A FEW HOURS LATER

Like someone returning from a bad dream, Mack opened his eyes, and a headache came before he even realized it.

‘I guess I’m not isekaing.’ he laughs at himself in his mind recognizing the roof of his bedroom.

Still laying flat on the floor of his bedroom, like a chalk outline from a crime scene, he searches for a cigarette in his pocket and lit it up, not even pulling himself from the ground to smoke or moving any part of his body that was unnecessary for the act of satiating his addiction to nicotine.

“I guess Plan B it is then.”

Two minutes later and still dizzy from the headache, he pulled himself up from the floor, walked to the kitchen and took some weird bag, and hung it on one of his shoulders.

The bag is extremely heavy, so he walks a little off but still reaches the door of his house amidst the pain that assaults his head.

Mack then opens the door, takes a last drag of smoke from his cigarette, and throws the rest of the cigarette behind his back.. Not even turning to look, he walks off his house.

The still lit cigarette hit a pile of papers and some small containers in a corner of the room.

Like a hungry wolf, the fire spread to the papers.

Mack, still walking, laughs to himself aloud, and starts singing a line of one of his favorite songs.

“… and you can have it all, my empire of…. dirt”.

In the middle of the night, Mack keeps walking off the house, while the fire consumes all the house walls and roof.

By the time Mack walked for a few meters, the heat assaulted his back, and one moment later…

~BOOOOM~

He heard a muffled explosion, and with that, the night sky brightened itself.

“Much better. Now I can see the path ahead”.

Unknown to Mack, his path would be anything but a clear one.

Amidst the night sky and trees, Mack kept walking in the city’s direction, his old house, was in the outskirts of the city, surrounded by trees and close to a lake, the perfect spot to rest on the weekends but far from the city center.

Forgotten in his own thoughts and still dizzy from who knows what, Mack walked.

A FEW HOURS LATER

The sun peeked from the far mountains and on the streets already in the sight, people started their usual routine.

From time to time some cars passed Mack in the street made only with mud, until, he eventually reached the main road of the city and business that sold coffee and pastries were already packed with people, some of those people looked at Mack with strange gaze while he was passing but not the usual one, it was a ‘concerned’ look.

‘That’s strange’ thought to himself Mack, not knowing why so much compassion in their eyes.

That was until a kid, slightly fatty, went to him.

“ermm… sir are you okay?” asked the kid.

Mack looked at the kid, a little annoyed, and only ruminated a response after a few seconds “Humm”, and just like that, he walked away.

The kid, not sure what to do, looked around, but no one said anything.

Then the kid went to Mack again and said “Sir”.

‘What now’ thought Mack while turning his back to look.

“Sir, you….. ahm… you have a scissor stuck at your neck.” said the kid with preoccupied eyes.

‘the fuck??’ it was the only thought that could pass in Mack’s head.

“ohhhhhhh I totally forgot about that”. said Mack aloud, remembering something.

And with that sentence, Mack raised his free hand and grabbed the scissor that was lunged into his own neck.

And pulled hard.

~shiiiiii~

A blood volcano erupted from Mack’s neck.

And this would be the last thing the kid would remember about this day because he too passed out seeing so much blood.

This way, a man in his thirties and a fat kid ended up unconscious in a blood pool in the middle of a city in the Solomon Islands.