The Last Memory
The last of my memories.
I'd been living an ordinary life like anyone else, clocking in at a mid-sized company, drinking at the company dinner to keep my boss happy. I remember getting into the taxi after that…
And then nothing.
Picking through the fog, I recall climbing out of the cab because I was about to be sick. I remember staggering toward my studio apartment as best I could—and then the film cuts. The next thing that comes back is the moment the car hit me.
Thud!
Hitting the ground snapped me wide awake. When I tried to push myself up and take stock of my surroundings, I felt sealed off from the world—like looking at the ocean from behind the thick glass of an aquarium. Everything beyond my blurred vision felt alien.
"You fucking psycho—trying to die?!"
The driver rolled down his window and jabbed a finger at me. The second I saw him, the strength went out of my legs.
"H-hey… mister!! Are you okay?"
He scrambled out toward me. I opened my mouth to answer—and the world started spinning. The driver's voice, already on a call beside me, seemed to recede farther and farther away.
"Please get someone here right now! I hit a person—there's a lot of blood coming from their head. Hurry!"
I forced myself to look around and realized I was lying in the middle of a four-lane road. Blood from my head soaked the collar of my dress shirt and spread into a red pool on the asphalt.
Even as I died, a hollow thought rose in my chest.
If I'd known it would end like this, I wouldn't have spent tonight kissing up at the company dinner. I should've flipped the whole damn table and walked out.
I was getting so sleepy.
As if bolting upright a moment ago had been a lie, every last bit of strength drained from my body.
Wonder what I'll be next life…
I was oddly calm even as I felt myself dying.
Because I don't die—not really. I just start over in someone else's body. "Death" itself never scared me. The hard part was always the beginning: inhabiting a body whose mind had already died. Most people whose spirits had already gone couldn't reach out for help even if someone offered a hand, and so they wasted away. That was why a "wish"—the kind that could become a shortcut—mattered so much.
As if heaven opens a path when you long for something hard enough. Whatever wish the body I settle into once held comes true as I take over that life. But how grand can a wish really be, when it belongs to someone dying alone and cut off from the world?
To the witch who only wanted to be forgotten by everyone, I gave a long life.
To the soldier who only wanted to survive the war, I gave feet fast enough to run whenever he needed.
To the child who only wanted to live after the building collapse, I gave a body that could go on without a single sip of water.
People who had already died inside always carried such small wishes. So while a wish that might become a shortcut still mattered, I never expected much from it.
They were never anything special.
I can only hold three lives in my memory, so this time the witch's would be the one to fade. Then I'd settle into a new body and begin a third life all over again.
What kind of wish would this next body be carrying?
I didn't have any real expectations—but I was curious all the same.