Down the Rabbit Hole

Chapter 1: Jumping the Border

Dying was a terrifying concept. Not just for you. Many people fear it, even young children. That's why when a car managed to run you over when the pedestrian light was on, you were surprised at the feeling of tranquility settling in. Blinding lights and scattered shouts were heard all around you, enveloping your last moments alive. You should have felt panic, fear, or even a rush to stay alive, but you didn't. Instead, you focused on the lights above you, three bright lights that changed colors depending on the next person who tried to move your body around to get a reaction out of you.

They danced around in your vision, moving along to the melody of the song playing in your earbuds. You were on your way to college that morning - chemistry class. The night prior was full of last-minute studying for today's test, the most difficult one of the semester as described by the professor. Maybe it was for the better that you got run over. Even if you managed to survive then you could at least look forward to a hefty check in the mail, but it wasn't possible. Your mother always complained about how you would get nowhere in life without her. Preaching up and down to any friend that gave her the chance that without her, she wouldn't be able to function. Sometimes she would sit at the edge of your bed and let her imagination run wild as the rest of your siblings slept away their worries.

"The day that I die is the day that you will be forced to grow up. At your age, I already left my family, moved out of the country, and made something out of myself. I'm proud that you are studying, proud that you are my daughter. But I am so tired of having to see you every single day rotting away in this house doing the same boring routine."

You were only eighteen, in your first year of college. Maybe it was good for you to die, let go of every trouble and piece of suffering that you'd held onto for years throughout childhood and now into your small chapter of adulthood. The only thing you could regret at this moment was not being able to live life to the fullest for the few years you were granted. Mostly all of those years were spent studying and going home to help your mother. You had never gone to one party, never been on a date, never tried to get a significant other, never lived. The lights stopped dancing. The people stopped trying to move you. You are officially dead.

In that world at least.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

You would have imagined death to be much more dark. Well... not dark as in the morbidity of the concept itself but instead the sense of being. You were dead, but it didn't feel like you were. There was no logical explanation for how you would be able to survive the crash at the severity your injuries were and yet when you opened your mouth once again oxygen flooded into your lungs. The first thing that you noticed once you managed to pry your eyes open was the fact that you were laying on a bed rather than the cold pavement of where your body landed. The bed was comfortable, far too comfortable. It was to the point where it truly made you feel like this was a dream.

Was this the place that people called heaven? To you, it looked far too similar to a teenage girl's bedroom. Books laid perfectly on a bookshelf in the far right corner. Far where you laid, picture frames were visible but their pictures were blurred out. The comforter you laid on was a light shade of purple with tiny embroidered daisies decorating its surface. The desk that was positioned to the left of the bed held a backpack along with a thin piece of paper next to it.

Managing to push yourself up in your confused state, you picked up the paper to be able to see what it read. Perhaps it could provide you the smallest amount of reassurance in making sure you were safe or that maybe this was a dream after all. That hope of reality shattered the moment the words processed in your mind: Congratulations on graduating! To the student Suzuki (y/n). Seeing your actual first name should have been comforting but the name that laid before it threw you for a loop. It got even more concerning once you realized that the entire paper was written in Japanese (you knew the basics of hiragana but kanji was unknown territory for you before) and yet you had understood everything.