Lily of the Valley: ACT 2 (OMORI Fanfiction)

“These flowers are called lily of the valley. It’s said that they’re able to ward off evil spirits and help people see a brighter future.”

“…Due to the concentration of cardiac glycosides, lily of the valley are highly poisonous if consumed.”

A story about a girl who kills herself and the people she leaves behind.

Expressing “life” through a story.

Lily of the Valley: 2-1

KEL is happy.

KEL was accepted into his school’s basketball team without an audition. He just threw the sickest hoop he could throw and they recruited him into their top position on the spot. The jocks dropped their jaws as KEL flew through the court, his steps that of a rhythmic dancer. Everyone at the gym stared at him in awe.

He talked to a girl today. Her name was JOSIE and she was a manager on the basketball team. They chatted for a few minutes and she seemed nice. She didn’t make fun of him when he told her he still liked to play those Pet Rock games for kids. Nothing like AUB- He means, she was really cute too. KEL might even have blushed.

It was a good day. He hoped every day would be just as good as this one.

The beeping coming from the phone was deafening. HERO fell to his knees and the receiver dangled around. KEL was standing by the doorway. He watched HERO as his face became empty of all emotions. It was like his very essence had dissipated, only leaving a hollow husk of what he used to call his older brother.

KEL slowly approached him. He was shaking his head and mumbling something. KEL kept asking what was up. He was scared. He had never seen HERO like this before. He wanted to know what was going on. He crouched down next to HERO and shook his shoulder. He leaned in close enough to hear what HERO was mumbling. Two words, repeated ad nauseam.

“She’s gone. She’s gone. She’s gone.”

KEL was fine. No, really. He was.

He had great friends. Everyone on the team loved him. He was cheerful and funny and sociable. He wasn’t good at much of anything so that was the least he could be. He killed it at basketball, though.

JOSIE confessed to him the other day and he could not be more happy with her. She was nice. They hung out. They talked. Did stuff. KEL told her he loved her too. She blushed and fiddled around with her hair. KEL felt a weight was pushing down on him. He was sweating; he hoped JOSIE wouldn’t notice. He guessed this is what people meant by ‘butterflies in your stomach’? He wasn’t sure. It didn’t feel good, if it was.

His family loved him. They just did, he knew that. It’s not like they tell him they do, but KEL figured they had to. He loved them too.

HERO was.

Everything was just coming up KEL. Things were KEL-tastic. Nothing could go wrong. Nothing was going to go wrong.

He remembered little of the funeral. Maybe AUBREY’s cries which pierced through the ears and chests of all present company. Maybe HERO’s words up at the podium. His voice had none of his confidence – no longer HERO, just HERNY COLDWOOD, a boy devoid of anything. His choice of words were more of a confused scramble to find anything to remember her by than a genuine attempt at memorating his life with her.

Maybe SUNNY and BASIL sitting by themselves, only looking down during the entire duration. Maybe SUNNY looking inside the casket for a length too long for anyone to be comfortable with. Maybe MARI’s face, clean and beautiful, robbed of all life. Robbed by herself.

Maybe he remembered these things, maybe he didn’t. He’d rather not.

“KEL, let’s break up.”

JOSIE took a sip from her bubble tea. They were sitting outside a cafe.

“Huh?”

“Look, you’re a nice guy, but…” JOSIE sighed. “You don’t like me, do you?”

“Yes I do!”

“Then what do you like about me?”

“I… You’re nice.”

“And?”

“You…” KEL pressed his finger onto his forehead. “Smell good?”

“Do you think I’m pretty?”

“Yeah.”

“Like how?”

“Uh…” He stared at the table.

“Yeah. Okay.”

JOSIE stood up and grabbed her bag. KEL sat frozen in his seat, watching her slip by. It was like she was turning transparent in front of him.

“I guess you still like that AUBREY girl.”

“…What?”

The mention of that name sent KEL’s mind into a spiraling mess. KEL stood up. He was fuming with something. Anger, or maybe betrayal – it was something.

“How do you know about her?” KEL yelled. JOSIE looked shocked for a minute at KEL’s tone. “I thought when I joined the team was when I first met you!”

“I’ve liked you for way longer, actually – why do you think I was so excited to talk to the new guy? – and I was planning to tell you that. But you know what they say about meeting your crushes.”

“…What do they say?”

JOSIE laughed out loud. “I hope we can still be friends. See you at practice tomorrow, KEL.”

And she walked off, waving as she did. She disappeared into the foreign city streets which he never dared to go. KEL stood there and watched the sprawling lines and dots of people moving about through the streets.

Oh well. KEL supposed he didn’t deserve her anyway. HERO lost his love. And KEL would never be better than him. So this was only natural.

Huh? Why was he crying?

One week since SUNNY hadn’t come to school. One week became one month and one month became one year.

AUBREY.

AUBREY, AUBREY, AUBREY.

Just saying her name terrified him.

He remembered a day, a few weeks after the funeral. He was still dating JOSIE at this time. He was chatting it up with the dudes from his team at the park – he wanted to show them around FARAWAY, because most of them were from the cities closer to school.

He was laughing at some joke someone made which he couldn’t remember anymore when he happened to turn his head and meet eyes with AUBREY.

She looked horrible. Her hair was unkempt, her bow was losing its color, and her dress was tattered. She looked heartbroken but not enough to cry – just empty, sort of like HERO, but still with hope left behind. Her expression had a begging solicitation to it. It was like she was asking him. She was asking him to take her away.

He held his breath. His mind went into a haze. His smile had faded away. Everything in the background became a blur and he could only see her amidst the daze. AUBREY, standing there by herself, alone, afraid, terrified, hopeless, pleading. It pushed onto his heart.

Oh. The weight. That’s what that feeling was about.

He looked away. He went back to chatting with his buddies. One of them asked what was up and he shrugged it off. The weight became heavier and his heart felt like it was going to burst out. But he smiled and grit through it. Because that was preferable to the pain he might receive from trying to bear the weight with AUBREY together.

A few minutes later, he glanced at where she was standing. She was gone.

Sometimes, it is hard to believe that his life completely changed because of the death of one person. One person he wasn’t related to. One person he had honestly never cared that much for.

MARI was nice and wise and kind. She seemed perfect in a lot of ways. She was also scary when she was angry. He thought she was a great person to be around; but being much younger, he never could find a real emotional connection with her. Not as much as with SUNNY, her brother, at least.

He remembered the year leading up to her suicide. (Suicide. Yes. He repeated it. It was a suicide.) It was much like his current situation; their friend group falling apart and decimating itself slowly, but still maintained by a crumb of hope. A hope for MARI to return. A hope that SUNNY will get better and overcome his trauma. There was a sense that it was merely a temporary slump, which is why the weight did not exist for KEL back then. He had AUBREY with him. HERO came back, too. On that last day with her when they had their final picnic, there was a feeling which truly permeated everyone’s minds; everything was going to be okay.

With a death, that hope scattered away into thin air. Only desolate permanence crept in. No longer just a phase; this was it. They could no longer hope to have their old life back. Their right to hope had been taken away. They didn’t even deserve to be healed.

KEL had changed little, but those around him did, and KEL always followed along to the whims of others. That was something he admired about AUBREY; she never compromised her own life for the sake of others. KEL was different. HERO’s life was KEL’s life and vice versa. What he did, KEL knew was good. What he didn’t, bad.

When HERO stopped living as a person and ceased to do anything, KEL too, in a way, stopped living.

MARI was like a magnet. She attracted every person she came across. She made an impact – small or big – in every being she came in contact with. And that impact was contagious. HERO used to be a nervous wreck, who even KEL took pity on occasionally. He called him HERO almost as a joke. Then MARI entered his life and HERO actually became KEL’s hero. Without MARI, he wouldn’t have had his HERO.

One person, one death. Untold hurt, unsung loss. Nothing more. Just empty hurt.

Was MARI going through this same pain when she hanged herself in that backyard?

He saw AUBREY again for the first time in months. Donning a cool jacket with bubblegum pink hair. Together with her new cronies. He almost didn’t recognize her, but he’d know those eyes anywhere, even if she tried to cover it up with contact lenses.

But it didn’t help that he also found her stomping BASIL on the ground.

KEL and BASIL had maintained a relatively good relation through this time. They said hello to each other at school, they took notes for each other, and even exchanged some words when they passed by each other at lunch. BASIL always looked like something was wearing him down. Maybe it was the same kind of weight that pushed down on KEL’s chest?

But here he was, crying on the tuft of grass behind the school, AUBREY ready to land her feet on his stomach yet again.

Without thinking, he ran and blocked her way, pushing BASIL slightly in the process. KEL apologized and tried to help BASIL up, and turned his head to AUBREY while doing so. She looked absolutely appalled. Rage filled her fake teal eyes, like they were about to spill tears at any time. She raised her bat, which KEL hadn’t even noticed until then, and he held his arms out yet again. They exchanged silent glares.

Then, without saying anything, AUBREY turned around and walked away from the scene. Her goons followed. BASIL’s sobs attracted KEL’s attention to him again. KEL tried to help him up yet again but he just cried, clutching his chest; the photo album they all used to look at together, absent.

HERO told KEL to shut the fuck up.

He said KEL was an unloving piece of shit.

Said it should’ve been him instead of her.

KEL didn’t realize bringing up her name would do that. He didn’t know what to do. HERO pushed him and he fell on the ground. He looked up. The person he used to look up to – the person who KEL based his life around, who he trusted with his life – looked imposing, terrifying like a beast. For the first time in his life, KEL genuinely felt scared if HERO was going to hit him. It had never happened before but it was an instinctual reaction induced by the terror. KEL lost control and began crying. He held his head and buried his face on the floor. He couldn’t say anything back.

Because HERO was right. How could he say anything back when HERO was right? HERO was always right.

When he looked up, HERO was surrounded by their parents. They were hugging him and asking him things and KEL couldn’t hear any of that. Their eyes met. HERO’s face was in dismay; mortified at what he had just done. He looked like he wanted to punch himself.

HERO pushed his parents away and ran up to KEL. KEL, again, instinctively cowered in fear. But then he was held tightly by HERO, who began weeping with him. KEL loosened up his muscles and let himself be embraced by his brother; his buddy. They had called themselves that ever since they were young. Because they were each other’s best buddies. KEL had stopped doing that long ago, but HERO would slip into it again every once in a while.

HERO hugged him and sobbed. He whispered.

“I’m sorry, buddy. I’m so sorry.”

Years more passed by.

He kept playing basketball. He was good at that. It kept his mind off of other things. Bad thoughts.

He ran into BASIL, and they would never exchange more than a few words. Sometimes he would see AUBREY and her gang beating him up and he would interrupt. She always left without saying anything.

HERO got better. He left for college. He called KEL on the phone multiple times every week. HERO always made an effort to ask him about school and his friends and make general chit chat. It bothered KEL because he clearly didn’t want to do it but he was only doing it to make up for that night. To make up for a mistake KEL had already forgiven him for. HERO was never the same after MARI passed and he was never the same after that night.

MARI was dead but life went on.

AUBREY had changed but life went on.

BASIL was hurt but life went on.

HERO was empty but life went on.

Life should go on for KEL, too. He had his new friends, his new life. He was told he could even get a college grant with his talent at basketball. His new friends were never as thoughtful as SUNNY or as annoyingly funny as AUBREY or even as nice as BASIL, but they were good people. He could live like a normal kid his age would. Go to college, get a girl, maybe try to achieve his dreams by leaving town for the big leagues and fail, come back to his crummy old suburban neighborhood and get a job. That sounded alright.

AUBREY had left her old life. She might be bad now but at least she had moved on. KEL should too, right? He should just forget about MARI and SUNNY. He had done a good job so far, anyway.

…Screw that.

It’s been a long 3 years. It’s been 3 years of KEL running away from everything. It’s been 3 years of pretending as if MARI didn’t mean anything to him – but of course she did. They were friends. She told him he was the bond that tied his friends together. He’ll never forget that. But what was he doing right now? Not tying them back together, that was for sure.

It’s been 3 years of pretending AUBREY had changed – that she had turned her ways towards evil, that she had become an irredeemable demon. That she wasn’t worth his trouble. It’s been 3 years of not actually addressing her problem with BASIL. 3 years of hoping she’ll just stop, because he didn’t want to have to talk to either of them for more than 5 minutes at a time, lest the weight came back.

It’s been 3 years of believing HERO had moved on from MARI. 3 years of believing he had gotten his brother back. All those years thinking normalcy had returned to his joke of a life. But no one had moved on. Life went on and they were still hurt. The scars didn’t go away. It didn’t go away from HERO’s voice, whenever he called KEL on the phone. Loss doesn’t just erase itself.

It’s been 3 years of thinking SUNNY wasn’t also going to kill himself.

That was going to change.

Maybe he had done it already. KEL promised to himself that if that were the case, he would never forgive himself. He prayed to a god he never believed in as he ran from school across the streets, passing right by his own house. Praying, ‘please, don’t be too late. Please let him answer.’

He let go of AUBREY. He let go of BASIL. HERO let go of him. He wanted to let go of all of them too. He wanted to let go of SUNNY. Then he remembered that funeral. Of course he remembered every detail, vividly. He remembered SUNNY’s eyes, stripped of life, because that was the last time he ever saw SUNNY. An intrusive thought invaded KEL’s mind that night. An image that would haunt him to this very day, which he identified as the source of the weight on his chest. An image of SUNNY in his room, noose by his neck, about to kick the chair –

Before he knew it, he stood in front of the house of the SUZUKI family.

A knock couldn’t hurt.

Lily of the Valley: 2-2

AUBREY is furious.

AUBREY was alone.

Everyone was gone. SUNNY stopped coming to school. She understood why he would lock himself in. She wouldn’t want to be reminded of anything, either. (She wished she could isolate herself from the world like that, too.) She hadn’t seen HERO in weeks. Who knows what the hell happened to him. BASIL had closed himself off and won’t talk to anyone anymore. At least she gets to see his face, though. She found some comfort in that.

But who hurt her the most was KEL.

He was stupid and annoying and ugly and STUPID, but she was all he had for that time when MARI had locked herself in. He was the only one who made an effort to be with her, talk to her, or just stay by her side. During that time, she thought he was even cool. Sure, he was still insensitive, and called her weird when that thing happened with SUNNY, but she knew he meant well. There was this sense that even if the others go away, the two could stick together, no matter what.

KEL stopped doing all of that when MARI died. He didn’t even go up to her like he used to when they were in the park together. Instead, he always talked to his new friends. Why did he act like she wasn’t there? Why did he act like MARI meant nothing? Was it because something happened to HERO? She had no idea, but she just wanted him to be there again. It didn’t matter if it was stupid, ugly KEL. She needed someone here. She hadn’t slept in days.

