Would you choose to live forever?

Chapter 3: Classmate

It was true silence. The ringing in my ears piqued my tinnitus, the absolute feeling of nothingness as white blinding my vision, the absence of almost anything at that, except for the one thing that held onto me like a warm embrace.

The feeling of warmth around my body, the smell of autumn sun, it was as if someone was hugging me right then and there. The feeling was bizarre as it was the only thing I could feel, though I allowed myself to take in the comforting feeling just a second longer.

I could feel that I was in a dream derived from my other senses aside from the feeling of touch, I looked around, trying to find anything that stood out in the white background of the never-ending expanding distance.

I called out into the far distance but nothing called back.

I felt alone at that moment, a sensation I was all too familiar with as I had already experienced it a couple too many times.

However, just as I was about to sulk and fall to the ground defeated, a voice rang through my head and right before me, a bright light of yellow and orange shined toward me. My surroundings then turned to a field where in the far-off distance, mountains and terrain filled the landscapes.

"Eito... It's good to see you again... You looked just like your father then, you truly resembled him during those happy times... But, that frown doesn't belong on your face, so please keep your chin up, for our sake, alright?" The familiar voice rang out from all over with no precise direction; the voice as if it were spoken directly into my very head.

"W-What!? MOM! SIS! Where are you guys... Please... don't leave me, I don't want to lose the both of you... I just want to see you again, just one more time..." I cried aloud, falling to my knees and hands to the grassy plains while I stared up to the skies in an effort to call out toward them.

"We're sorry, we can't stay with you, at least not for a very long time... But one day, we will reunite, we're sure of it... So please, brother, take care of yourself for the remainder of that time... We will be waiting, no matter how long, no matter where it is, and no matter how much you've changed... So wait until then..." Another familiar voice sounded about and this time, a little more sentimental than the other; a voice that I longed to recall from the owner's very mouth once again.

"Eito-kun... You need to wake up now, wake up the next morning, and look for the prospect of life that you can find and make your own..."

"Live on with your head high Eito, time flies too quickly after all..." Mother spoke back toward me and though I pleaded for them to not leave me and even extended my arm to the skies in a frugal attempt to grasp at straws, the world I lived in soon turned to darkness, and before I knew it...

...

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...

My eyes shot up straight as I awoke to the dried smell of my dried vomit and the salty tears that made my eyes strain with stinging residual pain. My entire body felt lethargic and sore and though I could barely move, I heard a sudden knock on my door, and lifting my head up to the windows, I noticed the bright morning light peering through the semi-opaque blinds.

"I slept through the night in the kitchen..." I whispered to myself as I slowly raised myself up; careful not to touch the shattered plates and glasses that lay waste on the ground of the previously cleaned and waxed white-tiled floor.

I felt like was about to throw up upon standing up straight but holding it in, I gradually managed to keep myself from making yet another disastrous spectacle in my mother's sacred undisturbed space of impeccable cooking.