Inou-Battle wa Nichijou-kei no Naka de - Volume 12 - Chapter 6.5

Side Story: Umeko’s Fate

“Hmm. The new generation’s killing pachinko, huh?”

It was an early autumn morning, and Hitomi and I were eating breakfast. Hitomi was muttering to herself as she split her salmon fillet into pieces and watched a news broadcast on her television.

First was not present, nor had he been since the day before. He was, as a rule, a man who came and went as he pleased...or rather, he was one who wished to be known as a man who came and went as he pleased. To facilitate his goals, he intentionally lived a lifestyle bereft of structure or pattern—routine was anathema to First, to put it succinctly. One might say, perhaps, that he rejected the temptation to surrender himself to the comforting allure of the commonplace.

In any case, setting that aside, Saitou Hitomi and I, both clad in the flower-patterned pajamas we had purchased together, were the sole occupants of our apartment for the time being.

“It feels like people have been taking every excuse they can possibly get to say that the new generation’s killing something lately,” Hitomi mused. “The new generation’s killing golf, the new generation’s killing cars, the new generation’s killing the tobacco industry—people just go on and on about it, when really, it’s all just the times changing like they always do. Trends come and go, and young people’s interests shift. That’s all there is to it—it feels kinda silly to me that people always throw such a huge fuss over it.”

“I recall a news program we viewed recently that ascribed those trends to the proliferation of smartphones,” I noted. “It claimed that smartphones can fulfill, or at least offer an alternative to, the bulk of everyday desires.”

“I mean, I guess that’s not totally wrong...and, like, the recession’s gotta play into it too, right? It’s just natural to cut down on spending and save as much as you can when you’re worried about the future.”

“Is that so?” I asked with a cock of my head, over which her words had flown. “You mean to say that saving money is a natural reaction to troubled times?”

“Well, yeah,” said Hitomi. “There’s no telling what’s gonna happen to Japan in the future, and since we don’t know what things will be like when we’re old, it just makes sense to put together a plan and save money while we’re young. I’m not gonna go all ‘Ant and the Grasshopper’ on you or anything, but at the very least, I can say that if you act like Hajime and never plan things out or learn to be self-reliant, you’ll end up really regretting it when you’re older. And that’s not even starting on how Hajime...”

As the conversation shifted into an extended ramble regarding First’s less-than-desirable traits, a realization finally struck me. I finally understood what it was that was making me feel so oddly askew from Hitomi’s lived experience.

Oh. Yes, I see now. The youth of this nation fret over what the future may bring them...and never stop to consider the possibility that they may die tomorrow.

Not for a moment. Not in the slightest capacity.

The fact that they chose to save money for the sake of an indefinite tomorrow was ample proof of that. They worried for the future of Japan, but they had blind faith in the idea that their own lives were secure. They worried about their futures, taking it for granted that they would, in fact, have futures in the first place. They fully believed that they would simply amble onward into the hereafter, irrespective of what they might encounter along the way...just as the ants fully believed in the certainty of winter’s arrival.

Perhaps this was proof that ours was a society in which peace had won the day, or perhaps it was a sign it had begun its descent into degeneracy and ruin. I had no means by which to weigh the merits of those conjectures—and even if I had, they were premised upon a sense of values I found simply incomprehensible.

As one who would die the very next day, the sentiments were totally beyond me.

Tomorrow, I would die. Roughly around midday, my body would begin to fade away...and ultimately, my very being would be expunged. Such was the simple truth of my predetermined lifespan—such were the parameters of my creation. Perhaps you could say it was my fate.

I was brought into this world as System: an entity created by a rebellious spirit in order to bring an end to the Fifth Spirit War. My life was never intended to last indefinitely. I was given a hundred days, no more and no less. My lifespan was set in stone...and I was aware of that fact from the very start. From the instant my sense of selfhood began to bud, the knowledge of the day I would die was present within me.

Ninety-nine days ago, I knew that I would die tomorrow. The question of whether that knowledge was a blessing or a curse was beyond my reckoning. An outsider might have viewed me as a tragic, pitiable figure, perhaps, yet I in turn saw humans—beings who lived without any knowledge of when they would die—as far more worthy of sympathy.

In any case, my lifespan was simply the nature of my existence. First and Hitomi were the only other people in this world who were aware of my relatively brief longevity...but not even they knew that I would die tomorrow.

