I don't even know how many times I've been trapped in these kinds of misfortunes in my current life.
And I don't know how many times I've tried to resolve them calmly, only to forget about them as if nothing had ever happened.
I don't know, maybe I've just become too lazy to count it, It's impossible to count, in fact, it's already countless.
What is clear, however, is that something labeled as "misfortune" can never be categorized as a good thing.
And the misfortune happening to me right now is the first and absolute worst I have ever experienced. It makes me truly wish my life could just run normally, drifting by like a passing breeze.
Why do I keep getting involved in stuff like this anyway? Oh, right, I forgot. I'm a person riddled with all sorts of flaws and bad luck, I'm not handsome, which is why my life doesn't go smoothly. Right, that makes total sense.
In the beginning, I still tried to live a good life despite the bad luck greeting me every single bright morning, occasionally turning my day into a recurring nightmare.
I was once accused of being a stalker by a narcissistic woman who ended up reporting me to the authorities, even though at the time, I was literally just looking for a stray cat that I consistently fed and cared for.
The misunderstanding didn't just end there. I was kept under police surveillance for a few days until those days finally passed, and we decided to settle it amicably as a family matter. But man, I was absolutely furious back then. Does my face seriously look like someone who would commit such a degenerate act?
Even so, I kept living my life well, although, yeah, sometimes those misfortunes almost made me lose my temper.
In short, my life sounds like this: Hendery Sutioso, 27 years old, office worker, and an unlucky guy.
I know how to appreciate God's blessings, even if I'm not exactly the most religious person, no, not until this happened.
An event that completely defies human logic, where there is absolutely no humanity, let alone a shred of mercy... It blindsided me right in the middle of my work routine.
Sigh, seriously, if I told this to my coworker, there is no way he'd believe me, even if I narrated it in the finest detail... He'd only believe me if I said something like, "How to Make Easy Money, Zero Capital Needed." No wonder he got scammed once.
Ah, whatever, back to the beginning of the story.
It was a night that started out quiet and insignificant to me, before turning into a long night that might just never end.
You might think I'm just having a mental breakdown or hallucinating from a mountain of paperwork that only multiplies and never decrease. No, it's not that. I actually like working—boss, please raise my salary.
Haha... But what I saw that time truly cannot be put into words.
Here, in a world filled with things that are considered utterly ordinary, without any connection to anomalies or other elements like:
Magic.
Darkness.
Abnormal powers.
Human experimentation.
Aliens
Etc.
Well, a few of those have happened before, but right now Earth is doing perfectly fine. Ah, or maybe it isn't?
Come to think of it, a lot of people already believe that aliens are real. I sort of believe it too, because Earth isn't the only planet in this universe. Maybe far out there, there's another inhabited planet just like Earth.
I half-believe it, but half-don't, because it's too tightly intertwined with fiction, and there's no concrete information about it yet.
I used to read a lot about that kind of stuff in books, historical literature, mythology, and some fantasy. Maybe that's why I'm a bit interested in the topic. Uhm, but now I need to know how to distinguish fiction from reality, so I stopped reading those kinds of books.
Will I ever start reading stories like that again? Maybe.
...As I explained before, I stumbled upon something extraordinary right in the middle of a human civilization packed with social creatures.
It was a corpse, yes, a corpse. A corpse that looked distinctly different, of course. It was the body of a young man who looked to be around my age, lying helplessly in a narrow alleyway that people rarely notice.
And now, clueless old me became the person who accidentally discovered it.
The corpse already smelled, but for some reason, it hadn't decomposed yet. Maybe because he was newly killed? But then why did it already smell? A body that hasn't decomposed indicates that it hasn't been dead for long.
So where was this foul stench coming from?
Was the killer still here? Who knows.
But there was one thing clearly visible—there was a sort of spark or glimmer swirling around the body. Maybe that was the cause of this pervasive foul odor. That's just a temporary speculation.
A spark, bright yet somehow dark at the same time. How should I describe it... Anyway, yeah, that's just how it looked from my point of view.
The young man's body was already covered in thick blood that pooled like rainwater. There's no way he could survive after losing that much blood, right?
"Ugh, it stinks." Unable to withstand the foul stench, I covered my nose with my shirt. The pooling thick blood was now starkly visible, even casting a reflection under the moonlight. Pooling, thick, and red like a syrup—ah, sorry, I'm just a bit hungry.
Having been on my way home after buying some snacks and drinks at the convenience store, I was, of course, shocked.
What kind of normal person wouldn't be shocked to see something like that? If they weren't, they'd have to be a psychopath.
