You know what they say? You probably wouldn't. Not now. Not later. Not in the past. Neither the future. Not when WWIII starts. Not when the world collapses. Not in 100 years. Not in 1000 years. Not even in a million years.
Never, never, never would you know.
Hahaha, it sounds ridiculous, but it really isn't.
Then please let me tell you something that no one would tell you, not even yourself, neither your devil on your left, nor your angel on your right, ladies and gentlemen.
So let me tell you the—
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Oh, looks like my time is up. My desktop is slowing down. Muu... this is why Wi-Fi in the library is no good. Let me make the mouse hover over Notepad of my Windows XP. One sec... Mmm... almost there... there!
Click!
Oh, this isn't good. The file is corrupted, so let's extract a few words that may be readable. Those desktops with the fat end really aren't working anymore these days. Sigh...
^^^^^
--- BEGIN CORRUPTION LOG ---
Name: Help! Why did it stop?.txt
Size: 15,362 bytes
Date: 1991‑06‑21 02:17:48
CONTENT START >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Thís ís a tεst rеport file. Somε of the cħars look ok, but
somè inyent sεçtions ære glitčhẽd:
Line 23: Résumé qŵrants: 100
Line 42: NUL NUL NUL NUL NUL NUL NUL NUL NUL
Binary [hex]:
00 00 00 00 47 6F 6F 64 FF AA 13 C5 00 00 54 65
78 74 20 74 72 75 6E EA C3 20 68 65 72 65
"æ–‡å—æ화け" or "kärlek" or "für" in place of correct accents.
If you're not careful and you noclip out of reality in the wrong areas, you'll end up in the Backrooms, where it's nothing but the stink of old moist carpet, the madness of mono‑yellow, the endless background noise of fluorescent lights at maximum hum‑buzz, and approximately six hundred million square miles of randomly segmented empty rooms to be trapped in. God save you if you hear something wandering around nearby, because it sure as hell has heard you.
H̷̘͌͗e͉͌̌l̝͐l̨͂o̻͋ ͉͊w̼͐o̹͡r̼͌ḽ͂d̖͗
…END OF CORRUPTION—FILE TRUNCATED—
--- END LOG ---
&&&&&
Mm... nothing serious, just as I thought.
But let me tell you—
Happiness
Why don't we—
Is
Start from—
Not equal to
Somewhere different? Sanity?
Say, what is Ophiuchus*Ophiuchus? It's 169.
And that is.
Between the Grand Ritual of the 19th. Only teachers would get this, don't exhaust yourself too much overthinking it.
_______D00R_______
|..... .|
|....|
|... |
| .....( ) |
| ...|
| ...|
____________________
The first thing he heard was the unfamiliar, sticky hum of fluorescent light, a buzzing chorus of silence. The second was his own breathing, which was ragged, shallow, as if dredged from beneath water.
And the third… was the odious memory of his own death.
His eyelids that were floating aimlessly in the sensation of darkness slowly opened with the effort of hundreds of tons, as if the weight of sleep had ossified into stone.
The cold, frosty, soul-eating feeling of something pressing against his cheeks.
However, just as his eyes were fluttering open, he felt his stomach twisting and knotting, as if he had eaten something revolting. Subconsciously patting it, his recollections of his last moments flashed in his mind.
He remembered the voice that he heard, the dread he felt, the hot, nerve-wracking burning sensation of his eyes being removed, the sharp buzz of tinnitus when he went deaf, and the vile sensation of his cervical nerve neck twisting unnaturally, the pain at the back of the neck, jaw, and the inability to breathe he felt.
Xin reached his trembling hands to his ears to cover them as if recalling the sensation, his body uncontrollably quivering in horror.
Slowly reliving the feeling in full graphics, he removed his cheek from where it was, his face sticking for a mere moment because of how long it had lingered. He hugged his shoulders shivering, his eyes wide open in terror.
The terror he had experienced not only firsthand, but also from his own hands had caused him immense trauma.
He couldn't even bear recalling the expression he had on his face at the time.
Finally, unable to hold it, he stood up with his heavy legs, trembling, before his legs betrayed him, with him slipping on his arse.
Coughing in suffocation, he attempted to crawl only to hit a chair with his head, making him feel more nausea, and he clenched his stomach.
