The dark, heavy night was weighing down on Hiyori. It was like a jacket made of pure lead forced on her by an invisible hand. She could do nothing but lay in her bed, looking out at the starless sky as their light was long ago snuffed out by the busy, sleepless city's glow. Watching the pale moon and its craters was her only option remaining to pass the time. She felt as if the moon was also looking back at her with strange, otherworldly eyes formed from the countless craters on its surface. Her breathing slowly started to pick up speed as she was staring outwards, without the ability to blink, her eyes slowly watering. The noises coming from the streets, the mix of cars going by, some drunken salarymen shouting at his own demons as he walked by the house block, everything was merging into a strange cloud of noise, sounding like a contemporary orchestra. This was not the first time she had experienced something like this. For almost half a decade now, on these dreadful nights when she was out of sleeping pills, she went through the same thing over and over again. She was unable to sit up, just lie there, forced to watch the sky, unable to speak, move, or even think. It felt like everything was ten times heavier than it should be, even her own skinny body. Moving her head took all of her strength, trying to fight back the dread, feeling she was not even on Earth anymore but dropped down onto Jupiter. 

She wanted to say something after finally turning her head away from her room's only window, facing her gray, old, and cracked walls instead. Yet it was useless. Not because no air came out from her lungs to flick her voice chords like a guitarist, but because there was nobody to speak to. She lived alone in her little, thirty-square-meter apartment. Nobody would come for her to help her sit up, bring a cup of water to sip on, or simply just pat her head, telling her it was going to be okay. She had no choice but to lie there, wait for morning to come, and wash away this unexplainable night terror. Every. Single. Evening. When Hiyori's alarm clock, next to her small bed, started to ring, it was like the spell holding her down broke, and she managed to take a deep breath, sitting up with a startle. Her simple, white gown was drenched in sweat, sticking to her skinny body and making her feel nauseous. Patting her chest, mainly to calm her rapidly beating heart, she could not help but form a self-deprecating smile.

"Good morning... freak..." She whispered, running all of her fingers through her black, wet hair sticking to her face. Sitting there, letting it fall onto her back, they reached down to her waist like a shiny cape. Her similar black eyes wore identical dark bags under them as if she were a raccoon in disguise. Slowly getting out of bed, dragging her exhausted body to the bathroom, and looking into the mirror, another sigh escaped from between her lips. "These won't go away… Ever?" she asked as she dragged down her eyelids, rubbing them, but those bags were now almost permanent, and no matter how many times she washed her face, her expression never became any more energetic. "This sucks…" With a groan, stepping onto her scale, she watched the numbers remain the same, dangerously low ones from before. Her weight barely exceeded twenty kilograms, and with her short height of only a hundred and forty centimeters, she was unhealthily malnourished. "Fuck…" she groaned, getting off of it, throwing her clothes into a basket, and deciding to take a quick shower, ignoring her issues.

It was already seven when she finished her morning routine, making a small sandwich for breakfast. Yet, no matter how hard she tried, she could not even finish that. It simply tasted… like… nothing. No matter what she tried, salt, chili, honey, or mixing peanut butter with roasted chicken wings, everything she tried was the same. After a few bites, all the food turned into a uniform, plain flavor, losing its original flavor, like eating MRE biscuits from a newly excavated World War bunker.

"Come on, girl…" she said to herself, forcing her mouth to chew on the sandwich, almost like pushing it down her throat with her fingers. Everything was a chore. Eating, keeping herself clean, breathing… waking up. Nothing brought joy, not even sleeping, as she could not do that by now, not without her pills. Even touching herself became nothing but a routine, helping the pills kick in quicker. Yesterday, she forgot to take them, and by the time she was finished, she realized it had started, and instead of slipping into a dreamless sleep thanks to the medication, she suffered through another sleepless night. It always made her think as if she was cast into Limbo between heaven and hell. 

After finishing her tiny bread with some ham and lettuce inside, she started to dress up, putting on faded jeans and a plain black t-shirt that was way oversized for her. Not that it really mattered for Hiyori. She quickly brushed her hair somewhat, just enough to tie it into a ponytail, and put a cap on, leaving her apartment in her dirty, old sneakers. All of her clothes were something she barely changed, stuck with a decade-old fashion sense. Not that it mattered to her, not with her nearing her 30th birthday, almost here in a few months, come November. Seeing the date on the calendar hanging beside her front door brought another deep sight from her lips as she left her small home.

"Maybe I should buy a razor." she whispered. "I may be able to resist opening the gift for two more months, heh..." she said to herself as she walked down the old metal stairs, leaving for work.

She had to walk only a few blocks to arrive at the local mall, walking in with a deadpan look, only nodding at some familiar faces by habit. Her target was the local McDouglas restaurant, getting ready for the morning shift. She had not had many choices since high school; after a car crash where she lost all of her family, being the only survivor, she was never the same again. For more than a decade now, she couldn't even sleep, not without her medication. Now, besides some help from the Imperial Health Association, what remained for her was to accept every kind of part-time job she came across. 

Today was no different for her than any other. It was the same colorless life Hiyori was used to: working through the hours, acting like a robot, and speaking so little that her coworkers didn't even know her name. They were used to calling Hiyori 'you' or 'her,' in worst-case scenarios, 'it.' Not that it bothered her. She was used to it. When her shift finally ended, she walked back to the dressing room, changed, and simply left with that day's pay, walking out like a zombie, unfazed by the looks she sometimes got from her coworkers. Heading straight home, she only stopped at one place, an old vending machine she always frequented, pushing a few coins in and taking out the unbranded, cheapest canned coffee she could buy. Watching it, she could not help but sigh again before opening it up right there, taking big gulps before its flavor disappeared.

