I overlooked a night sky. The purplish, hazy clouds now turning into a more solemn, darker tone of blue, and as the moon cast its shadow over everything it saw, I realized I wouldn’t be going home tonight. The earth's ground was still warm and the air still humid. I called my mom and explained everything. As expected, she was not happy, but more than understanding of my predicament. After everything that had happened today, my mom screaming at me through my cell phone is the last thing that I would want to happen to me today, especially after all that happened.

A few hours earlier.

“These wings of mine,” wings, the size of the living room, protruded from her back, knocking out the ceiling light. At that point though, I wasn’t even surprised, I mean, who would be? Not after everything I’ve heard today. Them wings were the furthest things from my mind.

“I hope now you understand the situation me and you are in much clearer now.”

Aika came to join me on the balcony, she put her arms against the railings. And stared off into the distance.

“You might have a lot of questions; I can’t blame you, so now would be an adequate time to ask away.”

“I guess the thing I want to know the most is, what exactly was that place that I saw in my, well, I guess nightmare?”

“That place... is what many governments around the world seek to achieve, and they are using you to achieve this goal.”

“You’re kidding me… that’s, that’s… completely, and utterly, fucked up… on so many levels…”

“Th-then, who was that girl that I saw in that place that looked similar to you?”

“She… is me… but not really. In order to understand what she is, you must first understand the world that she inhabits.” I was confused but tried to understand what she was telling me

“The world she inhabits is similar to our own, but not. It’s the complete opposite of our world, but not really.”

“I don’t know what you mean, honestly, you’re not making it very clear are you?” She sighed, trying to explain the concept to me.

“Try to think of it as the inverted version of our own world. That very plane of existence she inhabits is like the inverted version of our world. Dead, barren, but that would be me just explaining how it looks like. Its true purpose is much more sinister.”

She looked at me as if to say, “Are you sure you want to hear more?” I begrudgingly shook my head.

“It’s a state of limbo, you’re not entirely dead, but you’re not entirely alive either. It’s a place where the laws of the universe do not apply. That’s the place the government is trying to access through you, and that’s the place that monster is trying to break out of. For several years this has been happening, and every time they wiped your memory of the dream ever taking place, but one night, they failed, and you retained your dream. Whether they are aware that you kept your dream or not is uncertain.” She twiddled her thumbs with a look of worry on her face.

“Can I ask one more question?” I said with a stern look in my face.

“If you must, then go ahead.”

“Why do you need me?”

She pondered that question for a moment, thinking about the right way to go about answering, after a brief moment of silence, she said: “It’s because you, Yuuki, are the only one who can help me die.”

I was completely stunned by that answer. It definitely wasn’t the answer I was expecting, nor was I hoping for, but here she was basically telling me that I’m her ticket off this world. But then I’d have to believe that she had some sort of immortality, but from what has happened today, was I in any position to rule out that option?

“Take a look over there.” She pointed towards a small building located on top of a small hill over in the distance with a tower on top of it, it looked like something that was used for telecommunications or had some use in broadcasting.

“That thing over there, that’s a broadcasting station. Built in 1961, it’s still used to this very day. Even though nobody works there, the tower still lights up at precisely 2:30 AM every night. This… made me curious. So, for about two years every night without fail, I would time when the tower would light up, and when the power would shut off. Without fail for two consecutive years, the tower would light up at 2:30 AM, and shut off at 7:30 AM. Now, this interested me, because, for an abandoned building with no one to operate it, it sure was lively all night.”

“For the next few months, I scouted out that building, and at around 12 o’clock at night, three men, all wearing black, would enter from the back of the building, this place wasn’t abandoned at all! But it sure wasn’t being used for its intended purposes, hohoho, I can tell you that much… that wasn’t any broadcasting station at all, that thing is some old soviet technology used to decrypt letter and number patterns that they must’ve found when they discovered the inverted world…” her words were becoming increasingly more serious in tone as she described the secret behind that broadcasting station.

