Even In The Next Life

The Next Life

  Shooting up in bed as I was panting, I held my head as a cold sweat coated my skin. Swallowing, I reached for the water on my nightstand and took a drink as my feet touched the floor. My room was still dark, and I looked at the clock to see the time.

  Sighing, I rose from the bed, tossing back the blanket as I lumbered out of my room and went down the hall to my studio. Clicking the light on, I grabbed a new canvas and dropped it onto my easel.

  Ever since I was a child, I'd have such vivid dreams of another life that wasn't my own but was at the same time. They were like fake memories mixed with my real ones, and the only explanation I could be given as a kid as to why was that these dreams were of a previous life.

  However, if that were the case, it was horrifying. I never told anyone the ending to that life, and whenever I woke up from my dreams, I'd paint something from it and hang it in my studio. My studio walls were covered in paintings of a cat named Tako, a little boy named Taro, a girl named Miki, a couple that seemed to be their parents, another girl named Miko, and there were a few other faces mixed in with the scenery I painted. On one wall, from floor to ceiling, were canvases with depictions of demons and a blond named Ryo.

  Working on the fresh canvas, I painted that angelic figure once again, sitting quietly under my light as my brush slowly began to form that perfect face of the angel surrounded by fire. When I was finished, I leaned back and drank the rest of my water.

  "....Satan." I mumbled while looking at the blue-eyed blond. Taking in a deep breath through my nose, I let it out through my mouth while looking to the ceiling. There. That place was reserved for only one type of painting.

  There were three versions of the face up there, but they were all the same person. All the same young man that filled my dreams. I felt love when I looked at his face, no matter the version, but I had never met him in my life. In my dreams, I called him Akira.

  I used to write these dreams off as mere crazed fiction of my subconscious, but I began to believe those stories of reincarnation when I found myself one day with a different body. I had been attacked on my way home from school a few years ago, and my body turned into some sort of draconian beast. After that, even when I turned back to human-looking, I still looked different.

  I was a little taller, my eyes were sharper, my eyebrows were more like a dog's, and I had some muscle as well where none were before. Other than that, though, it was the same as before. I was a Devilman like in my dreams, and it was the same devil in me as then, too. And after that had happened to me, I began to search for this Akira to see if he was real as well.

  My heart swelled whenever I looked at my paintings of him, and I felt as if I was missing something whenever I noticed he wasn't actually there with me.

  Getting up, I let the new painting dry as I left the studio to go back to bed.

~

  Walking through the market, I trudged between the stalls while ignoring the vendors. It was a shortcut to work through here, and every now and then I'd grab something to eat on the way. Walking past the people filling the market, I made my way to work with tired eyes. Half of the darkness around my eyes was from the lack of sleep, but the other half was from being a Devilman.

  I had yet to encounter any devils in this life other than the one inside of me, and I had yet to come across a face from my previous life. My parents then weren't my parents now, but I was still born with the same face and given the same name as in my dream. I didn't know if that was a coincidence, but there were times when I wondered why I hadn't reincarnated sooner. I never came to a definite answer for that, but I once assumed it may have to do with my soul healing after that bright light from my previous life's ending.