"Untitled"

Chapter 1
Run.
That same phantom statement interrupted his dream, which, until then, had been pleasant enough. Nothing dynamic or memorable, but a consistent unreality that allowed for a decent slumber. Not now, though. Slowly waking up, Daishi fought with the urge to get up and attempted to roll over and sleep more, but to no avail. He muttered irritably as he heaved himself out of bed, oblivious to the sheet he was dragging with him. He considered it an unnecessary stroke of luck that he had always chosen to sleep on a futon cushion rather than a bed. In this way, it prevented him from falling off any sort of edge and waking up with a terribly rough start every morning.
He struggled to open his eyes just enough to peek at the digital clock at his bedside and note that it read 2:30AM. He groaned audibly and took two ungainly steps forward before falling flat onto the carpet, the blanket from his bed lassoing his feet together almost as if to persuade him to return to where he belonged. He kicked and flailed at the sheet blindly until it came loose and he could start off once again. He made his way down the hall, eyes closed and in a blatant daze, to his small kitchen where he began to forage for something to eat and perhaps a cup of coffee (although he was not a habitual drinker of the stuff). He was searching in an overhead cabinet when he was assaulted again:
Run.
“But I’m fuckin’ hungry!” Daishi shouted at the box of frosted cornflakes he now held in his hand. The painted cardboard container remained as silent as always. He waited, poised with his cereal in one hand and an empty bowl in the other, but the voice was gone or at least hiding. Settling down, he went on preparing himself a bowl of cereal and a cup of milk (he had decided he didn’t want to wake up too fast), then plopped into the nearest wooden chair at table.
As if it had been biding its time for this opportune moment to strike, the voice insisted again:
Run.
Metal met tile as Daishi flung his spoon at the floor furiously and stood up out of his chair too fast, sending himself and his seat clattering to the tile as well. He lay sprawled out on the tile with the chair mere centimeters from his head.
“DAMMIT!” he half-roared, half-whined from his position on the kitchen floor, “What is so damn important?”
His question, as was the apparent norm, was answered with more silence. Rather than waiting for any further perturbation, Daishi rummaged for a new spoon from the mismatched cutlery drawer he’d left slightly ajar earlier on, dumped his remaining breakfast into a large glass, and stomped out of the kitchen and onward out the front door.
There outside his own apartment, wearing only his favorite pair of black pants, two simple belts, and an immensely agitated scowl, Daishi simply stood there. Occasionally he would dunk his spoon haphazardly into his glass of milk and fish around for cornflakes to sleepily transfer to his mouth, chewing semi-reflectively on why it was, exactly, that he was doing just that: standing outside of his own apartment in his night-old sleep-clothes, eating cornflakes out of a glass, and taking the advice of some unexplainable voice in his head. He wagered he could give whatever was supposed to happen a few more minutes (at least until he was finished eating) to actually happen before he went back inside and got dressed and ready for the day ahead. For now, though, he was partly content to just let his thoughts wander and to ponder the state of his predicament and other things one might ponder when left as such.
At least no one’s out and about at this hour. I mean, it could be worse, I guess. I could be naked, right? It was too cold to go to bed without clothes on last night anyway. I must look a right mess, though. I wonder what I dreamt about? Maybe a girl? I don’t even know anymore, it’s just one dream after another and none of them are anything special. I’d be able to remember them if they were, wouldn’t I? Hm, oh well. No harm, no foul I suppo--
Then suddenly and, at the same time, expected, the voice reappeared in Daishi’s head. This time, however, its message was different yet just as simply put, as it tended to be.
You’re not running.

Chapter 2
A girl, very obviously cute and slightly inattentive to her surroundings, ambled happily down a quiet section of street near the Ginza Line in Asakusa. Her arms were keeping a fairly offbeat rhythm with the motions of her stride and causing a paper she was holding, very evident in its overuse, to crinkle like a small accompaniment to her little walking song. A well-worn backpack, slung over her shoulders nonchalantly, bounced about like an infant passenger.
