I can't move.
That's the first thing I know.
No weight. No floor. No pain. Just… suspension. Like being held mid-thought.
I try to blink. Again. And again. Nothing happens.
I try to breathe. Even though I don't need to.
I don't need to?
That's wrong.
I realize something else, slowly, the way panic crawls in when it has time.
I don't have a body.
Not here.
I have a view.
A frame.
Edges.
Glass.
I'm inside something.
What is it? I can't tell.
Maybe I can.
Yeah, I feel it. It's static. And it's electric.
A television.
Literally. I don't understand how though. I feel like every form of understanding I get gets erased out of my memories the moment I get them.
I see through a curved screen, the kind with slight distortion at the corners. Colors are washed, oversaturated. Sound comes late, muffled, like it has to push through water before reaching me.
I want to scream. I wanted to scream.
I don't have a mouth.
I want to bang on the glass.
But my body forgets to move every time.
I try anyway.
Dhum! Dhum! That's what it should sound like. But I am starting to even forget that as well.
Nothing.
The world on the other side plays without acknowledging me.
A room. Familiar. Too familiar.
Tatami floor. Low table. The stupid wallpaper I never liked. The angle of the light coming through the window tells me the time without a clock.
Afternoon.
I know this room.
I grew up here.
No—
I am here. Again. Our destroyed house. It's the same one.
A child stands in the middle of the room.
Small shoulders. Thin arms. Messy hair with that same cowlick that never went away no matter how many times I tried to fix it. And round spectacles covering his weak eyes.
Me.
Younger.
He's crying. Like always. What should I feel about this? I wish I knew that so I could atleast act like it.
Silent at first. Then shaking. Then loud, ugly sobs that feel like they're scraping my insides even though I don't have any.
I know what he's saying before he says it.
"I can't do it," the kid whispers. "It's too much."
My chest tightens.
I remember this.
The loser. Me. Begging for help to others, taking everything for granted.
Not the exact moment. The shape of it.
Fear without words. Responsibility without understanding. The sense that something important was expected of me and I had no idea how to give it.
I want to tell him something.
Anything.
That it's not his fault. That it never was. That he doesn't have to carry it alone.
I can't.
Because that's all a lie.
The glass doesn't let sound through.
The screen flickers.
Static crawls along the edges.
It dark again. I can't see anything. But I hear the sounds. It's footsteps. Someone's coming in.
"something that tries to kill me?" The voice came from outside.
"Why is it always weird ones I get stuck with
It's getting closer. "
It's getting closer.
An odd familiarity fills my mind. I can't remember, obviously. But I know I should.
Someone enters the room.
I look behind the screen. To 'outside'.
Another me.
Older.
The one I used to be.
The one from few hours ago.
Like a foreign object forced into a memory.
I, child me or should I say,looks up.
Hope hits his face so fast it hurts to watch.
"You came back," I said.
The older me freezes.
"…Yeah," He muttered. "I don't like this."
He recieves a voice message from his earpiece. Who was I talking to, again?
"Someone who looks a lot like me?"He muttered.
I realized this familiarity, I knew this happened before, but yet my mind and body would not react like I want.
The living room TV flickered on by itself.
Static. Then an image.
I sat in the TV, now ten,sat on the floor, holding a gadget. Doraemon stood beside me, smiling like nothing was wrong.
The scene replayed.
Again.
And again.
Each time, something changed.
The gadget malfunctioned.
The room distorted.
The smile stayed.
"That's not right," Adult me whispered.
The loop stuttered, and suddenly the boy looked up—straight at him. I stared at him.
The screen cracked.
The air shifted.
Walls stretched. Corners bent at wrong angles. Gravity tilted slightly to the left, just enough to make my balance feel off.
He staggered back.
"Hey," He said loudly, because that's apparently my coping mechanism. "Kid. If this is about unresolved childhood issues, I promise you—I've already got a backlog."
No.... They're not. I held my tears back, unable to tell him. Tell myself.
I stood up.
The image bled out of the TV, pixel by pixel, until I was standing in the room with him.
A version of me. The older one I was, the younger one I am, face to face.
He looked confused. Scared. Angry. All at once. Ironic.
"You left," I said.
"…Yeah," He admitted. "I did."
"You broke it," I accused.
"Also yes."
"You promised you'd fix everything."
He swallowed.
"I promised I'd try."
I know what he's talking about. But... I feel like I don't have the power to correct him.
I clenched my fists. The room responded. Furniture rattled. The ceiling cracked.
He talked on his earpiece.
"Cool," He muttered to his earpiece. "So what's the solution? Punch myself?"
He received a reply. And I stood still.
He took a breath and stepped closer to the me.
"You're right," He said. "I messed up. A lot. I don't get a redo. You don't get one either."
I'm not. Clearly not.
My eyes filled with tears.
My brain got fuzzy. I'm tired, scared, and can't remember what I should."Then why am I still here?"
He knelt down.
"Because you mattered," He said softly. "And because I didn't know how to let go."
The room went still. I went quite. There's no solution to this. I've already lost. Time can't solve anything when it's not even going forward.
The pressure eased.
I stood still.
"Will it hurt?" I asked to myself.
"…A little," He said. "But it already does, doesn't it?"
It wasn't a question meant for him. But anyway,I nodded.
Then I smiled.
And faded.
The house exhaled.
The walls straightened. The sky outside darkened slightly, correcting itself.
And "he" Was left alone.