Chapter 1: What the hell is going on?

Dark wooden beams supporting a mess of planks that barely maintained a triangular shape, cobwebs dangling from the corners while moss crept along the middle-section of the beams. Dark patches dotted with small gleaming stars were barely visible through some of the holes in the mess of planks. A ceiling. Yes, that thing right there most certainly fit the definition of a ceiling.

But, a ceiling? Here? Well, how was probably a better question than here.

"Right. Let’s think cl… Eh?"

The voice that piped up in the darkness sounded almost like a squeaky toy, the surprised exclamation cutting off his own words. Two hands rose towards the holes in the ceiling, he had to rely on the thin rays of pale silver light that shone down from there to see them properly.

"Eh? Eh?"

Squeak squeak, he sounded like a broken doll as he dumbfoundedly questioned the empty air.

Small hands, barely large enough to fit a little five-year old kid. Equally small scars that dotted the rough skin around the knuckles, dirty and cracked nails that had already become a speckled yellow. But above any of that…

"One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten… Whoa, ten whole fingers."

Where there should only be seven, there were actually ten. It wasn’t eight, it wasn’t nine, it was actually ten, a whole and full ten. He couldn’t even remember the last time he still had all ten of them. The shock of that alone was almost enough to make him forget about how small his hands were, they should be at least twice as big, if not a bit larger even.

"A look, gotta… Eh? No, stop that. Gotta get a look."

That blasted squeaky voice almost distracted him again, it was like a mouse lingering around his heels, cutely begging for attention. But he managed to push down the errant thought and sit up straight, he had to get a proper look.

"Hmmm, back hurts less than I expected. And there… Yup, still got two legs."

Now that he sat properly, he could see his own lower body. Once again, the legs were far smaller than they should be, smaller than they had any right to be even. Just how long would it take if you wanted to walk anywhere with legs as stumpy as these?

"And… Not alone I see. Doesn’t seem like a hospital ward though."

His gaze slid up from his legs and drifted through the room as he muttered to himself, his thoughts almost drifting thanks to the squeaky tone. He was sleeping on a simple mat. Just a mat, there wasn’t even any straw packed into it. And around him were about 10 or so children, all of them huddled up on the same dirty green mats as they slept. They all looked quite young, their hands in as rough shape as his own. But he was quite certain, he had never seen any of these kids before. Hell, they’d probably have run from him if they saw him.

The room was practically empty, well, save for the bunched up kids at least. Forget a mirror, there wasn’t even a bucket of water here.

"Wait, no, a puddle technically counts."

He could just barely spy it through the darkness, a small puddle of somewhat dirty water that had already formed a small basin in the wooden floor. Looking at its position, it seemed to be caused by water dripping through one of the holes in the ceiling.

He tried to stand up so that he could head over, it was right beneath a ray of light so there should be at least some level of visibility, right? But just as he moved his legs…

"Gawk!… Eh?"

A sound unlike anything he’d ever made in the last fifteen or so years of his life slipped from his lips as he fell forward, barely catching himself. His feet tingled. Like the static on an old TV, it crept up his feet and had a merry old time in his knees.

"Sore, holy… How does something so small get so sore?"

He couldn’t help but squeak out a complaint as he rubbed his feet. His legs were tiny so what right did they have to be this sore? Hell, he hadn’t been this sore even after they were forced to march for nigh on two days straight just to cross the desert.

"Ah, what a pain…"

The static kept messing with his legs so he had no choice but to crawl forward. The kids didn’t wake up even after he made such a racket so it seemed like they were deep sleepers, or perhaps they were just that exhausted. Whatever the case was, it had little to do with him as he reached the puddle of water, his own reflection just barely greeting him in the shallow water.

"What the fuck…"

Frankly, it would be a bit of a lie if he said he hadn’t expected it after seeing the hands and legs, not to mention the squeaky voice. But the fact that greeted him in the puddle… It was as unfamiliar as all the kids that were sprawled out around him.

