The most important... never let it go! CHAPTER 7

As promised ... the English translation of chapter 7!!!

Will try my best to finish chapter 8 soon .. ^.^

CHAPTER 7

It was dark. Dark and cold was the place where Ohno Satoshi was now. And there was something strange; just now he had had the feeling that his whole life had been shown right in front of his eyes. All those things, that he had done and experienced, all the people that he had met and became friends with and those, that had a special place in his heart. But as soon as that “movie of his life” was over, all of Ohnos memories were blown away. He didn’t know where he was, how he reached that place and even who he was, was a mystery for him now. It was like someone had grabbed an eraser and deleted all of his memories like the writing on a paper.

Frantically he tried to remember; remember some trivial things that could give him a hint on who he was and what he was doing here. But no matter how hard he tried, it just didn’t occur to him. What should he do now? He, who didn’t even know his own name. He tried to look around, but it was so dark that even the sharpest eyes couldn’t see anything in that room. Slowly he stood up from the cold floor on which he had sat until now and began to grope his way along the wall. Only now he recognized that this room wasn’t just pitch black, but also that there was no sound echoing in there. There was dead silence and even his own steps didn’t make any sound. What was this place? Panic spread within him while he took one step after the other groping along the wall. Something was wrong here! Definitely! No matter how far he went, there was just no end in sight. But he didn’t want to give up, further and further he groped along the wall. Because the only thing he knew for sure was that he wanted to leave this place as soon as possible. But as he went on the air became colder and colder and also his steps got lazier with every step he took. He noticed how his strength slowly left his body and tiredness spread within him. After some more steps he couldn’t go on anymore and so he sat down on the cold floor again. ‘Will I have to stay here forever? Alone, with this terrible feeling of emptiness within me?’ this cruel thought flashed through his mind and he recognized how his hands began to shake out of despair. He wanted to leave this place, wanted to be at a place much warmer and brighter. A place where he could feel secure. What should he do? What? He buried his head in his still shaking hands.

But then, all of a sudden, he saw a bright ray of light out of the corner of his eyes. When he looked up, he recognized that a gate had opened out of nowhere at some distance from where that ray of light was now shining.

With this sight hope awakened within him once again. He would be able to leave this terrible place; he just had to reach that gate! With all his strength left Ohno lifted himself up again, found support on the wall and did one step after the other. He didn’t know what was awaiting him behind that gate, but it could only be much better than this desolated place. The light that was shining from the gate gave him a feeling of calming, hope and also infinite protection; it was a feeling that let him think that he didn’t want to leave this place behind the gate ever again.

This thought encouraged him and so he gave his all to move forward. With each step… coming closer to his goal.

A short while after he had fallen asleep Sho was woken by a strange sound. He still was in twilight sleep and so he couldn’t figure out what that sound was about at first. “Why is there a non-stop beep?... Ah this is a really awkward sound! My ears are hurting!” he was thinking just now.

But then a horrible thought raced through his mind and all of a sudden he had jumped up from his chair and starred with wide opened eyes over to the display of Ohnos heartbeat monitor. The up and down going curve from just a few moments ago had changed to a continuous horizontal line. Sho turned to stone. He couldn’t do anything else than stand stiffly and stare at the screen in disbelief.

“That’s not true! That cannot be! No, no, that’s not...“, were the only words that came across his lips.

But the reality was shown to him quite plainly again when a nurse suddenly pushed him away rudely and he saw how the doctor ripped open Ohno’s shirt hastily and charged the defibrillator that was standing in reach.

When the pads of the defibrillator touched Ohno’s chest for the first time and the body of the older one reared up under the power of the current surge, Sho felt as if his heart froze to ice and fell down a deep and dark abyss where it burst into millions of small shivers at last.

The doctor placed the pads on Ohno’s body for a second time and current surge raced through the lifeless body of Arashi’s leader again. But still, the horizontal line on the screen didn’t change.

Sho was at his end, with every current surge more and more energy left his body and more and more tears ran down his cheeks, his chest corded up so much that breathing got difficult for him. It was boiling inside of him: fear, anger, despair. He had to do something; something to save Ohno, but there was only one thing he could do at the moment. Screaming out his feelings in the hope that he would be heard. “Ohno! Damn it! You cannot just give up now! You are strong! You have gone through the most already, there are only some hours left till the morning! You have to hang on! You cannot just let us down here! You are our leader! We need you!“

But what helped Sho to find himself again a little bit, was something that displeased the nurse and the doctor. The man gave a brief look to the nurse and she understood that she should escort Arashi’s rapper out of the room. But for Sho it was a sure thing that he wouldn’t leave Leader in lurch. He used all of his available strength to struggle against the nurse and clung to the chair beside him so that he could stay in the room.

The struggle lasted some time, but suddenly Sho stopped moving and so did the nurse. His gaze fell on the doctor who put aside his equipment at that moment and reached for a pencil and file. The monitor was still showing a horizontal line.

Suddenly Sho’s mind went totally blank. A few seconds he just stared down at the calm figure of Ohno.

„No, no, no, no, no, no, no... that’s not true! That cannot be! No, Satoshi! You can’t be serious! Satoshi! You are not allowed to … I need you! You cannot just leave me alone! No... I need you Satoshi! SATOSHI!!“

Slowly he slugged to the ground, the nurse had not the strength to hold him. Tears were falling in showers. Both of his arms embraced his body strongly and he was bouncing back and forth with his upper body in the hope that this would calm him down a little bit and save him from becoming insane. But he felt like he also just lost his last breath of life.