Once Upon the Dream Hermit

INT. A CERTAIN YOKOHAMA HOSPITAL - NIGHT - SEPTEMBER 2023

My name is Shirayuki Otogibanashi, aged approximately twenty-three years old, and a patient of a hospital somewhere in Yokohama.

Sickly to a fault I couldn't leave my bed, and my last moments crept doom to the entirety of medical research practitioners, as to have fallen by exceeding 200 years worth of memory. Whether what happened to the world of pharmaceuticals after that, I have no idea and I don't think I'd show the interest to even want to know.

Although this is a blatant lie.

About the bizarre illness, I mean.

I fell off my bed while I was asleep, and apparently smashed my head to the floor.

Freed from life moments ago, I found myself in a void.

No such actions like a revival to the use of a defibrillator.

Smash to:

INT. AFTERLIFE - GRAY ZONE - TIMELESS

I stood in the gray zone for a while, unknowing of its nature. What was the place, may it have been a reception area for my soul's destination or something else, entirely. It took me a while before I moved on the same spot, ignoring the fact I could walk.

Heading straight, I eventually felt a strange sensation.

In my years as a bedridden individual, I've always had a good perception of my environment, knowing when a person was nearby, either asleep or awake. It might have been acquired in a trashy way, but my survival instincts mostly relied on it. For a fact, this was a person─and though it was only natural, I knew it wasn't human.

"Um, who are you?" It asked, in a sublime paradoxical approach, dread and anxiety culminated─then eventually collapsed.

"Eep...?!" I couldn't turn behind due to extreme fright. "Uh, hi, I'm Shirayuki Otogibanashi."

I managed to get something across.

I bowed to thin air.

Thinning out, the sense of unfamiliarity.

It was a man's voice, if I have to judge, one who seemed to be middle-aged. Mature, you could say. Annoyingly, it was human─the tone, his disgust, the atrocity and the value for ethics were left across.

As I pondered upon this problem, I may have seemed to short circuit.

Like, with that small information alone, my mind was thrown to process chaotically.

"Hmm? Did you say your name is Shirayuki?" May it sound like he's surprised, the energy of his voice can be noteworthy to its deficiency. "It's fine, you may face me."

Thus, I faced him, impoverished with the right manners. I nervously turned my body in the opposite direction. Certainly, I didn't expect the sight to be a dud? It was a scruffy man in his 30s─like I had guessed, annoyingly human. Defining his features was a blue happi coat and his round glasses, almost that at-home person who's taking breaks at new year's eve. Imagine him being under the kotatsu, and lazing about, peeling kiwi and watching a variety show.

A strange tension got in, making it feel like I have barged into someone's house…But there really isn't a problem within this schtick, right?

I mean, I'm already dead.

So this person must be God.

He suits himself to a human according to my race…And he looked more Japanese than I.

Perhaps it could have been my imagination, but I trust the obviousness alongside forced inspection.

It took time for me to have everything registered, so we were caught in a standstill…I caught up to my breath, and feigned indifference to his stature.

So, I asked, "Would there be something wrong with my name?"

"Hmm, there's nothing I guess? It just reminds me of a character I both loved and hated."

"Ah, I have an idea what you're talking about. It's not obvious to death, and missing it on my behalf feels rather disgusting."

He tilted his eyeglasses again, keeping everything about Snow White under his inspection.

"You don't look like a villain."

"I guess that's a little prejudiced…" I answered nervously, absorbing whatever my name was being referenced to…Wait! "Are we talking about the same Snow White here?! The first Disney princess?!"

He let out a chuckle, and darted over an overlooking menace.

"Well, I can't tell you right away. Puzzle yourself in that regard, because I sure am dumb not to consider our realities differentiated from each other."

What was with the self-burn just now?

No, perhaps, I'm not sure if it is.

Though I can be sure he sounds like a person who can't begin a conversation with anyone without a philosophy or something. Could someone like God progress with this attitude, or it could only be a play of personality that best reflects my own?

I mean, I can be sarcastic, cynical, and pessimistic at any time of the year.

I even gained awareness of it.

"Anyway, why are you here?" he asked, tilting his glasses.

It could have been the trial for my resurrection or reincarnation process? Although I dunno, the act was estranged to only an uncle performance, less the God part. Maybe I'm mistaken.

