Chapter 17: I Held On Anyway

Was the world expected to shut down or not?

That was what always happened when an echo was anchored--the straining would be suddenly released and the weight would fall, and the world would fall into place, like puzzle pieces falling into place.

But not this time.

Haruto was standing at the end of the passage at the ruins of the hospital sniffing in and out, and he was feeling this cold breeze lashing at the back of his neck as though it were not his air.

The lights above flickered. Twice.

After which the floor beneath sprang.

He turned.

The vending machine, which you had seen in ruins a few minutes ago, was intact.

No. Not whole. Reset.

He cautiously stepped back.

The coin slot hissed. Something impossible then happened.

The can of soda he had snatched out of that kid--the one he hung himself on--puddles. It simply vaporized through his palm.

"No—" Haruto stared. "That’s not supposed to happen."

The can of soda was rebuilt back into the soda machine. All perfect. Untouched.

The air got sharp. Ceiling wires began spouting. He could hear a whine with an elevated tone behind his ears.

He stepped backwards--he had nowhere to go.

The memory was not being accepted by the system. Not erasing it. Not deleting it. Just fighting.

On the inside of the machine, there came a form against the glasses-- a shadow across a bottle. A fist, a face, a torso. Everything inverted, inside out, bad mirror.

Then it spoke. "That wasn’t yours to hold."

The voice wasn’t his dad’s. None at all--just a compound, broken syllables overlaid like parallel ditties. All those known to near and never quite.

"You weren’t meant to remember."

The glass shattered outward. Haruto cowered to cover his face and memory fragments were flying like shrapnel.

Out of the wreck came up to him--Himself. No, not quite. Younger. Eyes wide. Shorter hair. Haruto arrived home walking silently when it was late.

But this version wasn’t solid. His shape was about as unsteady as a child and a grown man, tender and dull.

“You lied,” the memory haruto said.

The real Haruto stared.

“That we would go no more. You told me that you would find it more convenient to recall him.”

Haruto replied that he never said that.

"Then why did you anchor it?"

The thing stepped forward. It was outlined and buzzing out of focus.

“You think remembering is healing. That dragging the past into the present will make it forgive you. But it doesn’t. It only hurts more.”

Haruto clenched his fists.

"I know."

The figure paused.

"I know it hurts," Haruto said. This is what you told me is why I left you there so long. It was easier to forget."

The memory didn’t answer.

“And I do not come here to make it painless, that I think,” Haruto said. "I’m here to make it real."

The cheap, wailing scream tickled along the walls.

The memory shattered. And rebuilt. Then shattered again. Over and over. The system was unable to stabilize the time line.

The anchored sorrow was revolting.

Haruto fell to one knee. His ears rang. Thoughts scattered. His tense head hurt and made it difficult to say words.

"Fight it," he whispered. "Come on. I gave this memory form. I saw him. I let him go. That’s gotta be enough—"

"It's not."

As he turned back, the voice was behind him.

This time: his real dad’s voice. No glitches. No echoes. Just a man.

As he turned around, Haruto anticipated the composite, the glitch, the lie.

But what he saw was nothing. Just the empty chair.

The machine vending space squeaked and kind of burnt through a couple of sparks online.

In fact I observed the sparks shooting off of the metal.

To tell the truth this was the time when I understood that the memory was not opposing me any longer.

It was rather a question of self-defense, and retreat.

Like burying its own past.

It was like a laceration that keeps retearing itself.

Because some pain wants to be forgotten.

“No,” Haruto said, rising to his feet.

“No, you don’t get to run.”

He just kept walking. Through the smoke. The bleeding light that shed its light upon.

Haruto kneeling brought himself down again.

“Now you do not need to trust me,” he said. "I’m still here. I have no intention of leaving you again.”

He reached out his fingers.

The boy stood motionless for a moment.

Then—he was holding a hand.

Tiny. Trembling. Wrapping around him.

There was that burst of light.

Yet it simply flashed away this time.

It stayed.

The wavering world thus came to a stop.

The hallway turned normal.

The machine door of the vending machine opened and struggled with its emptiness, no can, no colorful screen.

Silence.

It was something like, so to speak, clean, wholesome.

And did it grab onto me, finally.

Acting as a relief, I bailed out.

I thought it was over.

Except then I heard a scream.

Hina.

I jumped up.

Something new was drawing me directly into the city, no fade, no fading, no, just shove. As though dragged through glass.

The light burned away — and he was back in the open square of the collapsed corridor zone.

And there was Hina as she lay on the ground.

She was spasming, her body moving furiously, like a dozen or seventy-five frames a second... changing between dozens of her, long hair, short hair, clean uniform, rapped sleeves, all displayed in rapid alternation.

"Hina!"

I knelt beside her.

Her eyes were pupiled.

My name was also being lost as tongues were rolling over its lips.

No utterance came out.

"Hina. Look at me. It’s Haruto. I’m right here."

Her fingers twitched.

Her voice ran out of the dead air.

"Who—?"

She blinked. “Wait. Who are you?”

The breath left my chest.

"I…"

She also took a step back. "Don't touch me—"

She moved back again wild-eyed glitching. Her skin in places was raw, electric, like a numb unhealing wound.

Haruto didn’t chase after her.

He had simply remained standing, with flaming eyes.

"You forgot me."

I do not know-- no-- Hina reached over and grasped her head. "There are holes. So many holes. I can’t hold onto them—"

She paused.

Stop.

Looked.

Like really looked.

"...Your name’s Haruto."

I nodded, trying not to sob.

"I know that now," she whispered.

A pause.

"I don’t know why I know. But I do."

She swayed.

I leaped forward and took her before she landed on the floor.

This time she did not drive me away.

I am still here, I said, trembling. "I’ll keep reminding you. How many times that, as many times as it may be.

One day my watch had begun to count down.

07:46:00.

Down somewhere beneath the city another crack said.