Escape Reality

Meet Ryu Kisaragi, the easiest first-year target at Ōdate International Information Junior & Senior High School.

He was widely regarded as the biggest loser in the area. Even the geeks wanted nothing to do with this prime bullying target. Ryu had an obvious, almost creepy crush on the popular girl Shiori. He wished he knew her full name, but someone like him had no realistic way of earning that kind of privilege.

It was a breezy Monday evening. The once bright sky had faded into shades of orange as Ryu leaned against a utility pole, watching cars pass by on the street. A few drivers gave him strange looks before pressing the pedal to the metal and speeding off. Ryu kept fidgeting with his grandfather’s old compass. He had never owned a phone, so he always relied on tools like this to find his way.

“C’mon, seriously?! I really need to get this thing working already! The last thing I need is getting completely lost on some random street and ending up in even more trouble!” The breeze ruffled his blond hair and tugged at his obviously cheap black hoodie.

Suddenly Shiori and two of her friends walked past on the sidewalk, clearly returning from the local convenience store.

Ryu stayed perfectly still, still leaning against the pole. As they passed, Shiori suddenly turned around, and her friends followed. A sinister smile spread across her face the moment she recognized him. “Oh? We’ve got some little creep watching our tushies now? How cute… I think it’s time we teach him a lesson.”

Her friends grabbed Ryu’s arms. “W-what are you doing?!”

Shiori drove her fist hard into his stomach. His head snapped back as blood spewed from his mouth. “Oh, don’t think we’re done yet… the fun’s just getting started.”

She swung at his face next. A tooth flew out as he gurgled in pain. The girls held him even tighter while his head hung down. “P-please… just stop… okay? I’m begging you… seriously, just… stop it already…”

Shiori giggled and drove her knee up as hard as she could into his groin. He shrieked and collapsed to his knees. She followed with a vicious kick to the face that knocked him flat onto the ground. “You should seriously consider dying somewhere in a ditch!” She laughed as she spat on his face.

Shiori and her friends walked away, still laughing, while Ryu laid on the ground, twitching in agony.

Eventually he forced himself up and pulled the old watch from his pocket. Somehow it had survived the beating undamaged. “J-Jackpot… Hah… at least you’re safe,” he muttered. He limped the rest of the way home. After a couple of shaky attempts, he managed to unlock the front door.

“D-Dad!! I’m home…!” A weak grin appeared on his face.

His father, who looked nothing like him, sighed without looking away from his computer. “I just saw what happened out there. Got beat up by a bunch of cute girls? Go to your room and be ashamed of yourself.”

Ryu sighed and headed upstairs without arguing. His dad shouted after him, “You are a disappointment to the Kisaragi bloodline!” before returning to his typing.

Once inside his bedroom, Ryu sat on the bed and stared at the floor. “What a total disaster of a day… seriously… what am I even supposed to do with my life after this…?”

He turned the watch over in his hands, thinking about trying to fix it, but he lacked the energy. “Hah! What am I even worrying about the future for?! Come on, Ryu, get it together…! I just need to make the best out of my life right now!”

Suddenly he felt a tap on his back. He turned his head slowly, dread creeping across his face. A strange creature stood there– almost humanoid, standing on two legs with a oddly shaped torso and two arms ending in long, dark fingers. Its entire body was smooth and pitch black, except for the bizarre judge like mask on its face.

“A-AHHH!! W-what the heck are you?! P-please don’t kill me…! I-I swear I didn’t do anything wrong, mister ghost!!” Ryu fell to the floor and hurled a box at the creature, who casually caught it.

“Heh… relax, kid. I ain’t the problem here.”

Ryu stared at it strangely, then got up and cautiously shook the creature’s hand. He looked up at the tall figure… or friend.

“…Hah… s-sorry about that overreaction… I mean, if you were some evil ghost here to kill me, it’s not like anyone would even care anyway, right…? So what honor do I even have… for you to show up like this…?”

The creature laughed, though its mask remained completely still. “Heh… the real reason? You’re pretty pathetic… you take that a lot from others, don’t you? And yet… you still look hopeful. That’s exactly what makes you interesting.”

Ryu sighed. “E-even the underworld and ghosts think I’m pathetic…? O-okay, yeah… that’s just great… that’s really where I’m at now, huh…”

The creature chuckled again and produced a clipboard out of thin air.

“Heh… I’ve got a little deal for you. I’ll give you a sheet of paper. It lets you write yourself into any world you want- any life, any rules, any luck you can imagine. And I’ll just… make things interesting. I’ll nudge the world against you. Set little traps. See how you handle it. Think of it as a game. You win, you keep the paper. Pretty much anything you want after that. Lose… well, most of the time I don’t even bother killing at all, unless the world you pick leaves me no other way to win. So? Wanna play, or not?”

Ryu looked at the clipboard and back at the creature. He smirked. “…Hah. So that’s the trick to this, huh? Kill me or erase my memory if I don’t comply… classic. Real reassuring stuff, honestly.”

The creature shrugged. “Heh… incorrect. What’s the point of that? Nobody would believe it anyway. It’s just a game. So then… you gonna play along or not? This is your one and only offer.”

Without hesitation, Ryu signed it. “I might as well enjoy this while I’ve got it. No point wasting time moping around, right? And honestly… maybe this’ll even keep you entertained. I’m not planning on just rolling over and making it easy.”

The creature snapped its fingers and the signed clipboard transformed into a single ordinary looking sheet of paper.

“Heh… how considerate. You’re lucky I’m actually serious about this. If I were you, I’d just assume I was being tricked into handing over my soul.” The creature opened the window and glanced back. “Heh… the name’s V, by the way. See you around, kid. Enjoy it.”

