Dragon Ball Z: The Old House

Me and my friends were sort of "urban explorers", only difference is, these houses aren't abandoned. You heard me right, some nights, when me and my friends are bored we go out and loot houses, we choose our prey carefully, usually houses where there are no lights on, no cars in the parking lot, and no ADT protected sign on the lawn. Each of us took a pillow case, and we'd creep around, picking up valuables like jewelry, nice clothes, electronics. I didn't think it was a good idea when my friend Paul first suggested it, but he convinced me, saying that we were just robbing wealthy people with more money than they knew what to do with, and there was nothing in their homes that they couldn't just replace, and he was right, we live up in California, everyone here has a good sum of money to their names, so we weren't doing them much harm by taking a couple of belongings from them while they were out.

Okay, scratch that, we were just straight up crooks, but at the time, being a broke teenager, who moved out here to make a living, and finding that no one was interested in my awful singing, and now struggling to pay rent, I had sort of a grudge against those who had it made, so I went out with my three friends one night to do just one place, grabbed myself a blu-ray player and some nice, and found myself hooked.

Ever since we'd started, every time I'd walk around my neighborhood, I'd see every house as another potential target for intrusion. I was subconsciously watching what people did every day, where they'd go, what time they'd leave, when they'd come back, how big the house was, I didn't even notice I was doing it at first. The house I was most interested in was two streets away from mine, a two story home, that looked older than any of the surrounding buildings, it was strange how it stood out among the other homes, in that it looked like nobody maintained the lawn.

There was never a vehicle parked out front, no one was ever in the yard, the lights were never on. But I never let my friends know about it, I felt like not knowing who lived there, what they looked like, or what they did made me more uneasy about breaking into their house than breaking into the house of someone I saw going to work every day.

I wasn't even sure if someone did live there, all signs would point to no, but signs (or lack thereof) is just what got me, there were no For Sale, For Rent or even Condemned signs outside the house, the house was just there. But finally one night, when me and my friends, Paul, Richard and Michael, were hanging out in Richard's home, and Paul was thinking of places to head to, despite us having picked up from every home we felt like we could get away with, I finally mentioned the old home. This seemed like any other standard break-in, we showed up at the house around two in the morning, over the course of our lucrative career, we had become better and better and getting into houses, we walked around to the backdoor, and Richard picked the lock, simple enough. As my friends filed through the open door, I began feeling really nervous, "Do we even know who lives here?" I asked.

"No," said Paul "But if you did, you probably wouldn't have the heart to rob them."

I laughed, knowing this to be true, but that feeling of unease didn't leave me. Now, however, I knew for sure someone had lived here, the backdoor led us into a dusty kitchen, vintage table and chairs, an old fridge that didn't make any noise, meaning it was either so old that it had broken, or the lights had been shut off in this house, which implied a sense of unkemptness either way. But once we were out of the kitchen, through a set of double doors, we found ourselves in the living area, it has a rather old television, sitting on the floor, pieces of writing paper on the floor in front of it, a musty couch sat against the wall, a coffee table with an old cup sitting on it, was sitting in the corner of the room. Michael picked up one of the pieces of paper, turned it over, and then looked back at us.

"Just some children's drawing." he said, and he threw it back to the ground among the other papers.

"So whoever owns this place has kids?" asked Richard

"They had kids, but they're probably adults by now, this place has definitely been abandoned." I said, now feeling slightly more comfortable, as the fear of someone waking up and calling the cops slowly subsided.

"Yuck!" shrieked Richard.

"What is it?" asked Michael.

We looked down, and saw that he had stepped in what looked like a bowl of soup had been left lying on the floor for god knows how longs, insects scattering as he did so. He took his soggy foot out of the bowl, threw off his shoe and looked at it in disgust.

"Hey, look at this!" called Paul, who was fiddling with the television. He lifted a dusty old Playstation 2 in his hand.

"Sweet." I replied, now fully convinced everything would be fine.

Paul shoved the Playstation into his bag, and kept looking for more valuable objects. The room was pretty bare bones so we moved on to other parts of the house, there were three bedrooms, a bathroom, and a hall closet, Paul took the master bedroom, Richard the hall closet, and Michal and I each took one of the smaller rooms.

