7deadly moods something something
Not Dreaming the Butterfly Dream, Not Knowing What the Seven Deadly Sins Are, Whether Nothing Exists or Something Does, and the Need to Finish Things Soon
Around the time when Koharu Uten, Otome Gōrai, Shū Zhou, Kaisei Kogare, and Shōmu-chan all happened to fall into the same trend of thought, countless people, non-humans, solids, liquids, gases, concepts, invisible things, and various other entities who had repeatedly contemplated their own disappearance had long been considering similar questions.
It was already a well-known and somewhat embarrassing truth that life seemed worthwhile if it was enjoyable.
Yet certain concepts that could not truly die continued to wonder what method of disappearing might cause the least inconvenience to others.
They also appeared to spend considerable effort distinguishing between different kinds of "answers."
Among forgotten people who were never acknowledged, never affirmed, and never truly heard, some wondered whether quiet deaths—carbon monoxide poisoning, overdoses, starvation, and similar methods—would merely leave their shadows behind, or whether even those shadows would eventually be denied and told that they had never existed.
Then some changed direction.
What if a single individual, or perhaps beings sharing the same cellular origin, were endlessly looping?
The moment that possibility entered the discussion, thought itself began drifting toward existence.
"I lived because I was bored."
"I died because I was bored."
"I kept creating pointless things because I was bored."
The conversation gradually shifted from absence toward presence.
Across impossibly long histories, fixed futures, uncertain futures, and countless unrealized possibilities, there were those who wished to believe that consciousness itself leaned toward existence.
"Why not watch it?"
"Why not try it?"
People who understood almost nothing about the world continued to exist.
People who could not understand why reports of crisis were immediately followed by reports celebrating economic booms continued to exist.
And among them were many who simply concluded:
"This is exhausting. Let's die."
Yet prolonged exposure to ideas beyond simplistic morality, beyond good and evil, beyond the Seven Deadly Sins and Seven Virtues, occasionally produced a different sort of individual.
Such people began asking:
"How can I disappear without causing trouble for anyone?"
Naturally, those individuals often became easy prey for those considered winners.
Large theories existed.
Small theories existed.
Thousands of explanations rolled endlessly across the world.
The owner of this perspective openly admitted they were not particularly intelligent and would likely be wrong about many things.
Still, a notebook was discovered.
Within it were fragments of thoughts that might have resonated with Koharu Uten, Otome Gōrai, Shū Zhou, Kaisei Kogare, Shōmu-chan, and others like them.
---
Attempting a Black-Hole Funeral
Launch oneself toward a black hole.
A cosmic funeral.
A proposal that would likely inconvenience Gemini Saga, multiple dimensions, and countless schools of thought.
Rare, expensive, dramatic, and troublesome.
---
Erasing Oneself Completely
Making oneself "never have existed."
Efficient in terms of cost.
However, the writer suspected that some shell of existence would remain preserved regardless.
A fraudulent kind of deletion.
---
Being Gradually Diluted
Apparently this idea had already been abandoned.
Yet attached to it were fragments of idle observations about the world.
"Everyone is fighting."
"I'm jealous."
"I can't believe it."
"Is it unfair?"
"Energy from water, huh."
"Island nations and coastal regions have an advantage."
"But if balloons produced from lake-based systems were thrown around everywhere by something resembling the ancestors of gorillas, maybe the feeling of unfairness would disappear."
"It seems that 'energy from water' and 'hydrogen' might eventually become the same word."
The notebook continued for some time afterward, but much of it had become unreadable.
Only disconnected fragments remained.
References to expansion ratios.
Plaster.
Dried flowers.
Sculpture.
And several other strange subjects.
No one paid them much attention.
---
The person who discovered the notebook—or perhaps the writer himself—eventually commented:
"There are people who lock themselves inside rooms and weld things together without dying."
"Mold and fungi differ from place to place."
"It looks punk."
"But maybe people should die more dramatically."
Then he reconsidered.
This was nothing more than the notebook of a worthless fool.
The literary equivalent of mild hearing loss.
For some reason the phrase 'open house' crossed his mind.
He immediately disliked the thought.
So he drank.
Then discarded the notebook.
---
The reactions of those who read it varied.
Ridiculous.
Disgusting.
The ramblings of a bored person.
The scribbles of someone who failed to die.
Most reactions fell somewhere within that range.
Yet strangely enough, the notebook was never truly discarded.
Some threw it away.
Some burned it.
Some spilled alcohol across its pages.
Yet its contents remained.
Like mold spores.
Like the seeds of weeds.
They rooted themselves in forgotten corners of people's minds.
Why?
Because the notebook contained no answers.
Not a single one.
It explained no proper way to die.
No proper way to disappear.
No proper way to be saved.
Nothing.
Again and again it returned to a single question:
"How can I disappear without causing trouble for anyone?"
That was not the concern of a hero.
Nor the concern of someone trying to save the world.
It was the concern of an ordinary defeated person.
And that was precisely why it spread.
The wise laughed.
The powerful attempted to exploit it.
Religious figures interpreted it according to their needs.
Researchers analyzed it.
Yet none of them could completely reject it.
They knew too much.
Those who sought immortality.
Those who longed for death.
In the end they were all staring at the same destination.
The end.
The only difference was whether one wished to reject it...
...or reach it.
That was all.
And so the Panacea Project began.
Not to save humanity.
Not to enrich humanity.
Not even to answer the question itself.
Only...
To bring the question to an end.
---
Moved forward by little more than pre-workout supplements and stubborn momentum, the leader of the stray nightwalkers found himself active once again.
He stared at the darkness for a while.
The notebook was gone.
The argument was over.
The alcohol had run out.
Questions about immortality, salvation, contradiction, and the proper way for things to end could wait until tomorrow.
The world would continue regardless.
Others would continue searching.
Others would continue believing.
Others would continue fighting.
For tonight, none of that mattered.
He stretched.
Exhaled.
And reached the only conclusion worth reaching.
"Let's sleep."
