Neku's POV
My eyes flutter open. The first thing I notice is peoples’ shoes marching across the street. I look up to see men in business suits arguing on phones, women carrying shopping bags and children running around in the sun. Voices fill the air. It’s a scramble crossing.
I quickly push myself off the ground and stand up. Nobody seems to notice me.
Where the hell am I?
Then I notice how I’m clutching something tightly. I open my hand to reveal a black pin with a white skull engraved on it.
Nice.
I throw the pin into the air and extend my palm to catch it. It falls back into my hand and I can immediately tell something’s wrong.
I feel a trigger being pulled in me. My eyes shoot wide open as a weird feeling consumes me. Then I hear voices in my head.
They disappear as quickly as they came.
What the… What just happened? Where’d this pin come from?
I decide to give it one more shot. I throw the pin and catch it again, this time wanting to focus well on the voices in my head, ignoring the negative feelings that come with it. I shut my eyes. A second passes. Two.
Then I hear something. A faint chorus of whispers I struggle to understand. In no time the whispers turn into loud voices that feel like hundreds of people talking in my head. I open my eyes and see a man standing in front of me, looking uncomfortable.
All at once the hundreds of voices in my head quiet down except for one. A man’s voice.
Hoo-wee, the big city sure can spook a fella. It’s like everybody’s gimmin’ me the evil eye. Do I look that outta place? Is it my clothes?
The man in front of me starts patting his clothes.
It’s my clothes, ain’t it?
I quickly turn away and see a young girl looking around. The man’s voice disappears from my head and is replaced by a girl’s.
I know grandfather’s store is around here somewhere, but the streets are so crowded.
She lets out a sigh and knit her eyebrows together.
Really, does he have to slog through this rabble every single day?
A young man walks by. The voice in my head changes again.
Where is this phone booth people keep talking about? If I use it to ask her out, she’s 100% guaranteed to say yes, right? Gotta find that phone!
I quickly step back and lose focus as a thought hit me: Am I freaking reading thoughts?
I open my hand to take another look at the pin. What the hell IS this pin?
Confusion roots me to where I stand. I look around once more, unable to make sense of anything. My head starts throbbing.
Where am I and how did I get here?
No, more importantly, who am I?
A couple of beeps sound from my pocket, pulling me out of my thoughts. I reach in and grab out a phone.
My phone?
A message is flashing on the screen:
“Reach 104. You have 60 minutes. Fail, and face erasure. – The Reapers.”
Oh, that’s cute. See ya, spam.
I press the delete button. The message does not go away. I try again to no avail.
Still there… It’s like the junk mail from hell.
Suddenly I feel a sharp, intense burning pain in my right palm. “AH!” I cry. I shut my eyes, waiting for the pain to fade away. And it does, eventually. I take a look at my hand. A gasp of shock escapes my mouth.
A timer is engraved into my freaking skin! It reads 59:47.
59:46.
59:45.
I don’t have time to process what’s happening. Immediately I see strange floating shapes ahead of me, black images highlighted in red. They are flying towards me. My heart starts pumping fast as a bead of sweat rolls down my head. I stagger backwards until my back strikes the wall of a building. The figures follow and come to an abrupt pause right in front of my eyes.
They then start emitting a bright radiant light. Before long I see a pair of small green limbs emerging from each of the figures. Then a head follows.
F-frogs?!
Frogs with strange tattoos carved on them jump out of each floating image. I frantically scan the people around me, unsure of what else to do. To my shock, nobody is paying any attention, just like they didn’t care about how I was sleeping in the middle of a street.
The leading frog jumps up, extends its back limbs towards my face, and ..
Oww.. ! What the..
The moment the frog’s feet make contact with my face, I feel a piercing pain radiating through. “D-down, froggie..” I mumble, rubbing my face.
Another frog is preparing for a jump at me. Without wasting a moment I collect my senses and kick off the wall behind me as hard as I can, using it as a launch pad. I leap high above the tiny frogs and land a few feet behind them. My legs then start running, running away from everything so far. Warm wind is whipping against me, causing me to squint, as if telling me to wait for those damn creatures. I am gasping for breath with every step forward, but I can’t tell what a moment of rest could result it. Panic wells up in me as I hear the thuds of the frogs following me.
“Help!” I yell as loud as I can. “Somebody, help me!”
Nobody even bothers to look at me.
“Hey, stop ignoring me!” What the hell is this place?
Another jolt of pain explodes through my back. I feel teeth sinking into my skin.
Since when do frogs bite people?
I frantically shake it off and continue running, refusing to stop once again to ask for help. My legs feel shaky but I force them to go on. I run past shops, past a train station, past a park and after what seemed like hours, I finally arrive at a calmer place where I can’t hear the frogs anymore.
YOU ARE READING
The World Ends With You
Fanfic15 year old boy Neku Sakuraba is confused to find himself sleeping in the middle of a busy road intersection in midday. All he has is a strange pin, a phone, and his memory of his name. Soon he learns that he is trapped in a small city called Shibuy...
