Alone With The Others

Bran and Lux flew to a remote region of The Republic. A place with a name forgotten by history. Lux noticed the gradual differences in population density and increased of greenery as they went farther from the city center. The roads became muddier, shorter, and more neglected. Fences fending off predators from one’s livestock starts to appear, farms and pens filled with cows and bulls who roam near every patch of grass. Contrast it with the systematic, fast moving, and ever evolving life near the capital, everything in the rural areas goes infinitely slower in comparison.

Their destination is an almost empty and abandoned elementary school in the middle of nowhere. Children from the age of ten and over realized their potential of being a corporate slaves are being wasted in this empty land without career opportunities. What’s left is oddballs and old people trying to survive by the produce of their soil. The school is still occupied, albeit illegally by a group of care-givers. Volunteer from all across the land banded together to create a final resting place for the elderly, before they passed on to the great beyond. They cleaned and refurbished every classroom. Beds, toilets, first aids, and even arcade games for their enjoyment. It’s a thankless job, their sole source of income came from hundreds of children who emigrated away from the village. The payment is enough to sustain a class of senile members of society, even if their condition is not ideal.

Entertainment are still needed, especially in a world that lacks any digital or magical awareness. The elderly are not aware of the raise of uninet and how it changed a society. Most of them didn’t know that the government reinstated magic as a safe and regulated practice since eons ago. Their only source of information came from storytellers and musicians who volunteered. They are the unsung heroes of every nursing home, giving some spirit back to those old and fragile bones.

As they descended from the sky, Bran and Lux follows the open corridor which connects the classrooms together. The building is hugging an unkempt field of green grass the height of one’s knees. Back in the day, it’s used by all kinds of sports, festivals, and ceremony managed by the students.

Inside the biggest room, south west of the building, columns of beds facing each other are put orderly touching the wall. It creates an unbroken line of sight towards the front of the class, that has a small wooden podium on it.

A smooth melody came continuously out of an old guitar. The wooden body is broken by age, accidentally creating a perfect and unique timbre from the vibration of its strings. It’s handmade, carved by a teacher with a lot of free time from a tree nearby. The neck is still well preserved, brown, dark, and full of scratches. Children have written on it with highlighters and oil paint, one’s hand could feel its thick bump every time they change a key.

After ten minutes of beautiful fingering, the music stops due to the lack of reception. The elderly can’t hear well, their hands are tucked near their crotch. They smiled back at the performer and wander the building as a form of exercise.

“Thanks for listening in guys.” She mutters to herself in defeat. The beaten up hard-shell guitar case has its mouth open, inviting the instrument to jump in again. Unused again. Forgotten again.

Her name is Hayashi Miho, the last living descendants of the Hayashi family. Today, she assigned herself to entertain the every elderly in this “facility”, which looked more like a refugee camp rather than a nursing home. She pack her things and walked out of the room, her face shows anger and anxiety at the same time. It felt like nothing is working right now, not the past, present, or future of this place. She predicted this place could shutdown within the next two months. Less than fifty people was taken to this place, but that’s more than enough worries for her and several of the caretakers here.

The cash is running thin, there will be not enough Koen next time to buy groceries, or even a burial. She had rejected hundreds of elderly applicant last year, it leaves a bad taste to make those old men and women fend themselves off against the world. It’s common to hear news of people dying by alone in their house, only being found after the nasty stench a rotting corpse could give. Miho felt like she could scream, even when no one could practically hear her.

She slammed the door behind her, the air compresses and slaps the curtains inside. This is her private room, the only place where she could hear herself think, even for a moment. Volunteer work are rarely easy, often paid short, virtually non-existent cash flow, and it could fall apart when a guy decided their work is boring and unimportant.

Miho inherited this school from her father, right after learning about a nearby gangsters murdering her whole clan. The matter was taken to a secret agent, who decided to take the matter into her own hand. She helped Miho, avenging her clan, eradicating the gangster, and then left without a trace. All Miho had after that was a hollow reminder of where her family was. The bank gave her enough cash to operate for a year, yet there are a lot of people to take care of, an no one to help her. The government funding died down after a huge number of elderly swatted by diseases of old age. The nearby cemetery is now full with the school’s alumni, she hoped they could finally reunite, somewhere up there.