But KEL looked away. They met eyes, she was sure. They remained eye contact for a few seconds and then he looked away, like he didn’t see her. But he did and AUBREY knew. He threw her away, like how her father did, like what her mother was doing; like MARI did.

She ran off, tears falling down from her eyes. Her face grew redder. She went back to her room and buried her face in a pillow. She held her blanket but it wasn’t enough. She instinctively reached out for the fluffy purple object she would always hold onto in times of stress. But Mr. Plantegg wasn’t there. She hadn’t had it ever since they stopped going to the treehouse at SUNNY’s place.

AUBREY cried and cried until it started hurting and then she cried more.

Everything was fucked. Everyone was so fucked.

KEL never looked at her again after that. HERO is still nowhere to be seen; he could be dead for all she knew. She didn’t care. SUNNY was the same, and she was still scared of seeing him. And she was convinced BASIL was now actively avoiding her. That didn’t hurt as much as KEL, though. BASIL was always the sensitive type, so maybe he was still hurt from all this. She wanted to give him space.

So all she had left was MARI. Buried six feet underground, just one step away from where she was standing.

Her headstone read as thus.

“ROSEMARIE SUZUKI

1986 – 2002

OUR DEAREST MARI

THE SUN SHINED BRIGHTER WHEN SHE WAS HERE.”

She stared at the grave. She waited for something to happen, as if it was going to start speaking to her and answer every question for her. Was this the only possible outcome? Could things have been different? If she was there for SUNNY, would he not have attempted? Would the downward spiral not have started? If she went to see MARI herself instead of waiting for HERO to do it like a coward, would she not have done it? How much pain was she holding back? Could AUBREY even begin to understand such pain? Did she think it would be worth it to do this and inflict so much pain on the rest of them?

It was as if MARI held several lifetimes of hurt inside of her – and when she died, she simply passed all of it onto the rest of them.

“MARI, I…”

She started speaking up, but got lost in her words. She couldn’t think properly, let alone talk. Her mind was clouded by so many emotions; confusion, frustration, but most of all, anger. She was so mad. She was absolutely furious at herself for being so powerless. Powerless when her dad left her, and powerless when her mom started beating her. Powerless when she lost her shoe and the rest of them had to find her on the sidewalk, crying because she felt no control in a world that was never fair to her. She was so angry that this kept happening, and that she couldn’t do anything about it.

Did MARI feel this powerless when she had to suffer the consequences of her flaws for the first time in her life? Then, for her, taking her own life was the ultimate expression of control.

She felt tears coming out and ran off. It rained, and she ran back home. She couldn’t tell if the rain dripping down on her face were the same as the tears that came out.

It’s a tough pill to swallow.

AUBREY always knew MARI was a bit of a stuck up for perfectionism. She would criticize AUBREY’s clothes or even the way she walked. It was all in jest, AUBREY thought, and MARI said it in a playful enough manner that neither of them thought too hard about it.

All of that changed when SUNNY tried to kill himself.

Even before she got confirmation from HERO, she had suspected it. Every puzzle piece fell into its right place, and it felt horrifying. AUBREY couldn’t handle the truth and convinced herself it couldn’t have been like that until it was too late.

Here was the truth.

MARI was a hypocrite. She was a selfish narcissist who went and offed herself because of a horrible mistake that she made. She left all of them because she couldn’t handle the truth. She made herself the victim of the story despite being the villain.

She locked herself up in her own little bubble and refused to take responsibility for her wrongdoings. Then she tried to put the blame on SUNNY, using his attempt as her excuse for locking herself in. She escaped from her situation while letting the rest of them hold onto false hope. And in the end, she even took away that little hope they had left. She wallowed in self pity as the rest of them had to suffer the consequences.

SUNNY was getting better. He was hanging out with them more; he was talking more; he spoke about her more often. If MARI truly loved him and cared for all of them, she would have stayed alive. That was the older sister AUBREY knew MARI as; that was the girl she admired. Instead, the girl she saw in that year leading up to her death was pathetic and spineless. Her ego was more important to her than everyone, more important than SUNNY, more important than AUBREY. In the end, she was just like the rest of the bastards that ruined AUBREY’s life. Selfish. She didn’t love her.

If MARI hadn’t already hanged herself, AUBREY would have gone and killed her herself. Bludgeon her face with a bat until she couldn’t be recognized as ROSEMARIE SUZUKI anymore. Maybe then, AUBREY could forget about the person she really was and only remember as the girl she looked up to.

Good riddance. She doesn’t want to think about that bitch ever again.

And the hardest thing about it was that AUBREY had to admit that the person she saw in MARI was a facade. It was hard because she didn’t want to admit that. She didn’t want to admit that MARI could’ve been a bad person. And that selfish desire of hers built up until the worst probable scenario transpired.

AUBREY hated MARI. But most of all, she hated herself. Could she ever forgive herself for that? Or will she go down the same road as MARI?

That thought terrified her. That she was no better than her.

AUBREY couldn’t sleep. She was just so mad.

She couldn’t stop having this dream where she beat MARI to a pulp. She wasn’t sure what started it but once she hit her once on the face, MARI was on the ground and writhing in pain. After the second hit on her stomach, she began crying and apologizing. That triggered AUBREY to go off in a flurry of attacks, with each impact resulting in a sob from MARI. She was still weeping and slurring through her words. AUBREY didn’t care and continued stomping as she spewed curses out. ‘Forgive me’ are the last things AUBREY heard from MARI when she delivered a kick to her face that smashed her right eyeball and the cries stopped. AUBREY didn’t stop, though, and the only sounds she heard after that were the ugly noises of flesh being bludgeoned.

Then SUNNY showed up and saw what she did. Before AUBREY could explain herself, he cried and ran away and she chased after him. It wasn’t really clear where this all took place, but the end of her chase always led back to the backyard of SUNNY’s home. He wasn’t there anymore and AUBREY saw MARI hanged on a tree. AUBREY fell to her knees sobbing. She said sorry for all the bad things she said about her. She apologized for not being there for her and that she didn’t mean any of this.

Then she woke up. She was furious again. She couldn’t believe she would let herself stoop that low in her dream, getting so emotionally vulnerable to the point she begged for forgiveness to that selfish cunt. She tried to go to sleep again but the same dream would occur and rinse and repeat.

She couldn’t take this anymore, so she rose up. She made sure to not make any noises as she made her way over to the bathroom. In there she tried to turn the lights on but they wouldn’t work. AUBREY squinted her eyes in the dark and looked for a bottle in the cupboards. She found her mom’s sleeping pills – that’s what she was looking for. She opened the cap with ease and looked inside; there weren’t many left. She put all of it in her mouth and gulps it down with sink water. She looked at herself in the mirror.

It’s a tough pill to swallow.

So annoying. The chatter inside the classroom was going to drive AUBREY crazy. She couldn’t even listen to the lesson. She had been trying to keep up with her grades. She was going to prove that she was better than MARI. She wasn’t going to end up like her.

She heard something about someone smelling. Something about someone going on a date. Shut up. Something about how the teacher looks. He didn’t even budge at that. Something about how boring the class is. God, shut up. Someone made a joke and everybody laughed. She couldn’t even tell what’s being said now. The teacher tried to raise his voice through the cacophony. You shut up too. Oh my god, everyone just shut the hell up.

It made her remember all the things people said when MARI died. All the little chatter that AUBREY noticed more than usual. Terrible, horrible things; though, compared to the stuff she said, it was nothing.

“My, did you hear about the SUZUKI girl?”

“I heard she committed suicide.”

“Hung up on a tree. What a gruesome thing. Poor girl.”

“She was such a bright one too.”

“She helped me cross the street, once. What a pretty smile she had.”

“I didn’t see her at all for a year until I heard the news.”

“If she was so kind, how could she do that to her parents?”

“They must have raised her wrong. Kids who do that, they’re always from a bad family.”

“She had a little brother, didn’t she? Poor boy…”

“Such a shame, that one is – the Lord will never forgive her.”

“I hope my kid would never do something so selfish.”

“GOD, SHUT UP! COULD ALL OF YOU JUST PLEASE SHUT THE FUCK UP?!”

Everyone was looking at AUBREY. Their eyes were wide open. The teacher looked more worried than appalled. She was breathing in and out harshly. She didn’t even realize she stood up while saying that. Her vision went dark. She couldn’t even cry.

She had to stand outside of the classroom after that. And then she got called to the guidance counselor’s office. A woman she had never seen before sat in the room, who greeted AUBREY. She looked younger than most of the other teachers she knew. AUBREY sat down and they began with some small chat. When she asked her about what happened in class, AUBREY just said she had a bad day. She successfully dodged around the counselor’s questions, despite the woman’s insistence.

The counselor sighed. She put down her files on her knees and looked at AUBREY, eye to eye.

“AUBREY, look… I have looked at your grades, I’ve looked at your report cards. You seem like a bright girl.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“So if there is anything troubling you, you can tell me about it, okay?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Could you tell me?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“That’s not an answer, AUBREY.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“…”

The counselor looked at her files. After a brief moment of silence, she spoke again.

“Is this about SUZUKI? The older girl?”

She looked down. Anger started flowing back again at the mention of her name. But there was a newfound sorrow which overwhelmed her anger. Instead of what she wanted to do – which was to stand up, start yelling at the counselor for daring to bring her up, that she hated MARI and was glad that she was dead – she instead began to sob while lowering her head. The counselor asked what was wrong and offered her a tissue. AUBREY took them, but she didn’t speak another word after that. She was eventually let go.

When she went outside of the office, she heard the bell ring. It was lunch time. AUBREY didn’t feel like eating after that, though. So she went outside and went to the little playground space they had in the back, where kids could play ball. But there was no one there because everyone was eating.

She was about to sit on a bench when she heard a voice call out from behind.

“Yo.”

AUBREY turned around and saw… KIM. The short girl with the loud voice and red glasses. She would get into fights with KEL a lot which always amused AUBREY. But she thought KIM was sorta just as annoying as KEL and never was friends with her. She also didn’t really feel like talking to anyone.

“What do you want?” AUBREY scoffed.

“What do I want?” KIM said as she approached AUBREY. “What I want are the details, dude! I heard a girl flipped out at a teacher during class and I just had to hear it from the girl herself. And what do I know, it’s AUBERGINE, the cute bubbly girl everyone loves!”

Cute? She hated that this was how people looked at her.

“It wasn’t really about the teacher…” AUBREY looked away.

“Wow, it was about some kid then?”

“No!” AUBREY glared at KIM. “Something just… pissed me off, alright? I don’t know.”

“Yeah, okay.”

KIM sat down on some grass, beneath a tree. AUBREY wanted to sit at the bench but KIM motioned at her to sit next to herself, so AUBREY begrudgingly followed.

“Sometimes you feel like that, huh.” KIM laid down on the grass and faced up at the sky. “You just wanna go apeshit.”

“…I guess.” AUBREY said.

“You know what’s the difference between cool people who feel like that and lame people who do?”

“What?”

“The cool ones actually do it. That’s kinda freaking awesome, AUBREY!” KIM KIM sat up straight and smiled.

“No, it’s not…” AUBREY looked down. “I just lost my temper. I’m not like that, alright?”

“Oh right, you say you’re not like that but the whole school now knows you as the girl who snapped during class. Snappy AUBREY.”

AUBREY covered her face with her hands. “Are you picking a fight?!”

“Nah, dude.” KIM pointed at AUBREY. “I’m here because I wanna be your friend.”

“Huh?” She looked at KIM in disbelief.

“I mean, I always thought you were weird for hanging out with those nerds, KEL and BASIL. But I knew you had something in you and now you did this cool shit. I wanna be around for the next time you do something!”

“I am not going to do anything…”

“Alright, I just wanna hang out though.”

“Really?”

“Yeah?” KIM tilted her head. “I mean, I just told you.”

“But…” AUBREY looked down at the grass, staring at the bugs. “Why? Nobody likes me anymore.”

“Uh, I do, so that’s not true. Also, what happened to your nerd friends?”

“They’re not my friends anymore.” AUBREY turned her head.

“Okay, so that’s awesome, because now I get to be your new best friend.”

KIM stood up and stretched her arms. AUBREY looked up at her and the sunlight blinded her sight. When she covered the light with her hand and looked again, KIM was reaching out her hand. AUBREY took it without thinking much of it and KIM helped her up.

“Come on, dude.” KIM grinned and grabbed AUBREY’s shoulder. “Let’s go fuck some shit up.”

“You mean like… ditch school?”

“Yeah?”

“I can’t play hookie!”

“What? Do you still want to be the good girl? I think you’re too late for that, now.”

AUBREY stepped back. She wanted to prove to others that she could be more than MARI, but after what happened today, KIM might have been right. Did AUBREY even need to prove anything? Did she want to be perfect?

No, AUBREY wanted to be uncompromising. She didn’t want to be some goody two shoes like MARI was. She didn’t need to be like MARI to prove that she wouldn’t end up the same. She was going to be her best self. She was going to let her rage out, and she wasn’t going to care if people hated her for it.

“You’re ever steadfast, always fighting for your dreams.”

“You always believe in yourself, but most important of all, you believe in your friends.”

Shut up. She didn’t want to remember that now.

“Uh, earth to AUBREY? AUBERGINE? Miss JORGENSEN?”

“Don’t call me that.”

AUBREY looked up at the sky. She closed her eyes and sighed. She calmed down. Anger was subsiding and in its place only bright determination glowed.

She looked at KIM again. She smirked.

“Alright, KIMBERLY.” She said. “Let’s go fuck shit up.”

KIM grinned again. “That’s what I like to hear.”

AUBREY was walking down the hall after school along with KIM and VANCE. She met VANCE shortly after KIM started following her around. He was much bigger than either of them and she honestly thought he was in his 20’s. But once they started talking, she realized his size was not at all indicative of his character. The dude was a softball whose mind seemed to mostly be occupied by thoughts of taffy.

The three of them had become something of a small gang. Despite KIM’s insistence that they ‘fuck some shit up’, AUBREY didn’t actually want to cause too much trouble and neither did VANCE. So they mostly did some petty harmless stuff, like littering or drawing graffiti on school walls. (KIM was quite the artist, as it turns out.) Most of the student body was already aware of KIM and VANCE’s antics and never dared to approach them or the new kid in her group.

But some did. Three, in fact. The three blocked their way. AUBREY frowned and examined them. One tan skinned guy with an obviously fake blonde wig and unbelievably embarrassing posture; a tiny kid – wait, a kid? – with a pompadour; and a big looking guy whose head was touching the ceiling.