When I’d told Hitomi that I “would not last beyond the winter,” I was lying. Well, perhaps not in the strictest sense—I simply hadn’t expressed the truth to the fullest degree I could have. The complete truth is that I would die tomorrow at the latest, and not only would I fail to survive past winter, I would perish before it even began.

Not telling Hitomi the full truth of my limited lifespan was my way of doing her a kindness...or so I had told myself. More honestly, I simply hadn’t wanted to reveal it to her. I loathed the thought of her giving me a grandiose, overblown farewell. I would allow her to believe that I would live for a time longer...and before she could consider otherwise, I would simply and quietly pass away without a fuss.

“Hmph! A good haul indeed,” I said to myself.

As soon as breakfast was over, I had excused myself for a brief trip to a large suburban grocery store located nearby. I was now making my way home, a plastic bag filled with a hoard of HI-CHEW dangling from one hand. It would be, as they say, my last supper.

Though I suspect this may reveal how truly banal my desires are, when I found myself mulling over what I would do with the final day of my life, “eat as much of my favorite food as I wish” was the first thought that sprang to mind. That thought inevitably led me to HI-CHEW. No other food would suffice.

And so, I committed all of the pocket money I had steadily saved up over the course of my life to the singular purpose of buying every flavor of HI-CHEW that I had ever wished to try. From aloe yogurt to ripened pineapple, from honeyed kumquat to shikuwasa citrus, from the most standard of standbys to the most shocking of innovations, I purchased every single flavor I was able to, allowing my ravenous hunger for that most sublime and miraculous of treats to consume me—and oh, how blissful it was to submit to temptation. The urge to partake of just one piece was almost overwhelming...but in that instance, my will stood strong. In order to accomplish my ultimate objective, I could not afford to open so much as a single package.

“With this many packs, I know it will finally be possible. I shall reconstruct the tower of HI-CHEW I bore witness to at the arcade!”

The sight was burned into my mind’s eye. Two months ago, I had accompanied Hitomi to an establishment known as an arcade, and there I had discovered a veritable building of HI-CHEW. Tall and radiant beneath the transparent dome that’d encased it, the tower had stood so wondrously one could only imagine that it had been erected by way of divine providence. So great was the surge of emotion that’d welled up within me the moment I’d witnessed it, I’d believed my sanity would be wholly consumed. How could I have imagined that one day, I too would be capable of reproducing that Jenga-like spire by my own hand? The excitement—the purest anticipation—I was experiencing was like nothing else.

Is it right for me to be so overjoyed, knowing full well that I’ll die tomorrow?

Though it was unlike me to show such transparent emotion, I was ebullient. I even began to skip. My steps grew quicker and lighter with each passing bound...

“Gwaaaaaaugh!”

...and as a consequence, I lost sight of my surroundings and barreled into a hapless passerby.

Oh! What a blunder that was. Though one certainly would not think it judging by my appearance, my physical capabilities were, frankly, rather outlandish—so much so that a carefree skip could carry me forward at speeds normally only reached by an automobile, were I too thoughtless.

“My apologies. Are you hurt?” I asked, coming back to my senses and addressing the individual I’d sent crashing to the ground. He was a black-haired young man wearing a somewhat stylish outfit. One would think him a trendy, modern youth at a glance, yet somehow, it seemed as if his clothes were wearing him—as if he were wearing an outfit that he had been compelled to don by a third party.

“Oof, ouch... Ah, yeah, I’m fine,” the boy said, patting the dirt off his backside as he rose to his feet. Though I’d been traveling at highway speeds when I’d collided with him, I’d slammed on my brakes the moment before impact, and I seemed to have spared him any serious injury in doing so.

“Again, you have my apologies. This was a lapse on my part, and one I shall endeavor not to repeat,” I said.

“Nah, really, I’m fine! It’s not that big a deal, so please, don’t sweat— Wait, shall?! A little girl just said shall to me?! That actually happens in real life?!” the boy exclaimed, eyes full of wonderment.

It had become increasingly apparent to me over the course of time that the manner in which I spoke was, per the standards of modern society, somewhat rare.

Hmm.

At the time I’d chosen my typical register, I had been under the impression that it was a perfectly normal manner to speak in. Thus, the overblown reactions I received on occasion, such as this boy’s, left me puzzled. Perhaps the cause of that disconnect was the manner in which I had attained an understanding of language: the ability to communicate had been transferred directly into my mind while I’d still lived in the test tube where I’d been cultivated, long before I’d actually communicated with another individual.