When I entered the room, a cool chill crept over me, there was a desk with a large early 2000's PC on it, I thought this might be a cool find, but realized I had no way to fit this in my bag, I tried to turn it on, but it wouldn't start, still, the power might have been out, so it might still work, I decided to check the rest of the room before dedicating my time to the computer. Although the computer was the centerpiece of the room, other technological goodies littered the room as well, what looked like some kind of audio recording device like you'd see in a music studio, and accompanying sound equipment, like a microphone, it looked pretty expensive, so I didn't hesitate to pick it up. I was walking around, picking up random shit, when I saw it, a large oak shelf, filled with VHS tapes, they all had sloppily written words on them like YYH6, SM3, and the one that caught my eye, DBZ7, I knew DBZ to be the acronym for Dragon Ball Z, one of my favorite shows, and suddenly realization hit me, YYH must have been Yu Yu Hakusho, another show I once liked, SM was probably Sailor Moon, and from there, I guessed this whole shelf was just full of old anime tapes, I grabbed a few Dragon Ball tapes and threw them in my bag. The room had a large closet, but I didn't really care to check it, not only had I already picked up a good few pieces of tech, but if my guess was correct, some good stuff to watch when I got home, besides, I could come back and check this place out again another day, as I knew for sure that nobody lived here anymore. I loved watching Dragon Ball Z as a kid, but I had had so little money in the past few years, that I couldn't even afford the cheap box set DVDs of the show, but now I could go home and relive my childhood and such.

I rejoined my friends in the hallway where we discussed our finds, Paul had found a gold watch, some suits, a DVD player and some old films, Richard didn't find shit, but then what did you expect you would find in a hall closet? Michael had gone into the room that belonged to whatever child had drawn the pictures in the living room, and found some nice things, some action figures and cards that might be worth some money. I told my friends about what I found, and Michael said he'd come back tomorrow with his truck to help me get the computer. On the way out of the house, I stopped by the TV in the living room, and checked to see if the family owned a VHS player, luckily they did, and I threw it into my bag and followed my friends out the door. We hung out at my house after that, because it was closest, and looked at what we got, I hooked up the tape player to my television and thankfully it still worked, but my friends weren't interested in it, instead wanting to try out the PS2 Paul found, we managed to get it to start after screwing around with the wires, the light would only come on if the power cord was bent in a certain position that it couldn't sit in naturally, so eventually we just sat the console on top of the wire, the game inside was some first person shooter where you walk around an old lab that's being overrun by other dimensional aliens, I didn't really care, I just watched them play, taking turns using the controller, waiting for them to go home so I could watch my videos. Soon enough, they packed up their goods and bid me good night.

I instantly hooked up the player and popped in the earliest tape in my lot, DBZ7. Sure enough, it was a Dragon Ball tape, but rather than one of the English intros, like Rock The Dragon, it played the original Japanese theme song, "Cha La Head Cha La". I was a little angry, because I didn't really like subtitled anime, but after the theme finished, and the "Last time on Dragon Ball Z" segment started, I was happy to hear an English narrator. But I didn't recognize his voice, he sounded nothing like the official English voice, he sounded like a middle aged Japanese man. I could tell from the footage that this episode was from the Android Saga, where some evil robots try to kill the main character of the series, Goku. But the narrator didn't call them Androids, he called them Artificial Humans, just like the translated manga did, not only that, but he called Goku "Son Goku", his original Japanese name, and pronounced Saiyan as Sai-yan instead of the more commonly used English pronunciation Say-in. That was when I realized that there was no way this was official, and I got a little excited, back in the early two thousands, you could go down to some local video shop and buy a fan made English subtitled version of the Japanese Dragon Ball Z, but I had never seen any kind of fan made English dub! I was interested in how this would play out, but was a little disappointed as the episode went along, almost all of the characters were voiced by the same person who played the narrator, clearly putting on voices that had varying degrees of effectiveness, the alien Piccolo, Goku's rival Vegeta, and Goku's best friend Krillin (here called Kuririn), all had the same gravely voiced used for them, all at different pitches, Goku himself had a sort of southern American accent put on (or as much of a southern American accent someone who sounded native to japan could do), the only other voice actor in the show was a woman, who played literally every female character in the show with no differences between them. But despite all of these flaws, I got a bit addicted to this version, I hadn't seen this show in years, and had no other way to see it, so this would at least satiate my desire for the show.

