Two Birds

I'll Believe It All

   (I had this deleted for a long while because it was stressing me out but I'm ready to start working on it again.)

Darkness.

   Floating in nothing and everything all at once. Weightless and weighed down all at once, all surroundings murky and black. All sense of direction gone, struggling to find the way to the surface of whatever this was-

   A sudden blinding white light forces Saihara Shuichi into consciousness, and his eyes fly open with a loud, heavy gasp that feels like trying to suck air all through your body all the way down to your toes.

   Moss-coloured eyes immediately scan their surroundings, panic seizing his chest when Saihara realizes he's in some enclosed space-maybe a pod of some sorts?-with a glass lid. He starts to thrash, making him realize several thick metal clamps are holding him down by the ankles, wrists and neck, nearly choking himself in the process. Some sort of hat that's shaped like a strainer is on top of his raven hair, about twenty wires of different colours hooked up to a far, far larger machine.

   Three loud beeps ring out, and then the glass lid slowly starts to lift, white steam coming out from the sides in the process, revealing a navy-blue ceiling in a semi-lit room.

   "Harukawa-chan, look." A familiar, dull voice says from a couple of feet away. 

   Saihara pauses in his panic to frown in confusion. 'Huh? Harukawa? Harukawa Maki? And that voice. . .Yumeno Himiko?' 

   "Saihara-kun is waking up. Come on."

   He hears the sound of fingers moving rapidly across a keyboard, and a moment later, the clamps around his body retract, freeing him. A pair of hands come from behind him, removing the helmet and then suddenly, Yumeno and Harukawa are bending over him from either side. 

   Wait, are these people even actually called Yumeno and Harukawa? Didn't Shirogane say everything about them was all fictional or something? Then who even was he? Could he even call himself Saihara Shuichi? 

   He racks his brain, trying to see if he was called something else in the past, struggling to come up with something. Oddly enough, he still couldn't recall anything about his life before the killing game except for his fabricated memories. 

   Harukawa holds her hand out to him. "You look confused. It is confusing, isn't it?" She says, taking his hand and pulling him into a sitting-up position. 

   He looks down, finding a light-blue robe hanging loosely from his body over a pair of grey sweatpants. He stares at his pale hands for a moment, one of them still holding onto Harukawa. 

   "What. . .Harukawa-san, what's going on?" He asks finally. 

   "Maki," She corrects, Yumeno nodding in agreement, gesturing to herself, "And it's kind of a long story. But first, let's move somewhere more comfortable. You need to be examined soon as well. You've been asleep two days longer than us two."

   Saihara is silent as he clambers out of the pod and onto the floor, legs unsteady. 

   "Can you stand okay?" Yumeno asks. Saihara nods back slowly, Harukawa still holding his hand from one side and Yumeno taking his free hand in hers. 

   "It was all fictional," Harukawa mumbles, "And all that is left of us is still fictional. Who we were before. . .it's all gone, wiped away. All of those memories are gone. I can't even tell you what my name was before I signed up for this killing game. The last season of Danganronpa. . .or so we believe."

   "The officials said our memories might slowly start coming back in a couple of weeks, but for the meantime, we need to stay in this resort. Ah-the entire game was a simulation, by the way. Everyone else is still alive; they're just unconscious. They'll wake up in a few days," Yumeno chimes in, "Nobody really dies in these games; that's why the majority of society was so okay with it. But we stay in this resort now for at least a year to recover from all of the trauma and stuff from the killing game."