Rika

#14

My name is Dori. I have been meaning to make this recording at some point in my life, but got around to do it tonight. I have kept a diary throughout my life because otherwise it's difficult to keep track of all that has been happening, but I always intended to burn it before I ever leave this world. I wanted to leave no trace of myself or my life, and my death behind if it came to it.

But lately I have been feeling a bit differently. If I were to disappear leaving no trace behind, would it be like I've never existed? Once everyone that I have ever met, or the last person that has even the faintest memory of me dies, would that be it?

I didn't used to care, and it's not like I'm suddenly scared of dying and disappearing now after all these years, but if all were to end someday, I wanted to at least leave my voice behind, this voice that someone once told me was beautiful.

Story of my life is not worth listening to, but I think maybe, when someone eventually ends up listening to this, it might teach a lesson in life, death, and everything in between, and perhaps that lesson can guide her much better than the path I have let myself trudge along with no clear purpose.

It's easy to be cynical when you have lived as long as I did. 622 years to be exact, although from which date I should count the start of my 'life' is a moot point.

I was a carefree young girl, 15 years old when it happened. I lived in a small town where most people farmed for a single landlord who seemed to have owned pretty much everything around the area. As my dad used to say, you could stand on a field and everything you could see with your eyes belonged to him.

He was not some evil or exploitative landlord as you hear in some of those folklores that survived to the modern day though. I guess only the stories about bad men and hardships are passed down through the generations. It's like evil memories and grudges last forever while good memories die with the people who treasured them.

I was very frail back then, and dad used to comment I don't look suitable to be a farmer girl for all my life. My pale skin, slender figures and a doll like face looked more fitting to be an educated girl in a noble family. It's embarrassing to say these words myself, but they come from my dad and I'm too old to care about these things now anyway.

So I wasn't much good at, or useful at farming. Instead of toiling the soil myself, I brought the farm products to town market to sell. While we farmed for the landlord we were allowed to keep and use some for ourselves, and we did have our own small garden farm and chicken den at our house, so there were always some vegetables, fruits and eggs to sell.

It was one sunny day in June that I first met him. June 22 to be exact. Well the calendars changed over the centuries so it is probably a different date when calculated now, but for me it was June 22 back then so I will always remember it as that. It was the end of strawberry season and I've brought particularly nice basket of strawberries to the market on that day. They looked so red and yummy, and if you brought your face close to them you could smell how nicely fragrant they were. I was looking forward to selling these as I was sure they'd fetch some extra coins. In fact, I was hiding it under a cloth cover because I wanted to sell it to a maid from the landlord's household. She came to the market every morning to buy the fresh produce, and I thought if I showed her these strawberries she'd certainly buy them. They were good enough to be on the table of a noble family.

As I was humming to myself indulging in these thoughts, I heard there was some commotion in the other end of the market where I couldn't see.

"Master! Please stop!", I heard a woman's voice shouting, and then I saw this well dressed boy running down the centre passage between the market stalls with mischievous grin on his face.

"You will have to catch me Ema!", this 'master' turned his head around to taunt the chasing woman - it was one of the maids from the landlord's household.

And then this really bad shit happened. As he was running past my stall (it wasn't even a 'stall', it was just me with various things laid on the ground) he tripped and fell, and he literally face planted (we didn't have this expression back then but I like it now) into my basket of strawberry. I was like oh no! my strawberries… I didn't know what got into me but I was so furious I grabbed his hair from the back of his head to force lift his face,

"What have you done!"

The boy looked a bit phased out and his eyes looked around for a moment, and then he saw this cloth on the basket soaked in red. It was the cloth I had put on the strawberry basket to keep it clean.

"I am… bleeding?"

Gees how stupid could he be? Then 'Ema', the maid, caught up and said in rush while trying to catch her breath.

"Master, are you okay?"

"I'm bleeding Ema", the boy said while feeling up his face with his hand.

"Oh no!"

"Calm down. You are not bleeding"

"But look at all this blood! and my face hurts like a hell"

"You ruined my strawberries"

The boy then took his hands off his face to look at his palms, then at the cloth soaked with broken strawberries underneath, and then at me.

"Oh."