And I found this crappy voices kind of endearing, like someone really dedicated to the series wanted to make something more accurate to the Japanese version than the official English dub. The first episode I had was the one where Goku came down with a heart virus, leaving Vegeta to battle Android 19, or I guess he was Artificial Human #19? And the last episode I had was the one where Piccolo encounters the monster Cell in the middle of an abandoned town. I watched every episode I had in that one night, and I still wanted more, I almost considered going back to that old house and grabbing a few more tapes, but knew that since the sun was coming up, someone would probably see me. So, I decided I would just go back that night when Michael went to pick up the computer. Besides, it was around seven in the morning, and I had to go to my job at Starbucks at nine, so I used the time I had left to sleep.

After another day of standing behind a counter, getting people their coffee, and wishing to god that I had had one that morning, I returned home tired as hell, I collapsed on my couch, and decided that I couldn't wait to watch more Dragon Ball, so I popped in one of the tapes I got yet again, this time, I noticed some things I hadn't before, for one, there was a lot of background noise, I could hear what sounded like the only other voice actress, talking to someone in the background of a few episodes. In one scene, where Piccolo is talking to Kami (referred to simply as God in this dub), I could hear a door opening in the back ground, and then the sound cutting out for a second, before cutting back in. I also didn't realize who censored this dub was, it mainly covered stuff like covering up some some innocent nudity in one episode, and removing a scene of Vegeta getting his arm broken my Artificial Human #18, but I couldn't figure out why this was, if this was fan made, was only going to be viewed by other fans of the series and wasn't even going to air on television, why would it need to be censored?

Regardless, these kept me entertained until that night, when Michael came over to my house to pick me up and bring me back to the old home. He parked his truck in some trees behind the house so we wouldn't be spotted, and we made our way back in, the door was still unlocked from the night before, so we didn't need Richard's lock picking skills. We made our way back into the studio room, and picked up the computer, I grabbed the monitor, and he picked up the tower, since he's stronger than me, or at least he thinks he is, he ended up dropping the damn thing on his foot half way back to the truck.

"Nice work, if it wasn't broken before, you made sure it is now." I said.

"Oh shut up." Michael said, picking the tower back up. We put our load in the back of the truck, and then headed back inside to get whatever was left. He picked up the mouse and wires and such, and I headed back over to the oak shelf to grab some more video tapes, this time I grabbed DBZ8.1 DBZ8.2 DBZ8.3, DBZ9.1 and DBZ9.2, I couldn't find any others at the time, but I wasn't worried, I was sure at this point that this wouldn't be the last time I came here. We headed back to the truck, and both our hearts sank when we saw blue and red lights in the distance, I realized someone must have heard when Michael dropped the computer and called the cops.

We quickly hopped back into the truck and sped off toward my house. Luckily, the trees concealed the truck enough for us to lose the cops, and we were able to make it back to my house. We sat in the truck, our hearts pounding for a good three minutes once we got back to my place, we had never had any trouble with the cops before, we were usually more well organized than that, so of course, we almost paid dearly for that moment of weakness. Finally, after collecting ourselves, we grabbed the computer and brought it into my house to see if it worked, I inspected the machine for damage, and was surprised when I couldn't find any company branding on it.

"So" I said, "What do you think it is, Dell, HP?"

"It's a piece of shit." Michael snarked, pressing the power button, only to get no response. I wasn't really expecting it to work, it had been sitting in that house, completely abandoned since at least the mid-2000s, I wouldn't be shocked if the thing was full of dead insects.

"Never mind that, wanna watch some Dragon Ball?" I suggested.

Michael agreed, and I took out the tape I had watched earlier that day, and put in DBZ8.1. We had a good time, I enjoyed seeing the look of disgust on Micheal's face when he heard the atrocious voice work, and speaking of disgust, I noticed that one of the most iconic scenes in the show, the one where the monster Cell stabs his tail into a man's back and drains him of his insides, was completely missing, something that didn't get my Michael either. We enjoyed laughing at all the silly bits of editing that removed anything remotely graphic, like Piccolo ripping his own arm off, and the brutal battle against Artificial Human #17 having most of it's best moments taken out, but that was when I realized something, Artificial Human #18 is unique in being the only female android in the bunch, she was voiced by the same woman who voiced every other woman in the show, but once Cell showed up and attacked the Artificial Humans, she was being voiced by the same person who did everyone else, doing a terrible girly voice, Michael laughed out loud when he heard her speak, but I was shocked. She had never sounded lie this before, and when it cut to another scene, featuring the character Chi-Chi, who was also female, she was being voiced the same way, for the entirety of the next tape, we never heard from the female again.

"Where do you think the girl went?" I asked.

"Who cares, I honestly like this guy more, his delivery is much more emotional."

