Krriiing!

Click

I pressed the button to stop the alarm clock's ringing.

It was time to wake up. I stepped down from my bed and staggered to the bathroom to take a shower.

It was the same routine every day; wake up, shower, brush my teeth, breakfast, go to work, return home, sleep, and repeat. Maybe read some books along the way but that’s the gist of it. It’s mundane but I’m content with it.

Sizzle

I fried some eggs to go with toasts and a cup of cheap coffee. That’s usually how I start my day before going to the convenience store a walking distance away from my apartment where I worked.

I work part-time as a store assistant there, and the pay was good enough to rent a small apartment and have decent meals every now and then. I suppose the fact that I’m living in a low-cost area helped too.

Beep

I scanned the barcode on the bottle of water before handing it to the old man in front of the counter.

“That’ll be RM1”

The old man walked out of the convenience store after paying.

“Haahh~”

I sighed before sitting on the stool behind me and continue reading the novel I put on the counter. There was nothing else to do at the time. I’ve done everything I need to do earlier and now I’m just doing a cashier’s job. It was boring.

Ring

The ringing that signals the entry of a customer sounded from the door but I didn’t bother looking at the person who came in. Plenty of those had come in today, none of them was stood out more than the other to me.

I just continued reading the novel as the man strolled around the snack compartment. The main character was fighting a group of villains in the novel I was reading. When I noticed the customer walking near the counter I looked up to see a man wearing a hood above his head with a mask and sunglasses on.

Normally people dressed like that would look suspicious but I couldn’t care less. He put a can of coffee on the counter with a pack of chips and when I was about to scan the price tag the man suddenly pulled out a gun and point it at me.

‘Shit, a robbery in daylight?’ I thought.

There’s no one else on shift beside me right now so calling for help is impossible.

Do I try to disarm the guy with the technique I have randomly learned on the internet? No, that’s dangerous. This isn’t some action movie.

Sigh

I decided to just give up on struggling.

“Take out all the money from the register.” demanded the man.

‘Of all times, you decided to rob the store during my shift.’ I grumbled in my heart.

“Hurry up!” the man shouted.

“Okay, relax.”

“Shut up and take out the money!!” he shouted even louder.

Annoyed, and scared of the gun pointed at me, I just complied with the robber’s polite request. I took out all the money from the cash register and put them inside a plastic bag. I contemplated using a paper bag but I doubt this guy cares about the environment.

“Why are you using a plastic bag?! Don’t you know that jellyfish died because of plastic bags?”

Well, turned out he does care about the environment. Although I do find his severe misinformation concerning.

I gave him the money after I transfer them into a paper bag and was begging in my heart to get this over with when suddenly-

Bang!

I was shot.

“You-”

‘-piece of shit.’ I finished the sentence in my mind before collapsing onto the ground.

The shitty robber ran away with the money after shooting me. Even after I gave him the money without trouble. I swear I’ll beat him up if I ever find him, but I guess that’s impossible now.

“Fuck it hurts.” I groaned painfully.

I pressed the gun wound on my abdomen in hopes that I could stop the bleeding but it was futile. I couldn’t even find anything else to stop my bleeding since I couldn’t even move my body from the pain.

Damn it, I didn’t even get to finish my novel.

Didn’t people say your life flashes before your eyes in your dying moment? Did they lie? The only thing I see is blood in front of me.

Or maybe my life was just too uneventful. Yeah, I guess that was it.

Now that I think about it, I never achieved anything worthwhile during the whole 21 years of my lifetime. I guess achieving the highest score in Clock Disaster[1] at my local arcade was it. I was pretty proud of that.

And by reliving my only meaningful life achievement, I drew my last breath.

***

Chirp! Chirp! Chirp!

I woke up to the noisy chirping of the birds outside the window.

I opened my eyes to an unfamiliar ceiling. I quickly got up and scanned my surroundings.

I appeared to have been sleeping on an excessively luxurious bed. That explains the fresh feeling of comfort when I woke up just now. And the ceiling turned out to be the roof of the bed I slept on. What a huge bed. That said, the room I woke up in was way too spacious to be a normal bedroom.

“Where am I?” I asked myself.

I got down the bed and walked towards the mirror in front of me. I saw a boy in the mirror.

...

“Eh?”

Who’s in the mirror? Is that me?

I woke up in a young boy’s body.