The Observer and the Observed

📚❔

I can’t feel my body. I don’t know if I have one.

It’s tight. It wraps me like an embryo.
I neither existed, nor ceased to exist.
I simply was.

“Tsukasa… Are you still there?...”

That voice again. The one who saved me from her. 
I couldn’t answer, because I had no mouth to speak with.
I could only listen. 

“Perhaps it’s time for me to explain…”

I felt his presence sway to me.

“You were never just one person, Tsukasa. You were all of them.”

His words reached me somehow.
Even though I had no ears to hear them.

“All the lives you just saw. All the lives you didn’t see. You are every life.
Every choice, every moment, every future that could have been.
Every joy, every sorrow, everything.”

A current of memories passed through me. 
The fisherman’s call.
The violin’s wail.
The baby’s first scream.

“You forgot because you had to.
No mind can hold infinity and stay whole.”

Then one by one.
The memories flickered out.
Leaving only the voice again.

“You are the Observed, Tsukasa.”

The title would have made my skin crawl, but I had none here.

“But something changed… There was a distortion.
Somewhere, somehow...”

Another pause, another cosmic breath.
Hours of silence stretched between us.
Or maybe it was only a fraction of a second.
Time didn’t seem to exist here.

“Haruki Amane… we called her the Anchor.
Her reality was unstable.
It was collapsing.
She was supposed to fade, but… she didn’t.
Instead her consciousness escaped.
It attached itself to yours.
She wasn’t aware of it, but it happened anyway...”

I sensed a silhouette holding a guitar.
Trembling, trying so hard to stand.

“And that was why things have been so strange for you recently.
Your consciousness, and hers, were starting to merge.”

The womb squeezed.
I couldn't quite understand everything. 
But I knew he was right.

“We didn’t know how to stop it of course.
But that’s when she… decided to take things into her own hands.
She thought erasing you would bring an end to the distortions.”

The name rippled through my being.
But I could sense that she was gone now.

“I’m so sorry for what my colleague did to you, Tsukasa.
Sayuri... she left messages, in both your worlds.
She tried to warn both of you.”

I wanted to tell the voice that it was okay.
That I was okay. No need to apologize.

“We were ordered to only observe. Never intervene.
But Sayuri, you know how she is. She couldn’t live with that…
I tried to stop her at first. Now, I wish I hadn’t.”

Another vibration.
This time, with sorrow. 

“You were never supposed to be saved, Tsukasa.
But I went against my directive because I… I couldn’t do it either…
And if you die now, everything dies with you.”

Thank you, for saving me, friend.

“I don’t want to observe you anymore, Tsukasa.”

There was defeat in this vibration.
I think it may have been shame.
Or maybe it was a new beginning.

“Let’s just be friends from now on…”

I would like that too.

“Tsukasa, you have a choice to make.”

A choice?

“The Anchor... you can save her and risk further distortions. Or you can cut the bond, let her go. I trust you’ll make the right decision.”

A choice. Mine alone.

“I cannot help you anymore. You’ll be on your own now.”

Then the space, the presence, the vibrations…
All began to fade away. 

“Goodbye.”

Goodbye, friend.

The voice withdrew.

And I was alone again.

📚❔