Chapter 30: The Collapse Begins

When the world's walls fall down, all there is, is who you are without them.

The sky never screamed.

It just. stopped.

Not a single cloud. No hue. No dawn or dusk gradient.

Just flat white — brittle and humming like old cassette static. Like the world itself was out of ink and trying to redraw itself from memory.

Haruto sat beneath the corrugated, gnarled bus stop, his fingers wrapped gently around Hina's.

Neither spoke.

The silence wasn't unpleasant, but nor were it frightening.

It was that pause between heartbeats, between breaths, between knowing and not.

Then followed the sound.

Crack.

Distant. Hollow.

Like the snapping of a bone.

Haruto's head shot up.

A pause.

Then again, louder.

Snap.

The ground beneath them shivered, not violently, but… resentfully. As though it hated being ground at all. The pavement began unraveling in fine gray threads, like paper curling at the edges of a fire.

Hina shifted beside him. Still pale, still broken, but standing taller.

"It's the Core," she breathed. "It's calling

Haruto nodded.

Yet his legs were frozen.

Not yet.

Because something in his chest, that fragile, painful place where Ayaka used to live, told him this wasn't the next thing to do.

It was the last one.

The road wound in front of them, extending strangely, twisting in on itself, reforming like a Mobius strip. Signposts flashed onto kanji, then onto symbols from unseen tongues Haruto had never seen before.

They walked like silhouettes, fleeting, halting, fuzzy, alternative iterations of themselves from parallel universes. A stroller-pushing mother who disappeared in mid-stride. A boy running from a dog that had divided into birds.

This wasn't memory now.

It was collapse.

Reality forgetting how to exist.

Footsteps echoed behind them.

The Librarian and the Cartographer appeared once more, aged, cracked, unraveling.

The Librarian's eyes were no longer jet-black, but light gray, like worn type.

“You’ve reached the edge,” she said.

"The Core is no longer sealed," the Cartographer stated.

Haruto gradually got up from the ground, gravity more than an influence, but an interrogator.

"What lies next for me?" he asked.

Neither answered.

They walked instead towards the heart of the city, where rubble from the bell towers curled like vines around a center cathedral-shaped void.

A spot never seen the previous day.

"The truth," the Librarian replied.

They walked on while Haruto watched how Hina walked.

She never walked like an owner of the world anymore.

She walked like a person who had gained knowledge of the reality but decided to proceed anyway.

She couldn't recall him —not exactly.

Yet she trusted him.

And that stung more than as if she'd forgotten everything.

They pulled over to a broken intersection.

The world around them pulsed.

For a moment, Haruto saw him across the street — the parallel him who never remembered Ayaka, who never crossed paths with Hina, who only went to class and watched the world pass him by.

The screen then went black.

Hina responded.

"Does the city care about us?"

He gazed at her.

"I think. it wants to."

A pause.

"It's dying."

The Core rose in front, a formation which moved as they approached it.

Occasionally a temple.

Occasionally a clock tower.

Occasionally a mirror.

“This is as far as we go,” the Librarian said.

Haruto shifted.

The Cartographer said, "What's Inside isn't memory anymore. It's you."

He spoke to Hina.

"You're not coming?"

"I am," she whispered. "But I think. it's something that only you should encounter.".

Haruto glared down at her.

She never pleaded.

Didn't argue.

She only replied: "Come back."

He moved forward.

And the door opened.

Inside, everything was white.

No flooring.

No ceiling.

Just light.

And on the far side was an individual sitting on a chair.

His back was straight.

His gaze waiting.

Haruto moved forward.

The boy looked up.

And Haruto also sensed the thickness of the air, not with heat nor cold.

But with recognition.

He was unchanged – same face, same hair, same physique.

But his eyes… they weren't broken.

They were peaceful.

Too peaceful.

I've been waiting," replied Mirror-Haruto.

Haruto stopped about a few meters away.

You're me," he stated.

The boy assented.

I am the edition that forgot

Haruto's tight fists.

And I was the one who remembered.

A silence.

Next Mirror-Haruto stood.

"You think that's nobel," he said. "That recalling makes you strong.

Haruto remained silent.

Mirror-Haruto smiled but it was sorrowful.

"You're spent. You hurt places your mind never conceived of. For every echo you saved pulled you further in to this world. For what?"

Haruto's voice was husky.

"For them."

"For Ayaka?"

"You forget because you are frightened of what it is to forget."

"That's not…

"Is it."

The air pulsed.

The earth beneath them cracked — not literally, but psychologically. Haruto felt something in him break.

As Mirror-Haruto wasn't entirely mistaken.

Every moment he recalled Ayaka, he was hurting.

Every time he touched Hina, it took something from him.

Wasn't that the point that gave it significance?

"I am afraid perhaps," Haruto murmured.

Mirror-Haruto inclined his head.

"Yet I walked on anyway."

A pause.

"I remembered because it hurt. And I decided to feel that pain. Because people matter. Not just as memories, but as choices."

Mirror-Haruto’s eyes narrowed.

You think you're stronger than me?

Haruto looked upwards.

"Not really. But I am more human."

A beat.

Next, the mirror beside them shattered.

Not with glass, but with reflections.

Hundreds of Harutos spilled out of it.

Crying. Laughing. Silent. Screaming.

Haruto saw selves that he did not know, and selves that scared him to become.

The room was crowded with his own visages.

His own choices.

His own regrets.

“This is what you’ve made. A labyrinth of selves. A world built on impossible weight.”

Haruto's voice trembled.

"Maybe. But it's mine.

He moved forward.

From the reflections. Through the broken versions of himself.

And faced the boy who had earlier chosen peace over anguish.

"I'm not coming here to ruin you," Haruto stated. I'm here to greet you.

Mirror-Haruto blinked. "Say You're me. The moment I wanted to forget. I despised you for it. But perhaps." He paused. "Maybe I do need you too."

The world pulsed.

And the countdown continued: 6:59:12

Mirror-Haruto seemed doubtful now, flashing waveringly.

I never wanted to hurt," he whispered. Haruto nodded.

"I know."

A long silence.

Then Mirror-Haruto stretched out a hand.

Haruto took it.

And the white room burst with color.