LOST TIME MEMORY Vol. 1

Chapter 7: Reset, Restart

As soon as I awoke my head split open, my brain cells spilled out, blood gushed from my nose and my guts burst onto the floor in a splat. I couldn't maintain my consciousness or slip out of it. I was an existence crushed between two colliding walls of torment, violently grinding its nails into my skin and flesh. What the fuck was going on. It hurts. IT HURTS IT HURTS IT HURTS IT HURTS-

Calm down. Calm. Where the hell was I? Was I dead? No, I... I did die. I certainly did. Meaning... I could now return. There was a moment of realization that washed over me amidst the pain, holding onto my sane mind like a paper to a blizzard. I could return to the way I was. I won't have to be that person for anyone anymore. Someone else could finally take over. But then why was I still here? Why could I still feel pain? Why could I move my... eyelids. The view in front of me was the light tone of hard maple wood. My bedroom floor. His bedroom floor. Shintaro's floor. He fell down hard on his back as he screamed in agony, the throbbing pain continuing to convulse within his brain.

He banged his head against the floor over and over. A static white wave fell through his forehead and faded through the house into the earth. Grabbing onto his blanket, he pulled himself up and looked on as the world closed down on him like a mosaic curtain. Everything was moving and moving, rotating around him, and refusing to stand still for a damn second. Ene was in the room somewhere trying to reach him, but he was too far gone. As he started getting on his feet, his blurry, distorted sense of vision made out the interior of his room. He walked and stumbled over to the bathroom door with steps reminiscent of an old, crumbling building. He violently turned the faucet on, clogged the sink and let the water wash over his hair, and dunked his head in. The branching chill entered his nose, traveling throughout his complexion, and slowly made its way to his head, clearing his shattered mind and patching the broken pieces. When he finally needed air he jolted his head backward and fell against the bathtub, breathing heavily with red eyes staring at the mirror. Wait, his pupils were red? No, he'd just been seeing things. His head was playing tricks, but he looked like he'd been dead for two days. Finally, the headache had calmed down to a manageable level. Like a migraine before its peak. The anxiety that came with was clearing away and a sense of control returned in its absence. He was starting to get his breath back. His hearing, though he hadn't noticed it, had disappeared, and was only now coming back to him. Along with it, a shrill voice appeared and suddenly someone was knocking on his bedroom door, yelling and complaining. Now that he was starting to get himself together, he could guess what'd happened. First, Ene had been worried about him. She'd turned up the volume and was screaming in the background of his room repeatedly asking him what was happening. The other person, physically knocking on his door, was his mother. Likely just sourly annoyed over Ene's screaming. Shintaro didn't know what time it was, but all the noise would make anyone lose their minds at any time of the day. He went out of the bathroom.

"Ene," he called out.

"SHINTARO, WHAT HAPPENED!?" The monitors on his desk were displaying a bright red and she was swaying in the middle.

"I'm, sorry... I don't..." He had to think for a bit. "I don't really know. Was like something woke me up and gave me a giant migraine. It was killing me. I almost lost my breath, too," he said and rubbed his forehead, and a gruesome image of his sister's corpse flashed into his mind.

Startled, he held onto his mouth and swallowed down hard on the rising vomit in his throat.

"We need to get you to a doctor," Ene said, inching as close as she could though still within the monitor.

"Yeah. I don't what the fuck is going on with my head. But... before that... I-I'M OKAY, MOM!" The drumming against his door subsided.

"You don't sound okay, open the door!" His mother yelled.