Chapter 21: The Unfinished Ones

Haruto had even forgotten fitting through a door.

The librarian had just put his story into a textbook on the power shelf. the fifth stroke of the day had struck floating above--there was no warning to it--but it seemed as in a way that the entire mechanism was at work preparing to take action--and all appeared to be ever ready.

Then the light was out--a sunrise, which is hard to describe, and not the slow wax of a page turning, but a person flipping through too fast and missing a line.

The sky flattened out gray. The comfortable atmosphere of the archive disappeared and he could sense that he was being raised above the clouds without even trying. Floating scrolls and memory-towers flew by like birds, and wires all tangled.

And then the cracks--solid, actual cracks began to appear everywhere in the room, as though the ineffectiveness of the laws of the world were being undone. There was a book before his face which swung lifeless, shook, changed into a clock, and thereupon crashed in thy face Like a train seat. The reasoning which had permanently linked memory began short circuiting.

Phillip turned and approached not far behind him Hina. Her eyes were open, but not panicking, she had just appeared to notice something unkempt, something familiar at the same time. “Where are we going?” she asked. Haruto stuck his lips together in confusion. He did not know where they were going in any particular direction, but there was this feeling where they were falling.

It consisted rather of intellectual, not bodily advancement. They didn’t actually tumble. Their floor strained, - writing on, in some strange art, uncomfortable. The stone floor of the archive became wood, then glass and then water.

At the reappearance of the light it was cold and wet. Then near the sound of a knock came in.

Neither was it a sound, it was by touch a kind of pressure, too many objects clipping at once, bells that never struck the ear, laughter that never made sense, no mouths to make it echo. It felt like going into a room that people do not want to visit; a place of memories.

He blinked. The stand he was on no longer existed. He was ankle‑deep in water now. On the spot a water-filled avenue below crooked windows of ancient movie strips fluttered out of existence. There was something keeps popping up little by little, messed up. There was a water pavement below--irregular turns were to be made, and they were made strangely.

Behind him Hina, gripping her arms together behind her great open jaw, though looking at nothing in particular. Her lines shudder with every movement of her body. “Where are we?” she repeated.

Looking over his shoulder, Haruto spoke coarsely. I think... the very big road is abused or something. She frowned. “Failed?” He didn’t reply. His ankle water was sparkling a moment, and then had ceased.

They stayed quiet for a bit. Nothing moved. Buildings leaned inward. No! No! said one to the other, and the machine at the other end of the tub threw up an unmarked can; it dissolved in the water. Time ceased to exist normally.

Haruto scanned the area. Close by me, Hina, said, I said, near me;--he did not know precisely what close was. He didn’t argue.

They rounded a corner; struck the first anomaly--at its centre in the road or case-tailing along it. It caused its figure to turn back and forth, as in lightning. It was as though a sheet of indecisive lines on an oblique face, a waste of eyes, a useless mouth, hair curling and twisting. Then it froze, and spoke.

“I was… supposed to be…” It was high and, at the same time, low, there were two voices, the first, the second, a voice after a voice, a voice repeating a sound, a delayed voice. Hina shrank back. Haruto stepped forward. “Who are you?”

It stated, I was to be a classmate. I had lines. I had a name. But someone cut me. Too slow. Too quiet. I didn’t make the rewrite.” And it transformed, turned hair into eyes, fingers into sleeves.

“I laughed in a version,” it said. “I sat behind you. I borrowed your eraser. I-- it suddenly stopped with a scream. “I could still be someone!” It lunged.

Haruto just had time to get to the side, so the object did not crash into him as much as it attempted to copy over it, the files attempting to duplicate him. He scrambled back. The major parts of its limbs had been reformed. A moment it was an object that had legs, and the next without that the legs. Its face was altered--a boy with headphones, a girl with a cast, a faceless oxymoron.

“I could finish!” it wailed. “I just need a piece of you!” It touched, not him, but to swallow him with its arm. Their contact with him is a jerk of horrible emotion rushing through him like an electric vehicle: his old pencil-case, smelling of the library, his hand spreading open on Ayaka, a shiver runs down his spine- against everything, it told him. “You dropped your lunch tray. I laughed. You remember that version?”

Haruto flinched. For half a second, he did. But he shouldn’t have. That didn’t actually happen. Did it? The man shoved the objects aside, with both hands. It tore as water,--No blood, no bone, no,--it by no possibility is,--but a shriek. The strange exception sent aside, no cry, only an orgasmic scream of agony: You, neither, were not to be.

Haruto stood there, frozen.

He was trembling, but not by any exertion.

From doubt.

That voice…

That version of the tray.

I attempted to access the actual memory - Ayaka supported me during that day, right? Or it was some other version?

What will happen if the memory is overwritten by some other persons?

Suppose it were Henderson who had been wiped off to that I might be standing here?

Behind me, Hina was saying, They have not finished.

Two more anomalies popped up.

One crawled. The other was floating a few inches above the earth- no walking, no flying, but floating, head bent up listening to something.

They picked you, you fat cat, Muriel said.

Till just now you were a background, explained the other. “But something changed. You stepped forward. You weren’t supposed to.”

They were hollow sounded voices that resembled wind whistling up empty shelves.

You had been an insert, said the crawler. “And someone gave you a spine.”

I stepped back.

Still I was still in shock of what the first one said. And now this—

Hina stood between me and them, stopping me. “He’s real. He’s here.”

But the drifting creature tossed his head.

“So are you,” it said. “And you’re even worse.”

“I…”

“You were a warning once. A wall. A map. A glitch in a skirt and a smile.

Hina flinched.

Thou thinkest that you love him, the crawler said to self. That is not what you were made to do.

“Stop!” I snapped.

The anomaly only said aloud, in a lower voice: You see we’re right. She was supposed to fade.”

then both anomalies swam to light, And lost their savings such as light's.

I lowered my hands slowly.

Silence returned.

Too quickly.

Then Hina said it:

“I think… they’re right.”

I turned to her, startled. “What?”

And I do not know whether I am meant to be something or not. “But I keep remembering… parts. Other versions. Places we never went. Conversations we didn’t have.”

She paused.

I believe I had warned you to forget me once.

I stared.

“I think I begged you to.”

She looked up, with a blank, big, still face.

“Do I matter?”

My breath caught.

“Yes,” I said immediately.

She didn’t respond.

But she didn’t smile either.

Then she looked past me.

“Haruto…”

I turned.

Beyond the horizon, fractured, pixeled - the Bell Tower re-appeared.

Not distant.

Not whole.

It hung in a glitch-glow, its parts reorganizing as they fell in the air - floors out of step, windows redundant, the bell revolving without a time. In the center:

A slow, muffled toll.

Low.

Not loud.

But wrong.

As the sound of some world bleeding.

The sky overhead stretched open some half an inch for garnering up no more than would look back of him--not of watching.

Then the time went off.

07:36:00 – 07:35:59