29: A Glimpse of Herself

“Are you… me?”

The moment she laid eyes on the small girl in front of her—her own younger self—memories flooded Rena’s mind.
Scenes from earlier at Giraffe Park surged back with startling clarity.

──She had noticed the small swing set that should have been removed.
Exhausted, she had paused, wondering if her life in this strange world would continue forever.

She still couldn’t grasp why she had ended up in such a place.
That same swing she had once played on while laughing now stood like a fragment from another life.
It stared back at her, heavy with confusion, while she herself stood there, hollow and alone.

Then she looked up.
At the entrance to the park, she saw him—Tom.

Disbelief and relief crossed her face in the same instant, and she began to walk toward him, as if drawn forward by that very mixture of emotions.
As the distance between them closed, she raised her voice.

“Tom! Tom, is that you!?”

Tom seemed to hear her, but he didn’t turn around right away.
Instead, he walked toward the giraffe-shaped slide.
After passing through the tunnel in its body, he finally turned and slid down—only to land clumsily, tumbling onto the ground.

Rena rushed over and called out to him, but Tom didn’t seem to recognize her.
He looked dazed, lost in thought, mumbling to himself like someone deep in a dream.
When he began playing in the sand like a child, Rena, relieved to see him safe, decided to play along.
They spoke like old times, and without meaning to, she blurted out something strange.

“Which is more important—me, or the castle?”

The moment those words left her lips, a jolt of discomfort hit her.
That wasn’t something she would say as a high schooler.
That was something she had said as a child.

The image of the little girl she had seen by the pond flashed through her mind.
Rena now realized—her past and present selves were overlapping.
The fabric of her reality was beginning to distort.

She could feel it: her soul had somehow fractured.
At times, it shifted back—into another version of herself.
The sensation was disorienting, and it pulled her deeper into a spiral of confusion.

(Which one… is the real me?)

Suddenly, her awareness snapped back into place.

She was standing by the pond again, holding her muddy phone in her right hand.
In front of her stood the girl.

Rena didn’t want to accept it.
She didn’t want to believe this girl was her.
That they shared memories.

The girl’s gaze met Rena’s—
then slowly drifted past her, to something behind.

“Rena! I finally found you!
I’m so sorry I made you worry!”

Still overwhelmed and unable to process what was happening, Rena turned to greet Tom.