Chapter 11: The Girl Who Stayed Silent

The alley appeared to be concealing something and was narrowing towards us.

The walls were strangely curved, as we continued to walk. The yellow light which led them here has got dull. The floor we were standing on was shifting--paving, wood, school tile--to some forgotten content.

"This place..." said Hina, it is different. Haruto simply bowed, and stared ahead. "It's so quiet," he said. It was not only the soundless silence; it was the sort that makes your bones ache - something is watching you.”

We entered an opening, a court in complete silence. Nothing appeared to have moved in it- at least not a line of washing, or a bird, or a drop of rain. At the center stood a decrepit streetlight playground.

A swing creaked once. Just once. Then everything was silent. Haruto was tightening his chest.

It was where he had heard about, but never visited. A location that was near the fringes of the mind but somehow bizarre.

Then he saw her. This was the remote side of the playground, when she was alone--a girl with black school shoes, and her knees tucked up, and bangs that ran over half her face. She made no movement, no movements of the eyes, so little that she did not move at all when the wind made a last rustling.

Haruto hesitated horrifiedly. "That's her," he said.

Hina didn’t ask how he knew. It was sufficient that the world bent around her as it did--gravity appeared to draw toward her, as though the entire laws of nature were aware that she was in pain.

Haruto took a step--and the air was as like rubber as a rubber band.

Suddenly the world shifted.

It was in a hall, his old school hall.

Afternoon sun shining through the windows reflected long crooked shadows on the floor.

There were lockers the length of the corridor sentinelling it like dumb mutes.

He remembered this day--somehow like he had lived it. Somebody, he knew, was laughing, someone behind him. He turned around. There were three laughing, taunting a smaller girl against the wall. Delicate build, disheveled hair, her bag in her hand, trembling.

A voice cut through.

So clear, so vivid.

“Why do you not say something, freak?”

Haruto's blood turned to ice. He remembered now. He had not been involved in it, though had been present, standing at the end of the hall and lying as he looked like he was checking his phone. She’d looked at him once. Not to plead. Just… searching. Like maybe, just maybe, someone would step in.

He hadn’t.

He’d looked away.

Here, now, in this sickly sounding echo, he felt it all; the immensity of her silence, the pain of the bullies laughing at her, and worse; the chilly, empty virtue of his own noninterference.

The screen went dead, reversed, and ran over again--in a circle. She gazed at him, and silently demanded something. He looked away. Again and again.

Haruto grabbed his head.

The corridor was smashed through the glass.

He fell headlong into the house-yard choking.

The swing was swinging just a little.

The girl remained immobile,--she had made an effort at raised movement by lifting up her head; her eyes were closed.

"Did you see it?" she asked, her voice dry as ash.

Haruto took a shaky breath. "I... remember you."

"You didn’t before."

"I didn’t forget you," he said. "I just… didn’t look."

She didn’t react. Just stared. When she finally sang she did so quietly--unnaturally quietly.

“I disappeared when not a soul could avoid them. Their cruelty was not the only reason why they kept me here; it was your silence which spoke louder than anything they ever said.”

“I wanted to, I just didn't know how.”

“Everybody says that”, she said, “You didn’t raise a fist. You didn’t laugh. You just watched.”

Hina added, “he came back. That's something.”

the girl began looking at her again. a moment her eyes brightened--then they looked back at haruto.

“i travelled not here to incriminate you,” she explained, “i came because you could not leave me. part of me waited. even when the bell rang. even when the world forgot me.”

she stood. the air crackled.

“I don't want you to feel guilty now, I want you to have the heart. i want you to do it this time"

the courtyard shimmered.

the playground vanished.

then we were just somewhere else, in our memory--a classroom. empty, dark. There was just one girl sitting at the window alone. her. younger, maybe middle school.

there was a scrap of paper cursed on her table with writing: "mute girl. waste of space.”

Haruto walked towards her. the real her. not the echo. not the loop.

she lifted her eyes up in alarm. Her eyes were red.

“I’m sorry,” he said, not because he had to, because he wanted to. “Not for what I did, but for what I didn’t. I should have stood up. I should have sat with you. Said something.”

her voice cracked.

"then say something now."

he extended his hand--and put a folded paper over before her.

she opened it.

just five words.

"Do you want a friend?"

the world pulsed.

another bell went off. not the system bell. her bell.

so tore it half up--this time with her own. Then she laughed. once. gentle. delicate.

the schoolroom bled out to gold.

the courtyard returned.

and there she was again, before the play-ground.

she smiled.

"thank you," she whispered.

Haruto stepped forward

their hands met.

and the echo that had long remained silent spoke without fear.

the world didn't resist.

the courtyard breathed.

Once in a day the countdown came.

99:36:59

Haruto gasped.

and it was not merely an emotional venting.

It was a structural one.

Echo anchored, permanently.

The girl began to fade—not into nothingness. Not erased. But liberated, into light.

However, before she disappeared, she stared at hina.

She said,“You’re becoming an anchor too.”

then she was gone.

just wind. and quiet.

hina sighed. "That was no lighter than before.

i had stopped because she was frozen, haruto wiped his face.

"You didn't this time."

They returned to the alley.

When they came through the archway, Haruto glanced back. the playground was no more. Instead there, tacked to the wall with a silver pin, was a paper note.

Haruto took it.

five words.

“You were worth remembering, too.”

and somewhere in the distance another bell was ringing.