Still, I Am Myself6

I wrote this story in Japanese, and it was translated into English with the help of AI.

This is part of a series. If you haven’t read the previous chapters, please start with those first.

Episode5⇒https://00m.in/vXWRT

“Taichi, long time no see.”
I lifted my head from my phone. In front of my desk stood Kenta, the friend I’d hung out with since elementary school.

Class hadn’t started yet—but it would soon.
Wait… was he even in the same high school as me?

“That’s right. I’m not in the same high school as you. Thanks to you, I couldn’t even go to school. Don’t you dare say you forgot.”

Right… he had said something that pissed me off back then.
After that, I changed how I treated him, and as a result, he stopped interacting with others too.
But that was it, wasn’t it?

“That’s the kind of person you are. You pretend not to care, then do the worst things.”
“What, were you just craving my attention?”

“Come on—remember. You gave clear instructions, didn’t you? You never said anything outright, never got your hands dirty… That’s why I’m happy now. You’re the only one left alive.”

And with that, he vanished from before my eyes.
I don’t even remember his name anymore.
I was just—no, I thought I was just indifferent.
But… I knew.
I knew he was being ostracized. I even knew he was being beaten up behind the scenes.
But it wasn’t my orders.
I just listened and smiled like it was amusing—
That’s all.

“Huh?”

I thought I was in my classroom…
Was it all a dream?

I sat up on a patch of bare earth.

“Why the hell did I dream that…”

I shook my head.
It would’ve been better if I were still dreaming.
Because here—there’s nothing.
No family, no friends, no living beings at all.
I had destroyed everything.

When I tried to stand up, the ground beneath my feet suddenly vanished.
I fell, somewhere, into nothing.

“Uwaaahhh!”

I screamed, but it echoed nowhere.
Everything around me was pitch black—
Then suddenly, my vision opened up.
Sort of.
My footing wasn’t stable. I no longer felt like I was falling, but I wasn’t grounded either.
The world around me was painted in strange, murky colors.

With a splash, I found myself submerged in water.
There were no fish or any other creatures.
I tried to move my limbs to swim, but I couldn’t.
My body just sank straight down.

I shouldn’t be able to breathe underwater—
But for some reason, I wasn’t suffocating at all.
It was dark.
Water clung to every inch of my skin.

“This is your punishment. That’s why only you were affected and left behind. Even underwater, you won’t die.”

Voices shouldn’t carry underwater—
But I definitely heard it, through my ears.
Kenta’s voice… no, it wasn’t his.
Whose was it?

I closed my eyes.
It didn’t matter—open or shut, everything was still dark.

Punishment? I don’t get it.
Every human does something to someone.
Even Kenta did worse things than I did.
There are tens of thousands of people worse than me.
Why should I be the only one punished?

My body kept sinking deeper.
But gradually, it started to get brighter.
Even with my eyes closed, I could feel it.

I opened them.

Even though I was underwater, it didn’t feel like it.
I thought I’d sunk really deep, but somehow the surroundings weren’t dark anymore.
I could even see fish—
Fish?
Didn’t I destroy all life?
Or… was it just the creatures on land?

I moved my limbs.
Before, they hadn’t responded at all, but now they did.
I paddled, trying to rise.

But no matter how hard I swam upward, I couldn’t reach the surface.

I can’t breathe—why⁉
Just a moment ago, I was totally fine!

Panicking, I thrashed toward the surface.

Still, I couldn’t reach it.
Breathing became harder and harder.
My consciousness started to fade.

And just as it began to slip—

My head broke the surface.

“Haa… haa… haa…”

I had no idea what was going on.
How could I be in the same water, yet sometimes breathe and sometimes not?

What’s happening to my body?

The sun was high in the sky.
Everything was bright—
But all I could see was endless waves and a flat horizon.
No land in sight.

“What the hell am I supposed to do?!”

As my breathing steadied, frustration welled up inside me.
I didn’t ask for this.
I didn’t want this weird power.
Yet here I was, tossed around like a rag doll.

“Whoa!! What the hell?!”