“Evildoers!” Wig guy posed and yelled out. “We are here to serve justice.”

“What?” KIM said.

“You’re the bad guys!” Pompadour kid chimed in. “You’ve been doing awful stuff, haven’t you?”

“What’s this kid saying?” KIM looked at AUBREY. AUBREY shrugged.

“Yes, this is true, disciple.” Wig guy grabbed the kid’s shoulder. “We have been heeding rumors of lunch money being stolen. Your little gang could be the only culprits, am I right?”

“What?” KIM raised her tone. She sounded baffled. “Look, what the hell is your p-”

“WE SHALL NOT LISTEN TO YOUR VILLAIN MONOLOGUE!” Wig guy posed.

“It’s not a monologue, jackass!” KIM yelled. “I was trying to say-”

“The Champions of Justice shall carry out justice, with no hesitation!”

“Yeah! Champions of Justice, that’s what we are!” As pompadour kid said this, wig guy looked proud of himself.

The three of them started closing the gap between the two groups. The yelling had attracted the attention of the other students, who were gathering around to witness the commotion. Some cheered and egged on for a fight. This seemed to hype the wig and pompadour dudes but absolutely infuriated KIM. She started walking towards them too, her head tilted and hands in her pocket, and VANCE followed. They were about to collide when AUBREY jumped in and blocked KIM’s way, much to her surprise.

AUBREY looked at the wig guy. He seemed just as surprised as anyone. She glared at him and he flinched. Something was going through her veins. It was something she hadn’t felt in a long time. It wasn’t anger, it wasn’t destructive. It was protective – her body just moved on its own to shield her friends. It reminded her of when she used to do this for BASIL; when he was so frail and tiny that the other guys made fun of him. When they hadn’t met SUNNY and the others, AUBREY was all he had. It’s not like KIM was that small or couldn’t handle herself in a fight, so it was more like muscle memory than anything else. She was reminded of her old memories, and it made her emotional for no apparent reason.

“If you hurt my friends, you are going to get it.”

Wig guy backed up and tried to stutter something out. Pompadour kid seemed to take this as a queue to attack, and he tried to throw a chop at KIM from the side. After that hit, it was the sign of an all-out brawl. KIM retaliated back and VANCE joined, throwing punches, most of which the pompadour kid dodged. But KIM was fast and grabbed onto him and pushed him.

Wig guy looked in shock, like he didn’t think this was going to happen. When the pompadour kid was pushed onto the floor, the wig guy made his move and walked in closer. But before he could get to him, AUBREY headbutted him from the behind and they both fell to the ground. The bigger guy of their group didn’t seem to move an inch, which relieved AUBREY slightly since she thought he’d be the toughest.

This went on for a few minutes. By the end, all parties were bruised up and lying on the ground. The crowd surrounding them was now massive in size. VANCE was crouching because he took a critical hit to the gut and KIM was helping him up. Her face was contorted in anger. Wig guy was essentially knocked out on the ground with his consciousness slowly fading away from AUBREY’s barrage of headbutts. Unfortunately, that attack also did damage to herself, so she was lying down on the ground, looking up at the ceiling, unable to move. The pompadour kid sat in the middle, and he noticed his nose was bleeding.

That’s when the pompadour kid started crying. He yelped like a little kid and that took the adrenalin out of all present company. Some spectators clicked their tongues and some seemed to go away now that the fight was seemingly over. The big guy finally moved and comforted the pompadour kid, hugging him. His sobs became quieter after that.

AUBREY turned her head to look at this. She turned the other way to see KIM and VANCE, whose eyes were fixated on the hug as well. She looked at the ceiling again. She began chuckling. Her chuckles turned that into a giggle and her giggle turned into an uproarious laughter. She covered her face with her hands and just kept laughing. Everyone was looking at her now, including the pompadour kid and the big guy.

She found this situation absolutely hilarious. They just beat each other up, and for what? They never stole lunch money. KIM wouldn’t do that; and if she did, AUBREY would probably beat her up first. Also, they beat up a freaking kid, and he started crying like he was looking for mommy. And AUBREY was on the ground, her head aching in pain because she headbutted a guy too hard. That hadn’t happened in years. It all reminded her of old times, but it no longer made her sad. It was oddly nostalgic in a way.

She heard another set of laughter. She looked over to KIM and VANCE, who had sat down next to her, and was joining her. She heard another giggle. It was pompadour kid, and the big guy was smirking too. Wig guy had just woken up and looked around in confusion. AUBREY laughed harder.

KIM later explained to them finally that they were not the ones stealing lunch money. Wig guy also admitted that he had never intended on actually fighting and reprimanded the other kid for jumping in. AUBREY got the impression they weren’t really bad dudes; kinda stupid, but she used to know plenty of stupid kids.

Wig guy introduced himself as THE MAVERICK, but she later learned that his name was MIKHAIL. Pompadour kid was called ANGEL and the big guy was actually a girl named CHARLIE. By the time they introduced themselves, the crowd had dissipated and the observers went about on their business. The six of them went to the park together, where they spent some time chatting. KIM and THE MAVERICK still got on each other’s throats but much more playfully. They all got along with ANGEL. He wasn’t some kid blackmailed to do MIKHAIL’s bidding; he was just a kid who thought he was an actually cool guy. AUBREY and CHARLIE hit it up nicely. She appreciated quiet people. They sat next to each other and watched the other four bicker and laugh at each other.

They were good guys. They reminded her of her old friends. Made her think of MARI again.

AUBREY walked into the cemetery. Her newly dyed pink hair fluttered as the wind blew by. She stood in front of her grave for the first time in months. The last time she had been here, she was weak. She cleared her throat and began speaking.

“Hey, MARI. It’s been a long time, huh.”

AUBREY paused. She got some words out – this was already an improvement. She looked down at the grave and continued.

“I want to apologize first. A year ago, I ran away from here and said some bad things about you. I’ve had time to think since then, though.”

She stopped again. She thought for a second on what to talk about. She decided she should act as if she was really speaking to her; even though she knew that could never happen again. She turned around and flicked her hair in the direction of the grave.

“See this? KIM dyed my hair pink for me. Remember that? We were gonna do that together. Me pink, you purple.”

She remembered the day when that happened, and it sank her again. It was only a few days from the recital, too. She remembered how bright MARI was in those days. Before AUBREY’s illusion broke down.

“Oh yeah, KIM is my new best friend.” She tried to change the topic. “I thought she was annoying at first but she’s actually cool and smart when it comes down to it. There’s also her brother VANCE. He seemed scary at first, but he’s just a silly guy at heart.”

She chuckled, like a girl giddy to talk about her new friends to her mother.

“Then there are those stooges, MIKHAIL and ANGEL. I don’t really consider them friends yet – they just stick around. ANGEL’s friend CHARLIE is sweet though, once you get to know her.”

She smiled. She wondered if MARI would be happy to hear all of this. Despite the terrible things she said about her, she selfishly hoped MARI would forgive her. Even though AUBREY couldn’t forgive her.

“I have all these new things going on for me, MARI. New friends, new life, new dreams… But whenever I try to sleep at night, I always come back to you. I can’t seem to forget, no matter what I do.”

She put her hands in her pocket and looked down at the grave again. She could imagine MARI’s face as she heard all of this.

“What you said to me the day before still haunts me, you know. It really wasn’t cool of you to do something like that. Tell us all that and just… leave. But I think I want to leave anger behind me.”

She sighed. She closed her eyes.

“I was so mad at you, MARI. I couldn’t believe you did this to us. I still can’t, and I’m still angry. I don’t think I can ever bring myself to forgive you. But you had your reasons, didn’t you? I’ve gone through so much since all of this… pain began growing inside of me. And now I think I understand. It’s not good for me to try and forget it all. I can’t forgive you, but maybe I can learn how to do that.”

She opened her eyes. She was only greeted by dirt and a clean tombstone, of course. She crouched down, as if doing that would take her closer to MARI just a little bit; like it would help her words reach her better.

“That bastard KEL seemed to have forgotten all about us, though. I hope he rots in hell. HERO was in a slump for some time but I’ve seen him around recently. I think he’s leaving for college now. I don’t know what happened to SUNNY… That’s you and me both, huh?”

She lowered her head in contemplation.

“BASIL… He’s the only one I feel like I can approach still. He was my first friend, you know. Such a sweet guy. I wanted to be friends with him the moment I saw him. I’m so glad to have been friends with him, and I want us to be close again. I know he won’t hurt me.”

She sweeped away some of the dust that she noticed. She stood up. She looked down at the grave again.

“I’m going to start coming here more now, okay? Please forgive me for all the stuff I’ve said. I can’t say I didn’t mean it, but… You understand, don’t you?”

She turned around. She looked behind her.

“Please pray for me, MARI. I’ll pray for you from now on, too.”

It wasn’t difficult to talk to BASIL again. It was difficult to get him to talk, though.

When AUBREY simply walked up to him after school and practically begged him to let her hang out with him, he offered no resistance. He didn’t seem to recognize her at first until she spoke up, though, and that got AUBREY down a little.

BASIL said he was on his way to his home, and AUBREY suggested she could come over. Maybe look at the photo album or something. He seemed extremely hesitant to say yes, but even more hesitant to say no to a girl wielding a baseball bat. So he just continued on his way without muttering an actual reply (more like a hum) and she followed him.

AUBREY thought BASIL’s grandmother would open the door for them, as she always did when they came over, but instead she saw a young woman she had never seen before. She looked surprised to see AUBREY and not BASIL, but he quickly stepped in front of her to introduce the two to each other. The woman’s name was POLLY, the new caretaker of BASIL’s grandmother. Once BASIL introduced AUBREY as an ‘old friend’, the apprehensive look on POLLY’s face disappeared and she greeted both of them with a smile.

“BASIL doesn’t have many friends over, you know.” POLLY said.

“Yeah. I know.” AUBREY replied, smiling as she did.

POLLY giggled. “Then I’ll let you two be.”

AUBREY could swear the amount of flowers had increased since she last visited his room. She sat down on the carpet, cross legged, and soaked the smell of plants in. BASIL stood awkwardly at the doorway and fidgeted.

“I could ask POLLY to make some tea? If you’d want some?” He sounded like he was asking this question to himself.

“Yeah. Sure.”

He dragged his legs and left for the living room. AUBREY took this moment to snoop around a bit more. She stood up and started looking for the photo album; she could ask him about it, but maybe she could surprise him. The look on his face would be priceless.

She approached the drawer with the camera on top of it. It would only make sense for it to be under here. She opened the drawer and lo and behold – there was the album. She excitedly sat it down on the bed. The inscription “BASIL’s MEMORIES” made her feel nostalgic. She opened the book and started flipping through. The pictures filled her with even more nostalgia for better days. Seeing pictures of herself especially made her tear up; BASIL always did say she was photogenic, but considering how much she’s changed her look since then, it was like looking at a stranger.

But as she flipped through the pages, her heart began to sink. A picture with MARI on it had her face blackened with marker. Perhaps it was an accident? (It was clearly human-inflicted, but she chose to ignore that for now.)

She went through each page and an accident seemed to become a pattern. Her tears couldn’t stop spilling. Not because of overwhelming nostalgia but because of overflowing rage. It was clear at this point that he had done this.

What the fuck?

Why would BASIL desecrate their memories like this? Ruin the remnants of the most precious moments of their lives? These pictures which he took himself? She held the album in her chest and turned towards the door while crying her eyes out. He was there. He dropped the plate with two cups on the floor. The cups shattered to pieces with a piercing noise. He began stuttering something but AUBREY pushed him aside. She tightly clenched the album in her chest as she ran towards the exit, ignoring the voices calling out her name from behind. She ran and ran, until she was back in her rotten palace that she called a home. She buried her face in her pillow, still not letting go of the album; her memories.

Sick, sick, sick. He was sick. She would never let go of this anger. She was so done with all of this. She wanted to let go of her rage; but this was unforgivable. She was going to make him pay. She didn’t care anymore. No compromises, no take backs. It’s like the world was making fun of her for even trying to make amends. But she was going to let the world have it then; she would let herself become the villain. She was furious and she was never going to let it go.

She would show this fucked up world the only thing she’s learned from it.

Hurt people hurt people.

It felt great when she stomped on BASIL. It felt amazing every time he cried out in pain, tears smearing his ugly face. She was right – the look on his face was priceless. Occasionally, his shape would overlap with those of MARI from her dreams. Her empty eyeball spewing blood out, her expression dead like a cadaver’s, and AUBREY about to strike her lifeless corpse yet again. But then BASIL cried again, and MARI’s transparent image disappeared, and he was all that was left. Anger overtook her and she kicked him again.

Before she could strike again, there was another yelling voice and a figure blocked her way. KEL stared her down, spreading his arms out to protect BASIL. He looked just as same as ever, but only much taller than how she remembered. He glared at AUBREY, anger visible in his face; a face she had never seen him make before.

Angry? He was ANGRY? That filled her with rage in turn. How dare he be angry at her, when he was the one who turned her away? When he was the one who abandoned her and MARI? AUBREY’s face turned to one of pure fury. KEL took notice of her bat but he only stepped closer to her. He looked at her with equal rage, motioning that he wouldn’t budge.

They stared down each other for what felt like an eternity to her. AUBREY backed off. KEL looked surprised. AUBREY let out a ‘hmph.’ If he didn’t care back then, why would he come back now? He wasn’t worth her time. She decided KEL didn’t deserve a fight. She would throw him away, just like he did to her. She would hurt everyone who lied to her about loving her.

AUBREY turned back. KIM and the others followed, who were preparing themselves for a fight until just a moment ago. She heard BASIL’s sobs peter out in the background as she walked away.

KIM sure was taking her sweet time. She was supposed to just go grab a drink. AUBREY leaned her chin against the scooter and closed her eyes, zoning out to the sounds of THE MAVERICK rambling about something incomprehensible again.

She heard a voice yelling out. She opened her eyes and looked to her back. KIM was there and someone smaller was by her side but she couldn’t make them out. But she could make out the person in front of KIM as clear as day; that rodent KEL again. It was hard to even look at his putrid face. If KEL was yelling, that only meant the other insect next to KIM had to be BASIL. She figured she should teach him a lesson again. If KEL tried to intervene, so be it.

“WHAT’S GOING ON OVER THERE?!”

She rolled up to the three of them with a booming yell. KIM explained the situation, to which AUBREY nodded. She gave BASIL a fierce glare and that alone seemed to make him start tearing up and cower in fear. Good. KEL started spewing some shit and AUBREY wasn’t really going to have any of it. She turned her head to at least get a glance of the guy before moving onto her main target. But as she did, she heard something unbelievable.