Unable to resist the urge, he vomited onto the black and white tiled flooring. Bile and blood, stringing between lips parted in disbelief, now slack with shock. A trail of black-threaded mucus hung from his chin.
"How... am I still alive..?"
Vision blurred, pupils dilating wildly, his mind grasped for footholds and found none.
Just that memory, raw and incomplete, spiraling: a grin with too many teeth. Screams that hadn't been his own. A mirror breaking.
His hands trembled. Not from panic — not panic, he insisted inwardly — but something deeper.
"No, what exactly was the thing I had seen before my death? What... exactly was... its purpose? So what is this? A second chance? A punishment?"
Something was incredibly wrong and he knew it. He shouldn't be here. He had tales about heaven and hell, but this was a first for him. At first, he considered if he was in hell, but he outrightly denied.
The location he was at was far too lenient to be the hell he had heard about back on Earth, considering how structured where he was seemed, considering he hadn't seen any grotesque-looking creatures so far, nor any sounds.
The environment did not help either to support this theory.
His thoughts wandered to the idea that this was heaven.
"But.. this doesn't seem like heaven, I suppose"
He almost laughed; it was too lame of a joke for even him to make, considering how he had committed too many atrocious acts back on Earth, it was highly unlikely.
There weren't any beings present either that could support this theory, or, in other words, angels that bestow their grace upon him by showing their presences.
Where was he then?
For the first time, his disoriented and unfocused gaze started gaining a bit of clarity in them as he looked around him, briefly narrowing his eyes in discomfort at the light directed towards his eyes.
Xin raised the back of his hand at the unfamiliar light that felt nostalgic... yet not at the same time.
Fluorescent white glared overhead, too bright for this place.
An empty... classroom?
He noticed one desk placed in the whole classroom, the desk he had awoken on.
As his blurry vision cleared, he also noticed that a painted black circle had been drawn around his desk on the floor, as if it marked it as a sanctuary.
Xin's perceptive vision noticed a splotch of white paint at the outer left top of the circle, his dazed mind trying to piece everything together.
Everything… was still to an eerie degree which caused him to be on full alert.
After looking around the room in caution with his still slightly trembling feet, he directed his gaze to the front of the classroom that had a blackboard with light, wooden polished edges.
Many odd symbols were drawn on the board, including drawings of a reversed hanged man, his eyes in 'X's and a fire blazing underneath his head, the image of a sick figure with something akin to lightning cutting into his mind, a serpent coiling around his body.
There were also question marks around a small drawn door, an owl sitting atop it.
On second thought, the owl if looked from a direction truly looked like an owl, and from another looked like a hound, an impressive optical illusion.
"Where the fuck am I... ?" Xin's expression twisted to rage, as he furrowed his brows, unable to still get a single hint where he was. It didn't make sense for him to be in a school after his death, if he had died. There was obviously something wrong.
Black dots were drawn in specific patterns surrounding the door, almost as if they were stars.
Many things were drawn on the board using white chalk, and even a few things were posted on the walls, marking it truly as a junior high school...?
His mind spiraled into countless thoughts, whirling at an unprecedented speed as he hastily collected himself, gazing at the lifeless light gray-bluish walls.
The feeling of losing control of his situation-of himself was unbearable, something he incredibly loathed to his very core.
His eyes scanned the room quickly, before his heart almost leapt out of his chest, Xin walking backwards until his back collided with the wall of the other side of the room.
Yet, his gaze lingered with unprecedented dread on the figure that he hadn't noticed at all when he looked previously, holding even his breath as he dared not to inhale.
Almost as if it had suddenly materialized out of nowhere.
A skinny figure with the body of a skeleton at the front of the room. Yet there wasn't a single bone in its body.
Rather it seemed that the ribcage, skull, cervical bones, pelvis, and ankles were all painted upon the skeleton-like body.
Tall. Thin. An unnaturally oval-ish yet rectangular beige painted skull for a face, with a neutral mouth and rectangular teeth connecting the top and bottom that seemed to slightly drop down at the left corner, a red party blower at the tip of its left corner, dangling.
The two holes for the eyes were painted in dark brown, with the right being smaller than the left.
As if confirming its identity, there was a line that was atop the two holes, running through the edges of the outer circle at the top. A half top hat, and a red cape.
