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Something is banging at the door.
When Mom left, you were hoping to have this time all to yourself. It would not help, nothing would - but you could keep daydreaming for just a little longer.
It's a terrible idea and you know that.
This is a good day: you have eaten breakfast. Or lunch. Or - you have eaten. You've even brushed your teeth at some point, too; it's easier now that you've learned to do it without looking in the mirror. There is no blood on your clothes. You're alive. That's good. You should keep doing that.
Blearily, you realize how badly you need to shower.
You don't want to. You just want to die. On some days, you find yourself assessing support beams to hang yourself like Mari did. It would need to be somewhere within the house, with darkness and spiders and tall stairs-
A tree would be better. Perhaps the treehouse one: it's enormous and so beautiful and your father isn't here to cut it down afterwards. But - that would require you to go outside. And you don't think you're ready for that.
You don't think you're ever going to be ready for that.
Deeply, you understand that this will remain a fantasy: hanging could be a prolonged death, painful in a way that is not appealing in the slightest. You've read up everything you could find about it on the internet when you were still allowed to use the dial-up.
When you are going to kill yourself, you want something neat and quick, like the knife you already use so much. A single stab and everything is over.
You walk down the stairs. In daylight, there is nothing scary about them. Your steps echo around the empty house, off-beat with the incessant knocking. An annoying, hollow sound, though nowhere as annoying as-
"Sunny? Are you there?"
Are you?
The voice has changed a bit, but you recognize it immediately. There is still time to ignore it, turn back, throw yourself onto your bed. Slink back into the void of your mind like the coward you are.
"Do you remember me? It's your old friend, Kel!"
It feels strange to acknowledge that this isn't a figment of your imagination from four years before. This is Kel the person; something a part of you loathed just as much as another part longed for. What is he going to think about you now?
Why does he even want to see you?
You cannot predict how you are going to react when you see him in flesh; you are glad you have left the knife in the kitchen. Don't go back for it. Don't tell Kel you hate him. Do you, really? Or do you just keep saying so because you hate yourself so much?
You regret ever having friends.
Go away, you want to say. You want to stay alone with your dreams. But you can't. You won't ever be: from the mirror, from behind the window, from between the trees in the backyard - the dark shape swaying in the wind follows you wherever you go.
Everything is going to be okay.
Your Omori's hand hovers over the doorknob.