"Aren't you supposed to explain that to me? You're God, right?"

"Oh, allow me to break your bubble there. I'm the resident of this house. You're under the grounds where I can file a trespassing complaint. You must know how the rules work."

"Hah?!"

I may have wanted to sound genuinely perturbed, but what my brain pondered upon hit entirely different.

He looked at me, extracting the same flippant countenance, "Oh, I'm sorry. That was a lie there, kid."

"Then, are you who I think you are?"

"I am a special envoy, a federal agent working under the spatial government administering the space-time continuum."

A dry introduction, fast without being built, and a desperate copypasta that I could only wince in risk of offending him.

"And… I suppose you can believe my profile, right?"

He looked at me, inspected me at best.

"Hmm, I suppose you lived long enough bearing the name of the Chaos God."

I suppose.

I lived long enough of being bothered by the supernatural, I understood anything and everything that has occurred throughout the mortal venture. Also, I'd understand anything and everything that would be thrown my direction, all of them would only take mere matters of hours before I've unraveled their mysteries. He took a step back, and walked in circular motion within my comfortable radius.

"You understand everything, and yet you'd rather live under the assumption everything is stable."

I suppose.

He stopped from behind, I didn't look.

"While it leaves you sane, the others suffer because you weren't intervening in the very thing you ought to destroy."

Hilariously noted, because I'm aware.

Then, he continued his circular motion heralding his last exclamation─his voice and frame vanishing in the same thin air.

"You see, the only cure to your nightmares is death."

Smash to:

INT. ERROR

Light emerged, and consciousness surfaced from another bizarre dream.

"Ugh, my eyes are hurting again…!" Snow White groaned─in adherence to the pricking pain.

Again, a vivid dream. Like, when they occur, it's normal, born to be erased, and excusable to a fault. It's only this old man, and I'm dead for some reason.

Through the skin, prick once.

Through the skin down to the eyeball, prick twice.

I opened my hurting eyes, only to see the peculiarity of a bright red admiral butterfly resting atop my left eye socket.

It flew as I opened my eyes, to be exact.

From how I could picture it─a cute one, estranged from everything in the world.

Ephemeral as it disappeared out of my field of vision, misery crawls nearer to the event horizon.

I remember falling asleep.

I also remember someone waking me up.

It was a mellow, "Wake up, nii-chan!"

Typically the single-liner of a wake-up call that wouldn't get me into my jive. By the time I regained complete hold of my vision however, the person wasn't there and solely, I was left in a chair.

I was left inside the gymnasium.

Since I often rely on forceful alarm clocks and all─one that wants to throw me in a parallel universe─I might have disregarded everyone.

No use crying over spilled milk, I walked myself out.

It's all but a repeated sequence of events.

Failing to wake up even when woken up, and left alone in the hall because I probably mumbled, "Five more minutes!"

No shred of shame, I regrouped with my classmates.

They haven't moved far away, hence I only needed to walk in the most natural plight.

All the students of Nichiyoubi North High School uniformly walked a straight downhill path─like medieval footmen.

Good grief, I have to waste energy. My summer consisted of rolling around the house and lazing for the trouble of getting shouted at by the end of the day. Stamina wasn't a weakness, but forty days of not doing anything has to make my body rusty to a certain degree.

Exercise hasn't been worth my attention, though my body definitely called for it. I definitely need exercise to boost my stamina after living my sister's life. For now, I have a body that's easy to tire out…Surprisingly, I don't hate it.

I have to admit, walking eight hundred steps uphill─although a menial task─requires immediate strength recovery.

But then…Whether I did exercise or not, it only makes a frivolous development.

Uphill was tiring but moving downhill?

It wasn't exactly that much of a drag.

I was even letting out a yawn, which in my practice, signs that I can rest during class.

If I'm this tired from walking and listening to the principal's speech, I can dodge Miss Ayanami's welfare mission. I will take a nap once I reach the classroom. I wouldn't get yelled at by anyone, being a particularly important figure and all.

"Nuh." I was poked, subsequently alerting said particularly important figure. "Heehee! I gotchu, nii-chan…Do you want me to take over the job?"

"Good morning, sis," I greeted her─I waved my hand up in front of her face, giving her a warm reception.

Amaterasu Origami, my fake little sister, offered a suspicious helping hand.