CHIBA CITY
April 30, 2016
"Crazy... Error... Crazy... Error... Door... Door..."
...
It had all begun...
Nineteen days earlier.
His very first day of high school.
"Tsk."
Standing by the window of his hospital room, Hikigaya Hachiman stared at a strange blend of colors that seemed to saturate the world outside, as though reality itself had begun to lose its shape.
"Three weeks trapped in a hospital room... Looks like my brain finally decided to make up some company."
It had all started on the very first day of school.
On pure instinct, he had thrown himself forward to save a dachshund that wandered into the middle of the road. The result was a traffic accident that left him with a fractured right leg and earned him a disapproving look from Komachi, one born more from fear than anger.
The doctors ordered him to remain hospitalized for three weeks.
It wasn't unbearable.
The worst part was the cast wrapped around his leg, which made even the simplest movements frustrating.
But that wasn't the strangest thing.
At completely random moments, eerie whispers would echo beside his ear, as though someone were speaking to him from an impossibly distant place.
He mentioned them to the nurses and doctors.
After several examinations, they concluded that the voices were most likely a side effect of the head injury he had suffered during the accident.
As a precaution, they prescribed sleeping pills in case the whispers kept him awake at night.
And so, between staring out at Chiba's clean, orderly streets, where office workers and students carried on with their ordinary lives, and replaying the events of the past three weeks over and over in his mind...
...time quietly passed.
"...Seer..."
"...Seer..."
"...See..."
Hachiman slowly opened his eyes.
They were bloodshot from exhaustion.
"...What a pain."
Frowning, he looked into the darkness that filled the hospital room.
"Don't you people have any respect for someone who's trying to sleep?"
The whisper vanished as suddenly as it had appeared.
Silence.
"...Guess watching all those horror movies finally came back to haunt me."
He let out a quiet sigh through his nose.
Running a hand through his messy hair, he shook his head in annoyance.
"First I get hit by a car on the first day of school."
"Then I spend three weeks stuck in a hospital."
"And now my own brain has decided to turn into a radio that only plays creepy voices."
He closed his eyes once more, trying to fall asleep.
"...All that's left now is for me to start seeing ghosts."
"...How cliché."
He clicked his tongue.
"Tsk."
Just as that thought crossed his mind...
...a strange sensation swept across the room.
For a brief instant...
Just before sleep claimed him...
...the colors behind his closed eyelids seemed to blend together once again.
The following days were no better.
At first, Hachiman was genuinely frightened.
No matter how indifferent he tried to appear, he was still just a fifteen-year-old boy who had only recently entered high school.
Who wouldn't be terrified after hearing those bizarre whispers over and over again? They could appear without warning at any moment, robbing him of sleep night after night.
As the days passed, however, he gradually learned to ignore them.
Most of his time was spent staring at his phone, scrolling aimlessly in search of anything interesting enough to keep his mind occupied. It was the easiest way to distract himself, to avoid thinking too deeply about the voices while he waited for his recovery to end and for the day he could finally return home.
Eventually, he convinced himself of the only explanation that sounded even remotely reasonable.
Hospitals.
People died in places like these every day.
He had read countless stories online claiming that hospitals were filled with restless spirits, souls unable to move on after death.
If ghosts really existed...
Then perhaps that was all this was.
It was a ridiculous conclusion.
But it was still better than believing he was slowly losing his mind.
The doctors certainly hadn't found anything wrong with him.
No matter how many examinations they performed, every result came back perfectly normal.
That absurd explanation gradually became his only source of comfort.
He just wanted to go home...
...and sleep through a single night without those voices tormenting him.
---
One night, he finally decided to stop ignoring them.
If those whispers were going to follow him every single day...
...then the least he could do was find out what they were saying.
He closed his eyes.
"...Seer..."
"...Apprentice..."
"...Mara..."
His brow furrowed.
For the first time...
...he felt as though he was actually beginning to understand them.
"...What...?"
Before he could focus any further, unbearable pain exploded inside his head.
It felt as though a razor-sharp blade were slowly splitting his skull apart from the inside.
He fell from the bed, clutching his head with both hands.
The colors returned.
They twisted together before his eyes, bleeding into one another until the entire room became unrecognizable.
