Drip

Drip

"A-a-a-a..."

Drip

Drip

"A-a-a-a-a-a..."

Drip

Drip

A pair of quivering lips couldn't even muster whatever courage in the world to mutter any comprehensible word whatsoever. Her dark brown irises were shot wide open as the gun held was shaking terribly in her petite hands, dark red stains splashed on her fingers and horrified features. All the time ever since that loud noise pierced through the room, her wide eyes couldn't even look away from the body of the man that laid on the floor across her, drenched with a scarlet red substance, darker than anything she's seen so far.

His own blood.

The puddle that formed beneath the body began expanding on the once clean and polished floor, making its way toward the trembling legs of the girl, thus staining the bottom of her white socks with the darkest red she'd ever seen. On the other hand, another woman was present right next to the body with a skin tone that turned paler than ever and sweats rolling down her almost lifeless and white face. Her hand covered her mouth as hot tears shed from her eyes almost instantly like waterfalls; she forgot all the pain she was feeling, all the beating she got, all the bruises and injuries across her face and body... for they didn't matter anymore.

The shock was so great that the girl with the gun in hand was still hyperventilating like crazy, those fast and inconsistent pants escaped her sullen lips like slaves running away from their torturer. She lost all track and sense of time or the world around her as if she had completely vanished from existence... if only possible, she wished if the ground would slip and swallow her into its deepest depths. That was until the gun fell from her bloodied hands after every strength left them, falling on the floor with a loud thud before she collapsed along with it on her knees as well. Her sinful body was no longer able to carry her weight, and thus she fell down on the puddle that stained her clothes with the blood she was so scared of.

"A-a-a-a-a-a...!"

"What... WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!"

"A-a-a-a-a... AAAAAHHHHHHH!"

That was her own blood-curdling scream that would haunt her for the rest of her days.

*******

It was somehow dark and blurry for the eyes to see clearly... for a pale hand was covering half of its owner's face to conceal all the fear that masked their features away from any soul to see. When that said hand moved away and everything was clear again, the sunlight hit right through their irises as they looked at the completely crowded space, occupied by people, and students mostly who were chatting and speaking on their phones. The train was crowded to its fullest to the point that there were no spots left for standing and that was nothing new for the weekend since that line served one of the busiest and most inhabited areas in the metropolitan city.

Among the crowd of people, a lonely girl with short, thin dark brown hair tied in small ribbons by the sides of her face with the back cut short, a pair of half-rimmed glasses with oval-shaped lenses, pale skin was lucky enough to be sitting down and scanning her eyes on the screen of her phone. The light seeped through the windows of the train and onto the lenses of her glasses, showing her dull dark brown irises that were scanning their surroundings aimlessly. Except that those eyes had something different in them... different from any other living human being.

Her eyes... were dead.

They were derived from the smallest sign of life and entity and them, appearing absolutely no different from those of a dead fish... as if she'd seen a thing that no man should ever see. The girl's lips were pursed and pressed into a straight line, seeming wiped from the tiniest trace of emotions--and the more she looked around her with those eyes of hers, the more that fact seemed obvious. As a resort to distract herself from the unimportant chatter that filled the train, she pulled her phone out as her long finger scrolled between several pages online. She was wandering through the pages aimlessly and skimming through the contents uninterested in all the news and headlines she encountered until her dark pupils were fixed on a certain article that caught all of her senses.

".......!"

A soft gasp escaped her lips on the words written in the article that had a picture of herself attached in it along with the title that was written in bold letters to make sure that any person would see it, even briefly.
She read the whole thing to the end, her eyes remained as wide as ever, as her fingers gripped tightly around the phone to the point of almost breaking it with her mere force only. Anger rushed through her veins and felt her blood was boiling inside of her body as she gritted her teeth tightly, but she decided to calm herself down and take a deep breath before doing anything irrational.

"It's out now, huh...?"

An unreadable expression was on her face before her dark brown irises were completely hidden by the sunlight that reflected on the oval-shaped lenses of her glasses. It seemed like all of her movements died down and she in her place steadily drowned with the voices of people around her that seemed to be fading away in her ears. How could that happen? How did word spread out and made public online? She had a vow a long time ago to bury that memory in the depths of the darkness of time and no living being shall ever know of it.

While her train was moving in a straight line to where it was meant to go, another train came along in the parallel line in the opposite direction. Though it was only for a mere second, the brown-haired girl caught a quick glance of an unkempt and curly dark-haired boy sitting on the train across her through the window. His grey eyes met with hers briefly beyond the lenses of each others' glasses.
The world around them moved in a slow-motion at that moment before everything went back to normal and both trains drove away in the opposite direction, each to its own destination. The boy to his unknown destiny, and the girl to a mysterious fate.

That was truly just the beginning of an unjust game...

*******

Disclaimer: The author doesn't own Persona 5 nor its plot, they're mere properties for Atlus.Inc and everyone involved in it.

The author only owns her original character along with other extra characters that will show up during the storyline and will play important roles, also she owns the plot twists that'll be added to the story's plot and the backstories of some of the canon characters.

This story will contain spoilers for Persona 5, so in case you didn't finish the game, the author highly recommends you do not read further than this point. You have been warned.

And now, the author deeply wishes all of you a wonderful and unforgettable experience reading her work.

Author: Rand Talih

Published on: Sun/Jan 13/2019

《REMINDER》All the media of pictures, fan arts, music, and videos used in this story belong to their respective owners.