Part 15: Reflections Revealed

My suspicions regarding these five letters grew. What did it have to deal with what Cherry saw in the window? I had to know.

“Wait, was this what you saw in the reflection Cherry?”

“No… What I really saw were two delivery people loading the shelves. I think both of them knew I was watching. They looked at me as if they were making note of something.”

“Okay. Clearly these people dealt with whatever UVOCA is, right?”

“Possibly. I suspect they may be UVOCA agents disguising as the middlemen in this situation. They must be the ones altering the code. Why would they target a video game like this though? The second question is how do they do it to begin with? There are many viable ways for this opportunity to be used knowing they would take that chance.”

I looked back at the ancient illustration to confirm my theories on this situation. Something about one of the Frightening Five stories specifically stating that an unknown cult was part of this problem. Hanakawa being one of them connected to the central issues. She must have been a UVOCA agent.

“How did you find this specific page? Did you know about UVOCA?”

Cherry seemed more attentive by the fact that I even asked this question. It made her look down with a deteriorating expression that made me wonder what she could have been thinking.

Then she responded in an unusually terrified manner. As if she kept all of these secrets inside for a while now.

“Haniki-chan… I want to tell you something I’ve never told anyone else. I… Was not born in… Animearth.”

My shock was digested as it almost made me wonder even more about what she was saying. Was this implying that she came from another world? If that was true, only one place came to mind for me.

“Are you saying you were born in Tartropolatté?”

Cherry nodded her head with a clear “no”. Ouch. I guess I got it wrong.

“I was born in a place called The Halbert Mansion. I haven’t forgotten what used to happen there. I lived in a beautiful house with a family that I thought loved me. Turns out, I was naive. They must have actually hated me. I never saw them again.”

This was interesting but I wanted to make sure she wasn’t lying to me. After all, to me at least, I had never heard of anyone coming from another world before. Aliens from other planets didn’t exist to our knowledge either.

“Show me proof. I don’t know whether to believe you or not.”

Cherry went inside of her backpack and took out a pair of what appeared to be handmade e-glasses that glowed a mint green around the rims. It was the first time I ever saw something so intricately designed before.

“These are a special set of electronic glasses I stole from UVOCA. I’m studying it right now so I can build a second version which is under my project name: Stella.”

“Oh nice. Is there anything else that proves you came from another world?”

As I said this, Cherry pulled out a small box, which from inside, contained…

Two red cherries?