Hikashi's body hits the ground with a dull thud, greeted by a painfully beating sensation at the back of his head where he had landed, before his eyes even get the chance to open. He jolts up as if just awoken from a nightmare, his lungs releasing rapid gusts of air. "Where-where am I?" His senses finally agreeing to return to him gradually, Hikashi spins his head back and forth, analysing his surroundings, a stark antithesis to where he had initially arrived.
The clothes he had received upon arriving in the afterlife had vanished, replaced with the basic white shirt, black trousers, and shoes he had worn for a large chunk of his life.
The clouds drag across the sky in a solemn grey, dimming any light that could've been. A cobblestone-layered ground on one side leads to a tall gate about triple his size, with a dreadfully welcoming sign running along it: 'Purgatown.' On the other side, opposite the gate, existed an oblivion of floating clouds for miles upon miles not another single atom or soul; as the rusted gate creaked open, he was now painfully aware, the welcome to Purgatown was not an optional one.
Through the gate, it was everything you'd expect of a typical town, yet through Hikashi's lens; the air was stale, a sequence of crippled houses and shops tainted by cracks and fading paint. People walked the street, their legs nonchalant, fixed on their desired destination—every step around him was a painful reminder of the nonnegotiable prison life bestowed.
Hikashi relentlessly digs his nails into the palm of his hands as if trying to pierce through the skin. However, his face is no longer one of dismay or self-pity. "This isn't happening again." His eyes emitting a gritty resolve, Hikashi stares up at an office building, a building far towering over the rest of its measly peers around it. Hikashi dashes through its blank windowed double doors. Different objects and people filled Hikashi's blindness; as he stormed upstairs and shot through doors one after another single-mindedly, until he reached the roof.
The powerful gusts of wind threatened to drag him from his feet; his hair and clothes had already succumbed to its dance. However, not relinquishing another moment, Hikashi steps onto the edge of the building and spreads out his arms wide as if about to take flight. His feet separate from the edge, now completely isolated in the air. Hikashi plummets to the ground like a tossed brick until a thundering clasp shakes the pavement.
Several civilians turn their heads to the bloody mess of bits and pieces scattered across the ground, whilst others don't even deliver a glance. Eventually, they all return to whatever mundane task they were following.
Hikashi's body hits the ground with a dull thud, greeted by a painfully beating sensation at the back of his head where he had landed, before his eyes even get the chance to open. He lies there motionlessly, staring up at the sky, forgetting even to blink occasionally. This place is identical to Earth, except now there is no escape.
Every hollow step he could take was utterly meaningless. He could collapse to the ground and, mirroring the dirt, he wouldn't move for days. His stomach gave desperate growls, which Hikashi refused to satisfy despite the feeling it had resorted to devouring itself from the inside. He forgot to breathe every once in a while, his heartbeat slowing down incrementally. He was too weak to feel fear, sadness, or pain as, if he was still able to do that, regardless, until the final beat of his drum took its place.
Hikashi's life flickers out.
Hikashi's body hits the ground with a dull thud, greeted by a painfully beating sensation at the back of his head where he had landed.
Hikashi's feet trod along the seclusion of the pavement, his steps blaring through the streets deep in the black of night. "Oi, oi, oi, who do we have here?"
Although Hikashi's mind couldn't make out a single word that the man had uttered towards him. And before he knew the reason why, a cup full of blood sprays from his mouth, and even more drains from his abdomen.
"Next time, listen to me, idiot." The last thing Hikashi hears as he plummets to the ground.
And Hikashi's life flickers out.
Hikashi's body hits the ground with a dull thud, greeted by a painfully beating sensation at the back of his head where he had landed.
Entering the town once again, a jovial voice approaches Hikashi, "Hey, you look like you could do it with some help."
A reluctant Hikashi rolls his eyes towards a man, his arm stretched out with an empathetic smile drawn across his face, a stack of Soulis within his palm; there were at least a thousand there. He was dressed quite fashionably, his red bubble jacket and his blue shoes warranting the most attention.
Hikashi's right-hand wanders to the cash, lightly separating it from the man's palm.
Suddenly, a light beams from an illuminated orb within the centre of the man's chest.
"Okay, give it back." The man snaps. His warm voice cooled into a chilling demand.
Before Hikashi's mind could catch up, the man snatched the stack himself and, not too long after, was far out of sight.
One month passes, two months, three months, six.
Hikashi sits curled up in a ball, the rain drenching whatever was left of this corpse. The alleyway was near pitch black, empty, not too far off from Hikashi himself.