“Tell her, SUNNY!”

Another figure came into focus, slightly behind KEL. A boy with dead eyes, staring directly at her as if he didn’t recognize who she was. Everything else in her vision became a blur and she could only see the boy, who was still staring at her. Her heart sank deeper and the anger inside of her began to hurt even more. When she blinked, he was still there. She examined him more intently.

He hadn’t changed one bit. Why was he back? She had long forgotten about him. Just as when she was about to leave her old life, its remnants barged into her world yet again. She could ignore KEL. She could pretend BASIL was no longer the boy she knew. But she couldn’t do that to SUNNY. He was the same as ever. Just why? Why would he come back? Why now? Why?! WHY!

Silence continued. She stared SUNNY down, her grip on her nail bat tightening. He was like a spectre; as if he wasn’t even there. The wound in her heart opened up again. She ignored the pain and spoke.

“…SUNNY’s here?”

It’s a tough pill to swallow.

Lily of the Valley: 2-3

HERO is depressed.

HERO crawled inside his blankets. He ignored the voice behind him. He ignored reality. He swallowed himself in memories.

Memories of her were all that was left. He needed to preserve them. Then she could live on.

A memory.

They were on a ferris wheel. The sunset dyed the interior with an orange hue. She looked out, staring out into the fading sun. The ferris wheel clanked and shook as it ascended.

He looked at her starstruck expression. The crimson reflected on her purple shirt. She looked back at him and smiled. He did, too. She flipped her bangs out of her eyesight. The ferris wheel began descending.

They stayed silent.

When the ferris wheel landed, he blinked. He was in a white space. The only other being was someone on her knees. She had her back turned against him. Everything about her was white except for her hair. He approached her, and she turned her head around. Her eyes were obscured by what seemed like scribbles. She smiled, saying nothing. They stared at each other. He waited for something to happen.

He was tired. He collapsed and closed his eyes, knowing she was by his side.

What could he even do?

Write a poem? A letter? Listen to a sad song? Lie here and cry more?

He stared at a wall in the middle of the night. His eyes were bloodshot and the area below them were black. The wall was never changing and never questioned. An everlasting constant.

There was nothing to do. What he was feeling wasn’t a particular emotion; it was the absence of all feelings. There wasn’t anything he could do to make it go away. It was already away. It wasn’t for making poetry. No art to make, no story to tell. No beautiful arrangement of words or colourful inks on a canvas which could express it. Nothing could capture her.

Images of MARI faded away in his mind. They swirled around and became a blur. It felt like another piece of her disappeared with each moment. It felt like he would lose them if he didn’t try to hold on to them.

These memories – were they even his? What did he own?

Intrusive thoughts invaded his mind amidst his dreams. A voice similar to that of hers whispered.

“You could have saved her. She needed you. She hurt you, so you thought it was fine to give up. But she was in more pain than you have ever been. You’re selfish. You killed her. She was right. It’s always about you, you, you.”

The voice grew sharper.

“Kill yourself.”

He huddled up and went inside his blankets again. He blocked his ears. That didn’t help. Of course it didn’t. It wasn’t an actual voice; he was losing his mind. He chuckled as tears flew out. He wanted to scream, but he didn’t want to wake KEL up. He closed his eyes tight. Tears spewed out through his eyelids. He held himself, shaking. Trembling in his own personal hell.

Hell isn’t where you go after death. Hell is what the death of a loved one does to you. Hell is grief.

Poetry doesn’t work. So he would do it this way.

ROSEMARIE. That’s the name that her mother gave her. People called her MARI.

Born March 1st, on a warm spring afternoon.

Her father was a Japanese immigrant who married an American in his home country. She was born after they came to the States.

When she was 10, her grandfather passed away. They moved to the suburban town of FARAWAY, California.

He met her on July 16th, the day she transferred, at a home ed cooking class.

She had a little brother named SUNNY. A quiet and kindhearted boy who looked up to HERO. She loved him, and he loved her.

MARI changed HERO.

He told her he loved her, on that strange evening by the lake, next to the sunset. She said she did, too. Nothing changed after that. They were always just HERO and MARI and always would be. All they needed was each other.

MARI lived and breathed pressure. She was a workaholic, never satisfied at how much she accomplished. Some people would die to achieve a quarter of what she did in her short life. She didn’t seem like a person who belonged in this world. She continuously pushed herself with no regard for her health.

She played softball. She loved competition and feeling the rush of adrenaline. The wind grazed her skin as she ran, feeling alive and thriving, her lungs chugging and her heart pumping.

She gave up softball when she hurt her knee. She told him everything was fine. She kept her smile. When he was over at her house, he heard her sob in the bathroom.

She found a new passion in piano. She had always loved music. She used to show him her synthesizers. It was the only ‘nerdy’ thing about her, since she hated comic books and movies. (She only watched them to make fun of them.)

She worked until her legs gave out, so she moved on to her hands.

The day she got OMORI was the happiest day of her life, or so it seemed to him. She showed him the majestic grand piano in excitement, revealing it by dramatically throwing the white blanket which covered it away. She played him songs that he had never heard of before. HERO and SUNNY and everyone else sat in the piano room and listened to her music.

Almost as soon as SUNNY got a violin as a present as well, they decided they would perform at a recital together. She had already been winning competitions at a national level. When HERO first heard this, he became worried for SUNNY. But MARI knew what she was doing. She was always right.

The night before the recital, SUNNY tried to kill himself. HERO heard sirens and saw the red lights of an ambulance. He saw MARI weeping and her world falling apart.

MARI locked herself in a room. She blamed herself and cut off everyone around her.

After 1 year, she came out. She visited all of them.

Then she killed herself. She was 16.

MARI was 16, loved jokes and had the brightest smile in the world, and she killed herself.

MARI was 16, held more love inside her heart than anybody he knew, and she killed herself.

MARI was 16. She loved her brother, and he loved her. HERO loved her and she killed herself.

No. He killed her.

Things she could have gone on to do.

She will never go onto be a famous musician, beloved worldwide. A taste of fame and recognition she always sought for in life.

She will never watch her younger brother grow and become a fine man. She will never attend his wedding or be there for him at his happiest moments in life.

She will see none of her friends have their best lives. She will never get to have her life, either. She took it away from herself.

She will never get to enjoy the sensation of grass touching her skin, or sunlight greeting her cheeks through the window in the morning. She will never laugh or cry or get mad. She will never hear her favorite songs again, or get to read her favorite authors’ new works. She can never sit down on the sofa and lean against his shoulder and let his fingers brush up against her hair again.

He will never see her again. They won’t ever have that life that they always wanted to have together.

Did he even deserve to go on, trying to live a normal life without her?

He came to his senses. He heard his parents asking about something, but he couldn’t hear. KEL was in front of him, cowering down on the ground. He was crying. His brother – his little buddy – was crying.

No time to think. He rushed towards him and hugged him. He told him he was sorry.

He couldn’t lose him too. Not him. You can take anyone. You can take everybody else. Just not him. You took MARI, don’t take KEL away too. Not him.

Can someone still be with you even when they’re gone?

He knew this would be the last time he’d see her in this white space.

She stood up for the first time. He looked at her smile one last time. A hollow, copy-pasted image from a memory of a bygone time. But in her fake smile, he could see a resemblance of the real person. His chest felt warm. He almost wanted to convince himself it was really her. They stared at each other for what felt like centuries. But he didn’t collapse.

The next moment he knew, she was gone. The white space came crashing down. He stood as his fantasies crumbled. Only patterns would remain.

He woke up. His eyelids were wet with tears. He sat up and wiped his eyes.

She was gone. MARI was dead, and she wasn’t coming back. She was never alive in his memories. Memories were just that. Memories. She was already gone.

He went outside for the first time in a year.

The bus was still on schedule.

He would leave for college tomorrow.

They were staying up all night, watching movies. KEL had fallen asleep by his side on the sofa. He decreased the volume and turned the closed captions on. He put a blanket over KEL. The light coming out from the television spread across the living room.

He scanned the room. The campfire was smoldering and barely radiated any light. Above it were his awards. He had long forgotten what they were for, but he remembered how she would tease him about them. The houseplant’s blue tinge could be seen even from the dark. She loved that one – she would take a sniff of it every time she visited. The telephone near the television loomed solemnly. He remembered how she would occasionally pick up calls for him; he’d blush and cover his ears, waiting to be embarrassed, but she somehow handled it better than he could, and passed on anything he needed to know to him.

Pieces of her, scattered all across his life. Her patterns still remained.

An old SWEETHEART movie started on screen. He stopped his line of thinking and turned his mind off for a moment, trying to fall asleep to the movie. But he couldn’t because of how absurd it got. It was cheesy melodrama and hyper over-reactions from the actors from beginning to end. He chuckled.

It got to a hilarious scene, in which every men vying for SWEETHEART’s love came to a standoff. He remembered how she loved this scene. When one man drew a gun out of nowhere, he expected to hear MARI’s laugh by his side, as she always did at that scene. When he didn’t hear her, he turned around in shock. She wasn’t there. There was only a snoring KEL.

His chest hurt. He clenched it. He breathed in and out to calm down. Not working. Tears ran down his cheeks. He choked, then coughed. He covered his face with his hands. His tears poured down without sound. Only sniffles came out.

Her patterns remained.

Years went by.

She was 16, and he was, too.

He was 19 now.

But she was still 16.

It always hurt to come back home. He got off the bus and walked across the street. Glass reflected light towards him. Her pieces were reflected upon him.

He wanted to go straight home. But there was something he had to do. He moved in the direction of the park. Somewhere he hasn’t been to in a long time. It had been too long.

As he went through the trees, he heard yelling. He ran. He saw KEL about to dive into the lake and someone he recognized as AUBREY on her knees, crying. He pushed KEL aside. Before he could even hear an explanation, HERO dove.

“You can’t do this to me,” he thought inside the water. “I said you could take anyone else away. But I didn’t mean them.”

SUNNY drifted in the water. His eyes were closed and his skin was pale, like her lifeless cadaver. Her patterns etched onto him. He grabbed SUNNY and reached in further. BASIL sank deeper. His face was contorting in pain. HERO grabbed him as well. He held both boys in his arms and swam up. They say the human body finds inconceivable strength in times of crisis. He supposed this was one of those times. Because when he came back out from the water, his heart was pumping like he was about to die.

He laid the two boys down on the ground. He checked for SUNNY’s pulse. He could feel it, and that didn’t comfort his mind. SUNNY looked like he was already dead. His peaceful expression reminded him of the funeral. He remembered her face, surrounded by lilies of the valley. A memory which was ingrained into him permanently. A pattern of hers which permeated his life forever.

SUNNY’s eyes began to open. HERO sighed in relief. He smiled. SUNNY looked confused – like he was expecting to see someone else – but HERO couldn’t care to ask about that, and other thoughts rushed through him instead.

“Oh thank god, he’s alive.” He thought, his heart still pounding. “He’s still alive.”

It had been a long day. They made a dad and his son happy, played hide and seek with the twins, and fixed a marriage. They were out on an adventure, like they were kids again. Doing these things would never fill the hole inside of him. But he was with SUNNY again. Maybe things could go on like those days again. Maybe they deserved to heal after all.

Maybe he could move on. It was a ludicrous notion but he wanted to believe in it.

It was late into the night, and they were having a sleepover at SUNNY’s house. He led them to where they would be sleeping. HERO remarked on how nostalgic it was for him as he walked across the house. At the stairway, they stopped. He once again said his thoughts out loud – closet to the left, piano room to the right.

The piano room. It hurt to say.

“I wonder if the piano is still there. I’ll go on ahead and see.”

A meaningless question. He knew it’d be there.

He opened the door. He was convinced nobody had opened ever since that day. The room was dark but he could still see clearly. Boxes were everywhere. Notes were attached to them, and papers with music notated on them were haphazardly spilled on the floor. Flowers were scattered on the floor, too. And in the middle was the piano. It was collecting dust. The window behind it had moonlight coming through.

This space preserved her last moments. It contained all of her pain. All of her agony still cried out here. Patterns remaining.

He couldn’t stand being there any longer. He went out and closed the door. SUNNY and KEL were staring at him.

“It’s not there,” he told them. “Let’s go to bed, you guys.”

They nodded. HERO took charge and went up the stairs. He looked behind him. Only KEL was behind him. SUNNY stared at the door to the piano room. KEL called out to him, and he followed the two of them upstairs. They went upstairs to his room and went to sleep.

He woke up in the middle of the night.

He looked around. KEL was there, snoring. The sight comforted him. At least KEL was alright. He felt KEL was never the same after that night. He hurt MARI, and he hurt KEL too. He was truly a sick person. Why he thought he deserved to heal eluded him. But as long as they continued to live, things would be fine.

He was too caught up in his own mourning that he never checked up on SUNNY. Any pain that he could have been going through all these years, SUNNY must have been experiencing in ten folds. Yet he was not the one to reach out; KEL was. He was proud of his brother, and at the same time, disgusted with himself.

But they were all here, now. Maybe they could even make up with their other two friends. Would MARI be happy to see that? As this question took over his sleep-deprived mind, he looked over to SUNNY’s bed.

He was gone. Where did he go? Oh my god. Where was he?

A terrible thought instead overtook HERO’s previous line of thinking. A memory of SUNNY’s lifeless form after being pulled out from that lake struck him. Different images overlapped in his mind. SUNNY bleeding out with a knife stuck in his abdomen; SUNNY choking as he flailed around, instinctively trying to get the noose on his neck off; SUNNY drowning in that lake, if HERO had been too late to the scene.

He headed downstairs. He frantically moved his eyes around. But they stopped at where the piano room was.

The door was open.

He carefully approached the room. SUNNY was there. He was standing in front of the piano. HERO’s footsteps woke him up from whatever that he was in the middle of. He looked behind and they looked at each other.

“You scared me there, SUNNY.”

SUNNY looked like nothing. It was always hard for HERO to tell what the boy was thinking of; he never showed his emotions on his face. But it was almost scary this time. The empty light in his eyes shined in the dark room as they stared deep into HERO.

HERO saw the piano behind him.

“I’m sorry I lied to you. You didn’t deserve that.”

HERO said, not taking his eyes off of SUNNY.

“It hurt to see. Looking at this room is like… looking at her body. It hurt so much, that day at her funeral. I didn’t want you to go through that again.”

SUNNY continued to stare at him. HERO swore he saw him nodding slightly.

“You should really get some rest. Go upstairs. I’ll come join you in a bit.”

