Untitled Story

In the paper it was written, "Dear reader!! I know that reading this will feel like it is a story, but I am telling absolutely truth. You might have watched a cartoon series in which there are five great nations. Very few people know that those five great Shinobi nations actually exist in our world." Near the parchment that you opened it is another parchment, in which the hidden locations of the Ninja Shinobi Nations myself wrote it. In our world these nations are peaceful and friendly with each other now. The Orochimaru who was evil, he is changed by a ten year's old girl little by little. I saw it by my own eyes, and was stunned by it, so was Orochimaru when the girl hugged him. Now, nobody fears of nobody, just laughters and joys. Visit the Ninja world sometime dear reader!! You will love it being there.

I looked around for the next parchment. After stumbling around for a bit I found it. Under another floorboard there was indeed an old map with five location. I saw that one of the locations wasn't even that far of. Suddenly I remembered that I wanted to use the restroom. With no further delay I did my stuff and returned to my room. It has been a very long day and I immediately fall asleep.

The next day I pull out the map again. This time I analyse the locations better. The closest one seems to be exactly there where my elementary school is. I remembered how I always used to play with my friends for hours. We would pretend we're pirates, ninjas or dinosaurs. I missed the days with not a single care in the world. I took my bike out of my shed and cycled in the direction of the school.

The school was an old brick building, huge and terrifying. As the little kids stream in, I join them, several heads taller than everyone else. The cute little school uniforms and the happy faces, ready for school. Back when school was a hope, not a torture. I smile. As I enter through the front door, my eyes catch on something. A restroom, something that had always been there, I remembered it from years and years ago. But something was different. Wrong. The signed glowed, golden and silvery sparks leaping from the letters. The letters kept rearranging themselves before my eyes. As if drawn in my a spell, I felt myself walking towards the door, ignoring the little kids running through the hallway.

My hand finds the door, and the door does nothing. The letters keep churning, silver and gold, refusing to settle into anything I can read. I push harder. Nothing. A handle that won't turn, a threshold that won't have me.

And I understand, the way you understand things in dreams, that the door is reading me back. It sees a man who came here for a map and a mystery, who called this place torture, who stopped believing in pirates and ninjas and dinosaurs somewhere along the way and never noticed the loss.

Behind me, the children laugh. Not at me. At nothing. At everything. I stand in the middle of the sound and let it reach the part of me that has been cold for years.

I think of the letter. Nobody fears nobody. Just laughters and joys. I stop fighting the handle. I close my eyes, and for one foolish, enormous second, I simply believe. I believe that it's real, that it's waiting, that a girl once hugged a monster and unmade him.

When I open my eyes, the letters have stopped moving. They spell a word in no language I was ever taught, and somehow I know it means welcome home.

The door swings open on its own.

I step through the door and an oddly familiar light warms my body. I blink a few times. Slowly my eyes adjust to the room I am standing in. As I look around I notice small drawings on the wooden walls. In the back corner of the room stands a small bed. The whole room is covered in dust. I wonder where I am. Somehow the room feels familiar but I can't lay my finger on the reason why. Shaking my thoughts off, I walk out of the room. The hallway is also deserted. As if by memory I walk toward a stairway that leads downstairs. Still there is nobody to be seen. The stairs lead toward a room that looks like a living room. In the middle stands a big brown couch. Suddenly feeling the urge to leave this abandoned building, I rush towards the next door I spot. This one leads to a kitchen. Finally I find the front door and I am able to leave. As I step outside I take a deep breath. The fresh air feels amazing after that dusty house. Looking around I see that the house is standing on top of a hill. The view is breathtaking. A sparkling river to the right and a lush forest to the left. Suddenly I hear someone screaming my name.

The voice comes again, closer, and a figure is running up the hill toward me. Not quite a person. Too tall, too thin, moving like a shadow. Where a face should be there is something soft and shifting, the way water holds a reflection. But the eyes are kind, and they are fixed on me, and they are full of a recognition I cannot return.

"It's you," it says, breathless. "It's really you. You came back."

I take a step back. "I don't know you."

The words land like a punch. For a moment the figure goes still, and I watch the hope on its faceless face curdle into something gentler, sadder. Then it nods, slowly, as if it had been afraid of exactly this.

"No," it says. "Of course you don't. They never let you keep it." It holds out a hand. "Walk with me. I'll show you. Maybe it comes back."

Against every instinct I have, I take the hand. It is warm. Warmer than I expected.

It turns me toward the river first. "You named that," it says. "Do you remember what you called it?"

I don't. But somewhere behind my lips something stirs, like a word trying to get out.