Strings

🎸📚

Her eyes opened. 
But this time she wasn’t on stage.
No wailing of ambiences, no panicked yells. 
She was nowhere at all.

A place with no shape that she could name, nor form that she could touch.
There was no horizon, no ground beneath her feet. Just an endless abyss that wrapped infinitely in every direction.

She stood. Or thought she did. There was no real reference. Only a vague concept of her own presence. 

She felt something.
A tug. Faint at first.

She looked down.
Threads.

Thin filaments. They luminesced, faintly, like crystalline or fireflies. The colors beat with her heart. They were attached to her... sunk deep within her chest, deeper than organs, deeper than blood. Somewhere she couldn’t explain.

Carefully, she reached towards one. 

They chimed when her fingers moved across them. Like little Shinto bells submerged by water.

As she did, she felt her entire essence tingle with them. 

She gasped.

The threads weren’t just pulling her. They were a part of her.

It tugged at her again. This time a little stronger.
The filaments pulsated with urgency, as if telling her—you have to move.

She took a step forward. The filaments sung in response.
She followed them.
One disoriented step after another.

She had no idea where they were taking her.
They seemed to stretch on in a direction forever.

She walked further and further within this abyss.
Everything looked the same black.
Only the light of the threads guiding her path.

And each step she took, the louder the chimes grew.
The brighter the filaments radiated.
The stronger the pull.

Then, she saw him.
Standing no more than a few yards in front of her.

A boy.

Their eyes met.
But there was no fear, no shock.
Only recognition.

He looked like someone she should have known her whole life.
Somehow she did.

For seconds, there was only silence.
Except for the chimes of the filaments’ pull.

Then he spoke. His voice bounced across the space.

“So, is it really you?”

She didn’t respond, but he knew.

“It is,” he said. “I thought I’d never see you.”

Finally she spoke. “Have you felt it too?”

He nodded. “I was starting to wonder if I were the cause, or you.”

A sigh of relief. 

“I thought I was going crazy,” she said.

“You are,” he said. “So am I.”

She giggled, though it was more of a vibration than a noise.

“So... who are you?” he asked.

“I’m not sure…” she said. “But you’ve been pulling at me.”

“No,” he said. “You’ve been pulling at me.”

There was another pause. Another silence.

She looked down at the filaments glowing from her chest, then to the boy’s. They had tethered them together.

“Am… I you?” she whispered.

The boy didn’t have an immediate answer. His eyes were on the filaments as well.

“I think so,” he replied. “And you... you’re me?”

The girl didn’t respond, but they already knew.

Her eyes didn’t leave the filaments.

Six strands, thin as spider’s silk. Pulsing to their heartbeats.
They continued to vibrate between them. Living veins of memory.

Her gaze lowered a bit more. 

“I think… you have to cut them,” she whispered to him. 

A heavy silence followed.

The boy stared at the strands. “What will happen to you?”

She looked away. Her eyes welled with tears. “I don’t know.”

The filaments rung louder with those words.
A realization passed through them. As if they both knew what it meant for her.

The boy’s eyes stayed fixed to the glowing strands. His hands balled into fists.

“I don’t want that,” he said.

She looked up. Her face was soft but unsteady.
And forced a weak smile as if trying to comfort the boy.

“It’s okay. If this fixes everything. If it saves you, then it’s worth it.”

The boy stared at her. His hands were trembling by his sides. His fingers flexed slowly.

An illusion of wind stirred through the abyss. The boy lowered his head, unable to look at her eyes any longer.

“Okay.”

He stepped forward, taking a heavy breath.
His fingers reached out and held one of the filaments.
It was warm.

He clenched his jaw and pulled.

A dull chime rippled through the space and through them before snapping like an umbilical cord. The light blinked once, then never again.

He reached to a second, and tugged.
The same shimmer followed by a dying chime.

Each strand he cut seemed to take something else from them.

He began to quicken his movements.
The third filament, then the fourth, then the fifth...

He reached for the final filament. It glowed a deep crimson.

But before his fingers brushed against its surface… he paused.

His hand hung in the air. 

Just a single movement. One act. That was all it would take.

He looked up at the girl. A tear had run down her cheek, leaving a wet trail behind.

He exhaled.

“No,” he said.

His word startled her.

“H—huh?”

“I can’t do it,” he whispered.

“B—but…”

“I won’t,” he replied. “I won’t cut it.”

She just stared at him with a look of shock on her face.

“When you first entered my life, all I wanted was for you to go away,” the boy said. “I’ve spent so long trying to make sense of what’s real. What’s mine. What’s... me. And then you showed up. You were there in every thought I couldn’t explain, every memory that wasn’t mine. And at first, I just wanted it to stop. For all this… this weirdness to end...”

He looked up at her. Their eyes met once more. Hers were filled with tears.

“But then I saw you. I saw how much you’ve lived. How much you have to live for.”

“Please… Just…” the girl whimpered.

“You’ve lost so much and so fast and I’m so sorry.”

Tears were rolling down her face now. Big, heavy tears. They continued coming, they didn’t stop.

“You had no idea what you’d lose next, no idea how long things would last… and yet…”

The air around them began to fill with something unseen. Becoming denser and wetter with every word, every tear.

“…Yet you still managed to stand up on that stage and play your guitar and you did it all with a smile on your face...”

He paused.

“I could never do that.”

It was there that the boy had realized.
For the first time in his life, he made up his mind.

He continued. His voice became steadier as he went.

“I don’t care if the world says you were never meant to exist. I don’t care if even the most powerful god in all the universe says you’re just a mistake or that you’re not supposed to be here…”

The boy took a step closer.

“You matter,” he said, unshaken. “You matter to me. You matter to your friends…”

Abruptly, he took her hand.
And looked straight into her tear-soaked eyes.
He didn’t look away. He might never do it again.

“You deserve to exist, Haruki.”

She could only whimper. Not a word escaped her throat. She could say nothing more.

The tears falling from her cheeks slowed. One droplet, then two. Then the next began to drift upward. Like bubbles.

“Because you were here. Because you felt joy. Because you made people laugh. Because you didn’t want to fade away.”

The air within it had become more liquid than air.

Their hair floated, dancing like seaweed beneath a clear tide.
Their bodies began to rise, still bound by the single thread.

“Let’s go,” he said softly.

She looked at him through shimmering tears drifting upward like stardust, and nodded.

The space had become a sea.
But the pressure no longer crushed them.
It cradled them. Like a womb. 

They kicked upward.

The boy led the way, still holding on to the girl’s hand.

Above them was light. A faint white light.

Around them, filaments bobbed like jellyfish tendrils. As if discarded memories of hidden pasts stayed trapped here, forever floating, aimlessly.

A surface became visible.

The white light intensified.
More and more as they neared the threshold.

And in that final moment before they broke free, they let go—

“Goodbye, Haruki.”
The boy whispered.

“Goodbye, Tsukasa.”
The girl replied.

The water broke.
The space around them vanished.
And a blinding, brilliant white flooded into everything.

🎸📚