HERO put on a reassuring smile. SUNNY hesitated for a moment. He glanced behind him at the piano for a few seconds. Then he walked past SUNNY, out of the room. He closed the door behind him. HERO was alone.

He sighed in relief. At least he was now sure SUNNY didn’t want to do the same thing as his sister. He just didn’t believe HERO when he said the piano was gone – and for good reason, since it was his house after all.

He looked around the room again. He still felt sick in his stomach. He looked at the piano. He swiped the dust off of the lid. Somehow, none of the dust had gotten itself on the name engraved in the middle: OMORI. He put his hand on the lid.

A final memory struck him. She was hugging him and telling him three words, repeatedly. He didn’t know what to say back. Feelings overwhelmed him, and he hugged her back. He didn’t even remember what he did tell her back then. He just knew it wasn’t what he wanted to say. And now, he would never be able to tell her the right words. He could never tell her anything again. She was not with them anymore.

He sat down in front of the piano and buried his face in his arms. He sobbed. He finally knew what he wanted to say. Four words, painted in regret. He said those four words back to himself, over and over, as if that would make up for the fact that he could not say them back then. He cried the words out, to which no one heard back, and especially not the one person who he wanted to tell.

He wanted to tell her that he loved her too.

Lily of the Valley: 2-4

BASIL wants to die.

He could just do it.

It would be best to aim for the neck, BASIL thought. It would be painful, but it would ensure his desired outcome. Perhaps he could go for his abdomen, just like SUNNY did. There would be a twisted irony in that. Or he could go for the wrist; old-fashioned, but maybe it’d be the safe bet. Better to make it sure.

It wasn’t like this was the first time he had tried to die.

The bathroom light was dim and weak. They were going to have it replaced soon. The aroma of flowers was nice here. He clenched onto the kitchen knife tightly. His hand was shaking, like it was going to drop onto the floor. The running sink water produced a deafening sound. He reached his other arm into the sink and pointed the knife towards it. Something wrapped around his arm and moved it against his will.

“BASIL, I’m home!”

Shit.

POLLY was here now. He couldn’t do it today, then. He’d rather not freak her out. He could always do it later. The days went by like nothing happened. This was just another day to add up to the tally. One of these days, he was going to do it. No use getting hung up on it when he got around to doing it.

Oh, no. Where would he put the knife now? He turned off the sink.

Next time, he figured he’ll use another sharp object instead. One that wouldn’t look too weird for him to be carrying around.

He wasn’t sure what it was; only that he called it something.

Something may have been what others called ‘clinical’ or ‘psychotic’ depression. But to him, it was just something.

Something was what wrapped around him as he sliced his shoulder with a box cutter.

Something was the voice whispering that he really was as worthless as he believed he was.

Something was the feeling he got when he remembered MARI’s dejected face as he told her she went too far.

Something was the deadly, ever present sense of inevitability that he felt when he woke up every morning. It was the curse of knowledge.

Something didn’t ask, and it didn’t forgive. It always got what it wanted. It was jealous of joy and envious of spite, so the only thing he could feel when it grasped onto him was empty void and fear.

Something was the overwhelming sense of terror and crushing loneliness which he felt every minute of his waking life.

Something was a poisoning of consciousness, antagonistic to life. It was the lens he saw the world through, and it filtered his every thought.

Something was the antithesis of happiness and a seizure of agency. It was the indescribable feeling that made every motion of life terrifying to enact. Sitting, walking, eating, talking; something turned each of these activities into a horrifying procedure, making it so that he could never feel safe. It was not just unpleasant, but literally horrible.

Something was his acknowledgement of the truth that MARI killed herself because of his words.

He looked through the biology text he found in the library. He hunkered down and made sure no one could see which part he was looking for.

“Suicide attempts made by cutting the wrist artery are usually unsuccessful if the vessel wall or blood clotting has not changed pathologically.”

Goddamnit.

Flowers need you to be alive.

There’s something about them which satiates a human desire. The desire to be wanted.

BASIL had been a burden all his life. He was nothing but a pest. A bug which ate away the leaves of every life he came across. Leeching off of others, unhealthily getting attached to their affection. Mistaking pity for love.

He never made anyone else’s lives better. He had always thought he’d be better off dead.

That’s why he was so desperate to prove that he could be of help to SUNNY. He thought MARI was the cause of everyone’s pain. He even thought it’d be better if MARI was just gone. Look how that turned out.

Not only was he a burden to everyone, he was also responsible for the death of someone who was important to him. Someone who was important to all of them.

What a piece of shit.

Every day, he woke up and asked himself one question: Why was he still alive?

It’s not good for one’s health to ponder over existentialism so early in the morning. So it was a good thing BASIL had little going on in his life. It’s not like he’d be late for anything or anyone. In that sense, there was no reason for him to be alive.

Would anyone mourn for him? His old friends won’t care; why would they care about MARI’s murderer? And he figured he wasn’t even on his parents’ minds at all. If he died, they’d learn of it a week later. Or maybe never. He kinda wished it’d be like that. Then he wouldn’t be a burden on them.

Every day was a struggle to get out of bed. Every day was a battle to prove that there still existed a value to stepping outside. That he was still wanted.

Oh. His grandmother. He couldn’t leave her behind. Not yet. And there was her new caretaker, POLLY, too. BASIL couldn’t get used to another person living with them, but she seemed like a nice person. Almost too nice. He wouldn’t want her to know how much of a freak he was. He didn’t want her to feel like she was responsible.

If he died now, he’d be an even bigger burden on them. He should make it easier for them, first. Maybe make them hate him, like his old friends.

Okay. He figured he could go another day. It’s just one more day. One more to add to the tally. Waste a day or a whole life through – not much of a difference to him.

He took a deep breath. He rose from his bed.

How many more days must he survive?

The thought occurred to him so naturally that it was almost friendly at this point.

It was triggered by the slightest thing, too. One day, he bumped into someone at school. The guy barely registered it and didn’t even hear him mutter an apology. He saw the boy walk away and thought: What if he didn’t exist? If he was gone, that person wouldn’t have had to bump into him. His day would’ve gone better. BASIL only made his life worse by being alive at all.

Sometimes, he would sit in class and think of a world where he was dead. Maybe he killed himself, maybe he got into an accident, maybe one of his old friends murdered him for being the freak he is. It didn’t actually matter how it happened; what did matter was how much that could improve everyone’s lives.

Not only would his family and POLLY not have to worry about supporting another mouth to feed, his absence would also mean they didn’t have to worry about living with a psychopath who made a girl kill herself. His schoolmates wouldn’t have to emotionally burden themselves with having to associate with such a person, and his old friends would sleep well, knowing justice had been served.

He found a sick pleasure in daydreaming of scenarios like this. His own twisted reality where everything went as he expected; a world which proved his worst fears and insecurities. A world where he really was as messed up as he thought he was. He knew deep down that it was just a selfish fantasy. Things wouldn’t be that simple. He wanted to indulge himself with these delusions so that he’d feel just a little better about his intrusive thoughts. It caused a feedback loop, in which being self aware of his depravity only made him more sure that there was something truly wrong with him, and that ending his life would be better for everyone.

The bell rang. Class dismissed. Oh. Time to go home, he guessed.

Crying in his sleep, he muttered to himself.

He didn’t mean it.

He just wanted to make things better.

He didn’t hate her.

He did think she went too far. But he didn’t mean it like that.

She didn’t have to die.

He was so sorry.

Could she ever forgive him?

No. MARI was dead. She can’t forgive anyone now, ever. He took away his own chance at redemption.

What a fucking piece of shit.

Thinking back on it, he was in love with SUNNY.

Things made sense with that in his mind. He wasn’t aware of it back then, but he really cared for SUNNY. More so than anyone else. Even more so than AUBREY, his very first friend. He felt a connection with SUNNY that he had never felt with anyone else. BASIL was so used to feeling like an outlet for other people to vent their frustrations onto, but he felt like he was equal with SUNNY. He listened to BASIL and cared about what he said. That was such a foreign feeling; but it was nice. Feeling that he was being heard, feeling that his presence was wanted – he thought maybe this was just what having a best friend was like.

But that didn’t really make sense. Because he was great friends with AUBREY. And he knew how terrible her family was to her. He could only listen as she’d vent about it to him. He felt bad for her, sure; but that’s all it was. It did not compel him enough to do anything about it, because he was a coward.

For SUNNY, though, boiling rage was all that remained after SUNNY told him what had happened. MARI didn’t even register as a real person in his mind; she was more like an abstract concept which embodied everything wrong. The ‘culprit’ – the source of the ‘problem’. In a state of panic-like mind, all he could think about was how to protect SUNNY.

All he ever wanted was for SUNNY to look back at him the same way BASIL looked at him.

Oh well. Not like that matters now. Reciprocated love was such an alien concept to him that it might as well be a fictional trope. SUNNY abandoned him, because who would want to continue being friends with his sister’s killer? Everyone leaves him. That’s what happens. So he figured it wasn’t ever worth it. No one will love him the way he could love them. It wasn’t fair, but it was the truth.

But it wasn’t fair.

He was sitting on the couch, mindlessly staring into the television. Random sensory input which went in and out. He was about to go into his room and read a book instead when POLLY came out from there. He stood up, and she blocked his way, putting her arms on her waists with a stern look.

He stepped back and nervously looked back at her. POLLY tried to put on a concerning frown and pulled something out of her dress pocket. A box cutter with a messy trail of dried blood stretching across the metal.

“BASIL, I found this in your room.”

Oh no. He was done for. She had figured it out. She would know how much of a freak he was. They were going to call the police on him and he would get arrested for pushing a girl to suicide. Or maybe they would put him in a mental asylum. The whole town would know that he was a deranged psychopath. Once that happened, he might as well just kill himself for real. If he could do so in a straitjacket, that is.

Before he could make an excuse, POLLY spoke again.

“Jeez, what were you doing with this? Did you get hurt while gardening?”

His eyes widened. His mind reset and only confusion remained. Staring at his stunned face with equal confusion, POLLY sighed and put down the cutter on a table.

“I know you like taking care of your flowers, but you have to be careful with sharp stuff.”

“Y… Yeah.” He spoke with a shaky breath. “I’m sorry.”

“Be careful next time, okay? I’ll get you real shears if you want.”

“Really?” He stuttered.

“Yeah. It’s alright, I’ll take it out of my pay. I want you to rely on me more, okay?”

“Th… Thank you, POLLY.”

He put on an awkward smile to show relief. She smiled at him too, as she walked to the front door.

“I’m heading out. Did you want anything?”

“No…”

With a hum and a goodbye, POLLY went out, and the door closed. BASIL sat down again and sighed. He wanted to crawl into a hole. He turned off the television and stared at the knife on the table. He grabbed it. He held it in his hand as he made the sharp part come out with his thumb. The dark crimson was even more visible up close.

He put it in his pocket. He went to his room and threw himself in his bed, his face buried in the sheets.

Shears didn’t sound too bad.

He choked as AUBREY stomped on him. Air came out of his gut, and he coughed it up like it was blood. He gasped and cried. Every time her foot collided with his body, he went further into a flight or fight response, and adrenaline would pump out. He felt his body heat growing hotter and his eyelids getting wetter, but he remained still. He hunched down and covered his head with his arms. AUBREY kicked him with every intention of breaking them.

This was his punishment. He was glad that it was AUBREY out of everyone who was enacting his judgement. He could always count on her to do the right thing. Courageous and confident AUBREY. She was always everything he’d never be, and someone to admire. Now that very same ideal was ruthlessly beating on him, furious at him for taking her own ideal away.

It didn’t matter that AUBREY only started doing this after finding out about the photo album, which SUNNY desecrated, shortly after the funeral. It didn’t matter that if he just explained the full situation, she might give it back. He wanted her to give the album back to him more than anything else; he would accept punishment, but he couldn’t give up his photos, his memories, his life.

But deep inside, he also didn’t want to do any of that, out of a sick sense that it was all part of his atonement. How dare he demand anything from anyone? MARI doesn’t get to demand anything anymore. She was dead. AUBREY hated him for killing MARI, not for the photo album. That was what he convinced himself. Perhaps this was what he deserved. Maybe if this went on, everyone else would eventually start hating him too, and then he could finally die without worrying.

The kicking stopped. He heard another voice, but he didn’t look up. Instead, he continued to cry as he held himself in the ground. He clenched his chest with his arms, as if his photo album was still there; as if his memories were still by his side. Even as KEL’s arms tried to grab ahold of him, he pretended as if no one was there.

He passed out and woke up in his bed. He was told by POLLY that KEL had brought him home. Now he had owed him. Damn it, he didn’t want to go thank him. He dreaded tomorrow. He feared surviving another day.

Something was tearing him apart, and he knew it.

The body’s survival instincts kick in well before it can recognize any danger, when it perceives a certain fatality; when it can detect fear.

His demise by his own hands was no longer a looming possibility, but rather a simple matter of when. And as much as BASIL liked to pretend that was what he deserved, and that he had no personal qualms with that arrangement, his brain begged to differ. It didn’t want to die; of course, that meant he didn’t want to die.

No one really wants to die. It’s not desiring the fall; it’s the terror of the flames.

And without the comfort of his memories reminding him of his old life – of happier days – this flame seemed like an ever present certainty. If he could have the album back, perhaps he could delay the flame by just a little.

The photo album represented a sliver of hope which he could cling onto. It would let him survive until tomorrow, and the tomorrow after. And getting it back soon became the only reason he woke up in the morning.

So it was just another day of begging AUBREY’s friend, KIM, to let him speak to her. This was an excellent tactic, as he knew it would never work. KIM was too loyal to AUBREY. This was what kept him going; actions which he knew wouldn’t change anything, but ones that still made him feel like he was doing something. It meant he could push back against the deadly thoughts for one more day. It was a calculated move to achieve his goals while not actually getting closer to them; because talking to AUBREY would be a nightmare and he actually did not know what he’d even tell her. It was the kind of spineless behavior which perfectly suited someone such as him.

But something unexpected happened. It was KEL, who, with his loud voice, attracted the attention of AUBREY herself. BASIL gulped. He prepared himself and started thinking of more excuses he could tell POLLY on why he came home with bruises. (‘I fell on the sidewalk’ wasn’t going to work a third time. Maybe ‘I fell down the stairs’?)

KEL started yelling more stuff and BASIL just wanted to get out of there before AUBREY could do anything. Then she saw someone and started speaking words. She had never once said anything to him or KEL during these past years as she tormented him. He had actually starting to forget how she sounded. But here she was – talking. Just who was this someone and why were they so important that AUBREY broke her years-long silence?

