Bahdjinn

The city is breaking apart — not just physically, but temporally.

Time slips. Buildings float. People vanish.

Sixteen-year-old Rei Akihara thought he lost everything the day his sister disappeared into the sky. Since then, he’s done nothing but stand still. That is… until the ground beneath his feet cracks open — and something inside him tells him to run.

And when he runs, the world listens.

With every heartbeat-pounding sprint, Rei begins to repair the fracturing world. But with each saved moment, he loses a piece of himself. There’s something waiting for him at the finish line. Something big. Something old. Something hungry.

“The Day I Started Running” is a breathtaking blend of sci-fi, heartbreak, and adrenaline. Sometimes the only way forward… is at full speed.

The Day I Started Running

My legs felt like bricks and my brain was glitching harder than the city ever had. Nao let me crash at one of his hideouts — a condemned karaoke bar on the fourth floor of a forgotten arcade. No power. No windows. Just foam walls and echo.

I sat on a busted karaoke couch staring at the ceiling, trying not to lose my mind.

I kept seeing things. Even when I wasn't running.

A cockroach reversing into an egg.

My reflection blinking five seconds after I did.

I scratched at my arms. The skin felt like it didn't belong to me.

"This world deletes things that don't belong."

He tossed me a convenience store onigiri and a bottle of peach soda. He didn't say anything at first. Just sat beside me, cracking his knuckles. Watching me like he was expecting a meltdown.

"I saw my sister again," I said, quietly.

"In the wall. For a second. I think she smiled."

Nao leaned forward. "Was it really her?"

That's when the guilt hit me again. That low tide of pain that never fully recedes.

"What if I'm not fixing anything? What if I'm just tearing the seams wider?"

Nao didn't respond immediately. Then:

He stared at the floor. "They don't thrash like in movies. They get real still. Just sink. Because their body thinks it's over. Game over. The fight's done."

He looked up at me, face tired. "You're not drowning, Rei. You're kicking like hell."

I laughed bitterly. "Doesn't feel like it."

He tossed something at me — a little glass orb. Inside it shimmered with slow-moving particles. Like a snow globe made of light.

"A memory lock," Nao said. "It records a sliver of stabilized time. Pocket reality. You were holding this when I found you in the bathtub."

Inside, I saw two figures running in an open field — a boy and a girl.

She was laughing. The wind was loud. I looked happy. Not just smiling — truly happy.

And I said something. I couldn't hear it, but I could read my lips.

Then the orb blinked — and the image vanished.

"Where did that come from?" I whispered.

"That's the thing," Nao said. "I don't know if it's your past… or your future."

We sat there for a long time. Quiet. The only sound was the flickering of a broken neon sign outside casting pink pulses through the dust.

Eventually, I asked, "Nao… if we can change the world by running… does that mean we could run all the way back to something we lost?"

The Unraveling