"These were the best, and probably the very last, strawberries of the season… and you ruined them.. I was going to sell them for good money and daddy would have been so happy.. you jerk."

The boy stared at me dazed, and Ema cut in

"Watch your tongue girl"

I just looked back at her gritting my teeth.

And then the boy said "Hey.. I'm sorry"

What could I do? The strawberries were all ruined and I couldn't sell them anymore, but oh, they are rich right? They can surely pay for these as compensation

"You will need to pay for these strawberries"

"You are right.. I should. Ema, please pay for this girl's strawberries, it was my fault"

Then Ema said "You are so kind Master" and took out a few coins from her pouch and handed them over to me

"Is this enough?"

Hell yeah, it was more than enough! Pity that no one could eat the nice strawberries but this was a big haul!

"Yes! Thank you!"

"Right. Master, please be careful next time. We should return to the mansion and have the house doctor check up on you"

"But I'm fine"

"There is something called 'concussion', where you bump your head and you look fine, but some damage has been done inside your head and can later come back to cause trouble, You could end up very sick if not checked and treated immediately"

"Huh? Is that true?". I asked as my curiosity kicked in.

"Yes. That's why I should take Master back home as soon as possible. I apologise on my Master's behalf on your strawberries, but I believe you have been compensated sufficiently"

"Erm yeah, thanks for that.. but I remember I fell from the stairs yesterday and banged my head on the ground too. It hurt a lot at the time but I thought it was okay, but now.. do you think I may have this 'concushion' thing?"

"It's 'concussion', not some kind of 'cushion' and I'm not a doctor"

Then the boy was like "Hey, you come to my house together. Let's have the doctor check on you too"

"Master, what are you suggesting?"

"It's okay Ema. If you are worried I have concushion from hitting my head, this girl might have been hurt as well"

"It's 'concussion' Master.."

"Ah whatever. Let's just bring her home"

"But I can't go now.. my daddy will be worried if I don't come home late"

"Where is he?"

"He's working at.. erm… 'your' potato field now"

"What's his name?"

"Yori"

The boy then chuckled and said "That's a weird name, is that his surname?"

"Don't laugh at other people's names. Well we are Kazga, so he's Yori Kazga, but us 'commoners' just use the first name normally"

"Right, sorry about that! Ema, please have someone sent to the field to tell Mr. Kazga we will take his daughter for a check up with our doctor and he shan't be worried"

"Yes Master"

"Right, Ms...Kazga, please come together with us"

That was that. Our first meeting. It started off as this mega annoying disaster, but it was start of something beautiful, but also, something really awful.

#15

Since the day we almost killed each other on the rooftop, Rika and I clicked somehow. When Rika asked me a few days to later to hang out together afterschool, it did not feel like inviting to a 'date' at all. For some inexplicable reason, it felt like just a reach-out from a fellow survivor of some catastrophe, like another passenger from the same ship I was in that sank and killed all the others.

The first place we hit was an arcade in a mall. Rika turned up casually dressed in oversized t-shirts bearing some graffiti looking logo and baggy jeans, with dark navy-blue hooded jacket and white trainers. I was a bit taken back at first as she looked so different from her image in school, but she looked charming in its own way with this look too, especially as she just gave a slight show of her palm and greeted me with "Yo" when we first met.

We walked into the arcade more or less in silence and once I got in I asked her if she likes playing games.

"Well it kills time"

"Ok… but you don't really enjoy it?"

"Let's say it's a necessity. Time has to be killed, especially when you have so much of it"

"er..?"

"Nevermind. Let's go play something"

"Right. What kind of games do you want to play?"

"Killing games"

That made me chuckle for some reason. I came to realize that she has this dull sense of humour with such deadpan comments.

"I guess we could shoot some zombies?"

"Woo yeah. I like shooting things that just never die. Or they die but come back. Again and again"

Then we started to playing this Zombie shooter in co-op mode, and damn she was good. She was pretty much shooting everything before I could even aim, and I felt like I was only shooting things that were designed to be physically impossible to be handled by a single player. I did die a few times, and each time Rika asked me to put more coins in so I can continue with her, as she has not died even once. In the end, after furious trigger pulls and loads of coins, we cleared the game, and I was happy when Rika gave me a rare smile as we high-fived each other.