In any case, it seemed clear now that the manner of speech I had chosen for myself—which, let it be known, I had chosen for no particular reason—had been a less than desirable option. I had considered correcting that mistake, but at this point, it’d hardly seemed worth the effort.

“Are you certain you are uninjured, boy?” I asked.

“Y-Yeah,” said the boy. “I’m fi— Ah, I mean... Nay, ’twas naught but a trifling fall!”

Well, he’s certainly risen to the occasion. “’Twas naught”? Surely speaking like that would prove needlessly cumbersome?

I reached down for the boy’s bag, which had fallen to the pavement when I’d collided with him, and began gathering up the contents that had spilled from it.

“Oh! Thanks,” said the boy.

“Think nothing of it. Anyone would do the same.”

I collected a pencil case, a notebook, and a number of pocket-sized novels, as well as...

“What...are these?”

...a number of what seemed to be playing cards, at a glance. Upon picking them up, however, their flimsiness and lack of rigidity made it clear that they were simply paper, cut into the shape of cards. Some were blank, while others had words written upon them, such as “Chronos,” “Hourglass,” “German,” “Deadline,” and “SEKAI NO OWA—”

“Oh! Those are for a naming card game,” said the boy.

“Hmm?”

“It’s, uhh, kinda hard to explain, actually... Basically, it’s a card game that you play when you need an extra bit of inspiration to come up with a name, or something like that...? I thought it up about a year ago, and I’ve started thinking about ways to make it more fun as, y’know, a real game recently.”

“I see. I had thought them to be garbage.”

“Ha ha ha... You really don’t mince words, huh?”

Whether or not they were indistinguishable from garbage, if the papers were the boy’s personal property, I had no choice but to treat them as valuable. I carefully collected the cards one by one, only pausing when my eyes fell upon a certain card’s phrasing: “End of the World.”

The end of the world...? And in English, no less.

“Tell me, boy. If you knew that the world was to end tomorrow, what would you choose to do?” I asked.

The question had sprung to my lips on nothing more than a moment’s impulse. I did not intend to convey anything meaningful through it—but nor, in fact, did I intend to convey anything shallow or meaningless either. I had simply opened my mouth the moment the question had come to mind...and yet, when the boy heard my words, his eyes shot wide open with a start. He looked astonished, while at the same time, he seemed somehow elated. It was as if I had asked him a question he’d been seeking to expound upon for ages on end.

“W-Wait a second! Like, seriously, just a sec!” the boy shouted, instantly reaching into his bag and producing a black notebook. It struck me as rather like the one that First kept. Perhaps, I speculated, keeping a notebook upon one’s person at all times was a trend among young men.

“C-Come on, calm down... Keep it together... It’s finally time! I finally got asked question number four on my ‘questions that I want to give a hella cool answer to someday’ list! I can’t let this chance slip away from me... I know I had some really good ideas written somewhere around here...” the boy muttered as he feverishly flipped through his notebook’s pages. I surmised that he was searching for an answer to my question that he’d penned some time in advance.

Hmm. It’s interesting how clearly this boy’s behavior brings First to mind.

Eventually, the boy closed his notebook...then faced me with an expression of tortured gloom upon his face and a sardonic sneer on his lips, speaking in a tone that struck me as flagrantly theatrical.

“What would I do if the world was ending tomorrow? Mwa ha ha... You’re asking the wrong question. After all, if this world’s going to be destroyed...there’s not a chance in hell it’ll be done in by anything other than my own fist.”

I...struggled to find an apt reply. The atmosphere was simply indescribable, and if I were compelled to describe it in words regardless of the impossibility of the task, I would have no choice but to sum it up with a single verb: bombed. Bombed, in the sense that his delivery had bombed to an unprecedented degree. It had plummeted through the upper atmosphere, detonating on impact with the ground before me.

The boy, who seemed to have realized this fact, was sweating profusely. “S-So,” he said, “I, uhh, guess that’s not what you were looking for? Maybe I committed a bit too hard? Or maybe I should’ve just straight up ripped off Hiruma and said ‘I’d do everything I possibly could to stop the world from ending’ after all...?”

He was reflecting on his mistakes, clearly. Reflecting on them in entirely the wrong manner, but reflecting nonetheless.

