Chapter 6: The Corridor of Bells.

The red door opened inward.

Haruto stepped through.

He passed the entrance with his own light largely extinguished, as though the decision closed the gate on a second opportunity -on a second chance seized the door.

The room was a cylindrical corridor--floor, roof, yet none of it looked like anything might exist. It was whirling, but he could not touch it. Bells lined every surface. Others were suspended on rather shaky cords. Some were stuck to the walls, gigantic gongs with runes that had been broken and glistening dust.

The air buzzed.

Not from sound.

From memory.

We could hear nothing he did but ring the bells, shaking them, as they were accustomed. Then one rang.

Not loud. Just a clean, glassy tone.

It stretched too long.

Haruto's vision blurred.

The corridor bent forward.

And the world shifted.

[ First Bell: The Train ]

He blinked.

Now he was on a train.

Everything was super vivid. A plastic bench on his knees. The smirch of hand sanitizer and metal.

Tokyo's train line. Familiar. But off.

No other passengers.

It was a flickering of the world outside the window extending into a white comic book, broken TV effects.

And in the opposite seat was a girl.

Ayaka.

She was identical to the one she was at school, with her black hair down to the floor, her Navy uniform, and her half-shut eyes. Fore she was gazing full up at him.

“You weren't supposed to remember me," she said.

There was no anger in her voice, it was weary and spent.

Haruto felt a stricken throbbing in his throat. He can speak something but the air became thick.

“You looked back when the bell rang,” she continued. “That’s why you’re here.”

The fingers of Haruto were slipping through the seat. And it was not a dream, it was real, deliberate.

He tried to move.

Couldn’t.

Ayaka’s eyes flickered.

Not reflecting him.

His expression, his fear, mirrored back like a live feed.

Then the lights in the train were turned off.

Windows cracked inward.

Everything dissolved.

At the passageway Haruto was staring at his knees.

He bled--but a single drop, which fell on a rock.

He could still hear it ringing in his ears like the bells were still not ringing.

His hands shook.

That memory, that fight had somehow fractured into his heart.

A silence was again noise.

The bells jangled--low but hearkening.

Things warped back in the corridor.

He heard a longer note that sounded like regret as he was struck by the bell behind him.

[ Second Bell: the Hospital ]

Another chime.

Haruto staggered.

It wasn't any one controlling him, the world did it.

When the light reoccurred--he was in a hospital.

Nine years old. He knew that day.

He might touch it but it must seem to him that the memory has claws in his chest.

His father stood by the door attempting to hear one of the nurses. soft speech, deep voice, concealing fright.

In the room—his mom. Pale skin. Chest barely moving. Machines beeped intervals.

Actually, he was not even indoors. He stood there frozen.

But this time—

He moved. Feet dragged, mouth dry. He walked in.

"Haru," she whispered.

He flinched.

"You have to let go."

"What’s that?" he said, voice crackling.

“Whatever scares you, that version of me.”

She reached for his hand.

Then—

The monitor was flatlined.

Her fingers had disappeared before they fell on him.

And he was ripped away.

He struck the floor of the corridor again, fell.

This time his hands and legs were slow to respond.

He felt nausea swirl.

He was shallow and disjointed when breathing. Pain in his chest--not very sad, but an old wild one.

He wiped his face. Blood this time, from his lip.

The Rift left its mark.

Back in the corridor again.

His feet fell into a pitched down on the floor. His legs almost gave.

And it was paining him in the breast-- not of the heart, but literally.

His watch beeped.

99:51:58 - 99:49:22

Another jump.

He leaned on the stone wall.

But it was no longer stone.

The bells roundabounded like giggling infants. Not loud. Not random.

Synchronized. Whispering.

And he stared- names floating by under them:

Seno, Haruto

Ayaka M.

Airi (?)

??

[Entry Lost]

One bell went off without being touched.

A strange voice-- a memory-- said: Haru.

He turned. Nobody.

However, the corridor then began to move. Walls had spin rounden round become pages.

Ink sprayed on them, writing:

“Anchor one, others follow. But they will come for you."

"This is not a rescue. This is a rewrite."

Haruto's hand hurt.

He looked down.

The blood ran over the vein on his palm.

He hadn’t cut himself. But the Rift did.

[ Final Bell: Who Called You? ]

At the far end stood one bell.

Waiting, it was yellow, undisturbed and uninterrupted.

Haruto moved slowly with trembling hands not because he was afraid, but because he realized it.

It was not about recollection but it was about decision.

He reached out and touched it.

It disappeared and its place was filled by another, white and with no spots and lines and no edges.

One of them, which was pretty much toward the far course, was turned away.

Haruto continued to walk until he caught a glimpse of the figure.

It was he, at fuller length and more maturity but not aged.

His mirror was pure outrageous armor, feathered. In all the pictures the face was varying somewhat, some with fright, others with a natural expression, some with a feeble smile upon it.

A rusty bell he had in his hand.

You have a choice, you made a choice, said the reflection.

"What choice?"

“To recall someone lost by the world.”

"Who?"

Mirror-Haruto paused like he would have liked to say something but he could not.

The more he held on to the bell.

When you are fit to know you will hear the voice once more.

Haruto’s eyes widened.

"Did... you bring me here?"

Mirror-Haruto would not smile at him.

"Not me. But the one we can’t forget."

Then he rang the bell.

I was cracking like porcelain: everything white.

Haruto gasped. Just like the last time, though much heavier, blood ran out of his nose. He barely noticed.

Not a clue that the ringing in his eyes had ceased since the last echo.

He rubbed his palm along the wall of the corridor and it took on a red colour.

The Rift was not merely telling the truth. It was carving them in.

And in Rift they began to slide to the cold floor, lifting knees, the bells ceased, The corridor was less airy and more gloomy.

Another door was blue in shine.

"RETURN"

Haruto didn’t act right away.

He turned- it was but a brief glance down at the red door.

Gone, closed behind him.

He clenched his fist.

"Not finished," he muttered.

Writings were made on the red door, not the whole of them- not yet.

And that was not the end of the Rift in his life though the world is waiting.

The blue door opened onto him.

The light shifted. He stepped into silence.

Now it was darker than black, scattered over, on the other side of the Rift. The yellow and lilac waves he observed last night became black.

Everything changed, but the world forgot everything.

Haruto’s watch ticked: 99:48:00.

And there came something on the side, one way or another-- not a bell, not a sound, but something-- watching.