It was the first day of the three-day weekend. After staying up late working on her paper, Kimi didn’t wake up until the sun was already high in the sky. She checked the time on her phone. One o’clock.
She had an email from her brother. The subject was “Pictures,” and when she opened it she saw that he had attached tons of photos from their destination.
“Nice …”
A lush green lawn. Her mother, who wasn’t very good with technology, must have asked her brother to send the pictures to her.
“Thanks. Wish I was there,” Kimi replied to her brother. He replied right away.
“Wish you could’ve made the time to come.”
It seemed like he wasn’t having a good time on the trip with his parents. But the trip had just begun. They were still in the car.
“Tell dad to drive carefully,” she wrote.
“He says ‘gotcha,’ ” her brother wrote back, bringing the conversation to an end. Kimi got out of bed, fixed herself something to eat, and turned on the TV.
The first item on the news was about Ghouls. Some Ghouls had appeared in the 5th Ward and were trying to attack people.
Fortunately, a little kid had gotten suspicious and reported a Ghoul to the CCG, who caught him right away. They showed the boy, who had himself been attacked by a Ghoul before, and had managed to save a woman’s life this time. It was captioned “Elementary school student, hero.” The boy said, “I want to work at the CCG when I grow up.”
“Ghouls, yeesh …”
The 20th Ward was not as dangerous as some of the other wards, but it was still a concern for women living on their own, like Kimi. There were many things nobody knew about Ghouls, and many rumors about them too. Kimi wondered what they were like. Of course, they’re terrifying, and I don’t ever want to meet one, but I feel like there are things you can’t know about them unless you see them.
After that, she watched a talk show for a bit, then turned off the TV when she got tired of it. She took her dirty dishes to the sink and washed them, humming to herself. She had only a very loose plan for the day, and she was thinking about going to a restaurant she’d heard was nice when her phone rang.
“Coming!”
She dried off her hands and ran to her phone. It was one of her relatives, who lived in the same neighborhood as her parents.
“That’s odd,” she thought and answered the phone. What she heard ended all illusions of this being a normal day.
“Kimi! Are you there? Your family’s been in a car accident!”
Suddenly the ground shook and twisted beneath her.
They had been going down a narrow road with lots of sharp turns when they had a head-on collision with an oncoming car, and they had been transported to the emergency room.
That was all she knew. Without much more to go on, she went to an ATM and got out all the money she could, then hopped into a taxi. It would take at least two hours to get there, no matter how fast they went. Her heart was pounding in her chest and she couldn’t breathe. She felt dizzy.
She tried calling her family’s phones over and over again. She just wanted to hear their voices. But they didn’t answer, and her phone was starting to die. She looked again at the text conversation she’d had with her brother that morning. Everything had been normal then. Her fingers trembled with worry as she tapped out a message to him: “Where are you? Are you all right?”
“Please be all right …” She hoped and prayed, but no response came.
By the time she got to the hospital, the sun had already started to set. She jumped out of the car and ran into the hospital.
“Excuse me! My name is Nishino, Kimi Nishino! My family was in an accident …”
“Just a moment, please,” said the receptionist. Soon, someone who appeared to be a doctor arrived.
“Where are they? My mom, dad and brother?”
The doctor looked at her, a pained expression on her face.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Your parents died instantly. Your brother died on the way here …”
“What … what do you mean?”
He showed her to the morgue. When he opened the door, the cold air made the hair on her arms stand on end. There were three bodies lined up. I knew this was coming, but I wasn’t ready.
“This is your family, correct?”
The doctor’s words made her want to run away. The distance between her and the table was not far, but she felt like she was walking through mud to get there. It can’t be true, it can’t be true. She reached out and touched the first body, gently lifting the sheet to reveal her father’s face. He was covered in bandages. Kimi’s face crumpled.
Trying desperately not to collapse to the ground, she reached for the next sheet. Her mother’s face was far more damaged than her father’s. Kimi’s head ached, and she couldn’t think. Her knees began to shake. Now she stood in front of her brother’s body. She reached for the white sheet.
“It can’t be.”
There was her younger brother, wounded but looking as if he were asleep.
“It can’t be!”
Kimi grabbed her brother’s shoulder and started shaking it. She screamed again, trying to wake him. She screamed until her throat was sore. But he did not wake up.
Everyone. My mom, my dad, and my brother. My whole family.
“I want to wake up now!” she screamed.
All gone in an instant.
Her memory was vague after that. She spoke with the police and got her relatives to come, and then the wake and the funeral passed. The truck driver who had crashed into them had also died. Since everyone had died in the accident and there were few witnesses, it was difficult to determine the cause of the accident, but the police seemed to think both parties had been negligent.
A week after the funeral, Kimi returned to her apartment in the 20th Ward. Her relatives had told her to take a break from school for a while, but she couldn’t. “I have to go back to classes,” she said.
I told my mom when she asked me to go on the trip with them, ‘It might be tough, I have a paper to write.’ And what did my mom say? ‘You just keep at your studies.’
“I’m gonna be late for class … I gotta get to campus … Gotta write this paper …”
Kimi paced around her room, then spread her textbooks out on the table.
“What do I need to do? What should I be doing?”
But she couldn’t think. Every time she tried, her head began to hurt. She put her hands to her forehead and sat down.
But her eyes darted around the room, looking for her phone, not another textbook. She picked it up and opened her messages. She had read her brother’s messages so many times she had them memorized. And the picture of that magnificent scenery.
I bet they were smiling when they looked at that view. Saying they wished I was there.
Kimi felt hot and dizzy suddenly. And she just kept feeling hotter.
She heard her mother asking her if she wanted to go on a trip.
Her brother sending her a picture because she couldn’t be there.
Her father, whose response to being asked to drive carefully was, “Gotcha.”
And she would never see their faces again.
She covered her face with her hands. She couldn’t stop her tears from falling.
“I can’t … I can’t take it.”
They died. And they left me behind.