BASIL finally looked at who was by KEL’s side. A figure he knew painfully well. A face he’d seen many times in his daydreams before. SUNNY, staring at AUBREY with a blank expression. As if preserved right from his memories, he had not changed one bit. SUNNY, never changing, much like this godforsaken suburban town, and unlike BASIL’s life, which had been on a downward trajectory for years. SUNNY, alive and standing right in front of him.

What?

Why was he here?

Oh, right. He was dreaming. SUNNY was there, AUBREY was actually saying words, and he hadn’t gotten punched in the face once. Of course, this was all a dream; his ideal scenario in which everything went perfectly.

Screw it. He had come this far. He might as well throw everything away.

“AUBREY! Please listen to me…”

KIM pushed him onto the grass. It hurt. Huh, maybe it wasn’t a dream? But this wouldn’t be the first dream where he went through excruciating pain. (Those would usually end in SUNNY or AUBREY or MARI killing him, though. He wondered if that was what was going to happen next.)

Okay, then he just had to wake up. He closed his eyes and suspended his breathing. Soon, he would wake up in his bed again, and he would have to decide if he really wanted to keep going for another day. If he was going to have another dream like this, he figured this day might as well be the last one.

He kept his eyes closed, and it was still dark.

There was more yelling, and he heard some sort of fight going on, but he didn’t open his eyes. He only did when there was nothing to be heard anymore. He thought he would finally wake up from this horrible nightmare. But the only scene that greeted him with was KEL with a miffed face holding a knife and SUNNY with a neutral expression having a staring contest.

They eventually took notice of BASIL and walked up to him. KEL greeted him and BASIL replied to him only. He was still in a daze, not convinced this was reality. But with these words uttered by KEL, he had no choice but to confront the truth.

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but SUNNY’s here too.”

And hearing that name sent him into that flight or fight response again. A chill went down his spine, and his heart began pumping rapidly.

SUNNY. It was him. He was really here. The boy he loved, and the boy whose life he ruined.

Why?

What was happening right now seemed unreal.

They were looking through the photo album, with their old memories intact, like they had gone back to that time again. He could not believe that he actually had his album back; getting it back was such a defining motivation for his continued survival that having it there right in front of him sucked life out of him more than did it restore life.

But most of all, it was absolutely unbelievable that SUNNY would go to such lengths to get this back for him. He was under the impression that SUNNY hated him for being his sister’s murderer. But throughout the whole day, SUNNY had been completely okay with his presence. BASIL figured he was never the type of direct confrontation, but he also went through all of that with AUBREY and her gang. Why would he even do all of that just for BASIL?

He concluded that SUNNY must not care about him, because that was impossible; so he must have really wanted to see that photo album as well. He knew it was SUNNY who had tarnished MARI’s photos anyway, (By a simple process of elimination) so it made sense that it meant a great deal to him as well. That was the only possible explanation.

He didn’t care about BASIL. He was going to leave him again. (He didn’t want SUNNY to leave him again. He was terrified. But that was what was going to happen.)

Looking through these photos gave him a sense of comfort. It comforted him to know that these things really happened and that the happy moments weren’t just a figment of his mind. He often fantasized that things were always this bad, and that he had concocted a group of friends and the good times he spent with them just to cope with his shitty life. But these photos and KEL and SUNNY’s existence proved to him that they were all real. And the pain he gave them was real, too. There was never taking it back, and no amount of fantasy would change that.

It comforted him to know that even looking at these photos did not eliminate the inevitability in his mind. Something still dominated his mind, and there was a part of him that was glad it didn’t go away so easily. If it did, he really would have been as weak as he thought he was.

He realized there was only one thing he could do. If something wouldn’t go away even after having the album back, then the only thing left to do was to prepare for the unavoidable.

He gave the album to SUNNY. He did it when they were alone together in his grandmother’s bedroom, by the white egret orchids. He put on his best smile and pushed the album onto SUNNY’s chest. He accepted it without a change in expression or muttering a word.

SUNNY may have not understood the significance of this, but to BASIL, this symbolized finally letting go of his hopes. The might of the unrelenting finality had completely crushed him. It was closer than it had ever been before. Maybe this album could act as a new hope for SUNNY; but for BASIL, this was the end of the line. The beginning of the end.

It had been a long day.

Grandma was dead.

Everybody always leaves him.

He really wished he had died at the lake. Now, he had to finish the job himself. How messy. Drowning would’ve been cleaner.

His friends were asleep just beyond the door. All reconciled, having found friendship and joy again. Good for them. They didn’t need him anymore.

Grandma was gone, so POLLY would soon be gone too. She had no attachment left to him.

So if not now, then when?

He clenched the shears in his hand. It shook and trembled. The ones which POLLY got for him. It had proven useful all this time. It was certainly easier to garden with these than normal scissors. Too bad he didn’t get to use them for much long.

Ah, his plants. That was the one loose end he couldn’t clean up. He hoped someone would take it with them after he’s gone. He wasn’t going to leave a note or anything; MARI didn’t, either. (And he didn’t deserve to have a last moment of speech with his friends like she did.)

He held out the shears. It glistened in the moonlight coming through the window. The sharp edge gave off a sheen. It made him hesitate for a moment, and he looked out the window.

Something beckoned to him. Something wrapped around him. Something commanded him and moved his arm.

He’d do it right this time. He aimed for the neck. Here he goes.

A creek. The door opened slowly, and a figure emerged. He withdrew his weapon and parsed through the darkness, though the tears made it hard. And in the darkness, he saw the one person he didn’t want to think about; the one person who had the power to stop him, because he was the one person BASIL cared the most about, and the one person he could never let go.

SUNNY.

Lily of the Valley: 2-5

SUNNY stays alive.

Welcome to WHITE SPACE.

He’d been here as long as he could remember.

OMORI looked around the familiar surroundings. A laptop, a notebook, a tissue box, a cat, a lightbulb. He examined each of them, despite knowing that nothing ever changed here.

He stood in front of the lightbulb. It was dark. Despite providing no light, he could see clearly the springs inside. He stared into the lightbulb that remained unchanged, just like this space. He continued to watch it, not averting his gaze, despite knowing it will never light up. It was like he was expecting something. Yes, as if he was –

“Waiting for something to happen?”

He heard a voice from behind. MEWO’s voice was deep, as if a computer had pitched it down. He crouched down next to her and patted her head, and she purred like a normal cat. When he did this, he noticed a kitchen knife sitting on the ground, just a short distance away from her.

He stood up and went to pick up the knife. Despite the lack of any discernible light source, it shined and glistened as he held it out in his hand. He put it away and turned around. A monochrome door stood in the center of the space. He stepped in front of it and turned the doorknob.

Before he could walk through the door, he found himself in another place. Green plains stretched across his sights, seemingly ad infinitum. The sky was as blue as it could be, and he could see little clouds. OMORI looked around in bewilderment, not used to the unfamiliar scenery of colours and sensations.

There was a voice behind him.

“Hello, little brother. Come have a seat.”

Oh. It was just MARI, his older sister. She was kneeling on a picnic spot on top of the grass. Its red and white checker patterns were the only discernible landmark amidst the infinitely stretching plains. She gestured with her hand and invited OMORI to take a seat by her side, and he complied.

“The weather is great today, isn’t it, OMORI?”

She said, as she pulled food and drinks out from the picnic basket. There was too much here for just the two of them. He stared at the assortment of snacks. He could not help but feel something was missing. He looked behind them. The picnic spot was wide enough for more than two people. He looked back at MARI. She tilted her head in confusion, with a smile on her face.

“Hmm? What do you mean, the others? It’s always been just us two.”

Yes, of course. What was he thinking? It has always been just them. OMORI and MARI; siblings and family. The two were inseparable. All they needed was each other by one’s side.

Time passed by as the picnic basket became empty and wind blew against their cheeks. Even though they had been sitting there for what seemed like hours, the sun hadn’t went down. OMORI dozed off. His eyes repeatedly blinked, but he didn’t lose consciousness. Amid this hazy state, he heard a tune. He could hear someone playing piano faintly from somewhere. At first, he could not tell which song it was. But as it continued, it reached deeper into his memories.

A familiar melody played in three beats.

Recognizing the melody, he came out of his daze. He stood up and looked around, horrified at what the plains had turned into. The green and blue scenery had been replaced with a black void, and dirty scratches of white stretched across the sky instead. The ragged lines had a chalk-like texture to them.

In panic, he looked for the comfort of his sister, and turned his head to where she was sitting. But as soon as he saw what was there, he started stepping back in horror. What stood there in the place of MARI was a shadow. Its vertical eye stared back at him, and it inched closer as he stepped back.

It was SOMETHING.

He attempted to calm down, but SOMETHING remained, staring at him with its haunting gaze. He turned around to run, but another figure blocked his way. Its shadowy shape was hard to make out, but it was recognizable as a person; the shape of its hairline seemed familiar to him. The only discernible thing from the figure was a pair of white eyeballs. They shone brightly in the darkness.

“You can’t run forever.”

STRANGER spoke, borrowing the voice of someone from his memories.

“Face the truth and another door will open. If you seek redemption, it will lead you to the road you seek. But is that what you seek, or do you wish for another dream? A dream will always lead you back to the same place. To us.”

STRANGER stepped closer. OMORI looked behind him. SOMETHING continued to stare at him with its empty eye. Cornered on both sides, OMORI reached into his pocket and pulled out the knife. He took a swing at STRANGER, but it was like trying to slice a shadow. With no tangible form to collide with, the knife simply went through it, and it resumed its steps.

Once it was right in front of OMORI, it spoke yet again, its voice echoing through the dark depths.

“This isn’t your home, SUNNY. Wake up.”

Hearing those words hit OMORI with a realization. Fear dispelled in his face. As if it was his calling, OMORI held out the knife and pointed it at himself. Without hesitation, he struck one swift blow to his stomach. Red blood came out of his monochrome form, and he fell to his knees. He let go of the knife while it was still piercing his abdomen. As his body shook, he noticed that STRANGER and SOMETHING were nowhere to be seen, and he lost consciousness in that black void, with no one to comfort him.

And SUNNY woke up.

Losing her daughter was like losing a part of herself.

In the first few weeks, PATRICIA simply kept up the motions of living. Consuming food to sustain her body and sleeping for energy – these were simply means of survival, but she wasn’t really alive. Grief hadn’t even registered to her properly. It was simply an underwhelming feeling of absence; like colour had faded from every picture.

KEIICHI helped her stay alive. MARI’s death tore both of them apart and him especially. They never said it out loud to each other, but they knew; MARI was his favorite and SUNNY was her favorite. But both of them were still their children, who were alive because of them. With MARI gone, they found it hard to keep going. The least they could do was stay by each other’s side, which was something they could not do for MARI.

She felt powerless. Countless “what if’s” went through her mind. But every scenario always led back to the image of MARI hanged in their backyard. SUNNY was kneeling in front of her and staring into an empty void. Her eyes were open and bloodshot. She had foam coming out of her mouth. Scratches were near the neck. Her pale face seemed to contain all of her pain, concentrated into a single moment. But all of those were remnants of when life still breathed in her, just barely. What PATRICIA saw beyond that was a shell with nothing left dangling by the tree. The traces of her pain were only a reminder; an echo.

Why did they keep a rope? Why did they keep a rope?

It took a long time before she could regain her composure. Of course, the thought of ending her own life crossed her mind multiple times. But such thoughts were expelled by the existence of SUNNY. How could she leave him behind? Her baby girl was gone, and she could not stand to see him gone too.

She would keep going so that he could live.

Something that crossed her and KEIICHI’s mind was that they may have been overprotective of SUNNY because of his attempt; thus, they had left MARI to fend for herself against her demons. PATRICIA could always ask this question – “why wasn’t I there for her too?” – but it would never bring her back. So she focused on never making that mistake again. She mourned for MARI. She prayed for MARI. She wept and yelled and grieved for MARI. But it was not time to die in sorrow. She wouldn’t make the same mistake.

He stopped going outside of his room. This was terrifying for the two of them. It was like seeing MARI all over again. She lost sleep over the thought of one day finding SUNNY dead in his room too. But after months of pleading and never giving up, he went out. He still refused to go to school or go outside of the house, but he began seeing them. They had meals together like a normal family. When KEIICHI asked him how he was feeling, he answered. (Albeit with only a single ‘yes.’) PATRICIA could tell him she loved him and he nodded back.

This was good enough. SUNNY may never step foot outside into the world again. Eventually, they could help him reach that point. But for now, this was good. They were there for him. He wasn’t going to kill himself. Even though that fear of the mere possibility never went away, this return to normalcy provided comfort to the broken down family.

It almost made them forget that MARI ever existed.

But she did – or used to. And this could never be forgotten. Every day, before she went upstairs to head to their bedroom, she saw the door to the piano room. She had never opened it since her death. They couldn’t open it. They were too scared to. She was a grown adult, much older than MARI had ever been; but in the vicinity of that room, she felt terror. Real, overwhelming terror.

So it remained. They didn’t bother to lock it up or went anywhere near it. The piano room simply continued to exist, and the remains of her pain with it. Its looming presence constantly reminded them of what had happened and what they had done. Their failure as parents, and the tragedy this household contained. No amount of comfort achieved could ever erase the truth. The piano room was the evidence of her existence and the legacy which her life had left behind. It was Pandora’s Box – never to be opened, lest the memories open up again.

Thus, the door to Pandora’s Box stood there, in a perpetual state of silence and ennui. Waiting for someone to open it; waiting for something to happen.

Where was home?

They say home is where the heart is. But OMORI didn’t think he had a heart. He couldn’t feel it. For him, WHITE SPACE was his home. Being by MARI’s side on these plains was his home. This was where he felt comfortable.

“You’re barely touching your food, OMORI.” MARI said. “Is something wrong?”

OMORI looked back at MARI. She tilted her head. The purple outlines and pastel colours on her form seemed radiant against the blue and green backdrop. She smiled and took a sip from her drink.

“Oh, a question, you say? Sure, brother. What is it?”

OMORI stared into her eyes.

“Home? Oh, you silly. Home is wherever we are together!”

MARI laughed.

“You should smile more, OMORI. I’ve always liked your smile.”

As she giggled, he could hear that song being played in the background again. He stood up and looked around apprehensively. Something weighed down on his chest and fear crept in. He grabbed MARI’s arm.

“What’s wrong?” She asked, concerned.

He turned around without an answer. But just as he was about to run, he saw the plains had already begun to transform into darkness. He turned to MARI, and she had already faded away. In her place, SOMETHING floated, causing OMORI to back up.

“I told you.”

STRANGER spoke as it rose from the darkness. Its eyes bore into OMORI.

