Arc 0: Prelude 2 - Aspiration for the Dull

fool /fuːl/

a person who is duped or imposed on.

After leaving the school, Zachary had no options but to head home — especially with the rain not letting up.

It seemed that it was a very uneventful day, just like any other day of the week. Perhaps he should skip the next day of school and enjoy some time on his own at home — which was something he did, but not quite often as he would not miss out on his academic year.

And so, Zachary sat in front of his desk in his room, thinking about what should happen next on this monotonous night. He could simply go to sleep and close the chapter on that, but he longed for something to spark a light to this evening.

His room was surprisingly in a good state, not the type of room one would expect to see from someone usually cooped up in their room, which would still be the case if he was, in fact, a shut-in. After all, the maids of the house would make sure to check up on his room at least twice a day, which wasn’t much work considering he would tidy up on his own.

It was warm in the room that day. Be it from the heated lighting of the desk lamp, or perhaps it was the lack of any electronics within the room at that moment. The desk was perfectly placed near the window and close enough to catch the warmth of the fireplace in the middle of the room. Exactly what he needed for insight at a night like this, a mellow ambience.

This room naturally issued warmth and seemed almost archaic in its sense of architecture and furniture as well — yet that antiquity left the image of royalty within. That could be due to the fact that this was once a study room before he and his mother moved in. Zachary was not in his own home, after all — at least the place he had called home for the past year.

Ever since the passing of his father, he and his mother moved back to her family’s house where they could find the comfort of others. But the family, who was quite a lot in numbers, rarely stayed in the country.

Both he and his mother were left with his cousins and her mother, the butler, and some of the maids. Despite living in the same place, he rarely interacted with any of them, especially his cousins, who seemed to outright avoid him. And the chance itself for his mother to have a meeting with her sister was considered a marking.

With this barebone life, his mother tried to make the most of it. She was, just like him, not aiming for less or more, content with what she was given.

Zachary reached for the collection of blank papers neatly placed on his right and pulled three to his front, before putting a bunch of written pages on the side.

This was his preparation to start another chapter within the novel he was attempting to write. Unlike everyone in the modern-day world, he preferred to write things down with pen and paper, the traditional method, as it let out his ideas more easily and in a proper manner.

If he could not master the pen, then could he ever call himself a writer?

Done with the first step, the second step presented itself… the waiting began. He stared at the blank page before him, waiting for the spark to ignite. The events were all planned out within his mind, yet he couldn’t let out a single word. This was a common obstacle for whenever he started a new chapter, something that would easily fade away after a few minutes.

His story was quite fantastical, in a sense. It tried to captivate the magic of fantasy while also presenting forth the horror of science. A blend of genres that might have occurred often in stories, but one that he wanted to tackle and test himself. A dystopian otherworldly timeline where imperialism stands as the victor to all. It might have been a plot that was done over a thousand times, but it was how they were written that made them unique and different in their own way. Not every genre or story tackled all subjects within it, and that left room for others to create.

He closed his eyes and tried to imagine the words forming in his head.

"..."

One second later, his mind came to a halt.

「No, that’s not it.」

Just as he believed he was starting to indulge himself within his own world, he felt as though he returned back to the first step. He shook his head in an attempt to feel refreshed and restore back his confidence, but it was to no avail.

At this pace, the story would never come close to being finished by the end of the year.

「If only fantasizing about it was enough to bring it to reality.」

It was then that he was hit with an epiphany.

His focus on writing resulted in a lack of reading. Perhaps if he read some more books, he could remember what it felt like to form comprehensive sentences and restore back the format of writing within his mind.

It worked before, it could work again.

Near the collection of the neatly stacked papers were novels from various authors he admired and some that were left from the old study room. There were even a good amount of Japanese mangas on the side — a rarity to come by in this town.

He, like some in the modern world, had stumbled upon the world of anime and manga, a world often ridiculed by many who were not from Japan.

That was why he kept it to himself when it came to this specifically.

Perhaps the world was a quarter into the 21st century where many things started to become generally accepted, but even he could not stand the judgmental eyes of those held back in the past who did not favor “difference”... and there were quite many.

From stories about a guy with a crocodile face for a head to another guy for a chainsaw for a head, there was one specific manga that stood out in his eyes: “Ketsudansei.” It was a one-of-a-kind series around the true struggles of becoming a mangaka (a manga author). Oftentimes, Zachary would feel a connection between him and the protagonist. Writing a novel and drawing a manga were not so different after all, each had struggles of similar nature. But it was that same story that brought him pain, the pain of living in a reality that brought no time and no luck.