I had grown very tired, staring into the abyss of the night hypnotized me into a deep sleep after Aika allowed me to stay in her room, she said she wouldn’t need it, probably because she wasn’t going to be sleeping tonight, instead, she’ll be looking at that broadcast station all night.

“Tomorrow is the day when we will finally be able to…”

I awoke at the ungodly hour of 3:00 in the morning. My eyes were stuck together like glue, it was that bad I had to physically open them with my fingers. The feeling of waking up at such a time with all the lights on and Aika shuffling around getting ready, felt like it was the last day of a holiday and everyone’s frantically packing away all of their belongings and cleaning up after themselves.

I awoke in my school uniform. “That’s right, I don’t have any pyjamas on me. “

I looked up at Aika and our eyes met. “Good morning.” She said in a calming voice, a nice way to wake up for sure, if only it hadn’t been 3 o’clock in the morning.

“O-oh, yeah, good morning… say, why are you getting ready so early?”

“It’s because we are moving out now, we still have time.”

“Wait, where are we going?”

“We’re going to the broadcast station.”

“Wait what.” With that, I looked at her in complete disbelief. I had a feeling that today still wasn’t going to be any more normal than yesterday, and yesterday was a complete, and utter, clusterfuck of emotions and thoughts.

“We’re heading out now since this is a perfect time.”

“I… still don’t understand what you’re saying…” Oh well, I felt like I couldn’t refuse her offer to join her and do… whatever it is that she’s now doing… besides, she could probably kill me… easily… and that’s just… scary…

We exited the apartment. She lent me her coat. We would have to travel a mile or so on foot in order to get to the broadcast station. I know… I realize I’m way over my head on this one, but I guess I had no choice but to indulge in her… ‘eccentricities…’

As soon as we opened the door, I was greeted by a small gust of wind blow against my face, and a dark, purple sky. We walked over to the elevator.

“Yuuki, it seems like we might not be going to school today.”

“Well… I guess I don’t mind that, it won’t be the first day I’ve skipped.”

“Yuuki, I have a plan, and it involves you.”

“It involves me…? How?” I didn’t like where this was going.

“I will explain it all to you when we get to the broadcast station, without you, the plan will not work. It is imperative that you follow through.”

“Oh y-yeah, hmm, of course…”

“Oh, okay that’s good.” We reached an intersection and waited to cross the road, it was still dark out and only light source we had were the streetlights and the purple sunrise. There were only a few cars going by, probably people going to their job.

“Hey, Yamaguchi, I need to know, how does this broadcast station work?”

“That’s a very complicated question, and of course will have an equally complicated and convoluted answer.” The light changed to red and we crossed the road.

“The broadcast station is the reason why you are able to interact with this other world. In a nutshell, a series of letters and numbers are broadcasted to your brain, and your brain is used to decrypt that data to make sense of it, which is why you are able to have these experiences, but make no mistake, they are not dreams, they are very real.” She paused for a second to regain her composure.

“In essence, your mind was tampered with long ago, maybe even at birth, and was rewired to decrypt the string of numbers and letters.”

“That was the short version, wasn’t it?”

“Well, yes, and I wasn’t even halfway through explaining, but if that gives you a rough idea then I guess that’s okay.” She gave me a smile of approval, the first time I had seen her smile, it was a beautiful smile.

I had noticed at the time that she had a duffle bag on her. I didn’t really want to ask what it was for, and honestly, that might be for the better.

We went from a different street to a different street. The broadcast station was uphill, so you can imagine how goddamn tired I was after only getting 5 hours of sleep. Aika pulled out a watch, it read 4:01.

“We’re early, good.”

“So then, what’s the plan?”

“Before any of that though, I need to tell you what we’re actually doing here. As you can see, the lights in the building are all on, and the tower is lit up, someone’s definitely inside their, Yuuki, you’re gonna have to hear me out on this one, okay…?” That look seemed uncertain.

