Takemura Itsuki

“D-Do we really need to jump inside this?” Haruto asked again as he looked into my confused and scared eyes with his desperate eyes.

We both stood in front of the bricked boundary of the well, from where we had our heads turned at each other. I looked into the desperate eyes of Haruto, and gulped. “This whole shit really is very strange.”

I turned my head downwards and looked inside the deep pitch-black well. The vision of a small girl, wearing that same long light blue frock connected by a light blue top with white designs, falling down with her eyes wide open, her arms and legs spread open as she fell, and her body in midair. “ITSUKIIIII!”’

SNA! I opened my eyes again, and I was still looking down in the dark well. “Its floor is not even visible,” Haruto commented.

“It’s taking you too much time, kiddos,” The robotic voice said.

We both turned to each other at the circular blue and white logo in between us, rotating slowly. I replied, “We can’t really trust you that we’ll be fine.”

We both looked at the rotating logo for a few seconds. It remained silent for a few seconds, and did nothing but rotate. After a while, it replied, “… Says someone who was just attacked by about a dozen of beasts.”

“Y-Yeah…” I replied, and then turned to the well again.

“C’mon fellas, I don’t really have all day long for this shit. I needa go to other work too.” As we looked down at the other end of the well, which was not really visible, with our scared eyes, the logo slowly started moving a little front inside the well. “Don’t worry, leave everything to me. Laws of physics don’t mind me playing with them.” It then added in a lower voice, like a whisper, “It’s just a leap of faith, kids. I know I can’t really make you believe me, and I can do nothing about that frightened part of your brain, but… you just gotta believe sometimes. That’s what life is about. It’s a fifty-fifty gamble. You either win or you lose. I know that I might be sounding like anything can go wrong, but… that’s an important thing I felt I needed to add. Sometimes, you needa believe in others, and… and just think that everything will go alright. And even if it didn’t, just think that there must be another life experience, Life-sensei is tryna teach you.”

I then turned right at the logo. “W-When will we be teleported back here again?”

“Depends.”

I then gulped and turned my head down again. I glared at the deep well. I was thinking about all this for a few seconds. The juices in my brain were flowing and the machinery of all the rotating parts and stuff was working. The clock behind my mind was ticking. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. “I needa think about it real quick,” I thought. My trembling lips then opened a little, and then as they trembled for a second, they moved up and down as they said, “Let’s just… jump. Because we have no other choice anyways, and thinking about it more will only make it more difficult.”

Haruto quickly turned his head left on me and looked at me with his wide open eyes. “Itsu—”

“Stop it, Shiratori-kun.”

Haruto, with his trembling scared eyes, looked at me looking down inside the well, and then moving my right leg up, fixing my right foot up, and then pushing my body forward inside the well. My body was in midair as my left leg moved inside the well and my right bent leg straightened slowly as I slowly moved inside the dark hole. I was feeling nothing. I was hearing nothing. Haruto was looking towards me with water leaking out from his eyes. I looked into his emotional face as he looked at me falling down with my head turned down and my head tilted at a little right. “I… am afraid too, Haruto,” I thought as our eyes met for a split second. Then, the time suddenly came back to its original pace, and I was suddenly moving down at full pace. My body was dashing down to the ground as it cut the air at an insane speed. I tilted my head leftwards, to the top of the well, and looked at the face of Haruto looking towards me with a drop of tear in his eyes. The circle with that crying face was turning smaller and smaller as I moved down. “At this depth, he might not be able to see me due to all this darkness,” I thought as I looked at the diminishing image. The body really cut the air at insane speed as I dashed down and down.