Two essential elements were able to move the protagonist of that manga forward: Time and Luck.

These were features he did not have and could not ever hope to acquire. One would say to work hard but even so, a man could work hard and exert all the unneeded effort he had on something that was never fit for him in the first place just because he thought it was his potential. There was no such thing as chasing dreams or building one’s own future.

From the moment of birth, one’s own fate had already been written, a fate that could not be altered. If you were to be a teacher, then you would become a teacher, no changing that. Straying away just a little bit from that path resulted in misfortune.

And it wasn’t all from Zachary’s own delusions that he came to this conclusion. It was the manga’s own author that taught him that. Even after its short success, the author could not find the bright-colored days he chased after for so long and decided that it was time, time for all the effort he wasted to mean something and took his own life. He wasn’t the first, however, many have taken their own lives because they sought out dreams that were never real.

Just like Zachary’s own father.

All his idols suffered a great fate of misfortune. Everything came down without hesitation. The world he perceived was no longer of color or sound, it was all just noise, endless tiring noise. The more he rejected what he was presented with, the future that was given to him, the more the world tried to shut him out. If he did not obey its rules and heeded its commands then he would be no better than a blind idiot walking into the sun.

His idols were gone. His inspiration was hollow. His family disliked his ambition. His friends left him long ago for being different.

The world rejected his pleas.

「So why?」

He held his grip against the desk and thought.

「Why do I keep doing this?」

"Hello ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Randall's Night Out Live!

A voice emerged that broke his thought process and woke him from the dark state he was plunged into.

"..."

「Her…!」

On his desk was an old radio pulsating with life.

It was then that he remembered that he was awaiting a broadcast about a talk show. Normally, it would be broadcasted on television or the internet, but both of these things were far out of reach in this house. It was only by God’s will that Zachary was able to get a chance on listening to the show through the radio. He wasn’t a big fan of them but this was one he awaited with eagerness.

Even after the thoughts he had, he brushed them away and moved forward. He could not strive for those colored days without a bit of positivity.

Grabbing the radio closer to his ear, he could hear the round of applause accompanied by occasional whistles and cheers from devoted fans griddling the sound of the broadcast. It was clear how beloved and popular this show was. The host constantly thanked the audience for the gracious welcoming ovation as they all died down after half a minute — the hype was real.

But Zachary could care less about all that, he wanted to skip the introductions and get right into the meat of the topic. That was how desperate he was.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome with me the beloved author of the hit series “Serena’s Wonderland,” and the novel releasing this fall “Stage-Set,” Hye-mi Myung.”

The broadcast changed its music for this would be the part where they would show the guest sitting beside the host, with another round of applause going on in the background.

He listened with great interest as the host shut his mouth and the woman began to talk for herself, expressing her thoughts about her inspirations, the world she sought to create, and the hardships she went through.

She was quite the star among young adults. Her stories weren’t the type to appease young adults or teenagers (the teen romance with an ounce of fantasy that dominates that genre), yet they still managed to captivate a lot. That could be due to Myung, herself, being barely even thirty, so she understood what worked for her target audience as she was technically still part of them.

If all the world fell silent, Zachary would still listen to that woman.

That woman was just what he needed at a time like this, she was a true author of modern literature, the thing he had a knack for the most. She was just an average woman, nothing special about her at all, yet she had all that success. So even as Zachary’s mind urged him to pursue his dreams to become like her one day, it pushed him back with thoughts about waiting to hear of her death like every other person he admired in a couple of years or so.

That was just how his mind was: an epitome of opposing conflicts.

“What do you think is your best work yet?” The host presented his question, “Or what novel are you most proud of?”

Zachary waited for an answer, like everyone else.

“I think… probably “And Thus, They Struck.” It was definitely the most challenging one yet and one that I’m very proud of finishing.” She answered. “There was one specific chapter that I struggled with and that’s Chapter Fourteen, as you all might know if you’ve read the book. For some reason, I spent weeks stuck at that chapter, it was very frustrating to me — I almost scrapped the book altogether because of it and I’m glad I didn’t. But as it turns out, all I had to do was step away and let my imagination do all the work, because one day I woke up with the entire scene fresh in my mind from my dream. It was unbelievable. Dreams are the stem of all imagination… and that’s kinda what urged me to write “Stage-Set” after this book.”