“Okay… yeah… I’m with you.”

“The people in there hold key information, and you’re exactly what they’re after, so… I’m going to have to use you as bait…” My unphased face suddenly turned into a look of despair and sadness. Oh God, what have I signed up for?

The reason why she had a bag on her became much more apparent, for when she reached into her bag, what appeared to be a fake gun, no wait… t-that looks real… never mind- a REAL gun, and went on to describe her masterful plan of attack.

“Yuuki, these people know exactly what you look like, and who you are, so imagine how they would react when an immortal being is threatening to kill their precious test guinea pig they’ve been experimenting on for the past 15 years, obviously assuming they know of my existence, we could probably come to the conclusion that they’d give up pretty quickly, right?”

Being called a ‘guinea pig’ wasn’t the most appealing nickname I’ve been given over the years, but hey, take it or leave it, right?

“Hehe, yeah… can’t argue with that I guess… do what you please…” I said with a look of discontent.

“Look, I know you may not be in the ‘best’ situation, per se, but it’s the only idea I have.”

“Didn’t you say you’re immortal? Couldn’t you just overpower them?”

“I wish I could, but despite my immortality, I am built the same as any other human, meaning a team of them could easily take me down.” Her uncertain demeanour became a lot more confident whilst going through the plan. This was Aika, someone who had been concocting a very peculiar plan to die for god knows how long now, and here I am helping her. It’s strange how things work out as they do, isn’t it?”

“We break down the front door, it should be locked so we shoot the bolts. I-I, well… use you as bait, and, you know…” And just like that, her confidence plummeted to the ground.

“Hayashida, are you ready?”

“As ready as someone can be in a situation like this.”

“Good enough, they probably know we’re here, judging by the security cameras, we shouldn’t stay here for any longer, follow my lead.” And like that, she shot at the bolts on the door, the bang from the gun made my ears pop. I had underestimated the volume of noise a gun makes in real life. We followed through, she kicked down the door. As planned, I acted as her bait. She had me in her grasp, a gun to my head. The barrel of the gun was extremely hot, but the adrenaline rush at the start blind sighted me.

“Everybody, you should know who this is, and who I am, so I’m sure you know the consequences of making any false moves. I’m gonna need you all to stand down” They were stunned, a group of seven people stood there in complete and utter disarray. Three people with guns, all aiming at me and Aika, but their composure did not falter. The four other people, on the other hand, we’re on the floor. One was crying, a woman who looked about 30. The other two were men, maybe in their mid to late 50’s, they were shaking uncontrollably with the most intense look of fear in their eyes, it made you feel sorry for them.

We were at a standstill. A man reached for his radio, as he grasped for it, Aika shot one bullet, destroying the radio. Only three screams now were coming from the people cowering on the floor.

“I will ask you… once a-FUCKING-gain, stand – down.” She made sure to emphasize the ‘stand-down’ part. It clearly reached the men with the guns as they laid down their weapons. Their true colours were shown as they were now as shook up like the people in lab coats. Everyone now on the floor, Aika made a series of demands.

“All three of you, take off your masks, now.” They proceeded, all foreigners, the only exception being the man on the right being Japanese. These people, were all now on the floor, cowering in fear.

“What’s all of your names, starting from the left.”

“Samuel Jameson.” He bit his lip as he talked. His face turned from frightened to angry.

“Next.”

“It’s Colin Stevenson.” His demeanour was one of indifference.

We went through each and everyone, except for the man on the far right.

“Kobayashi, Arata.” It seemed like Aika knew this person.

“Y-yes?!” With no time to waste, she pulled on the hammer.

“Your last words will be yes then.” She pulled the trigger, the bullet going directly through his left eye.

“Y-you fucking bitch! You fucking bitch! You f-fucking coward! Cunt! Goddamn you, Elizabeth! You were never supposed to be free!!” He screamed out in anguish.