A small face that would only look at home if it was on a kid that had barely passed his fourth or fifth birthday. Sunken in cheeks as well as rough and tanned skin covered in dust. His hair seemed to be a silvery-white, but it was so dirty and muddy that it was hard to properly tell. His eyes were mostly hidden behind his bangs, but they were quite colourful and pretty, and not just because they were extremely bloodshot.

Violet, his pupils were a deep violet, somewhat akin to the wolfsbane his father made him grow as a kid. Well, the colour was a bit hard to spot because of the dark bags underneath his eyes, he looked worse than the time he couldn’t get a wink of sleep for half a week.

"No brown… No black…"

Black hair, brown eyes, he should be as standard as they came, as dull as humans could get. But there was no trace of such a thing on his reflection. Well, luckily there were also no traces of the scar that went down across his left eye or the mangled mess that remained of his upper lip, that was probably why the other kids could sleep in the same room as him.

No matter how he looked at it, the reflection that greeted him was a kid, a young and thin child who looked as if he had worked far too many days in his short life.

But the problem was, he wasn’t a kid. He hadn’t been a child for many a year already, there shouldn’t be the smallest mote of childishness left in him, be it mentally or physical. After all, would a kid do what he did?

"Right… That."

It struck him now that he thought about it. The thing he did, the last memory he had. It almost felt like it had slipped away as he was inspecting himself, was he just that distracted by the absurdity of the situation? It was a bit blurry so he had to close his eyes to think back, to clutch at the reality he left behind.

"Let’s see. I walked up the stairs, yes I remember that clearly. The door was a bit heavy because the hinges had rusted, but a swift kick got it open easily enough."

The memories came rushing in now that he took a moment to properly grasp at his reality. A damp staircase, a door that had been locked for too many years, a lone man.

"There was snow on the roof, some was even falling as I walked there. It was cold, I think?"

He couldn’t quite remember how he felt at that moment. The chill of winter, the cold snow around his naked feet, did any of them even reach him as he moved? The memory eluded him, the sensation slipping away into a hazy fog. But he still remembered what he did.

"The snow almost covered the edge despite its raised position. They really couldn’t be bothered to maintain it, could they? It was strangely quiet, wasn’t it? I don’t think it was too late so there should have been a lot of cars outside, and yet, it was quiet."

The hustle of cars, the constant droning of electricity. An unconscious flinch each time a vehicle raced past him from behind. He remembered it well now that he thought about it, that empty world. And then…

"And then…"

And then he jumped.

"And then I jumped."

He nearly slipped as he did, he recalled it now. The snow on the edge had gotten so packed that it became slippery. And then there was the ashen grey mixed with pale white that approached him as he fell. A dull colour.

At the time, was his mind as blank as the rapidly approaching ground? He hadn’t even bothered making up any thoughts, there were no memories flashing past his mind as he fell. And if there was talk of regrets then it would be that he wouldn’t get to see the final season of the show his sister made him watch before they parted.

"Whoa, just gets worse the more I think about it…"

The walk up the stairs, the snow that he couldn’t even properly feel. He’d walked with an empty mind, and then he jumped with that same mind. And thus, a young man only a handful of years away from his thirties departed from this world. The more he thought about it at this moment, the more distant it felt.

"Right, right, that should be the case."

His eyes opened again as he nodded his head. Right, he jumped, he saw the ground right there. So what was this? Really, seriously, what was this? His head tilted upwards as if he wanted to question the sky, and that was when he saw it. Looming over them, just barely visible through the holes in the ceiling, were numbers.

They stretched beyond the holes so he couldn’t tell exactly how high it was, but there were undoubtedly numbers hanging in the sky, seeming increasing and decreasing at random intervals. As he opened his mouth to utter a remark, one of the kids behind him stirred, a voice just as squeaky as his own calling out to him as he muttered.

"Tuesday Five? Come on… you have to sleep, teacher will be mad at you if you wake up late."

"Really, what the hell is going on?"