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 packed her instruments, walked out of the room, her face is a mix between anger and anxiety. Nothing she does to this place worked, her spreadsheet shows this facility had two months left within their budget. It will be a pain in the ass to move out fifty seniors and payout for five caretakers. There won’t be enough cash to pay a proper burial. She had rejected hundreds of elderly applicants last year. Her action left a bad taste, most of those people knew her since she was a child.

To hear news of people dying in their lonesome, only to be found by their nasty stench of rotting corpse. Miho wanted to scream her lungs out.

She went to her private quarters, slammed the door behind, the air compresses and slaps the curtains aside. Volunteer work are rarely easy, often paid short, nonexistent 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. It doesn’t take long for the budget to run thin, she wasn’t an expert after all. Many mouth to feed, not a lot of support.

Her eyes are fixated to a nearby cemetery. “The damn thing ran out of space a month a go”, she thought. Miho silently bawled out, biting down her own lips. A weak knock on the wooden door, the hinge creaks open. She wiped her tears away, barely disguising the enlarged vein wrapping her eyes.

“C-Come in…”, said Miho meekly.

It was a man in his seventies, skin wrinkled like an old plastic wrap, head covered by a black fez. His tattered white shirt was donated by another dead volunteers, ten years ago. His arms are disproportionately long compared against his torso. The man’s skin are blackened by melanin produced after years under the sky’s ultraviolet rays.

“Miho, I was making a tea, would you like a cup?”

She knew him by a single-word name, “Don”. A colloquial nickname because he looks like a famous singer, obviously unrelated. He was often seen walking around the schoolyard, aimlessly. Miho knew from the start that he’s going through something, probably an early sign of dementia.

“Come sit with us, you’ve got visitors.”

“Us? Visitors?”

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 is damp after not being used or aired for a month. It was filled with shelves of books, elementary and advanced course in various fields from biology to mana science. It is considerably larger than your average office, with an arrangement of sofa for at least six guests. Don prepared three cups of warm and delicious teas. Miho sat on the single sofa, her back is pressed to the cushion.

“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. She drank a cup carefully, as to not scald her tongue. A bittersweet drink, perfect for a bittersweet ending to this place. The fragrance bursts out as the cup touches her nose.

“Tea’s delicious, eh?”, a voice came out of the void.

She stood up 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.

We knew them, they are Bran and Lux. 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. They were taught that giving a warm, firm, and professional introduction is preferable than an unorthodox one, like what they 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 from the market, got a discount on it. I really wanted to try it.”

Her saliva is flowing out of her mouth. The day moves on without her, the outside world’s time does not stood still. The day turned into night in a blink of an eye. Her heart is beating slower, and then much slower. She felt nothing, her consciousness fade away. Miho was pronounced dead by the angels, not too long after that.