"So what do you want to do now?" I thought we have spent enough time in this arcade, enough to completely clear a game

"Let's watch some movies"

"Yeah let's see what they are showing today"

Then we took the escalator to the upstairs where there was a small cinema. Rika said she will go to the restroom for a bit and I can check the show times. When she came back she asked,

"Well there's this rom-com that's really popular now – I heard it's pretty damn funny. And there's this action movie with lots of car racing – I like this one personally, and a sci-fi with some alien invasion – I think this one looks a bit meh, and a crime story about a serial killer"

"Cool. Let's watch the serial killer movie"

"What are you, an emo goth?!"

"Pfft, don't give me such a label. It's just to kill time"

"What's up with you and all this 'killing'"

"It's just a running joke I have"

"With whom?"

She paused for a very short but noticeable moment, and then replied

"Yeah.. with a friend. A longtime friend"

"Your friend must be weird"

"Yes he is"

"A boy?", it would be a lie if I said I didn't feel a tiny bit of sudden unjustifiable jealousy

"None of your business"

With that the conversation was over. I bought two tickets and a massive box of popcorns (on Rika's demand) and we entered the hall.

After two hours of intense gore, the movie was over. Although it was pretty disgusting at parts, I have to say it was pretty good and suspenseful throughout.

"So did you like the movie?", I asked her.

"Yeah it was alright"

"It was pretty intense eh?"

"Well a bit unrealistic though"

"You think so? Which part? You mean like how the detective just happened to figure out who the killer is by chance?"

"No. It's just that…", then Rika hesitated a bit

"Go on"

"You know when you slit the back of a neck like in that second murder, it does not bleed that way in real life", she kinda murmured this and looked away, as if.. she was embarrassed?

"You know some weird things. I don't even know whether that's true or just some 'joke'"

"Nevermind. Maybe we do something else now"

"Right. What do you want to do?"

"You have been keep asking me what I want to do. Why don't you think of something yourself?"

I gave it a thought.

"Let's go to a café. We've been out for the whole day today but have not really sat down"

"We just sat in the movies for two hours"

"er, I mean sit around and just talk, chill, you know"

"Is that fun?"

"Yes it kills time"

She gave a short unexpected chuckle before quickly composing herself

"Ok you pick a place then"

#16

I'm sitting on my desk chair and looking at the wall against my desk. It's covered in pictures and photographs. Pictures of Rika that I drew, photographs of Rika that I printed off my phone. I actually had a few poster size photographs. It would have been too embarrassing for me to take a picture file to local printer and ask them to print a big size picture of a girl, but I had bought a regular A4 size colour printer that could print on photo print papers. I printed a big picture over multiple pages, like three by four, and taped them together to make my own Rika poster. We were not 'dating', and by all means we were more like friends. But I have grown more and more obsessed with her in a way that's more than a simply liking a girl. I wouldn't even call it love. If my feelings were anything similar to love than obsession, I would call it violently intense form of crush. There was only so much pictures could do though, as they only showed her appearances. I wanted more. I wanted to build a whole world where I can just indulge in Rika.

I printed out a map of our town to mark down where Rika and I have been together, all the places where I ran into her by coincidence. I made a map of our school and did the same, also recording the times of our encounters. I wrote transcripts of all our conversations off my memory as soon as I could after talking to Rika, be it over the phone or in person. I printed out my favourites bits of her deadpan quotes and stuck them on the wall too.

I plotted graphs on time scale to show how much time I've spent with Rika each day. I was keeping statistics of common words she used and the common topics we talked about off my transcripts. They could have all been just stored on my computer but I wanted these physical records to surround me. I wanted to sit in my sweet spot in front of the desk and be completely engulfed by everything about Rika. All the moments were recorded, not just as memories, but as physically undeniable presence in front of my eyes. This allowed me to do more than just gaze at her beautiful faces on the countless pictures I have put up. I had the whole Rika experience in my room. This wasn't a substitute to keep me going during the time I couldn't see her. This was part of the whole package of having her in my life. I would not say these pictures and records mattered more than the real Rika, but I almost felt like these records were what kept my experiences with her real, for otherwise they might as well all have been a fantasy, only to be re-affirmed by Rika herself in person. Set up this way, my feelings, thoughts, and invaluable interactions with her were manifested in undeniable physical form, they were the proof of their existence, and in this way, also the proof that I exist in her life, as much as she exists in my life like a sore spot that hurts so much but also feels so good to scratch.