She stopped right in front of a small apartment. Although she wasn’t entirely sure how things worked in Japan, it still struck her as a bit odd that the front door was left open. The girl seemed to come to an unsure realization and quickly studied the crumpled print in her hand before redirecting her gaze back to the building situated in front of her. She thought it was rude to just walk in, but she was ever the curious individual and couldn’t resist taking a small step towards the threshold especially since this appeared to be her destination. And even if she wasn’t wholly positive of it, the paper had told her so, what more bidding did she require?
She voiced her thoughts aloud in a thinly questionable tone, “That’s odd. Last I checked, the address was right, so shouldn’t someone be at home?” and with that, the girl entered the apartment building, letting her paper drop to the streets as she went, completely unaware of the drops of red blood that it soaked up upon reaching the pavement.

Chapter 3
“I told him to run! So it is his own fault he didn’t listen to me, the poor fool.”
“Would you listen to a voice that unexpectedly started yammering at you to leave your house for no real reason at all?”
“Well… no, I suppose not.”
“I didn’t think so. I know I sure as he--… well, I know I sure wouldn’t.”
Daishi’s head was splitting with pain. He tried to ignore it as the area around him swam into focus and it wasn’t anywhere he ever remembered being in his life. The discussion he heard was coming from two brightly illuminated figures, awkward fellows, standing no more than a foot or two away from Daishi’s current position. He was trying to get a bearing as to where his “current position” actually was when one of the two men noticed him moving and pointed it out to his companion. Daishi studied them hastily, candidly admiring the antique attire the two men were wearing. He chuckled inwardly at the thought that they would look more appropriate at a Renaissance gala than wherever they were n
The man who had seen him wake up was scruffier-looking than the other, and quite wiry in build. He addressed Daishi in a cordial manner, “Oh-ho! You’re awake. Good. I’d like to welcome you to heaven!” he beamed.
The second man, who seemed a great deal gloomier and much fatter by comparison, added to his cohort’s greeting in a somber monotone, “That means you’re dead.”
“Conroy!” the thin man exclaimed sounding quite taken aback. He glared at his partner for a prolonged period, but returned a friendlier (but still irritated) gaze to Daishi, “Do forgive him. He’s always like this, I’m afraid, despite being in heaven. You see, dear friend Conroy was admitted into heaven without ever having… well, that is to say, without participating in, err…” the thin man seemed lost for the proper words.
So Conroy, as the fat man had been called, interjected some for him, “without getting laid, you pansy.”
“Conroy, really!” burst the thin man throwing his hands into the air in protest, “Must you be so crude?”
Conroy must’ve decided that he needn’t dignify that with a response and instead walked off leaving the thin man to gape after him like a landed fish.
The thin man turned back to Daishi and cleared his throat before beginning apologetically, “I’m sorry about that, my friend, but you must excuse Conroy. He has been that way ever since he”— a pause, “Are you sleeping?”
And he was. Entirely uninterested in the antics of the two strangers, Daishi had become quite comfortable in his new make-shift bedding and, considering the lack of sleep he’d just had, it made for a perfectly suitable napping place that he intended to make full use of for the time being. However, he was once again rudely awakened by, upon further reflection, the same voice that had harassed him at his apartment.
“What do you want now?” Daishi mumbled as he tried to block out the thin man’s voice with bits of the cottony softness that he now lay on.
“Well, I won’t bore you with the details, but like I said before,” the thin man began, “you are in heaven. Which, I’m sure you understand, does mean you are now deceased”. Daishi gave no sign that he was listening, but he was at least staying awake, so the thin man continued, “If you have any questions, be sure to give me a shout. I’m always nearby someway or other. I’m Darby by the way. Pleasure to make your acquaintance, Daishi.”
Daishi didn't look in Darby’s direction. He remained with his cheek pressed to the softness he lay on, supremely unconcerned with anything at the current moment. He did, however, have two questions for the man before he left to do whatever else there was to do in heaven.
