Light 光 | Dr. Stone

Chapter 4

Hikari didn't know how much time has passed. He had no focus on counting as he did his best to stay awake. The voice inside his head helped him with that. The voice had several interesting stories. They deemed it as works of fiction but also claimed that it was a real world in another universe.

As time passed, Hikari continued to listen so that he would stay awake. Now that he was a statue, he felt nothing, be it pain, hunger, or drowsiness. If not for the voice then he would have fallen asleep  long ago.

The voice's first story was a girl named Akari.

Akari... rarely shows emotion and was considered by those around her as weird. Due to this, she was isolated by society and ended up being a shut-in. Her time for human interaction was replaced with the repeating days of watching animated works of fiction.

Each one having a separate story told by the voice.

Each one never failing to amuse Hikari.

One was about a boy who is on a quest to be a pirate king. It seems that in that world, some pirated can be good and some can be bad. The same for the marines which was the people who uphold justice.

Another was a neglected child who dreams to be the strongest ninja. Despite the harsh treatment, the child didn't give up and at the end, achieved his dream of becoming the strongest and was acknowledged by those around him.

The voice had many stories to tell. They didn't lie when they said that they had many long stories to help Hikari stay awake.

But out of all those stories... one stood up among the rest.

It was a story of a normal young boy who turned out to be part of the mafia, more specifically, a candidate to be the boss of a big mafia group. With him was a sadistic baby who helped him grow as a person and as a boss.

But that voice added something in that story.

They said that one of the parallel universes in that story existed a boy named Hikaru.

Hikaru was special. He had memories of his past life. One that had that mafia story as an animated film. Due to this, Hikaru knew what would happen in the story and decided to change it to give happy ending for everyone, even if they were once an enemy.

But that story didn't last long...

Hikaru suddenly died.

The voice said it might be because he was discovered by something. Or that he was controlled by something to kill of that whole universe. It was an abrupt end and made the soul inside Hikaru rampage knowing that he caused a bad ending to all those characters he had loved.

As Hikari listened, there was a light throbbing inside his head. Though it didn't hurt, it still caused him discomfort.

The voice was patient for him and waited for his slow recovery before continuing the story. 

"116,760,722,356"

The voice said as it continued the stories.

After finishing the story of Hikaru, the voice warned him of the next story with the reason that it might wake him up. He didn't understand what that voice meant, but he still agreed to listen to the story because he didn't want to fall asleep.

"116,760,722,371"

The last story was about a small child who woke up alone in an unknown place- an unknown world. He didn't know anything besides a minuscule of information, enough for him to be considered human.