“You can’t run away. There is a way out, however. But she cannot come with you.”

As STRANGER continued, SOMETHING engulfed OMORI into the shadows, its eyes multiplying. OMORI squirmed in terror.

“Can you feel that burden on your chest? It is proof that your sins weigh down on you. A reminder for the heart, soulless as you may be. You will have to confront it one way or the other. It is only delaying the inevitable.”

OMORI cut loose from SOMETHING’s grasp. As soon as he was free, he pulled out his knife. SOMETHING floated behind STRANGER and both of them approached OMORI.

“You know what to do. Or are you waiting for someone?”

OMORI held out the knife. He plunged it into himself without hesitation.

When she answered the door, PATRICIA was not expecting to greet KEL.

He was sweating and puffing like he had run all the way across here from the other side of town. And he looked remarkably different from last when she saw him up close. Of course, the last time she saw him was years ago, when he was over at their house. Ever since what happened, the neighbors hadn’t been in touch.

She invited him inside the house and he walked in. He looked bewildered as well. PATRICIA told him he can sit on the couch while she got him a drink.

“Actually, miss,” KEL said. “I was wondering if I could see SUNNY.”

Her heart skipped a beat.

“Well, KELSEY…” She reluctantly answered. “I’m sure SUNNY would love to see you, but he’s still… sorting things out.”

“Can I just please talk to him?”

KEL stared at her with desperate eyes. It wasn’t just that he looked worn down; he looked absolutely crushed. It was an expression she was all too familiar with; it was one she saw every day in the mirror.

If she had to be honest, she wanted to ask him; why did you come now? None of you came to us when we were hurt the most. When he needed you the most. But did she really deserve to ask that question to somebody? She wasn’t there for MARI when she needed her.

How could she let her spite get in the way of her son’s chance at regaining life?

“He should be in his room, sweetie. You should… ask him before opening the door.”

And with that, KEL ran upstairs. PATRICIA looked at his back as he went up. She wanted to pray for him. There was a part of her that wished he could achieve something she couldn’t. Maybe she wouldn’t be the one to save SUNNY. But it didn’t matter who did. What mattered was whether her son got to live his life again. Nothing else mattered.

SUNNY woke up to a knock, and then several more knocks.

That wasn’t like his mother. She usually didn’t even bother to knock, much to his dismay. He begrudgingly got out of bed and stepped in front of the door when he heard a voice he did not expect.

“Hello… SUNNY? Do you remember me? It’s your old friend, KEL. I… Can we hang out today? Or whatever…”

And silence. His heartbeat accelerated. A familiar ringing could be heard. He hadn’t felt this way in years. His body was going into panic. His vision blurred.

He was terrified.

SOMETHING grabbed hold of him. Its tightening grasp suffocated him, and he struggled to breathe. He coughed. His chest felt like it was going to explode any second; his heart and his lungs were at full capacity.

But as he sunk deeper into SOMETHING’s net, he could hear a voice from within his memories. She spoke to him with an echoing sound, and his consciousness grasped onto the words.

“It’s not as scary as you think.”

He steadied his breathing. With all his strength, he broke one of his arms free and put it near his chest. He measured the speed of his heartbeats and began counting them until he could hear that they were slowing down.

Bit by bit, SOMETHING’s grip weakened, until he was free.

And he saw the door again. It was just the door to the rest of his house. He had gone through this door many times before. The first time he came out of his room since he locked himself in years ago, he also had to battle SOMETHING, although his parents were there with him.

Meeting KEL was a terror beyond anything from back then. He could be judged. He could be proven right on every thought he’s had these past few years. Maybe KEL was here to impugn him for the sinner that he was. Maybe he was here to tell him to kill himself.

But maybe KEL was here to give him a chance. Another chance to be there for his friends when they needed it.

He could feel SOMETHING trying to come back. But he shook it off and stepped forward.

If he missed this chance, he would regret it forever. He was sick of regretting things.

He opened the door.

And there he was. KEL stood tall, looking at SUNNY with shock in his face. It was like he didn’t believe SUNNY was actually there. He grabbed SUNNY’s shoulder. SUNNY flinched, but his expression didn’t change. KEL smiled and hugged him tight, shocking SUNNY. SUNNY stood there, frozen in silence.

“It’s so good to see you, man.”

He could not recognize the girl KEL referred to as AUBREY.

He examined every bit of her image, and it still did not register. Her face, her eyes, her hands; they were AUBREY’s as he remembered her. Sure, her hair colour was different, and she had contacts on, but that couldn’t fool him. However, it was not her outward appearance. It was the anguish he saw in her which rendered her unrecognizable. The AUBREY he knew was bright, resolute; she always found a positive side in things. He only saw hate in this person.

This was what rushed through his mind as she pulled out her nail bat in the church.

KEL stepped in front of AUBREY. She ran forward and headbutted him right in the stomach. He staggered and crouched down, holding his belly. He stared back at her, seemingly in shock, but it didn’t take long before she struck back. She kicked him right in the face and KEL fell to the ground.

She turned to SUNNY. They met eyes. AUBREY walked up to him reluctantly. He stood frozen in place. Even at that moment, he was trying to figure out if this really was that girl he knew all those years ago. Anger in her face faded away for a moment and he could see sorrow in its place. That was what truly struck him as being unlike AUBREY; that she was hesitant to do what she felt was right.

“You’re both nothing to me.” She said under her breath.

She punched him with her left hand. SUNNY stumbled backwards.

Chatter could be heard all over the church and the commotion grew larger. Amidst the noise, KEL yelled out and leapt at AUBREY. He tackled her and yelled at her to stop. He only held her down, but she began ramming the bottom of her bat against his face. She did this until his face started bleeding. She pushed him to the side.

With the two boys down on the floor, she backed up. She noticed the glances of every churchgoer. She frantically turned around. Fear struck her and she began to shake. KEL stood up while wiping the blood off his face. She glared back at two of them.

“Forget it!”

And she ran off.

Somehow, SUNNY didn’t feel any pain in his face, despite being punched minutes ago. But it ached him to see AUBREY’s back as she ran away. It didn’t hurt that his friend had changed so much; no, it hurt that she held so much pain in her, all because of him.

It hurt.

He could not recognize the girl KEL referred to as AUBREY.

But SUNNY accepted it. He knew how much this meant to BASIL, and what giving it to him meant as well. He didn’t believe he deserved this kindness from BASIL. Especially not after what he did to it.

He remembered how it was only a few days after what happened. It had been the last time he’d seen BASIL until today. He was over at BASIL’s house. They were looking through the album. When BASIL left the room to get something, SUNNY glared at the photos. Photos of her. Wrong, tainted. They were not what they used to be.

This version of her was not real.

Next thing he knew, the marker was on his hand.

He left after that, so he never found out how BASIL reacted. And he never got to know because he locked himself in his house for 3 years.

Surely, he knew SUNNY did it. Why he hadn’t told AUBREY yet was a mystery. Maybe BASIL gave the album to him as a way of forgiving him. Even though he did not deserve it, especially now that he’d seen what BASIL had been through.

BASIL let go of the album.

“Maybe one day, things can go back to the way they were before.”

He smiled. It was an attempt at fabricating hope. SUNNY knew what a fake wish looked like.

He held the album in his chest.

OMORI felt that there was something deeply wrong. The feeling clawed at his chest, and it would not settle down.

The clouds today were exceptionally thick. The sky was greyer than usual too. And most of all, the feeling that there was something missing was stronger than ever before.

KEL, AUBREY, BASIL… What were these names that were going through his head? Who were these people? This wasn’t his memory.

“OMORI, is something wrong?” MARI asked. “Sit down, we have the whole day ahead of us!”

OMORI turned around to look at her. She was smiling as always, and the saturated colours on her seemed to clash with the background more than usual. OMORI was confused; why did she seem that way? He was hesitant to go near her.

They heard a thunder strike. It was loud enough that he suspected it must’ve been very close. It started to rain.

“What’s happening?”

MARI stood up. She looked at OMORI with worry and confusion.

“OMORI, I’m scared.”

She was scared?

MARI was scared?

How?

This wasn’t her. It couldn’t have been her. It was wrong.

“Take my hand, OMORI…”

MARI reached her hand out to him. She was sobbing in fear. OMORI slapped her hand away instinctively. When their hands collided, it was like time slowed down. The sounds of rain had immediately faded away, and only an echo generated by the clash of hands continue to reverberate. OMORI saw MARI’s face in slow motion as he pushed her away; she looked terrified.

He blinked; when he opened his eyes, he found himself in BLACK SPACE again.

He wandered around the void. It was odd how STRANGER or SOMETHING had not appeared to him yet; he had never had to search them out before. He avoided the red hands crawling on the dark floor and continued on.

He heard something. It sounded like a voice, but it was so echoey and muffled that he couldn’t even tell if it was human, much less figure out the words. He turned around to the direction where it came from.

There was something standing there. No, it wasn’t SOMETHING – it was a completely different abomination, but still horrifying.

Its form took the image of MARI, wearing a white dress that he was familiar with. But its face stretched out to a grotesque extent, and its mouth was equally deformed with its tall gape. Its eyeballs were pitch black, and the face almost seemed like a skeleton. However, the most terrifying part was how its neck was completely snapped. Combined with how long it was, the distortion of her figure rendered her almost unrecognizable. But only almost. He knew this was how he last remembered her.

It overwhelmed him with fear, so much so that he couldn’t even move. The atrocity did not move either; it simply repeated its phrase over and over, while staring into SUNNY with its empty eye sockets. He felt something grasp onto him. This time, it was SOMETHING, which tried to drag him into its dark innards. He became stressed out. As he struggled against SOMETHING’s attacks, he could make out what the monster was saying.

It was saying I love you.

“Interesting.”

STRANGER appeared from the dark beside the monster, while paying it no attention.

“You always knew – you knew that this was but a fantasy. You knew that she wasn’t really her. That is not the truth you seek.”

OMORI had no time to heed STRANGER’s cryptic words; he only focused on trying to break loose from SOMETHING’s clutches.

“But what changed? What made your world crumble down? Was it seeing them? Was it watching the ramifications of your actions? That is an utmost unexpected outcome.”

STRANGER stepped closer to OMORI. SOMETHING seemed to have noticed this, and as soon as STRANGER got close enough, it immediately disappeared. OMORI was thrown to the ground and he breathed in and out harshly.

“The clock is ticking. You can’t wait forever.”

OMORI recovered himself and stood up. He stumbled. STRANGER continued to stare into him, while the monster repeated its haunting voice next to it.

“Do it.”

OMORI pulled out his knife.

He watched helplessly as BASIL sank deeper into the lake.

AUBREY fell on her knees. She was mumbling something, and KEL yelled at her. His words fell on deaf ears.

SUNNY stared into the water. It swirled and churned. He couldn’t find any signs of BASIL. The water had swallowed him whole already. He knew BASIL could swim, so why had he sank?

The answer was quite obvious. He had given up on life. It was clear from the moment he handed the album over.

Was he going to let another person in his life slip by right before his eyes?

He had to save him.

KEL stopped his yelling. His panic subsided and turned to the dock. He was about to jump into the water when he saw SUNNY standing at the edge.

“No, SUNNY, wait-”

He dove in.

He fell and sank and plunged deep into the depths. He flailed around, but it was no use; he had never learned how to traverse the waters properly. His vision was getting dark. There was a force bounding his limbs. He tried to open his eyes and look around him. The black tendrils of SOMETHING wrapped around him, not allowing him to escape.

SOMETHING bound onto him tight, and it dragged him down. Air ran out of his lungs, and he began losing consciousness deep in the water.

He heard music. There was a voice speaking over it.

“Steady your heartbeat… Don’t be afraid.”

SOMETHING’s strength weakened, and he could move his limbs slightly.

“You have to keep going.” The voice whispered. “No matter how impossible it seems…”

There was another force which tugged on him. It pulled him up. He didn’t struggle. Soon, he was out of the water.

When he opened his eyes and saw HERO, he wasn’t sure if he was still dreaming. He was not sure if he was still alive. He took a breath. It didn’t feel real. He couldn’t feel his heart, nor his lungs.

He couldn’t believe HERO when he said the piano wasn’t there. It made little sense, since his parents wouldn’t just throw it out. But there was also no reason for HERO to lie about it.

This question kept him awake and he couldn’t go to sleep. KEL’s snoring didn’t help. So he got out of bed. He made sure not to step on the two brothers and went downstairs without a noise. He turned around and approached the door.

He paused and stood in front of it. His heart skipped a beat. Terror struck him. SOMETHING came back and wrapped its dark limbs around his body. His body was shaking, and he had trouble breathing. His mind was rushing; his brain was telling him it sensed danger ahead. The panic was an all too familiar feeling.

He could hear that song again. A vaguely familiar sounding tune. Nostalgia dispelled away the fear. Comfort took its place instead. The voice came back.

“This is getting nowhere fast… huh, SUNNY?” It spoke in his head. “Remember to take a deep breath…”

He did as it said, and SOMETHING’s arms let SUNNY go one by one.

“You need to block out the little things… and figure out what’s important.”

When he was free from its grasp, he looked at the door once again. He grit through the pain in his stomach and opened it.

The first thing he noticed was the piano in the middle of the room. Moonlight lit that portion of the room like they were headlights. The various boxes and paper which surrounded the piano were only dimly lit and he couldn’t see them well.

He approached the piano. His heart stopped for a beat when it saw the name engraved in the middle: OMORI.

It grew colder in the room. He stared at the piano as it filled him with unease. It was like he could hear somebody cry out. There were echoes of a memory in this room. Memories that felt familiar; too familiar, perhaps. The last time he’d been here was –

The door opened and HERO came in. SUNNY turned around. He looked like he was panicking; he looked even worse than SUNNY. Upon seeing him, HERO sighed in relief.

He stared at HERO, and HERO’s face filled up with anguish. He listened as HERO spilled his heart out. It was the first time SUNNY had ever seen him be vulnerable. But this wasn’t the same boy he used to look up to; no, there was only a broken man left there.

“It hurt so much, that day at her funeral.”

The funeral.

SUNNY couldn’t remember much of it.

He didn’t cry.

He saw her in the casket. Cleaned and polished, decorated with flowers like a doll. That song was playing in the background. The waltz.

He didn’t remember how long he stared at her.

He couldn’t even remember how HERO looked there. Was he even there?

He must’ve been because he was here right now and telling SUNNY about it. This pain in his face wasn’t a lie.

He thought he finally understood why HERO lied about the piano. It was the same reason he locked himself in his room. Alone in his room, only sleeping the days away. Barely even alive.

