Dad Morishige

It's Genetics

I didn't stop sprinting. When I finally managed to escape the hospital, I locked every entrance door, praying no one else would be able to get in. I kept my sights on getting home.

It was exhausting. The constant movement, the adrenaline... it was almost too much for me to handle. It was worth it in the end, though, because I got home and locked the doors and windows. I threw off my coat and collapsed onto the couch.

All the tears I actually held in burst. I could've flooded the entire house, to be honest with you. My emotions were all over the place. The sadness, anger, hatred, regret... all of it. It was all stirring inside of me, and I hated it.

But there was nothing I could do to stop it... any of it. If I hadn't tried to bring Sakutaro back in the first place, none of this would've happened. Kumiko and Akamine would be alive... Sakutaro and Suzumoto would just be dead, not hideous, bloodthirsty zombies. Everything was my fault. Everything.

It wasn't just that, either. I felt like the worst person on the planet. I failed my son as his father, and even when I had a second chance... I failed. I failed Kumiko as a husband. I didn't realize she was in danger. And I failed Akamine as a friend... I failed everyone. A failure. That's all I was... a failure.

I continued crying for a long time before I ran out of tears, and looked at my hands.

"Dirty things... you do nothing good!"

I grabbed the nearest object to me--which happened to be a TV remote--and chucked it at the wall in fury. I must have had some arm, because the remote broke in half.

"Shit..."

I buried my face in a couch pillow, and wailed as I cried more.

"I don't deserve to live anymore... someone please... kill me. Let them be safe and happy... but not me. Kill me... I'm worthless."

Saying those words out loud made a lightbulb go off in my head. It made sense now. Sakutaro's depression wasn't just caused by his situation. Of course, that was a huge factor in it, but wasn't the sole cause. It also ran in the family. Depression can be caused by genetic factors.

I had honestly totally forgotten about my depression because of how focused I was on bringing him back. There had been no time for it, so whenever I felt depressed, I ignored it and told myself to just be quiet and get the job done.

The whole time, though, things kept going wrong, and everything escalated to become worse and worse... and it made me more depressed than I ever remembered.

I honestly just wanted to die, right then and there. No one else was left... I was alone.

No wonder Sakutaro committed suicide... his thought process was very similar to mine...

At that moment, I realized how similar the two of us were, and that just made me feel even worse. I didn't want him to be like me... I wanted him to be an amazing person who would change the world with his acting... not some zombie that would eat people.

Let's just say I didn't leave my house for a long while, until I was forced to.

And not in a good way.