… Kya! My tongue!”