“Unfortunately, it looks like if I killed any more of you, I wouldn’t be able to get a hold of sufficient information.” Fearless and terrifying, like she had done this several times over. I didn’t blink once.

“You there, stand-up” She put a gun to his head, he complied. She walked him over to some sort of console.

“Deactivate this, everything.” Watching this unfold, I accidentally made eye contact with the woman in the lab coat, she looked at me with such fear, that face, I could never forget. She has seen her co-workers, maybe her friends; slaughtered right before her eyes. I couldn’t imagine what she was going through, and just like everyone else, I had dropped to the floor.

All the lights in the room went off. In replacement of that was one red flashing light that illuminated the entire room. Aika once again reached for her bag and got out some plastic cable ties. One by one she ordered everyone in the room outside.

Everyone now tied up, hands behind their back on the muddy, grassy ground.

“P-please, please, don’t kill m-me, oh God please!” Tears of anguish streamed down his face.

“You will all be let go, I just need you all to answer me these questions, okay?” The remaining six people were now sobbing, their faces covered in mud.”

“If not, I start shooting. Simple.” Her calmness was frightening.

“How many more of these radio stations are there in operation? Does anybody know? How about you, Elliot Rodgers… was your name, right? I looked at your FOB when we were in there, you have the highest clearance level out of all of you.”

“I-I… don’t know...”

“Lies.” She shot at his knee, he rolled around in anguish, his face churned in the most disgusting way possible.

“I’m not lying! Oh God, the pain, it hurts!!”

“LIES! Tell another lie and the next bullet will go through your skull.” Another standstill, but this one lasted longer than the last.

“There’s about, another…” He was quickly running out of breath. His breathing becoming erratic.

“NO! Don’t you DARE fucking tell her Elliot! I swear to God! That’s national security you could be putting into jeopardy, you fool!”

“BE QUIET! Be quiet right now. One more word out of you and I swear to God I will not hesitate to end you, understood? I’ll ask again, are there any more broadcast stations?”

“Yes…”

“ELLIOT!”

“Where?”

“They’re all scattered around Japan, there are many, too many. It doesn’t matter anyway, I don’t know where they are, none of us do, we aren’t meant to know.”

“You are all completely useless… but maybe in your final minutes of life, you can be of some help to me. This man,” she pulled out a picture of an old man. “Jacob Barron, where is he?”

“And why the hell should I tell you? You’re just gonna kill me anyway!”

“That’s where you’re wrong. You see, you would think I was a fucking angel if I were to discontinue your life. Let’s say that if you don’t tell me where he is, I will let you live, why do you think I would let you live instead of killing you, I wonder… I wonder?”

“B-because…” the look of complete and utter despair clouded his face in that very instance, his realization had kicked in and was still kicking for life, despite it being completely useless. He knew what would become of him if he didn’t comply with Aika. The tears he was already crying now covered his eyes and entire face. I looked upon this unholy sight with utter fear and disgust, I realized how much I didn’t understand Aika. I wish I did understand her, because maybe, in this very moment, I could sympathize with the actions that she had taken.

“At the console… you will find a document in a brown envelope, that contains a file of all our employees.”

“ELLIOT! Goddamn it, why…? You’ve fucked us all! You idiot! You selfish, piece of shit!”

“That’s all I know, OK? Just kill me! Pull the trigger! Do it! DO IT you motherfucker, augh!!” He screamed out at the top of his lungs.

“Thank you very much.” One bullet and he was on the ground, blood spilling out of his head, brain matter splattered all over the floor, a clean shot through the centre of his skull. He died a painless death.

Everyone else was tied up their heads buried in the mud. The cries and screams now much more audible, their screams and tears were only extenuated by their solemn grieving to some foreign being.

Person by person, a new hole was punctured into their skin, and each time, it became a little quieter.

Dead silence.