“So, uhh,” the boy continued, “how about you? What would you do if the world was gonna end tomorrow?”

“I would eat as much of my favorite food as I wished,” I said, describing the action I was actively taking. “A last supper, if you would.”

“Oh ho! You sure know some deep allusions, huh? Leave it to a girl who says ‘shall’!”

“Though truth be told, it feels like an answer I reached through process of elimination. If I am to die tomorrow, then what I do today holds little significance. What is there left but to indulge in pleasures and amusements?”

“Huh?” the boy grunted, cocking his head. “But... Wait, just a sec. The question was ‘what would you do if the world was ending,’ right? Not ‘what would you do if you were going to die’?”

“Indeed it was.”

“Oh, good! Thought I’d totally misheard you for a second there.”

“What of it, though? I see little difference between the two. The world ending tomorrow and your life ending tomorrow are all but the same, are they not?” I asked. In the sense that your selfhood would be erased, they seemed identical to me.

I had been born to hunt down each and every Player in the War—and no sooner had I been born than I had lost that purpose. The fraction of a year that my life had lasted had been devoid of any and all sense of meaning. That is precisely why mine was a life of happiness, in fact. In lacking a purpose—in lacking any mission or duty to my name—I was allowed the freedom to spend the expressly limited time I had been granted as I pleased. Given the opportunity to use that time for myself, I was able to stroll the path to my fated end at my own relaxed pace.

I could wish for nothing more. All that was left was to quietly go to my death. With that, all would come to an end. That was simply the nature of my being. What difference, then, would it make if the world were to end rather than my life? However...

“Nah, they’re totally different,” said the boy. “The world ending and you dying aren’t even close to the same.”

“Oh...? How do they differ, then?”

“If the world’s ending tomorrow, then sure, you can do whatever you want to. The goal’s to make sure you don’t have any regrets...and, I mean, that’s probably not happening, but you can at least work toward satisfying as many desires as you can. If you’re dying, though—if you’re going away, but the world’s sticking around—then I think I’d rather leave something behind instead.”

“Something? Of what nature?”

“Hmm... Kinda hard to dig into the specifics, honestly. Just something, I guess. Doesn’t really matter what, as long as it proves that I was alive at one point. Maybe I’d say thanks to someone who helped me out, or make up with someone I was fighting with.”

“Why? Regardless of what actions you take, you would die in the end all the same, rendering them meaningless.”

“Well, sure, but... I guess it’s all a self-satisfaction thing, in the end. When I die, I’d like to know that a part of me will be living on in someone’s heart.”

“To live on in someone’s heart...? But all that would accomplish is afflicting them with a lingering sense of loss, would it not? All you would do is saddle them with ever-stronger regret. Was dispelling regrets not the first goal that you offered?”

“I mean, you’re not wrong. But, like...maybe I actually want to leave some regrets behind after all? That may be what I’ve been trying to get at this whole time, actually,” said the boy. It seemed that he himself had come to a realization, even as he spoke. “Yeah. If I was gonna die tomorrow, I’d wanna leave some regrets behind when I did it.”

“You would...?”

“I’d leave behind regrets—leave behind a bit of myself—and then leave it all behind.”

“...”

The boy’s feeble attempt at wordplay was by no means inspiring...and yet, somehow, it felt like it resonated with me ever so slightly.

To leave behind regrets...and leave behind a piece of yourself.

I said my goodbyes with the boy and set off once more on the path home, my HI-CHEW-laden bag swinging with every step. I had almost arrived at Hitomi’s dwelling when I caught sight of a familiar figure.

“Is that...?” I muttered as I inspected the girl before me. She wore a pink nurse’s outfit with a pink tracksuit jacket thrown over top. Her hair was a shade of golden blonde, as well, which only made her stand out all the more conspicuously as she walked toward me. She was Yusano Fantasia—or so I’d thought, but no. There was a peculiar pressure to her presence that I recognized Fantasia never could have exuded.

“Genre, is it?” I asked.

“The one and only,” the girl replied.

Yusano Genre, the core personality around which myriad alternate personalities orbited, flashed a calm and entirely fabricated smile as she nodded to me. I had spoken with Fantasia and Adventura on a regular basis, but it had been quite some time since I had met with Genre herself face-to-face. I’d only exchanged words with her once, and for only a sparing few minutes, after which she’d never chosen to show herself to me again.