The walls seemed to breathe.
The ceiling warped and writhed like something alive.
Voices.
Thousands of voices.
Countless whispers overlapped, each one speaking in a language he couldn't understand.
Then...
He felt it.
Something...
Something was trying to force its way into his mind.
His breathing became ragged.
His vision blurred.
Using the last of his strength, he slammed his hand against the emergency call button beside the bed.
By the time the nurses rushed into the room...
...he could barely remain conscious.
---
When Hachiman finally regained consciousness, everything felt strangely quiet.
For the briefest instant, he caught sight of those impossible colors drifting through the air once again, as though someone had splashed paint across reality itself.
He blinked.
They were gone.
"...That car really did mess up my brain."
After conducting several more examinations, the doctors concluded that the accident had most likely left him with psychological trauma.
According to them, the intense headaches, hallucinations, and sudden collapse were all stress-induced symptoms resulting from the impact.
To the medical staff...
...it was nothing more than a lingering aftereffect of the accident.
Hachiman didn't have a better explanation himself.
Three days earlier, the doctors had removed the cast from his leg.
Since then, all that remained was a few days of physical rehabilitation.
His recovery had progressed faster than expected.
As a result, the doctor decided to discharge him the following morning.
Komachi had already promised to cook his favorite meal to celebrate his return home.
His parents, meanwhile, remained as busy as ever with work outside Chiba.
It wasn't unusual for them to spend several days away from home.
Throughout his entire stay at the hospital, they had only been able to visit him twice.
They simply couldn't leave work.
...Or perhaps they were still enjoying their married life somewhere far away from their children.
---
**Chiba General Hospital**
"Yahoo, Onii-chan!"
"Finally! It's time to go home! And in just two more days, you'll finally be going back to school!"
"We don't have any time to waste! We still have to practice everything I taught you so you can finally make some friends!"
"...Huh? Why are you making that face?"
"Hmm? Are you seriously going to ignore all the hard work your adorable little sister has been putting in?"
"Dummy, Onii-chan."
She puffed out her cheeks in protest.
My hopeless little sister had come to pick me up from the hospital.
The bright smile on her face instantly reminded me of all those painfully embarrassing "socialization lessons" she'd forced me to endure during my recovery.
I knew she only wanted to help.
I really did.
But after trying every single one of her ideas...
I'd come to the conclusion that none of them would ever work for someone like me.
I was probably wearing my usual blank expression.
Not that I really knew how to make any other face.
I let out a quiet sigh.
Three weeks late...
I guess any chance I had of starting over disappeared the moment that accident happened.
Even asking someone for notes from the classes I'd missed would be difficult for someone like me.
I shook my head, pushing those thoughts aside.
"Yeah, yeah. Let's go."
I started walking beside my little sister as we left the hospital.
"I'm starving."
"Ah!"
Komachi suddenly remembered something.
"Mom and Dad won't be coming home today. They had to leave for Kyoto because of a last-minute business trip."
"...I see."
"Tell them to stay safe."
Honestly, that wasn't anything unusual.
My parents spent most of their time working outside Chiba.
Even so, I knew they cared deeply about us.
Especially about Komachi.
"...It's not like I'm jealous or anything."
After all...
I adored my little sister too.
The warm afternoon sun bathed the streets of Chiba as the two siblings made their way home together.
Komachi chatted cheerfully about school, television shows, and all the little things that had happened over the past three weeks.
I listened quietly, responding only with the occasional nod or brief reply.
Strangely enough, simply hearing her voice made the constant whispers in my head seem a little more distant.
For a brief moment...
...they almost disappeared.
After days of relentless torment, my exhausted mind was finally able to relax.
As we walked side by side, I caught another glimpse of that strange distortion reflected in the glass of a storefront.
It lasted only a second.
When I looked again...
...all that remained was the reflection of the street.
I quietly shook my head.
Looking up, I was greeted by the clear blue sky of spring.
In two days, I'd finally be setting foot in Sobu High School.
Whatever problems came after that...
...I could leave them for my future self to deal with.
For now...
I just wanted to enjoy the walk home with my little sister.
And at least for this moment...
Nothing was going to ruin that.