STORY: "The Journal"

The night air in the sushi house was thick with the scent of fish, the faint hum of the old radio filling the space with an ever-present melancholy tune. Hitoshi had just finished cleaning the counter when something caught his eye. A small, weathered object lay on the surface before him—a journal. It was old, its pages yellowed and fragile with age, the leather cover cracked from years of handling. The journal had appeared without sound, as if it had materialized from the very air itself, its presence suddenly undeniable.

Hitoshi paused for a moment, his fingers lingering near the book. A chill ran through him, an unshakable sensation of recognition, though he couldn’t quite place why. The pages were worn, the ink faded in places. But what truly made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end was the distinct sense that he knew this journal - had known it, once. His breath caught for a moment, and his eyes narrowed as he stared down at it.

It wasn’t the journal’s condition that made him uneasy - it was the gnawing feeling that it belonged to him. Yet, he couldn’t remember having ever owned it, much less written its contents. The words within were strange and familiar, like the distant memory of a dream one couldn’t fully grasp.

He reached out and gingerly opened it. The first page was filled with the scrawl of a fisherman, the ink faded but the handwriting still legible.

"The Collector came to me this night, as I cast my nets into the sea. He appeared from thin air sitting on the edge of my boat. I was so startled that I almost yelled out. He told me not to be afraid - he spoke of a deal, a choice: to live forever, to never know hunger or worry, to never feel the pain of age. But at what cost? I do not know if I can trust him. I do not know if I can trust myself."

Hitoshi’s heart seemed to skip a beat. A fisherman. A choice. The words felt like they had been carved into his soul. He blinked hard, rubbing his eyes as if to clear away some kind of mist. The memories they stirred were fleeting, scattered, like fragments of a life lived long ago.

The sea.

A small boat. The gentle rocking of the waves beneath him.

The nets.

The salt on his lips, the wind in his hair. He had been alone, hadn’t he? Alone in that little boat, out on the water, casting his nets into the deep, trusting the pull of the ocean. But had he been truly alone? Or had there been another there? Someone who watched from the shadows, unseen but ever-present. Someone who had offered him something in return for... what?

Hitoshi’s breath caught in his throat, and he forced himself to look back at the journal, his hands trembling ever so slightly.

The next page was filled with more frantic entries:

"I was weak. I was foolish. The waves were cruel that night. My nets were empty, my stomach empty, my hope - gone. The Collector…. He returned. He offered me something in exchange for my soul. He called it a ‘gift’ of immortality. A life without hunger or worry. A life without the years creeping into my bones. But at what cost? At what cost?"

The words seemed to blur before his eyes, the weight of them pressing down on his chest. There it was again: The Collector. A name he could almost recall, a figure that hovered at the edges of his memories like a shadow just beyond his reach.

Why couldn’t he remember?

Hitoshi closed his eyes, his mind racing with images of the sea - the vast, endless expanse of it, the saltwater in his veins, the cold bite of the wind, waves crashing. There was something more—something darker that haunted the waters. Something about the choice that he had made.

Immortality.

A life without the ravages of age or despair. The Collector had given him the chance to escape that which so many feared. But now, staring at the journal, those words seemed hollow, empty. Had it really been a gift?

He opened to the next page, and the words on it were written in frantic desperation:

"I should never have agreed. The Collector’s gift is not a gift at all. It is a curse. I’m trapped… I can never leave this hell... it never fades. The years... they never end. I feel them stretching before me, stretching for eternity. There is no escape from this curse, no release from this unending night."

The writing on the page struck him like a blow. Trapped... The endless, gnawing years. It was a strange thing to be so familiar with, yet so foreign. He couldn’t quite grasp it.

Was that how he felt now? The hunger had always been there, hadn’t it? It had never gone away. Every time he sliced the fish, every time a lost soul walked through the door, hadn’t it been that same hunger rising within him? Was that the cost?

Hitoshi rubbed his forehead, his fingers pressing into his temples as though he could force the memories into focus. The flashes of the boat, the endless sea, the haunting presence of the Collector - they came and went like waves crashing against jagged rocks, leaving behind only fleeting impressions.

Why had he made the deal?

Was it really because of hunger?

Or was it something more? Something deeper within him, something that had wanted to escape the confines of the mortal world, to escape the fear of death that loomed over everyone?

What had he truly wanted?

He felt a cold, sinking sensation in his gut, a feeling that maybe he had traded more than just his soul for immortality. He thought back to the endless, fruitless days as a fisherman - how the hunger in his belly had gnawed at him, how the weight of age had begun to pull at his bones long before he had made the deal. He had never been young again after the first promise of immortality. The boat, the sea, all of it seemed so distant now. All that remained was the sushi house, the quiet waiting every night, the endless rotation of a new lost soul or something worse.

But there had to have been something more. Something he had wanted.

And the Collector? Was it just some shadowy figure, some strange being who had offered him power, or had the Collector been something more than that? A trickster? A demon?

A master of souls?

The journal was not done, though. The last few entries were almost incomprehensible:

"The Collector returns. I can feel him. He calls me, but I no longer wish to answer. I no longer wish to be his servant. His power is a mockery. His immortality, a lie. He took my soul, and I took his bargain, but now I see it for what it is: A prison. A prison from which there is no escape. I wish to undo it, to break free. But I am too weak. And so, I write. Perhaps someone will read these words, and perhaps they will make a different choice. A better choice."

Hitoshi’s heart thundered in his chest as he turned the last page. The final words echoed in his mind.

"I wish I had never met him. I wish I had never taken the deal. I would rather have aged. I would rather have died."

A deep, aching emptiness filled his chest as he closed the journal. He placed it gently on the shelf beneath the counter, but his hands trembled, and his mind raced, caught in a web of confusion and doubt. Had he truly been that fisherman? Had he really made a deal for immortality? Was that how this all began?

Or was it something else? Something darker, something he couldn’t even begin to understand?

He could feel the weight of his own existence, stretching out like an endless horizon. Time had slipped through his fingers like water, and now all that remained was the sushi house, the lost who came and went.

He didn’t know the answers. He didn’t know if he could even trust the memories swirling in his mind. The only thing he knew for certain was that the decision he had made - whatever it had been - had trapped him here, bound to this house, bound to the fish, bound to the endless cycle of immortality.

And yet, deep down, a part of him wondered if there was still a way out.

Would he ever escape?

Or had this deal truly been his last choice?

The uncertainty gnawed at him, and he found himself staring at the journal once more, the words of the fisherman now deeply etched into his soul.

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