「Dreams, huh.」

The very thing he believed to not be true was supposed to be the key that could potentially pull him out of this misery. It was the key to throwing away the blockade that made his current goal unattainable. That was the solution he needed to come to terms with.

After the broadcast was over, he put the radio aside, gripped onto his pencil with all his might, and carefully dusted off the paper on the desk to make sure it was perfectly clean.

A white canvas for his art, for his world.

「What am I even doing?」

But his world did not grasp the elucidations of the real world. It was more so a satire of much deeper themes and fantasies, at least he strived to make it so.

“Shouldn’t this be the time the protagonist gains an epiphany?” He questioned himself, slightly stepping away from the desk, contemplating much thought and watching the raindrops blistering onto the window. “Ha… Who am I kidding? The world is not a piece of fiction I can simply fiddle with. Protagonist this, protagonist that… a role like that wouldn’t work for me.”

It wasn’t a mindset that every person was the protagonist of their own story and that he simply wasn’t. No, far from it. He had an entirely different belief. Simply put: he did not care. Reality did not have the need for something so trivial and meaningless. The world moved whether one was acknowledged or not.

There are no protagonists in this world. Only creators.

And that was why he aimed to be one. An imagination so steep in the mind and imbued with vivid fantasies paved a great path for a creator. He wanted to follow it, he needed to follow it, otherwise, the other path set for him was to be eternally forced upon him.

“If only…”

Resting his head on the desk, he could hear and feel the droplets of rain reverberating in his ears as if something was bickering from below.

「I can just drift away.」

That was his call for a fantasy. His ambition reaching a stalemate, he simply wanted to dream; dream of the world that lied within his mind. Many times he brought his imagination forth in the form of words on paper but never was he actually able to fully realize it, even within a dream. But now… he longed for it the most, the salvation of divine manner.

It was then that he sought out to follow Myung’s steps in his own way. He raised his head back up and grabbed a book of the same name mentioned in the broadcast — he was glad to have bought it before as he did not have all her works at that time — and opened it up to the chapter she mentioned.

Maybe within it, he could find the key he needed.

Looking at the novel, going through its pages again, and remembering its plot brought Zachary to thinking back about the incident at school earlier. The novel starred a teenage girl who encountered abnormal incidents after all. It was eerily similar to what was happening. But why should he bother? He thought. It was nothing out of the ordinary.

And that was when his mind kicked in and delved deeper.

Why was it not out of the ordinary? He thought back once again.

Occurrences of students, girls, passing out at school, specifically in front of the entrance, should never be considered ordinary at any point. It was common sense. But it didn’t stop there. The strings of suicide that he heard so much about were certainly something that should make headlines in the town, yet barely anyone ever heard of them outside. For all his habits of avoiding conflicts, this was one he couldn’t believe no one, not even himself, did not bother with. Everyone just moved on and lived as if nothing happened, as if it was all the norm.

「Have I stumbled upon a paranormal conspiracy?」

He chuckled quietly to himself, thinking of the absurdity of the situation.

Such a thing as the paranormal was not so far-fetched. This is a world governed by a great deity, a world of angels and demons, a world of life and afterlife, that much he knew but did not believe. Yet in his own manner, he strived for perfection that a hollow shell could not achieve, a beauty that did not exist within his knowledge. He was not one looking to be a big-shot, making money off his works.

Like any other person, he was once a child with a dream — and he wasn’t going to let it go to naught after all of these years.

Putting those thoughts to rest, for now, he proceeded to read the rest of the chapter.

“It was a pond. A magnificent pond surrounded by light fog from all sides.”

He read the first paragraph.

This chapter was supposed to revolve around the heroine wandering into a mysterious forest and meeting the maiden who would act as the catalyst for the novel’s events.

“It looked neither natural nor artificial. Existing in a serene medium between nature and humanity it welcomed all with its warm water and calming light. It looked like a beacon from afar, shining its light through the dense forest beckoning all to embrace the silent water. Yes… it was silent for there were no fish to disturb its still form and no wind to guide its entropy. It was not surprising; these things are rare now. Within the forest of frozen trees and under the unmoving sky it rested as it always has.”

Before long Zachary found himself shutting his eyes as he read the lines, faced only with quivering darkness thereafter. Reading the story once again would not benefit him at all, which was why he wanted to understand how these words were formed, how they came to be from a mere dream. If he could materialize them within his own canvas of imagination, then maybe there was hope for him.