Now as I sit and let myself re-connect and merge into the reality of the fabric that binds us together, I feel reassured that everything will be okay again. Rika is around. She is alive. She still exists somewhere. It's been three weeks and five days since her disappearance, and although she has not gotten in touch with me during all this time, I knew everything was okay, and we shall meet again when the right time comes. Until then, I have to hold strong and continue what I have to do.

#17

"Dude I saw you with this girl Rika at the mall yesterday", Peko asked me in the morning before the homeroom started.

"Oh you did?"

"Yes, what's up man? You managed to get a date with her?"

"Nah it wasn't a date. We were just hanging out"

"A boy and a girl hang out together alone in a mall after school, that sounds like a date to me man. What happened? She accepted your confession? That sounds impossible"

"I ended up almost killing her a few days ago"

"What the fuck?"

"It's embarrassing to say what or how it happened. It was my mistake"

"But she looks okay now? What happened after you 'almost killed' her?"

"She almost killed me"

"Lol what in the fuck..? You are talking like a creep"

"Well I am a creep after all ain't I. Every one seems to think so"

"Yeah I'm probably your best – or even the only – friend and I still think you are a creep too"

"Thanks for that mate"

"No problem. It's quite amazing how you suddenly end up going out with probably the prettiest girl in our year though. I still can't get my head around it"

"No as I said, we are not going out. We are just hanging out"

"Same thing"

"You won't understand"

"Yeah whatever man, congrats anyway. So how was the date?"

"We killed some time"

"Doesn't sound particularly exciting"

"No it wasn't. But it was. In a way. I don't know man"

"You are being weird again"

"Because I am"

"You freak lol. Anyways hope it's all good man. Let me know if you in any trouble or need anything"

"Cheers Bro"

As Peko walked back to his desk and the teacher came into start the homeroom, I reminisced back on my day before with Rika. She certainly was a weirder one. Unlike a pretty, likable, and popular girl image she held at school. I knew there were many guys who had crush on her, and some have even confessed although we are only in the second month of the school year by now, like that blonde dude that beat me up before. Knowing her better now, she's probably enjoyed the idea of me getting beaten up. But now that she seem to have opened up to me, talk about what she thought and how she felt, I felt closer to her and liked here even more, although in a bit of a weird way.

I wanted to do what she likes, and I wanted to stop what she didn't like. And that meant I now had a target, and a self-given mission to make Rika's life better.

#18

The room is still pitch black. Now that I deduced I am in some kind of a bed with a breathing mask on my face, I suspect I am injured and hospitalized somehow, although this would be a very weird kind of a hospital, and I do not feel any pain in my body. Am I in coma? Am I paralyzed? The fact that I could not move my limbs, let alone even just fingers, probably meant one of these was possible. What happened to me? I do not know, but I probably deserve it after all that I have done. I didn't mean it in a bad way, but I did bring bad end to people who didn't deserve it – most of them anyway.

Clang.

I heard some metallic sound that echoed into the room, and felt a very subtle breeze brush over me for a second. It's the door. Someone opened the door. Then I heard the footsteps, getting closer to me, and then stopping maybe a meter away from me.

"You are awake Tobi"

A male voice spoke. I would not say it belonged to an old man, but it was definitely not a young one. Maybe someone around forty something.

I tried to speak, but the breathing mask on my face made it difficult to do so, and I realized I actually can't open my mouth.

"I will take off the restraint on your jaws. Don't do anything funny – not that you can do anything anyway though"

Then I felt the mask getting yanked out of my nose and mouth, and some sort of a belt that was wrapped around my head to keep my mouth shut being removed. Funny I didn't think about it before, that my face was unnaturally tied like this the whole time.

"I will ask you a few questions, and you will answer. Clearly, but you don't have to be concise. Feel free to tell me as much detail as you can remember"

"Who are you?"

"People call me Molo"

"Are you a doctor? Or a police?"