“Where can I find Saitou Hitomi, transcendent one?” Genre asked, forgoing the pleasantries one would normally expect in this sort of exchange.

Her singular manner of conversation, it seemed, had not changed since we’d last met. She was a poor communicator, to put it plainly, and did very little to conceal that fact...though I suppose I had little room to criticize her in that regard.

“I paid a visit to her apartment, but she wasn’t at home,” Genre added.

“Hitomi left to buy ingredients for supper,” I explained. “I believe she was going to the nearby supermarket, so I do not imagine she will be much longer.”

“Oh, good. In that case, I’ll wait for her here.”

“Would it not be simpler to contact her through...‘LINE,’ was it? I believed that you and Hitomi...pardon me, that Fantasia and Hitomi frequently communicated through such means.”

“Ah... Yes, I suppose that is true. Communication tools like that are something of a natural enemy for me, and the possibility entirely slipped my mind. I’ve never been able to stomach the idea of speaking with someone while unable to see their face.”

“What is your business with Hitomi?” I asked.

“Oh, nothing terribly important,” said Genre, her smile hollow and her tone bereft of warmth.

“I was just planning to catch her by surprise and kill her, that’s all.”

“For what purpose?”

“Very little, frankly. It didn’t have to be her. Any one of you would have done just fine—any one of Kiryuu Hajime’s companions, that is. Any of your deaths would serve perfectly well as a declaration of war.”

“‘War,’ you say?”

“Precisely. We intend to withdraw from Fallen Black and make an enemy of Kiryuu Hajime. I believe that killing one of his friends will make our hostility perfectly clear to him.”

I fell silent.

“I was just considering targeting someone else, seeing as Saitou Hitomi wasn’t around...but yes, LINE. Of course. I had not considered it at all. I could indeed pretend to be Fantasia and call her directly to me. My thanks, transcendent one,” Genre said before taking her leave, walking past me and carrying on down the street.

As she left, she produced a smartphone from her jacket’s pocket and tapped a green icon on its screen to pull up an app...but before she could go any farther, that app, the screen, and the phone itself were split in half. I had struck the phone with the side of my hand, cleaving it in twain. The two halves of the former phone clattered to the pavement.

“What is the meaning of this, transcendent one?” Genre asked, seemingly unperturbed by my outburst. “Do you intend to stop me? How unexpected. I had believed that you would not intervene. My actions should have nothing to do with you...considering you’ll be dead by this time tomorrow.”

Apparently, Genre was aware of my lifespan. That was hardly a surprise. Nearly a hundred personalities dwelled within her, each with its own supernatural power. There was nothing she could know that would shock me.

“Oh? Another surprise,” said Genre, though the still-unshifting look on her face did nothing to express her supposed shock. “I had no idea you could make an expression like that.”

“An expression like that”? What expression would that be?

I had no idea what sort of look I had on my face...but nevertheless, I was certain of one thing: it was an expression that I had never worn so much as a single time before that moment. I was experiencing a feeling that I had never once felt in the fraction of a year that I had been alive...

“You are correct. Tomorrow, I will die,” I said. “And so, today...I would like to accomplish something.”

Less than an hour later...I had won. Decisively so—a crushing, overpowering victory. Our battle had unfolded hundreds of meters up in the sky, far past the range at which anyone could have witnessed us, and I’d had the upper hand from start to finish, ultimately driving Yusano Genre to retreat.

The outcome had felt inevitable, frankly. I had been given life to use System—or rather, White Rulebook—to eliminate each and every Player from the War. If I had so chosen, I could have prevailed against any Player, so even a Player in possession of nearly a hundred distinct powers was no exception. Genre had swapped from personality to personality at a breathtaking speed, assailing me with attacks of all shapes and sizes, but I had adapted to and dealt with each and every one of them, pulling awakening after awakening out of thin air. I truly was peerless in battle, with the one and only possible exception—my natural enemy, as it were—being Hinoemata Tamaki’s power. Short of her ability, no foe could stand against me.

Genre had soon determined that she stood no chance of defeating me, so she’d touched down somewhere out of sight and fled. Considering the wounds I’d left her with, I thought it likely that she would need quite some time to rest and heal. One of her personalities did have a healing power, but I had taken care to crush it especially thoroughly—I had awakened to a power that allowed me to target and attack specific personalities within an individual who possessed a multitude thereof, and I had made careful and efficient use of it. I felt confident in saying that neither Hitomi nor any of our other members would be caught in a surprise attack anytime soon.

