Nerusona

Chapter 3

Part 1: April

Chapter 3

Worthless.

Tanaka groggily forced an eye open. His whole body hurt, namely due to the position he was in; he was crammed in a tight space, more specifically a corner, with half of his body leaning against a wall and the other laying on the ground. Everything was dark, so he assumed that he was inside some sort of cabinet or closet. A faint sliver of light peeked through the middle of the compartment he was in, so said cabinet must have had two doors. He groaned and heaved himself off of where he was positioned, getting up to his feet in a wobbly manner.

Tanaka peered through the miniscule opening with his functioning eye—the other eye refused to open and was swollen shut—and was unable to see anything. He pressed his hands against the compartment doors, knocking on it lightly. It was made out of a metallic material, so there was a good chance the compartment he was trapped inside was where the cleaning supplies were stored for classrooms. Wait, classrooms? Now that he thought about it…

“Don’t worry, we’ll leave your body where no one will find you. Because after all, worthless students disappear here at night.”

He slammed his fist against the cabinet’s interior wall. He tried to shove open the doors, but unfortunately they were locked from the outside. Surely a teacher or another student would find him eventually…

Unless he really was a “worthless” student, and that he’d disappear soon.

He’d vanish from existence, and his sister Yamaguchi would be targeted next.

And then that dark-haired girl he saved would be targeted again, too.

And the cycle would only continue on.

He slumped down in the compartment, leaning against the side again.

Worthless.

He clutched the sides of his head. Even though everything around him was completely silent, the students’ voices seemed to linger in his mind. This school was supposed to promise he and Yamaguchi a future where they’d be respected for what they do, not what they look like. It was like his childhood slapped him in the face, where dozens of kids pointed and laughed at his canine ears on a daily basis.

Tanaka sighed, closing his eye for a bit and pondering where Yamaguchi even was at the moment. She was in the restroom when he left to rescue a girl from being bullied, and undoubtedly she’d search the school to find him. Unless she thought that he was cold enough to ditch her and head on over to the apartment they recently moved into. They could’ve been there together right now, preparing for the day tomorrow.

But here he was, locked in a classroom closet left to disappear because he was—

Worthless.

…he couldn’t let his tormentors win. He had to prove to everyone that he wasn’t worthless, that he wasn’t just some animal. Tanaka rose from the ground again and pressed both hands against the cabinet doors. He’d get out and protect himself—he’d protect Yamaguchi, he’d protect that dark-haired girl, he’d protect anyone else being bullied. He took in a deep breath—

—and then the chimes of a clock resounded. Tanaka counted each chime, counting up to…

Midnight.

Part of his heart sunk; it was too late. He was going to disappear.

“No,” he told himself, trying one more time to shove the cabinet doors open. And once he did, they flung wide open with ease. The male stumbled out onto the ground, aching from the pain he already had.

The scenery around him was not the school he knew. A dim blue-green hue illuminated the classroom, and silhouettes of voiceless students sat down in desks. He looked back at the cabinet, noticing a dark red liquid oozing down the opened doors. Tanaka looked down at his own hands, which had the same thick liquid on them. He glanced back at the silhouette students in their desks, who all seemed to be entirely focused on the front of the room. His gaze trailed up to where the teacher’s desk would be…

But no one was there. What were they looking at?

Tanaka glanced outside the classroom window, staring out at the dark green sky and vivid red moon. This was all too surreal… He probably hit his head while falling out of the cabinet and was hallucinating. Or maybe he really did disappear from reality and was sent to some bizarre perdition.

“Hello?” Tanaka called out to the silhouettes. His heart jumped as they all unanimously turned their heads towards him.

“Worthless,” they simultaneously said with various distorted voices. “Worthless.”

One-by-one, the silhouettes’ bodies began to mutate in shape, their limbs bending in grotesque ways. Black goo began to drip off of their bodies as they constantly repeated the word “worthless” over and over again. Eventually the silhouettes had changed from human-like appearances to giant black blobs with eyes. Each and every one of them stared at Tanaka. “Worthless.”

“I’m not worthless,” Tanaka mumbled under his breath, slowly inching to the door. He had to get off the school campus—assuming this was school—as soon as possible.

“I’m not worthless,” the gooey blobs mimicked. “I’m not worthless.” They all remained in the desks—no, the desks were consumed by their sludgy structures—and continued to eye Tanaka.

The male eyed the creatures back, and slowly he opened the door to leave the abnormal classroom. One step outside and the monsters leaped out of their spots, hastily making their way towards the teen. Tanaka instantly took off to run down the hallway; instead of a regular school hallway, the walls were covered with blood splatters just like the cabinet did. The hall itself was irregularly stretched out, and Tanaka could see more of those dark blobs further up the hall.

Which meant he was trapped.

His breathing rate picked up. This was how he was going to disappear, these mysterious creatures were going to end his life, and he was going to die without having a chance to defend himself—

He could feel his heart pound against his chest, hearing his own heartbeat block out his footsteps. Was this what it was like to live one’s final moments of life?

Then, like answering his call of distress, a word that seemed like it’d been there forever cleared his scrambled thoughts. He couldn’t quite explain it, but it felt like an answer—

“Per…”

Like an answer that’d save him from all his troubles—

“…so…”

And that’d he be able to carry out his inner desire to protect—

“…na…”

And for a split second, he felt as if he understood everything in the world.