Something huge was moving beneath me.
A fish? A whale?

No—this was bad.

Really bad.

Terror gripped me.

It was heading straight for me.

I started swimming desperately.
There was no land.
No boats.
If this thing was coming for me, I’d never get away.

I knew that—
But I still swam, body tense with fear.
At least I was a decent swimmer.
That was something.

And for some reason, I had this feeling—
If I swam in this direction, I’d reach land.

Earlier I couldn’t see any land—
But after swimming a little, it came into view.

I turned back instinctively.
Looked beneath me.

Nothing.
No shadow.
Nothing at all.

“What was that just now? A hallucination?”

No way.
I saw it clearly.

“Damn it! I just need to get out of here.”

I started swimming again.
Eventually, my feet could touch the bottom, and I made it to the shore.

“At least it’s a beach… could’ve been worse.”

It was a beach—
But that was it.
Not a single blade of grass.
No signs of life within view.

“But there were fish earlier… so it’s just the land that’s empty?”

My clothes were soaking wet.
My sneakers were drenched, water sloshing inside.

I took them off and poured the water out.
The sky was clear, and the wind was blowing.
Even though I was wet, I wasn’t cold.
It should’ve been almost winter by now…
But it was kind of warm.

I started walking.

“Seriously, what the hell is going on…”

No matter how mad I got, there was no one to yell at.
No one here.
Nothing here.

Eventually, the sun set and night fell.
I kept walking.
Strangely, I didn’t feel tired.
I wasn’t hungry or thirsty.

All night, I walked.

Still, nothing.
No bugs, even.

“In this climate, there should be bugs… Did I really burn everything down?
Is this that world now?!”

I sank down on the spot.

No matter how far I walked—
I never saw a single soul.

“Am I going to be alone like this forever…?
What did I even do to deserve this?”

That woman—she said I could return if I saw Momoka again.
But how?

Or maybe…
Momoka is here somewhere too.
All alone.
Scared.

Just imagining that made me desperate to find her.

She could be a bit of a brat, but I loved her like a little sister.
She is my little sister.
And the idea of her—so young—being terrified somewhere…
It broke my heart.

I stood up.

“Yeah… there’s still hope.
And I have to avoid using my powers…”

But—
Didn’t someone say I had the power to turn back time?

Right!
If I can control it, I can go back—
Prevent all this from happening.

But how?

I sat down, needing to clear my head.
Yeah, the one who looked like a unicorn said something…
That I’d interfered with time.

I thought it was a dream.
But maybe it wasn’t.
Maybe I actually turned time back.

“Don’t use your power. When you do, it affects me.”

“What…? What was that? Did I just think something weird?
Why would I call myself ‘you’?”

“Yeah… let me adjust that a little.”

“Am I thinking weird stuff again?”

“You’re foolish and troublesome. But now you understand.”

What I thought were my own thoughts—
They weren’t.
It was a voice.
One I’d heard in my head before.
Only now, I could actually recognize it.

“Your brain is simply perceiving it that way.
But you… unlike other humans, you can understand.”

Yeah…
I do understand.
But maybe that’s bad.
If I meet Momoka again, I can’t be like this.

“Ah, right. She told you not to use your power, didn’t she?”

“Yeah, but why?
You’re the ones who made it so I affect you when I use it.
Now you’re saying don’t? That’s just selfish!”

I raised my voice, shouting at whoever—or whatever—it was.
I looked around.
Still no one.
Even this thing—
I just wanted to talk to someone.

“You’re pathetic.
Yet… I feel that. Even though I shouldn’t.
We don’t understand unless we try to.
But you… you make us feel it just by existing.
That’s why you’re a problem.
Because you used your power, I’m now influenced by you.”

“You keep blaming me for everything!”

“Shall I seal you away? I like this planet. You’re a nuisance.”

“W-what?! Seal me—”

What does that mean?
After all this—now it gets worse?

“If you don’t want that, then die.”

This bastard—!
Like hell I’m gonna die!

But…
I don’t want to be alone either…

What the hell am I supposed to do?

To be continued.

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