However, the most bizarre thing that Xin noticed was that it had a white chalk between its two bone-painted fingers, drawing the figures on the chalkboard.
Holding his breath, Xin forced himself to calm down, as he noticed that the creature had ignored him.
It continued moving its skinny-skeleton painted arms in a stable motion, robotic yet weirdly alive.
It drew multiple things in a mechanical, yet oddly human pattern, sending shivers down anyone present's spine at the sheer abnormality of such a creature.
It drew the Statue of Liberty without its flame in a black pond, with a star underneath.
It drew a simple house that was on fire, with a shark beside it.
A Yin and Yang symbol. Yet the circle in the Yin was outside the whole circle, showing the Tao symbol missing a circle.
It continued to draw.
And draw.
>>>>>>>>It drew<<<<<<<
>>>>>Many things<<<<
After an unknown amount of time, the creature stopped moving its arms when it 'saw' the door with question marks on it.
"Hello... there...?" By this time, Xin's breathing had become much steadier than at first, his expression turning neutral as he attempted to stabilize his condition.
He judged that the creature was busy drawing, and decided to wait for a while until the creature stopped its business, finding that this was the best opportunity try to communicate with the creature as to not annoy it by accident.
So far, it seemed non-aggressive and harmless from its actions, however he couldn't be completely sure yet.
He needed to know where he was; it was of utmost priority. Had he really died... ? What was this place? Why was he here?
The only being that could probably answer his questions that were pouring like a waterfall that had just broken out after being jammed for centuries was no doubt the odd creature in front of him, if it could communicate in the first place.
Despite his well-known ruthlessness, the location he had appeared at was too strange for him to ignore, and the only good his mind could do now was to use it to analyze.
Ruthlessness was no longer an option; there was nothing to be cruel to.
Only himself.
Gulping his saliva, he slowly took a few steps towards the creature who had its back turned to him, yet as he approached, he felt his foot kicking something across the floor.
His heart started frantically beating, as if attempting to escape from his ribcage, his eyes slowly going to what he kicked.
A red object rolled across the floor for a while, before it hit the skull's leg, stopping immediately.
An... apple?
Xin's heart sank, as he took a few steps back, his eyes unmoving from the apple.
When had this apple appeared? He had been here from the start, and there were no signs of anything in the room other than the desk, chair, and skull. So when had the apple appeared?
As if deliberately mocking him, the apple opened in half, a sprout rapidly growing from each side of the apple, intertwining and making a small lotus.
Xin raised his eyes to what the apple had struck, or in other words, the skeleton, yet he started panicking and started frantically looking everywhere as he realized the skull-like creature had vanished as if it had never existed.
That was when he felt shivers running down his spine, his brain alarm blaring signals, alerting him of something beyond death was approaching him.
He felt something incredibly cold, so cold it felt like it was seeping into his soul, touching his left shoulder.
Xin's eyes went to his shoulders, his pupils shrank, before he slightly turned his body to see what was behind him.
And—
The skull-like creature had grabbed his shoulder.
Its frown evident on its face, blowing the party blower, as if shaking its head.
Xin blinked for a moment, his mind frozen with all kind of thoughts that had stopped, as if his mind had finally collapsed, unable to work at a tenth of its original speed.
It vanished.
His body was full of tension, looking around him and slightly caressing the place that the skull had touched with a shiver. His eyes went to the two windows of the room that had looked onto the frost, and dark snowstorm outside, now barricaded with wood, red blood writing on it.
It read, "Welcome, Teacher! Please follow the red arrows to arrive at your destination!"
"Teacher? Do they mean me?"
Xin, who had already gotten accustomed to the strange world around him, steeled himself and walked towards the board. He touched the color and rubbed it with his fingers.
The color was recent, and judging by the texture it didn't seem like paint, but it wasn't like blood either. He blinked and looked at the exit of the room, finding a red arrow painted on the floor leading to the exit. Slowly walking to the exit, a sudden urge overwhelmed him to look at the board.
He turned his eyes towards the board where he found the door symbol with the question marks now open.
The color of inside the door was black, with only one white question mark inside.
He turned his gaze away from the chalkboard, and looked to his front, taking the first step to what will change him.
Not only him.
But countless.
Other.
Creatures.
Beings.
Races.
Deities.
Gods.
Universes.
And existence itself.
Permanently.