At that moment, I briefly thought I was just hallucinating due to hunger, compounded by the fact that it was already midnight. I blinked several times to snap myself out of it, but it remained exactly the same.
A young man's corpse was lying right in front of me.
I even tried blinking my eyes repeatedly, but the result was still the same.
Instead of snapping out of it, I became increasingly convinced that this was reality, not just a mere nightmare, let alone a hallucination.
Was I utterly shocked? You bet I was.
Even though I already knew the outcome, I still tried blinking my eyes a few more times just to be absolutely sure.
And for the umpteenth time, I stopped. After that, I began to slowly draw closer to the corpse. The smell was incredibly foul. And my chest now felt tight.
—Ugh.
I hated this. This was a literal nightmare.
Once I reached my desired distance, I carefully examined the young man's face. Yep, my gut feeling wasn't wrong, he was seriously handsome.
His skin was flawless with no visible pores; what kind of skincare routine was he on? His lips looked pink, looking as though he had never touched a cigarette in his life, a total ladies' man. If I looked closer, his face wasn't too masculine, nor was it too feminine. It was just perfect. His hair was perhaps a bit messy, yet it also looked kind of soft? I think, but right now it was matted, probably because the puddle of his own red blood had managed to soak part of it.
"Poor handsome young man, if you were still alive, I would definitely set you up with my cousin." That way, you guys would surely give me a handsome, charming, and near-flawless nephew.
What a pity.
Ahem, alright, enough fantasizing about an impossible future like that, let's focus.
"Alright, what should I do now?"
There was no one there. I was just asking myself, as I usually do. It's a bad habit I do reflexively. Well, maybe I did it just to ease my mind right now, which counts as useful enough.
I got trapped in my own thoughts, trying to answer my own question from my own perspective. After thinking for quite a while, I found the answer.
"This is none of my business."
Right, this is none of my business as a corporate office worker. I'll just call the authorities and make a run for it. But before that, I'll definitely be asked for a statement regarding this incident.
Alright, I squatted down and tried to pull out something from my right pants pocket. My phone. Once my phone was out, I immediately dialed '112', the police emergency number.
It rang.
The call was answered, then the dispatcher gave a formal greeting and asked me what was happening. I then explained everything calmly, and after that, it would surely all be over... May God grant me the best outcome this time. Hopefully, for the umpteenth time, I hope...
'Hopefully, there won't be another misunderstanding this time.'
I had finally landed a decent job after a long stint of being unemployed, and my salary was pretty good too, above minimum wage, much better than my previous one.
After getting fired due to a misunderstanding where I was accused of 'stalking' someone, even though I had told my boss it was just a misunderstanding, he didn't believe me, and rumors about me being a pervert and a stalker began to spread. For the sake of the company's reputation, my boss had no choice but to fire me. Oh well, the pay wasn't even that great anyway, so good riddance.
After a long time searching for a job facing rejection after rejection, I finally landed this one. The boss is nicer than I expected, though ever since my first day, I've never been far from a mountain of paperwork, hundreds, maybe thousands of pages, to the point where I have to take overtime. But that's fine, as long as the pay I receive still matches my hard work.
Please, I don't want to lose my job for the umpteenth time, especially my current one. So please, grant me the best outcome for the case I'm reporting this time. Don't let me end up accused as a suspect or the perpetrator like before.
As I was drowning in my spiraling thoughts, a voice tried to snap me back to the reality.
"Sir."
"Ah, yes, what is it?" I answered, snapping out of it after being swept away by my own mind.
"It seems there is another caller reporting the exact same case right now, and at the exact same location."
"Huh?"
The emergency operator did indeed say that, but I didn't see anyone else here besides the young man's corpse and myself. I tried to tell them the truth, but...
"But, there's no one—"
Beep.
Just as I was about to say that there was no one else here besides me, the call abruptly went dead.
"What on earth? Why did the phone cut off?"
The corpse was smelling worse by the second, to the point where even I might not be able to endure the stench now.
"Ugh, why did they hang up?"
Clang.
The sound of a dropped object that sounded like metal shattered my confusion. It was the sound of something intentionally dropped by someone, I figured. I turned my gaze in every direction in an attempt to find the person who dropped it, but to no avail, there was no one there. So where did that sound come from?
Clang.
The sound echoed again through the silence, and I tried to find its source for the second time, but it was exactly the same, I didn't see anyone there. However, this time I gathered my courage to ask.
"Who's there?! Hello?"
"Hello... come on, this isn't funny, my friend, hahaha." I laughed awkwardly to hide my fear.