V vanished instantly. Ryu was left staring at the paper, wondering what he should write.

“W-wow… this is just like Death Note… well, minus the whole death notebook part… only the paper… okay, so basically none of it, but still! That figure thing… it kinda gives off shinigami vibes too, right? Maybe not exactly the same, but close enough to make my head spin with ideas… Heh… yeah. I think I’ve got something interesting cooking from this…”

Ryu began to write: “a world w-” He paused, wondering if he had really thought this through. He continued anyway: “-ithout other people.”

The moment he finished, the paper disappeared. “W-wait, hold on!! I thought this was just some kind of alternate reality thing!! I didn’t sign up for erasing humanity or anything crazy like that!!”

Suddenly everything fell silent. The sounds of traffic outside had stopped completely. No distant voices, no background noise, just pure silence.

He opened his door and went downstairs. Even his father was gone. Ryu grabbed a flashlight as night fell and stepped out into the empty streets. He walked toward the local convenience store, the wind still blowing through his hair.

Inside the dark store he flicked on the lights. The shelves were fully stocked. “W-wait, seriously?! All of this is just… free? For me?! Heh… HELL yeah!! I’m not letting this chance go to waste!”

He devoured candies he had never been able to afford before, especially the sour ones, and flipped through magazines he had always wanted to read. The adult ones, unfortunately, had no content without people around.

Suddenly V appeared behind him. “Heh… enjoying your stay, kid?”

Ryu jumped in fright before composing himself. “…So I’m not alone here, huh. That’s… actually kind of a relief. But wait, does that mean this is it? This is the reality I’m stuck in? I’m just… done meeting people from my old world?”

V laughed. “Heh… you’re not stuck here, technically. You’ll figure that out soon enough. But first… like we agreed, this little ‘game’ means I’m supposed to mess up your life in every reality until you get sent back for another try. Just so you know… once you lose a world, you don’t get to come back to it. Not that one, not anything close to it either. Only problem is… in this place, I can’t really ruin your life the usual way. So I guess I’ll have to break my own little rule about not killing you… Heh… this is getting interesting.”

Ryu stepped back, grabbing a pole and pointing it at V. “What?! I never said I’m just letting you kill me!! And even if I did come back after that, it’s not like that makes it okay! It would still hurt like hell!!”

He ran for the shop door only to find it locked. V had sealed the other exit too. “Heh… if you survive this, I’ll give you time to hide away.” V snapped his fingers. One of the mannequins began to twist and warp. Its plastic surface stretched into wet, uneven, fleshy skin. Two deep, bloody sockets formed in its head as grotesque humanoid eyes pushed through.

The creature lunged, ignoring the pole and sinking its teeth deep into Ryu’s shoulder. He screamed as blood poured heavily onto the floor. Ryu kicked it away and fell, “AAAH– GHH!! S-STOP– GET AWAY FROM ME!!” The monster grabbed his foot, twisting and ripping the skin. With one powerful yank, the ankle bones snapped and tore free. It began gnawing on the severed foot while Ryu desperately tried to crawl away. In his final moments, the creature bit into his neck with a sickening crunch. By then, Ryu felt almost nothing almost like a strong anesthetic had taken hold.

Suddenly he was back in his bedroom. The paper was blank again, as if none of it had happened. Traffic noise had returned. V stood behind him.

“Heh… here’s the bet. We can keep playing this little game as many times as it takes. Over and over, if we have to. But if you ever give up… if you decide you’ve had enough… Then you hand your body over to me as a vessel. Heh… fair enough, right?” V said playfully.

A grin spread across Ryu’s face, one even V hadn’t expected. “Heh… figures. You’re so predictable it’s almost disappointing. Fine. I’ll take this bet. Keep throwing whatever you’ve got at me. I don’t care how long it takes or what ridiculous conditions you’ve set. I’ll keep moving forward until I win… and when I do, I’m taking you down with my own hands.”

He cleared his throat. “And the pain? Hah… pain is temporary. It hurts, sure. It always hurts. But as long as I’m still standing, it’s not enough to stop me.”

V licked a finger and laughed. “Heh… most of the pain isn’t physical. No, the really fun part is watching everything around you fall apart. Watching people turn against you. Watching everyone end up hating you. That kind of pain sticks around a lot longer than a few bruises kiddo.”

Ryu tried to leave the room, but the door was now boarded shut. His window opened into an exact copy of his bedroom. When he moved an action figure in one room, the identical figure in the copy moved the same way. He bit into a cracker, and in the duplicate room a floating cracker received the exact same bite mark.

He looked at V, who was now sitting on the bed. “Hmm… so let me get this straight. I’m trapped in a room, my resources are limited, and you’re expecting me to just play along? Then I’ve got a question for you. What happens if I just… don’t? If I sit here and end up dying from hunger or dehydration, then you don’t get my vessel, do you? That sounds like a pretty terrible deal for both of us. And another thing, why me? Seriously, look at me. Out of all the people you could’ve picked, you chose this guy? I’m sure there are plenty of bigger, stronger, smarter idiots out there. So what is it about my body that’s worth all this trouble?”

V sat in the chair. “Heh… this place is basically a frozen domain. You’re not gonna get hungry. You’re not gonna get thirsty. You could sit here for what feels like forever and it wouldn’t matter. As for time in the real world? Either it’s not moving at all, or it’s moving so slowly that you’d have to wait thousands of years before it meant anything. And why you? Heh… that’s easy. Because you’re entertaining. You’re the kind of fool who’ll try something just to see what happens. The kind who pokes at things that any sensible person would leave alone. You’re not a coward. I’ll give you that much. Just… foolish. Heh. Very, very foolish.”

For the first time in his life, Ryu Kisaragi truly had a purpose worth fulfilling.