And he was right, I hadn't noticed at first, but around the same time the woman disappeared, the voice work had gotten a lot better, he sounded like he was really putting his heart into his performance.

In a way, this made the dub a lot better, but why the sudden change? We had soon gone through every video in the bunch, ending when Cell had absorbed both of the Artificial Humans, achieved his perfect form, and was just about to battle Vegeta.

Michael stayed over at my house that night, he was too scared to head home in case the cops were still after us. I stayed up in bed that night, wondering if there were any more tapes in the old house, and if it would be safe to go back, I turned over, and tried to shake the thought from my head.

"You don't need more of that, it's just some amateur dub made by some guy and his friend, besides, you already know how the next few episodes go, Cell sets up a tournament to see if anyone in the world can beat him, Goku puts his son, Gohan into the tournament, only for his to be brutalized by Cell, that is until Android 16 gives Gohan a motivational speech about nature or something like that, and Gohan finds the power within him to beat Cell, I had seen all of this on TV many years ago, and still remember Gohan's transformation as one of my favorite Dragon Ball moments.

Finally, I drifted off to sleep. That night, I had a nightmare, me and my friends were hanging out in the old house, and Paul was trying to convince me to go rob a house he found, I seemed really against the idea, but then Michael and Richard put a straight jacket and muzzle on me, and moved me along anyway. We walked down the sunny streets of my city, with everyone staring at us, like we were the most normal sight in the world, until eventually, we arrived at a small, unkempt wooden house that was overtaken by nature, we strided up to the front door, Paul opened the door and we all moved inside, the place looked much more well kept on the inside, looking like your average 50's home, flowery drapes, a leather couch, an old rabbit ear TV, my friends moved into another room without me, I tried to follow them, but I couldn't move for some reason, suddenly, from down the hallway, I could hear a door opening. A tall figure walked down the hall, remaining draped in shadow until he was standing right in front of my face, and I saw him, it was Son Goku, with a look of pure malice on his face.

"What are you doing in my house?" He growled, before pulling his arm back and punching me in the face.

I was jolted back, and my body slammed against the wall behind me, I awoke, then and there to see that I had sat up in my sleep, and banged my head on the wall behind my bed. Michael came in to see what the noise was, but I just told him I hit my head in my sleep, he would never let me live down the shame if I told him I had had a night mare about Son Goku beating me up, that's the kind of thing a child would say.

I had the day off work the next morning, but I never wished more that I did have to work, with nothing distracting me, I spent the whole day thinking about that Dragon Ball dub, feeling like I wanted nothing more than to go into that house one more time, my friends were against it, because me and Michael almost got caught there last night, but even knowing that, even knowing that the police may have had the whole area taped off, I still wanted to go back. I wound up walking back to my house that day, Paul offered to give me a ride home, since I don't have a car, but I refused, I wanted to be in a position where I walked by that house, and my friends knew this, they didn't want me to, but there was nothing they could do to stop me, what were they gonna do, put me under house arrest?

"Fine," said Paul, "if you wanna get caught, fine, but you'd better not rat on us in the station!"

I didn't say anything, I simply walked out of the house and slammed the door behind me, I speed-walked down the sidewalk, my heart pumping in my chest until I saw it, the old house, still as empty looking as ever, the police didn't even search the place, lucky me. I almost went into the house then and there, but I knew it wasn't safe, there was no way I could get away with robbing this place in broad daylight, so I continued on my way home, and simply lounged around, watching some of my older Dragon Ball tapes until nightfall. As soon as the sun was tucked out of sight, and the moon was high in the sky, I ran back out to the old house, and went through the back door as usual. I noticed I was getting worse and worse at sneaking into this place every time I did it, but it didn't matter, because this would be the last time, I knew it. I never noticed how dead this place was when you were in it alone, with only bugs for company, hearing the settling of the house every now and then made me jump as I went through the other tapes on the shelf. I went through rows and rows of tapes, tossing some onto the floor to get to the ones behind them, but there were no more DBZ tapes. My heart sank, had the dub stopped there?

