Termino.
Evadere
--
Expecting the worst, Hiro reached out in the direction of the sounds of anguish and took the shrivelled hand. Even amidst the loud wails, he could hear his own heart flutter and pound against his ribs. As the sounds reached a blood-curdling high, he closed his eyes in fear, only to see grotesque images in his mind’s eye.
Suddenly, his train of thought was interrupted by an oddly familiar sound that Hiro had learned to fear lately.
Silence.
The agonizing screams were all but gone in a second. Unsure of what he would see, he opened his eyes hesitantly.
He was in a city with buildings as far as the eye could see, with not a single soul in sight. A wave of déjà vu gripped him.
It can’t be…
And then, as if on cue, he could hear the soft sound of waves lapping against the shore. He turned around to see the same beach on which he had been stranded. On the distant horizon, he could see a ship. With his heart beating in a renewed frenzy, he squinted at the ship.
It was the same ship that had brought him ashore.
Was it coming to take him back? Was his stint as a lost soul finally coming to an end? Or was the ship bringing him company? With scores of other questions swarming in his mind, Hiro did not quite notice his presence.
And then he heard it. A human voice. Barely discernible, but… persistent.
He turned around, in the direction of the buildings, with hopes of finding its source, but the same, depressing cityscape stared back at him.
Suddenly, he felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned around and recoiled in horror, as he realized that it was a severed hand jutting out of thin air.
Hiro tried to free himself from its vice-like grip to no avail. Almost immediately, flashes of visions pervaded his brain.
Him being edgy… his empty wallet… a wizened man with a satchel on the street…
He could recognize the man. He quickly recollected that he had once stolen from him to buy drugs. The old man was carrying a lump sum and the stash that Hiro had bought with the money lasted for a month. This had happened months ago.
Jolting Hiro from his rumination was a sound, loud and clear as day. It was an odious voice weighed down by pain:
“I scrimped and saved every day,
In hopes that a doctor would cure her, but nay!
With a lousy conscience, you robbed me first
And then made my hopes bite the dust.”
The lines hit him like a ton of bricks. The old man had been saving up for someone close to him. His ailing wife or daughter, perhaps. Hiro suddenly experienced something that he hadn’t felt in ages.
Remorse.
Before he could even contemplate his next step, there was another severed hand gripping his forearm. He tried to pull away, albeit with a dampened will, as he started to wonder what the next set of visions would show.
His friend Yukio… Yukio was clearly uncomfortable… He could see himself light a pipe and pass it over to Yukio, excitedly… Yukio was now in a euphoric state….
Hiro didn’t want to see it anymore. He felt like a thousand knives had stabbed his heart. He knew what was going to follow. He tried clasping his eyes with his hands, almost pulling them out of their sockets, in a desperate attempt to block the visions. But it proved to be futile when the final image faded in, dramatically, almost mocking Hiro for his fruitless bid:
…a heap of mangled limbs that the police had identified as Yukio… An autopsy report revealing objectionable quantities of methamphetamine in his bloodstream…
It all came back to Hiro.
Yukio had lost his cognition and sense of surroundings that night. He was reeling in euphoria.
He had been in his drugged state even when he collided with a truck on the highway and was mowed down beyond recognition.
Hiro couldn’t breathe anymore. This was beyond any possible torment he had imagined. Why was he being confronted by the demons of his past?
He almost jumped when he heard Yukio’s voice.
“It’ll be fun, don’t be a sissy,” you chided me, as I watched the embers burn,
Boy, were you wrong, for you’ve now put me on a path of no return…”
That served as the final nail in the coffin, as Hiro passed out.
He then woke up to a sharp pain in his legs. To his chagrin, it was a pair of hands firmly clutching his legs. Too weak to resist, he helplessly watched the visions roll in.
He could see his mother’s younger self. Images from his childhood flashed in front of his eyes.
His abusive father…his mother shielding him from his father and having high hopes on him…
Him falling prey to drug abuse…his mother slowly becoming a mere figment in his world that was devoid of emotions…
Hiro’s face froze, save for his teeth that were grinding against each other. More hands flew out of nowhere and were on every inch of his body. His mind was filled with voices and disturbing visuals from the past, of all the mishaps in his life. His lifeless eyes began moistening, as he felt the scalding hot tears rolling down his cheeks. His entire body was trembling wildly, as a loud, terrible wail escaped his mouth. Suddenly, the hands recoiled and were completely off him.
When he could finally sit up, he could see the ship on the shore, waiting.
He could also see the severed hands flock at a distance, ready to start hurtling towards him any second.
He had to make a choice.