From just the memory of the rest of the chapter, he let his mind waver to its heart’s content. It was no different than a canvas covered in black. White lines began to form around this void of a surface, slowly drawing and picturing a world of terrifying magnitude, a world only in one’s mind. The dark picture with white faint details soon began to fade and a brighter image, a clear image, came in its place.

What appeared before him was no different than a scene in reality.

For once, he was able to realize a picture within his imagination. Normally such an achievement would cause one’s heart to flutter in excitement after failure for so long, but he was not one to hold such customs. He valued the moment and needn’t waste it on useless sentiments that cause a stir within the heart and mind.

There she was, Zachary could not believe his eyes, a maiden in the pond.

Her appearance was barely visible due to the mist surrounding her. But even from the silhouette, Zachary was able to tell how good of a shape she maintained with her body. She moved in a slow manner, seemingly bathing in the pond’s warm water. This was exactly what Zachary needed, a scene out of his mind so vivid he could write into words.

He knew who this was: the Lady of the Lake, a very prominent character in the novel. Yet he couldn’t formulate what she looked like exactly as she had no definite appearance in the story itself. That was the sole reason why he wanted to move forward, he wanted to see what his mind had hidden away from him, what this beautiful woman he always tried to imagine would actually look like in this dreamscape.

And then she began humming; humming a tune that was unfamiliar to him. It was soothing to the ears.

Zachary moved, slowly creeping his way to the pond and beyond the mist.

The chanting went on, her voice had turned from a young womanly voice to a beautiful voice worth a theater of audience.

“This is…”

This was the wonderful world buried deep within Myung’s books, despite its dark imagery at times, fully realized within his imagination. This was the world he longed for the most: the bright-colored world, a world only those who have reached the dream could see and understand. Perhaps Myung was different, he thought. It could be that she really was happy and content with her life. She was someone who understood very well the dark image of the world yet she managed to portray such an amazing world.

“If this is true, then I want it too. This is amazing!”

“What’s amazing?”

Following that other feminine voice, the world went dark. Zachary opened his eyes. He was back in that warm outmoded room. No pond. No maiden. No song. Just a girl with a stern expression looking down on him.

He quickly covered his notes, preventing the girl from seeing them.

“What are you doing here?” He gave her a cold glare.

The girl before him was his cousin, almost three years older and in the same school as him — due to being held back a few years for an unspecified reason. Though she was a person he tried to avoid as much as possible, despite always listening to her words normally — he had to, she was family above all.

She had a fierce and threatening look in her eyes.

“Aunt Rose asked for you, it’s time for dinner.” She gave him a monotonous stare, one that would be given from one stranger to another. They might have been cousins, but they were far from being alike.

“I am not hungry.” He looked the other way, “Piss off!”

That last line was enough to set her off.

She grit her teeth. “…you’re just the same as ever.”

As the frustration built up within her, she vented it out by slamming her elbow to the back of his head.

Zachary let out an audible grunt. “Hey, what the hell was that for?”

“Stop moping around and grow a pair. It’s not like you do anything else,” her expression was maddening. “Ungrateful prick...”

She was like everyone else in the household. No matter how hard they tried, there was no helping Zachary. They were all angered by his behavior and his rejection of everything. But unlike them, his cousin wasn’t one to hide her emotions behind a facade.

“Get out…” He mumbled. “Shut up and get the hell out of here!” He tried not to raise his voice so as to not attract attention from anyone else in the house.

He stood up and glared at her with an irritated expression. But she was not the least bit afraid and she glared back. However, there was no use to all of this. She knew he wouldn’t listen.

“—Tch…”

She moved aside but kept looking at him from the corners of her eyes as she headed for the door, not letting go of the hostility within. Knowing her, she would probably report back to his mother and more trouble would stir up. But then again, he barely knew anything about her, there was no guarantee she would say anything — and no guarantee she wouldn’t either.

But Zachary did not care.

「I’m tired」

Furious by the previous encounter, he sat back on the chair and struck his fist on the desk that it almost hurt. He wished to shun everyone out, to listen to no one but himself. They had no right to dictate his life, it was his own. However, he knew doing that would only drop ignorance upon him. There had to be boundaries to be set, otherwise, he wasn’t going to make that far in this world.

「I’m really tired.」