A soothingly cruel voice pierces through the darkness, "Is this the fate you have decided for yourself?"
Hikashi's face was deader than he could ever be, responding with a silent dismissal.
Whoever this man was has to be new to reality. Such a power to do so had never once existed.
"I can grant you complete mastery over your fate, whatever you so desire." A cloaked figure emerges from the darkness, his face consumed within the shade of his hood, and he stretches his open hand outwards patiently.
What more did Hikashi have to lose? Hikashi raised his arm steadily, clasping hands with whatever this being was before him.
Suddenly, the world around them began to fracture. Reality had just been shattered into glass shards, and it didn't seem like it intended to halt. Instantaneously, Hikashi awakens in a black marble atrium, a blood-red sky looming over him, suspended in the handshake position he was in just a mere few seconds ago.
"None of you fret; you are not being held here against your will; the exit is right behind you." A deeply ominous voice reassures.
Hikashi, glancing over his shoulder, an ovular swirl of purple and black teases an escape.
"But I recommend you stay to hear what I say first." It continues.
Heads turn in the hundreds; an entity stands tall, his face hidden behind a skull mask, a black robe depriving eyes of his other characteristics.
"Souls holding high value are good? Souls with low value are evil?"
"Who decides that?" Skull Mask continues, his voice consuming the rest of the surrounding world into an abysmal darkness.
"Every single being runs a different existence from another, meets different experiences, meets different suffering, meets different fortune. This determines how you treat the world, how you value, value."
"I'm an angel summoned to liberate all those willing."
The building is silent for a moment, remnants of confusion still floating around. A flutter of claps begins brewing, and like a thunderstorm at sea, the entire vicinity suddenly erupts with cheers, filling the building with an unrequited determination.
Hikashi maintains a wary stillness, his expression frozen solid.
"All I ask!"
Skull mask takes a moment, forming a devious smirk, as his tone and pace slow. "How far are you willing to fall?"
The building takes a mutual gasp; the commotion sliced through like a block of butter. The entire room was petrified, waiting on the next syllable.
"You'll enter a series of games fashioned by myself; you'll have the ability to acquire double the Soulis in the entire purgatory. But of course, I'll need some reassurance fees, merely a temporary sacrifice- part...with your soul."
It didn't take a matter of seconds before cowering faces flooded into the portal's embrace, flocks of heads shoving to escape. And within the next few minutes, a few people still stand, both their resolve and feet fixed to the ground. The room initially filled with hundreds would be surprising to even to hold even a single hundred now.
Curling his fingers up into his right palm, a string of light forms into an orb, eventually growing to the size of half his body. "I congratulate those of you still holding your stance. Now, put your resolve to the real test. Place your hand on this orb that will absorb your soul."
Hesitance begins to creep up on the resolve of the room.
"You asked how far I'm willing to fall?"
Everyone else, lost in their thoughts spiralling with their desires, snaps back to Hikashi casually standing before the entity, hands in his pockets.
"Well, let me tell you,"
Hikashi gently raises his hand to the orb.
"To the very depths of hell!" The statement not only sends such shivers down the spines of every contestant, it felt as if the room itself had began to shudder.
Placing his palm onto the orb, his body becomes illuminated by the light swiftly devoured by the orb.
"Looks like you're going to be an interesting one. Don't make me make favourites." The entity sniggers.
Their spirits are inspired by Hikahi's; one after one, the remaining entries place their hands on the orb, creating an identical reaction.
"You've all earned my praise once again. However, there is one last thing."
Burning demands explode from the crowd: "WHAT WE JUST SOLD OUR SOULS!"
"YEAH WHAT ELSE COULD YOU WANT!?"
Ignoring the queries, the entity continues as if he were rehearsing only to himself. "Just 5000 Soulis of the 100,000 you are being loaned. If you can repay it, you can re-purchase your soul."
Hikashi had done absolutely nothing for the past half a year; more than a single soulis to his name would be absurd. "And what if we can't pay?" Hikashi utters sharply.
The entity grants a devilish grin in his amusement, "Well, that's unfortunate."
Hikashi's eyes widen, and his jaw jitters in a painful rage to maintain a calm aura, calculating different ways to erase that literal devil from existence.
Suddenly stunned, Hikashi's eyes forcefully jerk to the front of the room. A short, dark-skinned girl wearing a black skirt reaching just above her knees alongside a pale brown coat evidently too big for her, with an unshifting face of determination, stamps up to the stage.
"10,000 Soulis! 5 for myself and the other 5,
for that loner-looking guy right there!"