"I guess you could say I'm some sort of a detective. Let's leave it at that"

"What happened to me?"

"You are being detained and restrained in this facility"

"For what?"

"To serve for your crime, and to act as a bait"

"Okay, I get that I'm caught. I'm fucked. But am I more fucked than I realise? Am I paralyzed or something?"

"No. You are just drugged. It will wear out eventually and you will feel your body again"

"You are not a police are you?"

"No I'm not. But I did say I'm kind of a detective. I figured you out. I figured the whole thing out. And I'm taking actions to put an end to this disaster"

"Who hired you?"

"No one. I'm working for myself"

"Fack. You doing all this without getting paid?"

"There will be a personal reward for me after all this"

"Whatever. So what about the second part of what you said before – what do you mean I'm acting as a bait?"

"You know it fully well"

"I have no idea what you are talking about"

"For Rika. Rika will come here"

Fack. My hazy mind was clearing up and I could now place my current state in the bigger context of things.

"I have no fucking clue what you are talking about"

Whack. I hear sound of something kicking something else I can't see.

"Gees. How foolish of me. You won't feel it now even when I kick you. I will have to hurt you after the medicine wears out"

"What the fuck do you want from me?"

"As I said, you are a bait for Rika. She will come. As long as you are here. She will come. Because she has to. You know that"

"No she won't"

"Yes she will. I know"

With that I heard sound of footsteps getting further away from me, and a metal door getting shut with a clang sound.

Run Rika. Please don't come.

#19

It was getting closer to summer. Hot enough to make everyone sweat in the classroom, but not hot enough to meet the school regulation to turn on the in-class air conditioner. Normally we don't mangle in the school because we did not want to draw any attention or cause rumors, but Rika and I often met at the sports equipment storage room during the lunch time and ate our lunches there together in peace, away from all the plebs – oh, that's a bad word. For some reason Rika hated the word 'plebs' when we bitch about other people in school, she said using that word makes us sound like arrogant dickheads, the kind of people she hates the most. So she preferred to use (what she thinks is) the less offensive term 'normalfag'. I didn't like that word either personally because it was too cliché of a word to be used by self-claimed outsiders, but Rika said she likes it – it sounded hip, like youngster's language. Whatever.

On that day we were by ourselves again in the store room eating lunch. Rika ate simple most of the time. It looked like she mainly lived on potatoes. I once asked her if she doesn't get sick of it, but she says this is her comfort food so I shouldn't butt in. Fine.

So we had our lunch together, talking about benign things, as I liked to do during those days – to forget the non-benign things, things that I have done which I never wanted to talk about.

The school bell rang signaling the lunch time is over in five minutes, and we hopped down from the piled-up mattresses and made our ways to the door. To our surprise, the door was locked. Shit. Why now? I know normally the storeroom should stay locked, but most of the time it wasn't, because there will always be one or more classes having PE any time of the day and people needed to get things in and out of the store room. It looks like some idiot got scolded for not locking the door last time and remembered to lock it in a very inconvenient timing for us.

"It looks like we are locked", I shrugged and told her. No big deal actually I thought, and beside this was chance to spend even more time with Rika alone.

"I want to get out"

"Erm, but it's locked from outside. Somebody will come eventually to get something from here, maybe by the next class time"

"I NEED to get out"

"Gees, calm down Rika"

"I NEED to get out NOW"

"hey, I'm sorry this happened and we're locked in now. But what's up, we can just chill here for an hour"

Then she kinda turned her head away slightly and murmured something quietly without looking at me.

"Sorry?"

"I NEED TO PEE!", she snapped.

"Oh, right. Erm… I guess you can just go pee in the corner? I won't look"

"I can't pee with you around here! That's so embarrassing"

"Heh, I thought you never get embarrassed"

"Shut up and find a way out"

So I hurriedly went around the store room to see if there was any way out, which was pretty stupid as it wasn't like there would be any secret door in the sports equipment storage.

"Hurry up. It's getting urgent", Rika blurted.

Then I looked up and saw there was a window on one of the walls just about two meters above the ground. The window was big enough for even me to go through.

