When the shots started to ring out, I wasn't exactly sure which direction it was coming from and all that could pump through my mind was the sound of my heart pounding right along with them - or perhaps even louder - and an acute admiration of the beauty of these intermittent lightning flashes in staccato like I was walking down the red carpet at the Grammy's and the media was trying to give the final verdict on my choice of a suit and hair gel, such that I couldn't see anything as my pupils dilated and constricted in musical pulse while blood rose to my head, and though I wished I could hear the words I was shouting, I could hear nothing, nothing at all, just a paralyzing siren screaming in my ear as rounds broke through the sound barrier cleaving space and membrane as prophetically eloquent as a Homeric epic writing blood and death on the walls because everything erupted around me in the darkness and I no longer had any understanding of where my feet were carrying me or how tightly I was holding Shirayuki - I felt the sting of metal shrapnel ripping into my face and my arms and body right through my jacket and clothes, as things around us were being chewed apart and I felt warm liquid trickling like rivers of sweat down my face, over my arms, chest, in between my crotch, until I can taste copper in my mouth realizing it might be blood and wondering if I had been shot because there was no real pain just yet - how long could we run before we trip and fall and tear apart with bullets or the steel planks rupturing beneath our feet throwing us down an abyss into nothingness where not even the little orange sun could help - then the orange bulb is shot and sparks spew as if it was July and the Sumida River Fireworks Festival was overhead. Goldfish and girls in summer yukata. The smell of humid air. Then there's white light.
Just white light.
I'm blind for a good few minutes.
I think I've died.
Nothing is in my mind.
"Naoki-kun," a voice says, "I'm glad you've made it."
YOU ARE READING
Espresso Love (A Dystopian Japan Novel) #Wattys2014
Science FictionIn Tokyo, where the System siphons thought, emotions & memories, a literature student meets a strange psychic girl and they embark on an escape from mindless agents, dream worlds and reality itself, in a soul-searching journey for love, for identity...
