Jake Darwin. That's my name.
I'm an author—a web novel author to be precise. However, that only came to be after I had practically consumed a few terabytes worth of movies, animes, books, and novels. I can't place what exactly brought about this desire to write. Perhaps it was out of boredom, or just the novelty of bringing my ideal story into reality.
There were a lot of books I read in my life, 80% of them with endings that left this bitter feeling in my chest. In fact, I came to have a sort of phobia for endings, be it movies or novels. Once I noticed a story was nearing its end, I would drop a review and leave so I wouldn't end up hating it just for that one detail that didn't sit right with me. Perhaps that was the main reason after all—the desire to bring a story to an end which I considered ideal.
So I joined a platform as a writer with the pen name Merciful_Creator.
Yes, I know. Cringe. But it was the only thing that satisfied me after an initial endless search for a name that wasn't already in use. But that's besides the point.
The novel was titled Records of Atlantis, and the first chapter came with staring at a blinking cursor on the Notepad app in my phone. The next three chapters was the same story but with a lot of staring at my ceiling as well. With time it all started to come together, my creation taking form, no longer just flitting ideas in my head but an actual story that people came to appreciate.
I don't know why, but it made me so happy, and that was literally the first time in my life I felt that way.
From as far back as I remember, I had always had a psychological problem—a disconnection from reality that never felt quite like I was living. A hollow feeling of being a spectator in your own life. The feeling of viewing my life from a third person's perspective. So I HARDLY felt genuine emotions like people around me would. Most of what I portrayed were trained responses I came to perfect.
"Did you hear? That guy's mom just died."
"Oh... that's bad."
There was no empathy, just the pretense of one. I knew I had a problem—I always did. But knowing didn't mean anything would change. It was who I was, what I was. I couldn't alter myself to become NORMAL, not that I even understood what it meant to be normal in the first place. So I lived with it.
No one noticed anyway. With how good I was at faking it, with time I became adept at picking up hints and realizing when to react in certain ways depending on the situation, mostly by mimicking the emotions I saw from the people around me. You could lie to everyone else, but not yourself. Deep down I still knew something was wrong with me.
However, for once in my life, I had something—something that made me smile, a feeling that came from seeing how much people actually loved my work.
Now, let's take a step back to how it all happened.
One day, a day just like any other, I was invited out on a date by a certain girl known as Emy, a girl I discovered to have feelings for.
Yeah. I was surprised as well.
I? Actually liked someone?
At first I had thought it was some heart illness or something equally stupid, but who could blame me. I had never felt such intense feelings before—it was so alien to me. The nervousness I always had around her, the rapid beating of my heart whenever our eyes met, it all made me feel like I was developing some deadly heart-related illness. But with time I came to realize it wasn't that. I was just attracted to her, as a guy would be attracted to a girl. That was just it.
The problem, however, was the fact that she seemed to hate me for some reason.
When our eyes met, she would instantly look away. When I gave a casual greeting, she would just hum in response, and sometimes not respond at all. Whenever it was me saying something during a project or practical which we were coincidentally paired up in, she would always find ways to make me look stupid. Sometimes she would just straight up glare at me whenever I tried to initiate a conversation.
With time, I realized she just wasn't into me, so I gave up and decided to forget about her.
However, I think my sudden retaliatory animosity and indifference got on her nerves for some reason. I don't know why though. She was always doing it, so why get mad when I decided to play along?
One day, while playing a truth or dare game with some coursemates, things got out of hand and she literally confronted me. She blew everything out of proportion, said something about my act to get her attention being childish or something along those lines. I didn't really talk much—the talking was done on my behalf by others who saw what was actually happening—but all in all, she embarrassed herself that day as it all backfired.
I think I should skip the part of how her eventual ploy for revenge suddenly turned into an unhealthy obsession.
The main take here is she eventually became my girlfriend. Getting in a relationship with her was, at that point, the only way I could save her from going full psycho. I could see the signs, and being an avid fan of anime made me wary. Who knew what she would have done if I left her to her own devices.
I won't lie, I had dared to think that would be the craziest experience I would ever have in my life.
But it wasn't. Not even close.
On a certain day she had invited me on a date.
If I remember correctly, on that day I was dead bored and had hit a literal wall of Jericho in my novel, so I thought it was a good idea.
It wasn't.
It was right there and then, while walking towards the entrance of the restaurant, that I heard the loud screeching of tires and screaming. The moment I turned back, all I saw was a tumbling van, and that was all.
I died.
I mean, I must have, to have ended up in this world.
At first... I cried. I don't know why it hurt so much, so damn much that it took me a really long time to accept this was reality. However, I just couldn't stop the tears from coming, or the pain in my chest that wouldn't go away.
But as though that wasn't bad enough, things got even worse when I realized where I was, and who I was...