He asked his first question in a flat tone deprived of any real emotion, “How did I die”?
Darby thought for a moment, as if he was perusing records he had long since kept in his head, then looked down at Daishi and replied, “You were murdered, I believe. Although I can’t…” he thought again, a bit harder this time and making a big show of it, before responding, “I can’t seem to recall why... only that it had something to do with organized crime?” he smiled in what he fervently hoped was an apologetic manner, "I'm sorry I'm not more knowledgeable on the subject."
Daishi shrugged, not particularly wanting to hear Darby prattle on for much longer, and asked his other question, “So how do I go home”?
Darby had seen this coming, but was thrown off by Daishi’s simplicity and apathetic tone in asking such a seemingly important question. He approached the question tentatively, even forcing a poorly executed laugh as he answered, “Home? You don’t go home from heaven. You’ve, um… kicked-the-bucket, Daishi. This is your home now, I’m afraid”.
Daishi didn’t acknowledge him for a few lengthy seconds, but then he shrugged again and merely said, “Ok.” and fell back to sleep as if he had never been disturbed in the first place.
Darby stood over him, stunned, for a few moments longer, then turned away and headed off in the direction that Conroy had gone, shaking his head as he went. He wasn't surprised to feel a mixture of admiration and sympathy towards this new arrival. After all, it was partly his fault that he had been brought here.

Chapter 4
Her paper and her hesitations long forgotten, the girl had taken to the apartment quite quickly. After closing the door, she had wandered into the kitchen and spotted the hardback wooden chair on the floor.
“That’s not very safe…” she remarked to herself and returned the chair to its relative position at the table. She gazed around the humble kitchen, taking in its utter lack of distinction. Nothing had any mark of personalization or character to it, as though the person living here and making use of the facilities had no intention of being here long or, if they did, they weren’t overjoyed with the notion. Not caring much for this boring area, she moved on to view the other rooms in the small abode.
The girl noted that the bathroom was very spare also, and devoid of any decoration except for a few scattered magazines that she flipped through distractedly. The pages inside were covered with extravagantly dressed people posing with guitars or microphones and accompanied by long lines of text she couldn’t understand. They all appeared to smile at her with an authenticity that seemed familiar somehow and it caused her a pang of some emotion she couldn’t quite place.
Soon enough, though, these too lost her attention partly due to her own preoccupation with the apartment, but also because of a muffled electronic buzzing that caught her ears. She placed the magazine down on the bathroom counter and walked the short distance to the only other room in the apartment - the bedroom. This place, despite the insipid atmosphere of the rest of the building, made her feel instantly at home. Furnished from wall to wall with a myriad of posters showing the same baroque figures and illegible lettering she had seen in the magazines, the room set a tone that struck the girl as both somber and oddly cheerful. Row upon row of compact discs filled a modest, wooden shelf along the wall with a futon mattress that someone had just risen from not moments before laid out in a perpendicular fashion.
The noise that the girl had followed here was being emitted from a digital alarm clock set at the side of the mattress. She pressed a button and the sibilating ceased abruptly. She briefly imagined waking up and not having to actually leave the bed to shut off the alarm. The idea brought a small smile to her face as well as another pain. This time, however, she had narrowed down what it was that bothered her so much. It was longing.
Being naturally understanding in disposition, the girl decided that not knowing why her trip here had unfolded in such a way as to leave her with more questions than answers wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. She lifted her backpack off her shoulders, let it fall unceremoniously to the ground, and crawled onto the mattress and under the covers. The loose-fitting sheets had the mixture of laundry detergent and cologne worn into them, a combination that did nothing to lessen the girl’s feeling of sorrow, but she allowed herself to be lulled to sleep by the all-to-familiar scents anyway.
She reassured herself just before sleep overtook her, He’ll be here when I wake up.

Chapter 5
I’m dead, huh?