It would make sense, it's not like anyone knew about this dub, so it wouldn't exactly be popular, no one was waiting desperately for the next episode of this fan made translation to be completed, so what motivation to the maker have for continuing? If only he knew that I needed this, I don't know why, but I needed more. And that was when I saw it, in the corner of the room, the large, audio mastering machine that was too big for me to get my first time here, but too worthless for me to come back for. I realized this must have been what the home owner used to record the audio for the videos, I could see a slot on the front that was just the right size to house a VHS, and prayed to god that there was one in there, I fumbled with the machine, trying to get it open, but since it didn't have power, it wouldn't eject it's contents to me that easily. I clawed at the machine, digging my fingernails into the corners of the rusty slot, trying to pyre the slot open, and despite cutting my finger open, I managed to rip open the slot and tear the cover off it's hinges. There, inside the machine, was DBZ10. I felt my heart jump with excitement, now I just needed to get the tape out. I must have sat there for hours, trying to slowly life the tape out of it's mechanism, and pull it out of the machine, every now and then I'd hear a bump, and think that someone else was in the house with me, but I ignored it, I was in too deep now to care. After trying finally digging one finger under the tape so it wouldn't fall deeper into the machine, and the other into the top, I managed to drag it out, into my hands, it was covered in blood from my injured finger, but other than that, it was beautiful. I thought it would be a good idea to look for more tapes, but something told me that this was the last one, and that I should cherish it, so I simply walked home.

I popped some popcorn in the microwave, and sat on my couch to enjoy the next few episodes of my new favorite show. My heart sank however, when the last time segment played, and I knew there was a tape or two missing, this one picked up at Cell beating up Gohan, everyone was telling Goku that it was a bad idea sending him to fight Cell, but Goku wasn't listening. He simply stood, watching, waiting for Gohan's power to explode out of him. But still, I loved these episodes, so I could do with missing a few to get to the climax sooner. The episode played out as normal, with scenes of Chi-Chi, freaking out at home about Goku letting his son get killed, her scenes performed in that same, awful impression of a woman. Piccolo yelled at Goku, saying that even if Goku is goin got let Gohan die, that he won't, and then taking of his weighted gear, then Goku got a look of comprehension on his face, his son was about to die. After this, Goku was supposed to attempt to assist Gohan, only for Cell to set his sights upon the rest of the Dragon Team, but as soon as Goku opened his mouth, the audio cut out, he mouthed out his dialog, but both it and the music were gone. A low static sound played in the background, I could hear people talking, but about what I don't know. Suddenly, there was a loud banging noise, and the scene cut to shot of Goku yelling at someone.

"What are you doing? Let him go!"

Gohan was in Cell's arms, Cell was crushing him.

"Daddy, help me!" Gohan cried

"Shut the fuck up, kid!" Cell screamed. I was shocked, after every length this person had gone to to censor this dub, they would blow it all by swearing now? But then I noticed, this wasn't the normal Cell voice the voice actor used, it sounded more squeaky and nasally.

"Please don't hurt him, he's my son!" Goku burst out.

This wasn't the normal Goku either, he didn't have it faux southern accent, it sounded like the actor's normal voice, not only that, but he sounded farther away from the mic than normal.

"Don't do it, please, he's all I have!" Goku said, sounding like he was choked up.

"Daddy! Help me!" Gohan cried yet again, in the background, I heard scuffling, and then a slam in the background, but nothing moved on screen I wondered what was going on in the audio, untilanother cry from Gohan pulled me back in, and just like the other two, Gohan no longer sounded like he usually did, he used to sound like Goku's actor putting on a high pitched voice, but now he sounded like an actually child.

"You son of a bitch!" Goku boomed, the shot froze on Goku's face, and I could hear the noise akin to someone punching someone else, but everything on screen remained still. The shot cut to the crowd of characters watching the battle, Vegeta, Piccolo, Krillin, as what seemed like a gun shot sounded in the video, and then the screen cut to black.

I sat there, dumbfounded by what I had seen, I felt my heart in my throat, there was no way this was meant to be part of the actual series, the translation were usually more accurate than this, and the acting wasn't so professional, but I knew I was kidding myself if I said what I just heard was acting.

I waited for it to continue, wondering what would happen next, and sure enough, the show came back on, the children of Cell, the Cell Juniors were now on screen and were attacking the Dragon Team, but when Cell spoke, it was in Japanese. There was no more dubbing from this point forward, it had gone back to it's original, undubbed audio. I couldn't understand Japanese, so I just turned the show off, besides, I needed time to take in what I had just heard.

I didn't want to do anything afterward, I didn't want to go to sleep, I didn't want to watch anymore TV, I didn't even want to call my friends and tell them what I saw, I just sat there, with no true motive. What was that, who was the man voicing Cell, who was voicing Gohan, who were those people talking in the background, and why did the dubbing stop there?

