Espresso Love (A Dystopian Japan Novel) #Wattys2014

It's Black and White Again

- It's Black and White Again -

I'm looking for a way out by now and manage to cross the field following the trail of flattened grass I had left behind. The whole time, my heart is pounding, scared out of my wits that somehow the way out has been irrevocably lost. I have a feeling things like that could just happen without any explanation. But the trap door is still there to my relief, out of place, a black metal square in the middle of the clearing. To anyone else wandering around, there would be no way they could find it. It isn't located anywhere with specific markings, no trees around, nor does it seem like it's at any specific angle away from the hill. It's just there, planted by someone, something, a long time ago.

I pull open the hatch with much effort, arms trembling, either from fear or from my aged body. I feel like I contain the soul of someone much younger, but had been placed in this body, or somehow my own body had aged at an incredible rate. It dawns on me that cleaning out the rooms for so long has had an effect on me perhaps. In that case, this building must be cursed in some form. I had to find the proper exit.

I clamber down the stairs and shut the hatch behind me with a clank. I replace the silver bar in case something from above tries to get in. Then I head down, nearly running down the stairs. I stop after I've descended a good ten floors - when I realize that there are no garbage bags next to each stairwell, where I had put it. Had someone picked it up? Perhaps there is garbage disposal and I had just been too hasty.

I venture to check one of the rooms.

And I feel the horror creep up my face.

Once again, in the middle of the room is a pile of garbage bags, filled to the brim, opaque white, just the way it had been before. It had reset.

What had I been doing? Why had I been cleaning out the garbage? My head begins to throb and my knees wobble. I had to get out.

The way down is much easier than the way up of course. But yet the faster I go, the more floors there seem to be. The longer it goes on, the more certain I am that there is no bottom and no end to this. Total despair starts to overwhelm my being like softly fizzing coke rising to my head. It tingles with a degree of terror and sucks on the contents of my body like a vacuum. Until there is only emptiness inside. The emptiness causes my feet to slow and falter. I stumble a few times, and I struggle to hold myself up on the rails. The halls and the stairs echo lonely with the sound of my pounding footsteps.

I am completely at a lost and everything seems to become too confusing to comprehend. It's useless trying to remember anything or make any connections. Everything is scrunched up like if I am to pull on a tablecloth slowly until everything is caught in between the wrinkles, falling apart at the seams, pieces of trash brought raining down and swirling around at my feet.

I hear footsteps coming from below. Another pair of feet. Another pair of quietly plodding shoes. I shudder and my eyes grow wide and frantic. I'm looking for a place to hide. Though I might have been terrifyingly alone, I can't seem to find any comfort in the fact that I had company. The presence of someone else frightens me. I conclude it can't be good news.

I cower inside one of the closest rooms, leave a crack in the door and keep watch of the stairs. Time seems to drag on, ticking by like the movements of a sloth. I want to knock time off the branch but it might affect everything that hangs in balance. I check my face again, and my fingers find rough skin. I am still aged, or still aging. If I wanted an answer to my dilemma, maybe this person knows.

He comes into view slowly, one step after another, taking his time. Like he is having a casual stroll. I see the top of his head first, bobbing up and down as he climbs, then his shoulders, as if he's emerging from a pool. I make out half his face and he looks remarkably like the boy I had met up on the hill. This time, he is wearing a suit as well. Just like I am.

He approaches, walking straight for this room and I back away, realizing he must know where I am. I slip behind the piles of trash towards the far corner, but in the darkness, I trip and the plastic of the bags rustle.

Instead of catching myself, my feet fail to move and it doesn't take very long before I'm on the floor. Something breaks my fall however, and all feeling in my legs disappears. With my fingers, I find a porcelain coffee cup jammed hard against my spine. I can't tell if I'm bleeding.

Just as immediately as I've fallen, I hear the doorknob turn before I see it. Then the door silently eases open, having no trouble letting the man in to where I now lay immobilized. Almost as though it's watching on in glee. As it had let in the man, a sliver of light also seeps in.

The man is clearly the same boy. The suit makes him look older. But it's a little large on him. Smiling, he looks down at me and I stare back.

He says nothing. I say nothing. Whoever he is, I realize I am at his mercy. I might have pleaded to him with my facial expression, my mouth might have opened a few times but nothing comes out of me.

He raises a gun in his hands.

It's a nice Glock. Does he know how to use the thing?

When he fires the gun, I almost don't feel any pain. Just a blinding flash and my ears erupting. Until I see the splatter of red blood leaking from my chest, where my heart should be. It spreads slowly and evenly, wetting my white dress shirt, mixing with the black ink of the suit. I watch it happen, and I can't stop looking at it. It's both mesmerizing and terrifying. It's flooding and flowing out, like a slimy creature crawling out of my body, and there's nothing I can do to stop it.

The whole while, I feel emptier and emptier, a gas tank depleted of the last of its fuel. The boy watches.

*

I come to in a dark place. Absolutely no source of light. I feel nothing inside me and nothing outside. I have no feeling, no pain, not a single thought. All is still.

I sit up and lean my back against something hard behind me. I feel strangely light. I don't remember where I am. I open my eyes and close my eyes. I blink a few times. Then I blink more rapidly. I feel like I've woken up from a long sleep. I breathe deeply.

"How does it feel?" A voice says next to me.

"Not too bad." I manage to say.

"You get used to it after a while. Then you start to like it."

"Like what?"

"The absence of anything."

I ponder the words for a while.

Somewhere within briefly flashes a tiny glimpse of white.

"There's still something."

"What?"

"Something white."

"There's only black here."