The wind blows gently into Miho’s room, her hands is cupping both of her eyes, she is silently bawling out by biting down her own lips. She heard a weak knock on the wooden door, the hinge creaks open. She wiped her tears away, barely disguising the enlarged vein on her eyes.

“C-Come in…” Miho said it meekly.

Behind the door, came a man in his 70, skin wrinkled like an old plastic wrap, his head covered by a black fez. He is wearing a tattered white shirt donated to him ten years ago. The old man could reach far with his arms, it’s disproportionately long if compared against his torso. His skin are also blackened by the amount of melanin he produced after years under the bright sky.

“Miho, want some tea?”

He is showing symptoms of early stage dementia, often wandering around without reason in the school. The man’s name was swallowed by time and incompetent identity management of the local census. Everyone decided to call him “Don”, after a famous singer that looks similar to him when viewed from a distance.

“Tea is best drunk together, come sit with us.”

“Us?”

Miho have never heard him said that word when referring to the other elders. She is not even sure he had ever refer to them collectively, only by names. She peered outside of the room and saw no one. She thought it might be his dementia acting up.

“Sure Don, let’s drink together.”

Don lead her to the principal’s office beside the audiovisual stage, but still overlooking the grass court. The room has a damp feeling to it, last used three months ago. On each side of its walls are shelves full of books, elementary and advanced course in various fields from biology to mana science. It’s considerably larger than your average office. At the middle is an arrangement of sofa for at least six guests. Three cups of warm tea was prepared by Don, he look pleased serving it. Miho sat on the single sofa, her back is pressed to the cushion behind her.

“Are we waiting for someone?” She said it confused by the lack of guest.

“No Miho, they’re all already here.” Don made a small bow, his back cracked a little before leaving the room.

Miho smiled by her own, she thinks Don must have gone senile already. Which is a really cool achievement for someone so old. She drank one of the tea carefully, as to not hurt her tongue. It tasted sweet but bitter at the same time. A delicious fragrant burst out as the drink touched her nose.

“Tea’s delicious, eh?”

She burst out scared, a spray of tea and saliva explodes from her mouth into a person in front of her. Two guys in his late twenties wearing all white, appears instantly, sitting right across the table. Now their face is wet and sticky, yet the silent smile and the friendly faces hasn’t faltered at all.

It’s Bran and Lux, they have been waiting here for a while now. They decided it’s best to talk to her in the principal office, away from other people, yet they still disguise themselves as a mortal to not raise any suspicion. Without missing a beat, Lux started the conversation.

“Good afternoon Miss Hayashi, please let me introduce myself as the representative of the divine. We are here to discuss a matter of great urgency with you regarding your fate as a person.”

Newly born angels were trained in a class of ten students, and two experts. It was taught giving a warm, firm, and professional speech is always preferred than an unorthodox introduction like what he gave to Jax. Their sudden appearance out of thin air isn’t in the protocol, so that’s just them being silly.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH GHOOOOOOOST!!!”

Miho screamed her lungs out, kicking the ground, running backwards, flipping up the chair, and cornered herself behind a table. She peeked and threw over anything nearby, lamps, books, glass, ceramics, chairs. Both of the angels sat still while the objects phase through them, you can’t hurt something that lives outside of the bounds of reality. Bran walked forward and summoned a scroll with a flick of his fingers. He licked the back of the scroll to make it sticky, and then put the paper on Miho’s forehead. Her body tensed up, going through a literal shock of electricity, spine curled backwards, eyes white like cotton, and mouth foaming with saliva. All that happens before she finally collapsed, her face facing the floor.

“Bran, what was that?” Lux walked into the situation, first time seeing such gruesome side effects.

“I got this scroll on the market and I wanted to try it out.”

Her saliva is flowing out of her mouth. She is continuing the trend of harming oneself at the sight of otherworldly being. Sure they tend to overreact, but this is not her fault at all. The day moves on without her help, the outside world’s time does not stood still. The day becomes the night in a blink of an eye.