"Haah… it would be good to taste it for a bit longer…" she murmured, looking up at the sky while people passed her, ignoring her presence altogether. "Maybe I should disappear too."

...

....

......

It was autumn, close to the end of October, bringing another rainy day to the city. The sky was dark gray, and the rain had been knocking on Hiyori's windows since early morning. When she woke up, she realized that it was the wrong idea to take double the amount of her usual sleeping pills. By the time she was up, she received a text on her phone that she did not need to come in for work that day. Or... ever again.  

"..." In the end, she just deleted the message after looking at it for a few seconds, falling back on her bed, and looking at the wet, smudged window of hers. It was hard to tell how many hours or maybe just minutes went by before she blinked, sitting up, dragging her thin body into the bathroom to wash up a little. "Should I even bother with it?" she muttered when she thought about looking for a new part-time job. 

After a cold shower, she sat in her kitchen, sipping on a small strawberry yogurt drink, trying to enjoy it before it turned utterly bland to her taste buds. She was tapping on the table with her other hand, waiting for her little, convertible Megasoft Doors tablet to boot. When her face was finally lit up by the screen's light, starting to drum on the little keyboard for it, she first hit up NetTube, searching for a cold-sounding, ambient playlist to listen to. Then it was for maybe the only fun she ever had, browsing the net for some odd articles to read. At first, she considered looking for a job she could do for a month or so. Of course, it did not last long, and the job hunting turned into simply browsing the net, reading up on strange news, what was going on at 'home' and out in the wild world. Yet it also turned into simply clicking on every little ad that popped up and looked interesting. 

"Glory to the Imperial Unification, the 100th anniversary of the end of the Great War in 1920! Celebrate 100 years of peace with everyone else around the globe this December! Let the last day be the most special day!" She chuckled with sarcasm, reading the popup advert from the Imperium's feed, creeping up on her tablet's bottom right corner. "I may really make it special, huh?" she grinned, but then her expression went bland as the reflection she caught of herself on the tablet scared her. "Eh… who cares…" She muttered as she rolled her eyes, trying to ignore it, instead clicking on a different popup advertising of a Swedish penis pump, gaining a few chuckles out of it.

"Not everything has a logical answer behind it." She flinched, hearing the voice interrupting her background music all of a sudden... After realizing it was coming from her computer speakers, Hiyori knew it was most likely an ad between different tracks in her playlist. It was a soothing and calm male voice, immediately catching her ears. "Sometimes, others may tell you that you are only imagining things. Doctors may find nothing wrong with you, yet you would swear something ain't right. Maybe you are tired of explaining it to others, as they would just say there is nothing wrong and you only need to relax a little bit and reign in your imagination. If no other option is left for you, search for Detective Everlong. He may have a solution for your problem, no matter what it is." Throughout the advert, the man never raises his voice; it is always like he states nothing but facts with a genuine desire to help... at least, she felt that way.

"Huh?" Hiyori couldn't help but shudder, jolting out from a short trance-like phase she found herself in, as by the end, she couldn't help but think it was nothing but a hallucination. One part of her mind was adamant it wasn't real... But... Was it? No matter how quickly she switched pages, the NetTube video was already playing its next song in line. Even as she refreshed, over and over again, clicking through to multiple other videos, the advert never came up again. "Everlong…" she muttered, tasing the word... and to her surprise, it had a... taste.

It was worth a shot, even if it was nothing more than some kind of creepypasta advert or just a silly hoax. Typing it into the Gurgle search bar, it quickly poured out its local discoveries. There were a lot of related links for so-called 'life expectancy' tests, pills that promised a healthier outlook, or just simply stating they would extend one's lifespan. Live as your officials, past one hundred! The usual bullshit. She almost gave up, looking through the second page of findings, already seeing some porn sites among the results, but nothing close to what she was looking for. Well, not initially.

"Oh… I'll bookmark this." she smiled with a hollow look at the title' Mr. Everlong and his sentient Schlong.' "Hm?" Yet, to her surprise, there was a link at the bottom find, right after it, accompanied by a caption; 'Detective Everlong.'

Hiyori soon found herself pausing with the mouse scroll right above it. Somehow, she fell into questioning herself once again. Should she even push it and see where it takes her? Or just ignore it, as it must be nonsense. By the time she took a deep breath, her index finger felt way too heavy; needing to be forced to click on it. After succeeding, a straightforward page appeared before her from 30 years ago. It had nothing but an old landline number and an email button with a city and street address.

"Wait…" she looked at it from closer, almost touching the tablet with her nose, "This is only a twenty-minute train ride from here!" she exclaimed, surprised at how close the other city was to hers. Writing down the address, she soon found herself already dressing up, and her hands only stopped when she was almost out of the door, ready to go. "What…?" she trembled, looking at her own fingers holding the door handle. "What am I doing?" she gulped, not knowing why she suddenly felt so excited.

Looking back from the front door, watching the tiny little hole she called home. The old, dry, and cracked walls, the unkempt, messy bed, her wet and dirty window, and the little cup of yogurt on the kitchen table... And then her gaunt, ghostly reflection in the mirror.

"Damn it!" With real anger, she slammed her forehead forward, right into the hard, metal door, staying there for a long minute. "Go… go girl… just… do it!" She furiously bit down on her own lips, drawing blood, finally pushing down the handle, leaving her home, and soon walking through the heavy rain with only her hoodie preventing her hair from being soaked. 

It didn't take her long to hold a ticket directly to Otaru. Sitting in a half-empty train car, she watched the foggy and rainy scenery as she traveled towards a fate that may finally shed light on whatever had been tormenting her since the accident...