This thought woke Daishi out of what he had to admit was a very well deserved sleep. He rolled himself over to stare at what should’ve been a star-filled night sky. Instead, he found himself looking up into a majestic sky, the only comparable color of which would be if one could take the most well formed clouds in a summer sky and melt them into paint. Such a sky must’ve been what provoked Daishi’s thoughts on his newest dilemma.
Heaven isn’t what everyone chalks it up to be, that’s for sure. Heaven is supposed to be this magnificent place where all my fondest dreams come true, isn’t it? Where are the pearly gates? Where are the little, naked babies with wings that fly around and blow trumpets in my face? Where are my virgins? My feasts? My videogames that were never released?
With his thoughts in a whirl, Daishi didn’t even realize that he was no longer laying in the spot where he’d been when he’d first arrived, but had been somehow relocated without being woken up. He was now in a room furnished to perfectly replicate his apartment bedroom, down to the last CD. It caused him a pang to be reminded that he was in that room what he could only imagine was a few hours back. Suddenly, thousands of realizations hit him all at once.
His apartment! What had become of it? He’d left the front door open, hadn’t he? He groaned as he thought of some faceless burglar tossing his beloved CD collection in a bag and selling them off. It almost made him cry just thinking about it.
Wait a minute! He thought wildly If I’m dead, supposedly murdered, wouldn’t someone have found my body? Wouldn’t the police be filing reports and all that? But who want to murder a teacher? Something’s not right here…
He sat bolt upright, nearly leaping out of the bed completely, and cried out, “Where’s Darby?”
A spectacled girl who had been sitting on his bookshelf quietly reading a book yelped in fright and held the book up like a shield.
Daishi blinked, as if to clear his vision, and studied the girl in his room. Although he couldn’t see her face too well with it hidden behind the book, she was dressed in a golden-yellow qi pao trimmed with a shimmering emerald green edge. She was, herself, rather trim and perhaps more pale than the average Chinese girl should be.
He questioned her intensely as she began to slowly lower her book away from her face, “Who are you? What’re you doing here? What kind of trouble are you going to get me in?”
The strange girl raised an eyebrow curiously, which threatened to disappear into her dark brown hair, but smiled nonetheless, “No trouble… My name is Fen Xiao Ren!” she closed her book and set it on her lap, “Darby, so you know, asked me to watch over you for a little bit”.
Daishi nodded. It had made him feel a bit better to know that he wasn’t expected to adapt instantly to his new setting. It was also a relief to know that his Chinese was just as fluent as ever.
He had calmed down for the most part, so he tried to make polite conversation with his new acquaintance, “Fen Xiao Ren, huh?” Isn’t there a nickname you go by? Fen Xiao Ren seems a bit more than necessary to use casually, yeah?”
She eyed him quizzically, as if she didn’t understand why he would ask such a thing, before responding with simply, “This is heaven”.
Upon seeing the puzzled look on Daishi’s face, she asked him plainly, “I’m going to be here forever, right?”
Daishi thought about his answer for a moment. He didn’t know about her, but he didn’t plan to stay here much longer.
He played along, “Sure seems like it”.
Fen Xiao Ren continued, “So, why should I go out and try to make friends with people who are probably just as lonely and unhappy about being here as I am? So, no, I have no pet names or the like”.
“Oh…” Daishi said shortly.
He was quite taken aback by her bleak outlook on the situation. It reminded him of him, in a way, because something told him that she had not been here much longer than he had.
Fen Xiao Ren sighed with heavy resignation and returned herself back into her world of fiction – a place that, to her, was better than anything that heaven could offer. She blinked a few quick times, trying to beat back the tears that leaked out of the corners of her eyes.
Daishi smiled at this. Not because he found sadistic humor in her tears or sadness, but because he realized that, while he was confined to his celestial facsimile of a room, he would, at least, have a friend.
He took a moment to let the poor girl relax, then said in a decisive tone that suggested he wouldn’t give her a say in the matter, “I’m going to call you Fen”.
Fen Xiao Ren didn’t acknowledge him, but, keeping her eyes fixed on her book, she smiled and turned the next page.