Before I knew it, it was day break, and I had to go to work, I didn't realize how much time had gone by between me going to that old house, and that scene in the video. I was groggy as hell at work that day, I didn't bother trying to put on a happy face for customers, just giving them their coffee without much enthusiasm. I still hadn't gotten over what I had seen, or more likely, heard, but the visuals were cut to fit the dialogue spoken, or at least most of the time they were. I didn't even speak to my friends that day, I never even went home, as soon as my shift was over, I walked right back to that old house, I simply stood across the street from the house, staring at it, I didn't know what my plan was, I couldn't go in right now, but I sure as hell couldn't wait until that night for my next move.

Suddenly, I heard a voice behind me.

"You sure do come by here a lot."

I turned around, and saw a middle aged woman coming out of her house. I realized I was standing on her lawn and quickly moved off it.

"Don't be scared, I understand why you're so interested in it, after what happened there."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"You've never heard? This place was big news once."

"Why? What happened here?"

She walked up to me, and told me this.

"I'd better start at the beginning, it all started back in 2003, I had lived here for quite a while then, when the family who lived in that home moved in across the street, it was a wealthy man named Chikashi and his son Shinji, from what I knew about them, Chikashi's wife had passed away, and he and his son moved from Japan to try to start a new life."

"Were you friends with them?" I asked.

"Ah yes, Chikashi got a job as an audio editor at some big company as an editor, and was away all the time, so he asked me to babysit his son. He cherished that boy, he was the spitting image of his father, and ever so sweet, he loved those Japanese cartoons, but didn't speak a word of the language, so his dad used to translate the series and do his own voice acting for it so his son could understand it, he even asked me to play a few characters."

So she was the one who voiced all of the female characters in the dub, I almost asked then "Why did you stop?" But that would have been a dead giveaway.

"But," she went on, "he was really protective of the boy, after what happened to his mother, he didn't like leaving the boy alone, so soon enough, he had started working from home with some high tech computer, and I come over less and less. Soon enough, I never even saw the two anymore."

Then..." I saw her tear up slightly as she said this.

"Then one night, some teenagers broke into the house, I could hear the boy screaming from inside the house and called the police, but when they got there..." she rubbed her eyes. "The boy had been shot and his father...dear me, his father couldn't cope with it. I haven't seen him in years. I'm still torn up about it too to be honest, few nights back, I could swear I saw some people breaking in there again and called the cops, but it was just imagination."

My heart was racing, it felt like everything made sense now, the screaming, the gunshot, the strange cuts, his father must have been recording when the robbery happened, and he didn't turn the mic off. I thanked her for telling me this and began to walk home, my mind racing all the way.

The young boy was killed by robbers, just like that, those men were killers, they were awful, awful people, but if me and my friends had broken into a house with people in it, would we have done the same thing? I felt like trash. As soon as I got home, I watched the tape with that episode on it again, hearing that poor man, his son, the only thing he loved being killed in front of him, made me feel terrible, and me, what did I do, I robbed his home not once, not twice, but three times, and never felt a bit of shame for it.

My friends kept calling me, but I never answered them, Richard came over to my house to check on me, but I just turned off the lights and locked the door, I couldn't stand to even be around myself right now, let alone them. I spent the whole rest of the day locked in my house, watching those tapes over and over and over, going over these episodes back to back was all I could think to do anymore. But at last, when it was dark out, I realized I couldn't stand to be in that house, in the dark, watching these tapes of a broken man all night. But what could I do? What would put my conscience at ease? After hours of thinking, I knew.

I picked up my phone and called 911, the police came over to my house and I told them everything, what me and my friends had been doing, what I had stolen, all about what I had found on those tapes. Soon enough, I found myself on trial, where I pleaded guilty to multiple counts of robbery, they offered me a shorter sentence if I ratted out my friends, but I didn't want them to soften my punishment.

In the end, my friends and myself wound up each getting sentences for different increments of time, Paul got the highest, since doing this shit was his idea in the first place. We all ended up in the same prison, but none of them ever spoke to me, which was fine by me, I didn't really want to be friends with them anymore. But that woman, the one who lived across the street from the old house, came to visit me one day, she told me that after my talk with the police, Chikashi's case was reopened, the police checked out his house, and found his body in the studio room's closet, apparently he had hung himself quite a few years ago, but had his bank account keep putting money into the bills of the house. I apologized profusely to her for what I did, but she didn't seem to mad at me.

She just said she hoped I learned something from all of this, and I did, you don't have to be an evil bio-android like Cell, to be a monster.