[AFTER] Chapter 246 – The Future Protagonist

Time Stamp: Post-College

Takei had read an interesting tidbit on the internet earlier when he was in the middle of eating lunch. There was an article that had popped up on his feed that talked about the concept of dreams. Normally he wouldn't click on an article like that, but he was particularly interested by the title.

DREAMS. THE FUTURE? PARALLEL WORLD? GATEWAY TO ANOTHER DIMENSION?

Takei knew from the very bottom of his heart that this was a clickbait title, but his finger clicked on the article before he even realized. The article opened up and he now had no choice but to read it.

"These theories sound interesting, but there's no way to really find out the truth. I highly doubt anyone will be able to unravel the truth in my lifetime anyways," Takei depressedly sighed as he placed his phone down.

As he had expected, the article was nothing more than just wild theories without any hard evidence. It talked about the possibility of dreams being a glimpse of the future, a parallel world, or even another dimension. At the end of the day, this was nothing more than mere speculation to get the reader interested to read more articles so Takei quickly pushed these unnecessary thoughts out of his mind.

"Takeiii~ It's time to go to the store!" Akari yelled from a far-off room.

He finished the last bite of his sandwich and hurriedly responded, "I'm ready whenever!"

***

A pure white world that stretched endlessly as far as the eye could see. There was not a hint of life or color in the surroundings other than Takei himself. Just a moment ago, he had been sleeping soundly with Akari and now he was in a different world where there was only him and the endless white horizon.

"Where am I...?" Takei muttered.

Since Takei knew that he had just gone to bed with Akari, the chances of this being a dream was extremely high. But that begs another question, how could he escape this dream world? Was there supposed to be a hidden objective for him to complete or did he just have to wait until his body naturally woke up?

Before any more questions could pop up in his head, a loud rustling could be heard as if the air around him had been distorted. From the peripheral of his vision, Takei noticed a shadow behind him that undoubtedly belonged to another person. That in itself wasn't necessarily a problem in everyday life, but this was supposed to be an empty, lifeless world.

"You. What are you doing here?"

A raspy voice belonging to a man asked him from behind. Takei hurriedly turned around and faced the new person who had just appeared out of nowhere. It was an older man with dirty white hair and a solemn expression on his face. Judging solely from his appearance, Takei assumed he was either in his late thirties or early forties.

His clothes looked shabby as if he had been wearing them for a long time. The unknown man had a bit of a weak posture, but the light in his eyes was anything but weak. They were as razor-sharp as the fangs of a tiger and they were pointed towards Takei.

"Um, I just woke up here so I don't really know what's happening. Who are you?" Takei nervously asked as the man continued to observe him.

Since the man could tell Takei was genuinely confused about where he was, his expression lightened as he offered Takei his hand. "You can call me... Orion. Orion the Observer."

There were many questions that Takei wanted to ask him. Where are we? What's an observer? Where is the way to return home? All these questions circled around his mind, but none of them managed to escape his mouth.

As for why, Takei had a strong feeling that he should stay quiet and listen to the man known as the observer. Just a moment later, his decision proved to be right as the observer snapped his fingers and a holographic video appeared in front of them.

"Watch this video and tell me what you think."

Orion kept his explanation short and brief as he stared at the screen with great interest. Deciding to listen to him, Takei turned his gaze towards the screen and started to watch.

At first, the screen only showed a student walking to school. There was nothing out of the blue so Takei wondered what he was supposed to be watching, but the status quo changed in just a moment.

There was a girl in front of the boy who was also walking to school, but she turned around to pick up the keys that she had dropped. At that moment, a truck came barreling down the street without any caution or wariness to pedestrians. On a closer look, the driver seemed to be asleep.

"Oh no no no, this can't be happening. No, wait..." Takei gasped in shock.

The girl hadn't noticed the truck barreling down the street towards her, but the boy certainly did. In a flash, the boy ran towards the girl and pushed her out of harm's way. Unluckily for him, the truck slammed into the boy instead.

After a few short moments, the boy stopped breathing and his body went limp.

He was dead.

"Hey, what is this? Did you just want to show me some kid dying?" Takei yelled at Orion as his blood began to boil.

"Shh, keep on watching."

Instead of answering him, Orion told him to keep observing the screen. Takei was disgruntled with Orion's attitude, but all of his negative feelings immediately washed away in the next moment. The holographic screen zoomed out to show the Earth rapidly spinning in the opposite direction.

After a few moments, the Earth stopped and went back to its original disposition.

"The timeline has been reversed."

Orion glared at the screen and made an expression as if he had swallowed something bitter. The holographic screen zoomed in and showed the boy alive and well so Orion was obviously telling the truth. Takei just stood there with his jaw hanging low to the ground as he watched something unbelievable happen.

"So, that was... haaaaaah... so sleepy..." Takei yawned. His eyelids were getting heavier and heavier so he was certainly not wrong.

Orion looked at Takei with a sad expression and nodded. "Time's up."

With those last few words from Orion, Takei's consciousness reached its limit. There were so many questions Takei wanted to ask him, but there was not enough time. He tried his best to fight the drowsiness, but to no avail.

Then with one final glimpse of the lonely desolate white plains, Takei's eyelids tiredly closed as if he hadn't slept in a long, long time.

When he woke up the next morning, Takei had no recollection of the events of the dream.

—

???: The events of fate have been put into motion

Sugar-chan: Eii~ so scary~

Serious-san: Who is this guy?!