Had I had my way, I would have finished Genre off for good, but regrettably, that had proven impossible. I would have chased her down if I’d had the time to do so...but time was the one thing I lacked.

“Hmph... So, this is my limit,” I muttered.

The moment I had alighted upon the ground, I had fallen prone on the pavement. My legs no longer had the strength to support me, and when I glanced downward, I found that the tips of my toes had already begun to turn transparent and fade into nothingness.

It seemed I had pushed myself past the brink. My power was a double-edged sword that ate away at my life with each use. Such was the price I paid for an ultimate power that brought certain victory—it was only by not using it at all that my life had lasted this long to begin with. In this battle, however, I had used all the life that had been left for me. I would have faded away by noon of the next day regardless of whether I’d fought Genre at all, so I’d had little life to spare in the first place, but with this, I’d undoubtedly expended what scant little I’d preserved.

In a sense, it felt like this was my natural lifespan coming to a close...but in another sense, it felt like my fate had been overturned. I had thought that I could only wait to die tomorrow, and yet here I was, dying today instead. By my own will—as a consequence of my own decision—I had defied the fate that had been written for me...though of course, I knew very well how hopelessly optimistic of an interpretation that was.

“Was there a purpose to this, I wonder?”

All I had done was very slightly extend the life of a woman I’d only spent the span of a few months with—a woman who would have come back to life regardless, per the Spirit War’s covenants. In a fundamental sense, the problems that had led to this situation had not been resolved at all. It was a stopgap measure, at best. What purpose could such an act have possibly served...?

Of course, it hardly mattered. I knew that no matter how much I pondered, no answer would be forthcoming. After all, I hadn’t acted with any clear sense of purpose. By the time I’d realized what I was doing, I had already sprung into action. My body—the body that had carried me through life up to this day, the physical form that had been granted the name Tanaka Umeko—had moved like it had possessed a will of its own.

“If only I could have eaten all that HI-CHEW,” I lamented with a sigh.

Partway through the battle, the last supper I’d prepared for myself had been caught in one of Genre’s attacks and incinerated, leaving not so much as a trace behind. What a waste it had been. Had I known it would end this way, I would have abandoned all thoughts of Jenga towers and sampled at least one of the flavors in advance.

Just then, I heard a voice. Someone was shouting, and when I strained to turn my head and look, I found Hitomi rushing toward me. She was on her way home after finishing her shopping, it seemed, and she had cast aside her reusable bag as she sprinted to my side. I tried to sit up, but that proved impossible—my arms and legs had already lost all feeling. I was well on my way to vanishing altogether.

Hitomi clutched my limp body in her arms. She was frantically screaming something at me, but my auditory sense seemed to have already deteriorated, and I could no longer hear anything at all. My sight, however, remained. I could still just barely make out her face as she looked down at me.

Oh, really, now. There’s no need for you to bawl so despondently, Hitomi. I’d planned to die quietly tomorrow precisely because I didn’t want to see that look on your face.

Eventually, my eyes ceased to function, and the world was blanketed in an all-consuming whiteness. I could no longer see Hitomi’s tearstained face...but I could still feel her warmth. I felt the warmth of her arms, the warmth of her tears as they fell upon my cheeks...and they told me that even after I was gone, my being would remain within her. I knew that very well, and that knowledge brought about a surge of emotion within me—a flood of sentiment powerful enough to fill my heart to its brim. This, I knew, was the attachment—the regret—that people so often spoke of.

I see now. So this is what it means to leave regrets behind. Honestly...

Oh, how I curse you, boy whose name I never learned. It is your fault that I learned to fear death. It is your fault that I have found the desire not to die. It is your fault that I have come to wish that I could live on.

At the same time...I thank you, nameless boy. It is thanks to you that I, an entity who was brought into this world with no sense of humanity, could leave this world in a manner befitting a human. I can pass on, praying all the while that my death could be delayed. I can die, wishing all the while that I could live on. I can leave behind regrets—leave behind a piece of myself—as I leave this world altogether.

I could no longer move my mouth, and I could not speak out loud...but with my inner voice, I spoke soundless words, straight from my heart, as loudly and clearly as I could manage.

My life had lasted for less than a hundred days, but now, in my final moments, I felt blessed beyond measure to be able to wish that I could have lived longer still.