LIGHTNOVELONLINE Chapter 0: Prologue (Edited)
Bzzt bzzt bzzt
Thump.
The sun was shown in the room revealing an unkept space and illumining a slightly frustrated teenager on his bed. "Where did the usual weather go with yellow clouds in the morning?' Namike grumbled in his head as he sits up. He observes his room which is quite small with some notebooks and a laptop laid out from his previous session on a biology essay. A tuxedo cat laying on top of a pillow near the window side. He went over to the cat and gently stroked it before going to the bathroom to brush his teeth.
The vibrations from the brush allow him to step out of his sleepiness. When he stops, he spits out the paste which reddened from the brushing and decides to make breakfast himself.
He looked in the mirror and sees a tall Indian boy with black hair and some ache on his cheeks symbolising his young age. His height was extraordinary in his family and apparently the house as well as everything is miniature as well as uncomfortable to him. He wore a blue shirt with wrinkles and a black trouser. On the phone he brought with him was the latest news about Dragonball with the new Dragonball Broly coming out. He quickly went downstairs and went into the kitchen but not without stretching his legs.
His older brother, Seth, seemed to be awake as he went into the bathroom before provoking his elder sister Elina for waking up late. His brother was the shortest of the siblings and his sister ranked second but Namike was a full head of height above. The cat is owned by his sister which helped the family in their dull life of living.
As Namike walked down the stairs, he thought about asking his sister for skincare help but rejected as she is a bit intimidating especially now she is shorter than him. He still had problems looking people directly in the eyes but his height is average in society so he always kept his head down but everyone in his family is shorter so he can't avoid it.
He goes into the kitchen to spend 30 minutes making his morning latte with sugar and milk. He has been making breakfast for himself for two weeks now. However, he only knows how to make egg sandwiches, which are eggs, salami, and bread. Some sauce and salt to the meal to make use of the leftover bread which he cuts from his original sandwich. Most of the mealtime is on his phone as he browses through novels or casting shows on Netflix on the TV.
As he eats, he looks around the room and sees the screen casting the latest trailer of the Broly movie he looked at his phone. The sofa he sat on was dented due to constantly sitting in one spot and he tried stretching his legs only to find them confined with cat toys in the room. "I cant wait to watch it." He looked behind him to see another fridge with a carpet on top as cats like to feel peasants below them like the queen she is. The refrigerator seems brand new and contains a variety of things like sauces and salami. This new fridge was going to be added to teh kitchen as the old fridge seems to be malfunctioning. Namike is sitting in the living room as there are two black couches in an L shape rotated 90° clockwise with a fish tank on the left next to the windows and a TV mounted in front of him. There is a carpet for his cat and a couple of basses near the TV.
A carrier is located in the corner and reminds Namike to do his daily chores. These are feeding the fish, checking the litter, and looking for his cat, Risa but she was in his room so that is ticked off. She may get trapped in his brother's room or the kitchen. His brother sometimes closes the door without checking. Being the youngest sibling brings him an ample amount of stress.
After stroking his sister's cat in his room again on the second floor to relieve the stress, he decided that his sister should check the litter as she is in the house today. He lays down on his bed while looking at his phone and writing down some ideas for a novel he is thinking of making. He got ideas during the last few months in bursts and decided to write them down to remember. One of his ideal moments was thinking of powers for a sheep which caused him to spend two days writing a 2-page idea list for an author. Well, the capabilities of a sheep can be awe-inspiring.
His room has a piano on the side near a blocked-off chimney and a wall of shelves with stuff. The curtains were opened already which led to his rude awakening. His pillow is close to the window as he thought he would have a higher chance of waking up to the sun and his alarm. The idea worked out in the end but backfired as he went to have more sleep. The windows don't have a wide enough ledge. The cat instead goes into the older brother's room to look outside and lay down there.
Navigating through the room is like walking on a tightrope with handlebars on the side, messy but manageable to live in. He also has a revolving chair with a blanket for his cat to sleep on top. His sister's room does get extremely sunny from midday to afternoon and Risa enjoys sleeping with the company instead of his sister's room which is empty for some days due to her work.
Namike thinks about what had occurred in the past weeks. He had just finished the sixth form and decided to sort out his life during the holidays starting with making himself busy with a project like making a song or writing a book. Unfortunately, he seems to be doing both with his book writing taking most of his time as his mind wants to be stressed and challenged.
So far he has only some ideas and wants to have the first book be fanfic but he can't decide between SAO, Dragon Ball, and BnHA. He drops his pen and decides to change his shorts to jeans and wear a grey winter coat which stores his essentials in zipped pockets. He then decides to wake up his parents. They can at least make breakfast for his brother and lunch for him before he leaves in 30 minutes.
