"Hmm…?"
A brittle crack echoed through the stillness, stones shifting somewhere in the dark.
Where am I?
It was so dark that I could see the stars—far too many of them—and two moons hanging in the sky.
Two moons…? Where the hell is this?
I pinched myself hard. Nothing. Then I slapped my own cheek—pain. At least that still worked.
"Ahh—what the heck? Why is my hand so rough…?"
My fingers brushed across cement, broken bricks, twisted iron—cold, unfamiliar shapes scattered around me. My mind spun with questions I couldn't answer: What was I doing here? How did I end up in this place? What happened? Then—another sound. A crack. A thud. Something heavy falling in the dark.
"Is anyone there?" I shouted. "If this is a prank, it's not funny! I'm— I'm bleeding here! My arm is all scratched up! …Please… help?"
Silence. Nothing answered me, not even an echo.
With whatever strength I had left, I crawled onto a large block of debris and peered toward where the sound had come from. A faint light flickered—something shining. A phone?
I rubbed my blurry eyes. Yes. It was the glow of a mobile screen.
Carefully, I slid off the block to reach it—
Thrr—
"Huh—?"
Trkrrrr—tug—thog—THUMP.
I slid several feet down a slope of rubble before coming to a stop beside the light. The phone was cracked clean in half. Half my body felt numb from the fall, but my fingers still moved. Somehow, I grabbed the device and squinted at the fractured screen.
01:45.
I swiped down, tapped the remaining part of the screen—and the flashlight turned on.
At last, I could see.
Rubble stretched out everywhere—mountains of it. Beyond that, a dense forest loomed, swallowing the weak beam of my light as if it were hungry.
Then I saw something that froze my breath in my throat. Blood.
Not the kind neatly sealed in hospital pouches—this was splattered across a grey wall and soaked into the muddy ground. Chunks of… flesh lay scattered, though most of it was crushed beneath a huge fallen pillar.
The color of the blood mixed with the familiar grey of the wall and the wet brown mud. But that didn't make sense. Before I ended up here—before everything went dark—the sky had been clear. Summer. No clouds, no hint of rain, nothing that could've made the ground this soaked.
And yet, here it was—wet, muddy, as if a storm had passed through a world that wasn't mine.
My eyes followed the grey wall again, and a chill crawled down my spine. I recognized it—not because this place was my school, but because the rubble itself was my school. The shattered concrete, the exposed beams, the collapsed pillar crushing the dead body… they were all pieces of the building I had spent most of my life in.
This wasn't just any ruins.
These ruins were my school building.
This… wasn't Earth.
As I scanned the wreckage, something else caught the light—a shattered window. Beneath it lay another shape.
"Another dead body…?" I whispered.
But there was no blood splashed. No wounds.
Wait— it moved.
It was alive.
I tried to stand, but my legs refused. So I dragged myself forward through the rubble, inch by inch. The figure was a girl—face hidden behind long black hair plastered to her skin. The blood on her cheeks glued the strands in place, making it impossible to recognize her.
My trembling hand slipped, the phone clicked, and the screen went dark. I tried to turn it back on—but the broken switch was buried deep, and my nails were too damaged to reach it.
Pain surged suddenly—sharp, blinding. As if something inside my skull had been waiting for the darkness to strike.
Then the sting of the pinched arm returned, the throbbing of my wounds flared, and everything blurred.
I collapsed. And the world went black.
…o…to…kito…
Akito!!
Someone was yelling at me.
"Huh?"
I had been taking a quick nap during English period—mainly because I forgot my book—and now I snapped awake to see him.
The guy standing over me had annoyingly good hair, glasses shining just enough to make him look smarter than he actually was, and eyes staring straight into mine.
I made a face. "What do you want, basterd?"
He was, of course, none other than my only close friend—Yuta.
"Bruh, I was kind enough to wake you up after the period ended, and look at this lil' shit—talking to his father like tha—"
"Lil' shit my ass! You're an inch shorter than me!" I shot back.
"Alright then, dumb shit who couldn't even reach top 5 ranks."
He smirked. He knew I couldn't. Even I knew I can't.
I sighed. "Nevermind. Which period is next?"
He answered like we weren't just insulting each other:
"It should've been maths, but sir's absent, so English teacher—sir—is taking this one too."
"…Then why even wake me up?" I yelled, though not loud enough to get attention.
He clicked his tongue. "Well, you told me who your crush is, right? That girl was looking at you for a sec, so I woke you up!"
That pissed me off.
"What if she looked for a few seconds? That doesn't mean anything! Let me sleep—don't make me delusional."
I turned my head away. But she was looking. Right at me. The moment I saw her, she pretended nothing happened and stared forward again.
My mood shot up for no reason. Which, obviously, meant I had to sleep again. So I did.
.
.
.
.
A bright light pierced through my eyelids, painting everything red behind them.
"Waaahh…?"
I woke up—
and saw the school rubble again.
This wasn't a dream.
I really was in another world now.