"Hey, I think we can pile up those mattresses and you can climb up to go through the window"

"That will take forever to move the mattresses. You climb up there right now, get out, and open this freaking door"

"Ok, I guess you are in hurry. I will stand below the window then, and you can climb on my shoulders. It's not that high I think you can reach it fine"

"Hell no. I'm not climbing up on your shoulders"

"Why not?"

Then she turned her head away again slightly and mumbled.

"What did you say?"

"If I climbed up I would probably end up PEEING ON YOUR HEAD!"

"Oh. Sorry. That bad..? But I can't climb up two meters myself, unless we quickly move those mats.."

"I will stand below. Just stand on my shoulders"

"Would it be alright?"

"For fucks sake. Just do it now"

"Okay okay, let's go then"

So Rika stands below me and I excuse myself and climb up, stepping on Rika's shoulders. As we thought, I can reach the window frame easily.

"Hurry up!", Rika rushd me

"I got it, I got it. You can let go now I just need to pull myself up from the window ledge"

Then I felt Rika let go of her hands around my ankles, and I dangle by the ledge and start to pull my body up, but then my grip on the window frame's ledge slipped and I ended up falling down.

"Ouch, I'm sorry!"

I realized I landed on Rika who probably didn't have time to get away, but she didn't give any answer. Uh oh. She would be pissed. Or.. maybe she already pissed.

"Sorry, I screwed up. Let's try this again"

I quickly got off her and said, but when I looked down I realized Rika was still on the ground not moving, and to my horror her neck was twisted in a way that is not possible for humans.

"Oh fuck no! Rika! Are you okay?"

I shouted in panic and knelt down to embrace her. Oh no. What happened again. Why does this always happen. I hope she's okay, but this time it looks serious, she probably broke her neck

I bring up motionless Rika's body and tried to embrace her, then her head just draped downward as if it her neckbones completely crushed and the only thing holding her head to her body was the skin of her neck.

"Oh fuck no. Please no.. Rika…"

This can't be. I have to get help quick. She will be alright. I'm sure she will be fine.

"Help! Somebody help!" I screamed out as loud as I could with my neck stretched to the direction of the window, hoping that miracle will happen in time to save her.

"Stop screaming, you dumbass"

"Rika!" I look down again and there she was, looking perfectly fine again in my arms

"Let go of me. It's disgusting"

"Are you okay?"

Then she gave me a slap on my face

"Again, and again. This shit again. All the time"

"I'm sorry I keep hurting you.. I really didn't mean to.."

"It was enough the first time, but it seems you can never stop"

"I'm sorry.."

Then Rika sat up, moving her head left and right, front and back, as if to check she is okay.

"I'm okay now. Just don't do this again"

As much as I was glad she was okay, it was astounding how she was not hurt – wait.. it can't be, I mean nobody would be fine if their neck snapped like this? But I guess it doesn't matter. She's fine.

"Ok I'm sorry.. I'm just glad you are okay. I thought I might have killed you"

"You can't"

"er?"

"You can't kill me"

"What do you mean?", I was puzzled

"You can't kill me"

"er… is your head alright? You mean you are like immortal?"

"I am not immortal. But I said YOU can't kill me"

"That doesn't make sense"

"But I can kill YOU"

"Wha..?"

Before I realized what was happening, I saw a light flashing off a blade she took out from god knows where – what the fu

She slit my throat with a knife. I tried to say something but I couldn't speak, the only thing I felt was like air escaping my lungs through the open cut of my throat but at the same time the back of my mouth was getting blocked with bubbling blood. I instinctively cover the wound with my hands to desperately stop the blood, but it felt too late. All this time Rika was giving me a cold glare, staring me directly in the eyes. This feels familiar. This feels like the time she was choking me and I passed out, but no, this time I'm dying. She's killing me. Why. Was it that bad I fell onto her? Although she seems okay now? Why does she carry a knife? Why did she do this now? After what I have done for you Rika.. I thought we were something. Oh god. It's that feeling again. I can't tell if my life is escaping through the open gape of my throat or through my eyes – getting sucked out by her fixed glare without a single blink. Everything was turning black. Fack. This happened before. But there is no coming back now. I'm not passing out. I'm actually dying. And there will be nothing. I return to nothing. Judging by how it feels now I don't think there will even be an afterlife where I can regret anything. This was just it.