Once he woke them up, he thought of having a walk instead of jogging after eating lunch as another goal is to lose fat and gain abs although the main goal is to get used to exercising again. So far he only thought of doing runs or jogging as he hasn't got the equipment to try the other stuff. The running machine makes too much noise and makes him just sweat thinking about the accidents that can occur due to its age.
He brought a mask with him as well as earphones which was the common trend in this era of walking. He tells bye to his parents and goes along the route which he takes to his sixth form which includes being beside a highway. The bicycle path is often deserted but some people like himself walk along it. He took off his earphone as he decided to listen to the highway noises which sounded comforting to him. The number of trucks seemed unnerving to him but he reminds himself that only Asian countries have reincarnations in the books he read.
Once he reaches a park area, he decides to lie down on the grass and think about his life. All the opportunities he could have grabbed were missed due to his addictions to gaming and reading but not all of it was as bad as some of his best friends were made from reading in the library of his school. They stuck with him and helped him be connected to society instead of becoming a shut-in. He is still connected with them now but most of them are busy with work or just Uni stuff. He decided to go to another school for his sixth form and most of his friends stayed at the same school. Some, of course, went to other schools but none chose the same school as him.
He felt lonely in the new sixth form during the lockdown months but he connected with people quickly as everyone there was friendly. They also had various interests which were positive and negative as he couldn't talk about politics but he was able to join in for general opinions and arguments. He misses some of his friends from both schools already although he saw them 2 days ago. He maybe feels like this due to him not wanting to hang out after school.
His old school friends usually brought him out but he never paid or ate. He also didn't visit any parties or go to the cinema ever. His new friends in the sixth form asked if he wanted to do activities together but Namike turned it down as he was insecure and felt like he didn't belong in this world. He wished he had another chance to do his life and he will this time grow as a person and not be a loner.
A sudden draft of wind with the scent of grass and faeces passed by Namike while he was in his thoughts. Namike instantly decided to go back home as he was there for quite some time and the sun was already over halfway through the sky. He tried to stand up but failed due to his weight and decided to slowly get up. Slowly putting a foot on the ground, he rose to only see a truck nearly hit him. However, the track quickly turns away and continues on its journey across the highway. "I guess I am not getting into an isekai huh? Too bad I guess," Namike states. While walking back he decided to go back by train as he isn't bothered to walk more so he walked through the forest near the area as it was a shortcut to the train station.
Right when he entered the forest, he tripped on a small toy and a sharp branch was about to stab him in his stomach. The branch instead stabbed him on his legs as he twisted his ankle to soften the impact on the ground. A massive amount of pain and adrenaline coursed through his body as he grabbed some rocks and sprayed them towards the highway to alert someone. One car screeched to a halt when this happened and made the car owner notice it was intentional. She quickly pulls up and is about to intimidate the person who threw the rock when she suddenly sees a pool of blood under the assailant. She quickly goes to give him support and calls 911.
Once Namike was leaning on a tree without touching the branch in him, he tries to stop vomiting in front of her and goes on his phone to send a farewell message he wrote a couple of days ago as an emergency measure for situations although he never expected it to happen. The messages were mostly farewells and what he enjoyed about each person. There were regrets hidden in the messages with a love note attached to one of them.
The messages to his parents were the longest as he knew they would grieve and be upset with each other for a long while which may cause harm to the family. Their message allowed them to calm down and probably be more stable with one less child to feed. He was the one with the endless void stomach after all. Later while reading the message, his parents angrily want to tell him that he was the one who did the most for them and helped all of his siblings although he was the youngest. He never was just an extra stomach and he was the one who kept them from bleeding from the sadness they had experienced before.
While all the messages were sent, the woman holding him kept telling him he will be okay while crying slightly as he is most likely not going to make it and she couldn't handle someone dying in front of her. There was a chance that the ambulance would arrive as he was next to a highway but it was near midday on a weekend. She kept hold of his hand to calm him down although she looked like she needed to be calmed down. Namike saw his life flashing at this moment but never felt angry at his accident or sad about his death. He always imagined scenarios when his parents normally fight downstairs due to his anxiety.
He decided to let go of the woman's hand and tell her thanks for the support but vomited some of his blood instead. In the heat of the moment, he saw a truck toy slowly going deeper into the woods. He was about to chuckle at the hallucinations he saw and say something when he suddenly felt like vomiting again. She wasn't expecting him to suddenly vomit out blood so she can only watch his hand touch the ground and breathe his last breath with his eyes closed. An ambulance arrived 2 minutes later but he was already gone due to the blood loss and cold temperature in the surroundings. On the way to the hospital, his phone kept ringing with the name MOM at the front.
His family learned of his death from the messages but they decided to call the hospital to ask around if there was someone who died recently. They can only feel sad when they hear a young brown boy was found killed in front of a forest with a large branch going through his body. He was lucky to be able to send the messages and get another person to help and support him in his final moments.
Two weeks later, a funeral was held and there was a tomb. It read, "Namike - the one who cared for everyone he met".