I remember the smell before it all ended.
Rain, mold, scrap metal.
The smell of warm blood running down the sidewalk.
Crushed cigarette butts, shoe prints on the concrete, black drops sticking to my hair.
God.
I don't know.
Everything stinks here.
They say when you die, your life flashes before your eyes — memories, your mother smiling, your father crying, one last happy ending before the hole. Bullshit.
What runs through my head is a dirty knife sliding slow into my gut. It's the voice of some bastard stuttering my name like it's an apology.
"Akira… didn't mean to… but…"
Of course he meant to.
Everyone wants to kill trash like me. Even I did.
I tried a few times, couldn't pull it off. Maybe I was a coward too.
I feel the blood running down my leg. It's warm, but the street is cold, almost freezing.
A puddle forms beneath me, mixing my red with the black rain.
I see my reflection in it. A scrap of nothing — hair stuck to my forehead, mouth trembling, eyes half shut.
I wish I could say I don't feel anything, but I feel everything.
It's a pain that doesn't hurt. It's a rage that doesn't scream.
It's just… this. An ending that makes sense.
I hear footsteps. Muffled laughter. The guys are already leaving. They don't want witnesses, but they don't want to stick around to see the outcome either.
Cowards, all of them.
"You deserved it, Akira…"
I heard someone say. A thin, shaky voice, full of fear of itself.
Yeah, I deserved it.
I deserve every cut, every punch I've ever taken, every bone broken when I was just a kid too skinny to fight back.
I remember… funny, huh? You die remembering nothing good.
I remember the old man kicking me out when I was eight, saying I ate too much.
I remember my mother stubbing a lit cigarette out on my face.
I remember the first guy who paid me to beat up another kid at school — the first time I got money for hurting someone.
The streets swallowed me up fast.
It was so easy…
Stealing food. Stealing from people.
Laughing with a knife in my hand.
Wasting it all on booze, bullshit, bar fights.
I became a gang's dog, a Yakuza doormat, an alley rat.
The only thing that never let go of my leg was Chibi.
My dog — a mutt who found me before I even knew how to bark back.
He was just a ball of fur, now he's a pile of bones with fleas.
I think he's waiting for me to come back to the warehouse.
Or maybe he'll wait for me to rot here so he can lick my corpse later.
Fair enough.
I don't own anything. Not even him.
The knife is still here, buried to the hilt.
I try to move my arm, but it's numb.
My mouth is dry. I taste iron, thick slime rising up my throat.
I want to spit, but I don't have the strength.
The rain gets heavier.
Drops hit my face like they're trying to wash my shitty soul clean.
But they don't.
Nothing does.
A rat scurries past my foot. It looks at me, sniffs the blood, moves on.
Even a rat has more urgency to live than I do.
I wonder if Chibi will come.
He always finds his way.
I picture his little paws in the blood puddle. His cold nose pressed to my cheek.
Maybe he'll cry. Maybe he'll bite me.
Maybe he'll be the only one who'll miss me.
…
My eyelids get heavy.
The city sounds grow distant — horns, people yelling in some alley up the street.
Everything's too far away.
Only my heartbeat is close.
It beats slow, like it's counting down the time I've got left.
"One. Two. Three…"
I almost laugh.
My chest shakes weakly.
A laugh with no air.
If I had the strength, I'd spit in God's face.
But I don't believe in Him.
Believing is for people who want forgiveness.
I don't want it.
I don't deserve it.
If there's a hell, let it burn me until there's no memory left of who I was.
If there's a heaven, slam the door in my face.
And if there's nothing — even better.
Nothing is honest.
Nothing doesn't betray you.
My breath falters.
The wind gets colder.
I feel myself sinking into the concrete, like the alley wants to swallow me too.
A crack in my mind.
A split.
Something opens.
Inside.
A voice.
At first, it's just an echo — dry, raspy.
Then it becomes a word.
A single word.
"Akira."
My eyes open. Or I think they do.
The alley burns away like paper catching fire.
The cold is still here, but it's a different cold — not rain, not wind. It's the chill of emptiness, of nothing.
I see myself standing — but I don't feel my body.
I'm just a shape, a human outline inside a giant hall.
The walls stretch on forever.
Cracked stone floors, black stains pulsing like they're breathing.
In the center, a shadow.
It's not just black. It's a hole — it swallows light, air.
When I look at it, I feel the knife again.
I feel everything again.
It's like every pore in my skin remembers what I was, what I did, what I left behind.
"Akira."
The shadow doesn't speak with a human voice.
It's an inner whisper, a scraping that twists my spine.
It knows my name better than I do.
Like it's been calling me since before I was born.
Like I was just a shell.
And Him…
He was what lived inside this shell since the first kick I gave in my mother's belly.
I open my mouth to speak.
Nothing comes out.
My chest burns — but it's not fire, it's the void ripping to get out.
I see memories flickering around the shadow — flashes of the alley, the knife, the rain.
I see Chibi curled up on a torn mattress, waiting for me to come back.
My mother putting out a cigarette on my cheek.
I see my whole life, finally. But it's not some pretty movie — it's a pile of garbage soaked in gasoline, ready to burn.
The shadow grows.
It doesn't have a face, but I feel it smile.
No mouth, no teeth — a smile that doesn't need a shape.
"You're mine!"
That's what I feel.
Doesn't even have to say it.
Maybe I always was.
Maybe I was just borrowing myself this whole time.
Now there's no more space.
The nothing wants everything back.
I take a step forward.
The floor sinks under my foot, like black ink sludge.
It swallows me up to my ankle, then my knee.
I don't resist.
I can't.
I close my eyes — or think I do.
Chibi, forgive me.
If you can, run.
The shadow swallows me whole.
Inside, I feel a laugh.
Not mine.
It's Him.
Him…
And me…
I'm just what's left.
The End?