AUBREY cried. She looked at each of them – all three – and held her face as she fell to her knees. The photo album sat right in front of her.

“I’m sorry, guys… I’ve been acting like such a jerk.”

“It’s not us you should say that to.” KEL frowned at her.

“Cut it out, KEL.” HERO said. “Come on.”

“Okay…” He sighed. “I’m sorry too, AUBREY. I haven’t been good to you either.”

“Wait, KEL…” AUBREY looked at KEL.

“No, I mean it.” He cut her off. “What you did to BASIL was horrible, but I never wanted to understand it. It scared me, really. But…”

KEL looked at SUNNY for a moment and stopped his words.

“There. Now we’re all made up.”

HERO looked at both of them and smiled. They tried to smile too; AUBREY chuckled while KEL grinned. SUNNY stared back at all of them in the middle of the room.

“He’s right, you know.” HERO told AUBREY. “I heard about what you did. When we go see him next, you need to apologize to him too.”

“I know.” She sniffed. “He will never forgive me.”

“That isn’t the point, is it?”

“Yeah.” She nodded. “I know it might never happen again, but… I want us to go back to how it was before.”

“I miss her.” She said.

“Yeah.” HERO looked down.

“I miss her too.” KEL said.

“This is all feeling awfully familiar, isn’t it?” HERO chuckled.

“It is!” KEL laughed awkwardly.

“But something feels different now.” AUBREY glanced around her room.

“Yeah. It’s like…”

They didn’t have anyone to wait for this time.

That was what SUNNY said. The three of them looked at him. Some silence passed as they all stared into him, and he stared back at them. After a moment, AUBREY sat down. She looked like she was about to cry again. HERO stood next to her and looked down solemnly. KEL didn’t seem to understand, but once he got it, he fidgeted and glanced around in silence.

They spent no more time in AUBREY’s room. They headed out, with SUNNY leading the way. There was only one place to go.

OMORI woke up in BLACK SPACE. He wandered through a forest. He could see only trees with a pitch dark texture. They looked dead and what little leaves they had seemed withered. He frantically searched for an exit, but he could not make out his surroundings. It felt like the forest stretched on for an eternity.

He ran. He ran like his lungs were about to give out. He could only hear the rustle of grass and the sound of his own heartbeat. He closed his eyes and sprinted until his legs could not stand it anymore.

Eventually, he stopped and opened his eyes. He was in an open field, but there was still no colour. In front of him, there stood a lone tree, bigger than any of the ones he just saw. It was blurred, as if it was being censored. When he inched closer to take a better look at it, the blur went away. Only when he was right in front of it, could he realize what exactly was being concealed by the blur. It was not the tree itself, but what was hung on it.

It was her.

An empty shell which used to be filled with life.

It dangled in front of the tree like a puppet. She looked pale and cold.

MARI was dead.

“Memories are a medium.”

STRANGER spoke from behind OMORI. He did not turn his head. He could not take his eyes off of her.

“But whether it can become a connection for healing or deterioration is entirely up to choice. Let’s keep looking.”

The scene changed. A church, also devoid of colour. People he knew were also there, but it was like time had frozen in place, because they were not moving at all.

He walked up to the middle of the church, where the casket was. He saw her there. Lying inside the coffin, like she was sleeping. Lilies of the valley surrounded her.

“Look at her. Burn this image into your memories. You cannot run away from it.”

He looked behind. From up here, he could see the faces of every attendee. His friends were all there; KEL, HERO, AUBREY, and BASIL. There was someone else next to BASIL, but their figure was so distorted that it was impossible to tell who they were.

“Look at them. The pain you’ve caused in them. The lives you’ve ruined. But despite it all, do they still love you? Is that even the right question to ask?”

The ground shook. The ceiling came apart, and it came crumbling down. The pieces collided with the floor, and the entire building began to crack.

The church collapsed in on itself. He ducked and covered his head, but the debris went through him and disappeared into the dark. When everything had dissipated, he was in a black void. The only thing he could see was the shape of something tall in the distance. He felt drawn to it and walked towards it.

Once he was close enough, he realized it was that same tree from before. He finally recognized it as the distorted form of the tree in his backyard. It was entirely black with a white outline. Besides the colours, there was another key difference.

It was who was hanged.

It was him instead.

STRANGER appeared in front of him.

“The avatar will reveal the truth in time, and the DREAMER cannot dream forever. So what will it be? Will you choose to fight it head on, or will you choose to perish instead? Time to decide.”

It stepped away, and its form faded away.

“He’s waiting for you.”

And SUNNY woke up.

He was sweating. He rose from his sleeping bag. His friends were still sleeping. He made sure not to make a sound.

KEL.

He was the kind of guy who just wanted everyone to be happy. He brought light to their lives just by being there by their side – that was what she said. He was the only one to care enough to come find SUNNY even after all these years. Could he ever repay him for that kindness? Even when he took so much away from him?

He was really going to miss him.

AUBREY.

Bold, courageous AUBREY; these were her words. He could always trust her to do the right thing. AUBREY never faltered at the sight of backlash. It was almost like she continued purely out of spite for those who didn’t believe in her. But to him, that didn’t seem childish; she was incredible. He had always admired AUBREY. It felt liberating just to be around her. Could he ever expect to be someone as half as fearless as she was? Even though he took that side of her away by murdering her idol?

He was really going to miss her.

HERO.

He had always been like an older brother to him. Someone you can rely on to guide you through anything. He seemed like the perfect match for his sister. Even now, HERO dove into that lake to save him without hesitation. He owed HERO his life. But all he did was take away from HERO’s life. He took HERO’s light, his love, his soul. She loved HERO – she told HERO. And he took her away.

He was really going to miss him.

There was one more person left to see. One more person to say goodbye to.

He silently walked to BASIL’s room. He stood in front of the door and took a deep breath. It was going to be fine. He would be asleep, anyway. He would just do the same thing he just did to everyone else. Then he would go back to his house. He would finish what he started.

SUNNY opened the door. He saw BASIL staring out the window into the moon. BASIL turned around and faced SUNNY. He seemed horrified at the sight of SUNNY; but soon, he put on a nervous smile.

“Ah… SUNNY. It’s just you.”

SUNNY stepped closer.

“Don’t worry, SUNNY. Everything is fine. I’m – I’m fine.”

As he walked, he noticed what was in BASIL’s hand. His steps became slower and more careful.

“I’m going to make things right. Everything is going to be okay.”

BASIL held out the shears. At first, it seemed to be pointed at SUNNY, and SUNNY stopped walking. Then BASIL pointed it at himself. His hand was shaking, and it barely looked like he was gripping onto it.

“But… I can’t do it with you here. I – Your eyes, they won’t let me. So could you please wait outside? You can go back to sleep.”

SUNNY listened to every word BASIL said. A series of insidious thoughts came to his mind: He was right. This was none of his business. He was going to die today, anyway. What was to say they couldn’t have one more? Whether BASIL also died didn’t matter to him. This was what he did best. Leaving people.

SUNNY stared into BASIL’s eyes. His smile was fading away. His hand was shaking more and more.

BASIL didn’t deserve this. All he tried to do was to help SUNNY. He was the only one who would stick by him when MARI left him. BASIL was such a kindhearted person that he even cared for someone like him. Even though it was arguably his fault that AUBREY began bullying BASIL for the photo album, BASIL continued to blame himself instead. Empathetic to a fault – she said that. A person like that deserved to live much more than SUNNY. If there was one thing he could do before he ended his life, it would be to prevent BASIL’s from ending.

He continued to walk closer.

“Wh… What are you doing?” BASIL drew the weapon closer to his stomach. “Don’t! Don’t come any closer!”

In an instance, SUNNY was within shouting distance with him. He reached for BASIL’s hand, which had the shears on it.

“No!”

On touch, BASIL reflexively threw a punch with his other hand. But SUNNY did not give up, and he attempted to wrestle the shears away from BASIL. He pushed BASIL with his elbows in the process.

“Stop it, SUNNY!”

BASIL shouted and slapped SUNNY. SUNNY hit BASIL’s arm and he dropped the shears on the ground. As SUNNY tried to reach for it, BASIL pushed him away and grabbed it back. SUNNY jumped and tackled him. They wrestled for the shears on the ground. BASIL got a hold of them, and SUNNY reached out his arm.

“Why won’t you just let me -”

When SUNNY’s arm almost reached him, BASIL swung at SUNNY with his dominant arm, which was holding the shears. The sharp object pierced through SUNNY’s right eye. Blood gushed out of his eye and it splat onto BASIL’s cheek. SUNNY fell to the side and yelled in pain, holding where he had been stabbed with his hands.

“Oh my god! I’m so-”

BASIL rushed to his side. SUNNY could not stop writhing in pain. BASIL sobbed loudly as he held SUNNY. He saw his own hands which were covered in blood, and he yelled even louder.

“SUNNY, no! Don’t leave me…”

SUNNY’s vision faltered. The pain in his eye settled down, strangely enough. He just wanted to fall asleep. It was getting colder and colder. The only thing he could do was the sound of BASIL crying. He didn’t want to see him like that, but the fact that he wasn’t dead comforted SUNNY.

All of this felt too familiar. He remembered the last time he was in a situation like this. That time, the last person on his mind was BASIL. He supposed, then, it was appropriate that when he died for real, BASIL would be by his side.

His breathing got weaker. He lost consciousness.

He was back at WHITE SPACE. But he was SUNNY; not OMORI.

He looked around the familiar surroundings. A laptop, a notebook, a tissue box, a cat, a lightbulb. And –

OMORI stood in the middle.

Confused, SUNNY walked up to him. OMORI remained unresponsive. SUNNY gave up trying to communicate with him. Instead, he went up to the lightbulb.

The lightbulb was equally unresponsive. It was pitch black like always, providing no light in a space that didn’t require any. He stared into it, as if it was entangling him in. It loomed silently.

Yes, it was just like always. He was waiting for something to happen. But nothing ever happened. He was no longer OMORI; he was just him. SUNNY. He had no use for this now.

He remembered what STRANGER told him; what it told OMORI.

He grabbed the lightbulb and threw it into the ground.

He saw the space darken and light back up. Nothing seemed to have changed, besides the shattered lightbulb on the ground. He looked at the various pieces of glass. Then he noticed that the void surrounding the space was flickering between black and white, like a broken light.

Panic settled in. He turned his head around to look for a way outside, only to be greeted by OMORI staring at him from the middle of the space. They met eyes.

OMORI drew out his weapon. He inched closer to SUNNY.

“It was your fault.”

OMORI slashed his knife at SUNNY. SUNNY dodged and backed up.

“If you hadn’t gone and tried to kill yourself because you couldn’t handle the work, she’d still be alive.”

OMORI slashed again. The knife hit SUNNY’s arm, and he started bleeding. He held the wound with his hand.

“You should’ve been there for her. She was suffering too, yet you abandoned her.”

OMORI swung his knife directly at SUNNY, but he narrowly avoided it.

“She killed herself because of you. People like you don’t deserve to live.”

OMORI continued by taking another quick plunge at SUNNY. He couldn’t react in time, and the knife grazed his abdomen. He started bleeding from there, too.

“You took her away from all of them. KEL, AUBREY, HERO… You saw what happened to them. Their lives were torn apart because you were selfish.”

SUNNY tried to punch OMORI, but the hit barely affected him at all. OMORI slashed him again. The knife went across his cheek and his face got bloodied.

“It should’ve been you who died.”

OMORI kicked him in the stomach where he just got stabbed.

“You killed MARI. She loved you and you killed her.”

OMORI stabbed him. SUNNY took damage.

“HERO loved her and you killed her.”

OMORI stabbed him. SUNNY took damage.

“AUBREY loved her and you killed her.”

OMORI stabbed him. SUNNY took damage.

“KEL loved her and you killed her.”

OMORI stabbed him. SUNNY took damage.

“BASIL loved her and you killed her.”

OMORI stabbed him. SUNNY took damage.

“You loved her and you killed her.”

OMORI stabbed him. SUNNY took damage.

“Kill yourself.”

OMORI stabbed him and he fell to the ground.

“Do it.”

OMORI dropped the knife onto the ground, in front of SUNNY.

OMORI’s words loomed over his head. It repeated in his mind over and over again.

Kill yourself. Kill yourself. Kill yourself.

The knife seemed to beckon. His chest felt heavy, not to mention the pain he felt from all of his wounds. It felt exactly like SOMETHING when it grasped onto his heart.

And just like when SOMETHING grabbed him, he could hear that faint melody in the background: the waltz. Its volume was growing larger and larger.

It only brought terror to OMORI; but in this moment, as himself, it gave SUNNY strength. Trauma turned into a medium. A medium for reminiscence; a medium for expression.

Memories rushed through him, one by one.

Listening to her play the piano for the first time. Getting the violin at the birthday party. The first time he could produce an actual note with it. The first time they harmonized with each other with their instruments.

He remembered how fun music used to be. When it didn’t strike fear in him; when it was a mode of expression. He remembered how happy he was to be with her. How happy he was to connect with her through the shared love for music. That was called life. For the past few years, he considered a life without her no life at all. Life without MARI was not a life worth living.

Other memories rushed through him.

KEL talking about HERO yelling at him. AUBREY talking about how hurt she was when everyone left her. HERO talking about how painful her funeral was. It wasn’t just him who had suffered. He saw for himself just how much MARI’s death had hurt all of them.

Would his death accomplish anything?

He still hated himself. But he could not stand to see his friends be in any more pain.

If his death would not accomplish anything, perhaps he could try giving life another shot. Maybe he could become a person he’d be proud of being one day. He could live knowing his friends were there and that he was alive, breathing the same air as them. He would be alive and know that he survived; that despite everything, he had prevailed. He would have done that. It would be a life worth calling a life.

He wanted to learn how to love himself. It seemed like such an impossibility, because he was disgusted with himself. But he wanted to. He felt such visceral, terrifying fear at the thought of death.

He didn’t want to hurt his friends again.

He wanted to see BASIL again. There were so many things he wanted to tell him. It’d be impossible to say all the things he wanted to say within this lifetime. He wanted to be alive so that he could live through even a fraction of that.

He wanted to live.

He pushed the knife away. It slid across the floor of WHITE SPACE. OMORI, appalled by this, chased after it and picked it up again. The fabrics of WHITE SPACE flickered rapidly.

SUNNY found himself holding a violin and a bow. He readied the instrument on his shoulder.

Music swelled in the background. It turned to that of a muffle to a booming roar. The waltz continued, but the lead section was absent. He played his part. For the first time in what felt like an eternity, SUNNY began speaking what was in his mind.

He didn’t kill her.