九

When I open my eyes again I find myself in a familiar place. Ashi-Toku station is a station with only two platforms, one each for trains going either way on its singular line.

Keisuke hauls himself onto the platform and sits down across from me.

“Are we all like this?” he asks.

“I don’t know.”

Neither of us say anything for a few moments.

“I really wanted to kiss you at least once.”

I feel very conflicted. I’m still angry at Keisuke for what he did to me but I can’t help but feel for him. How close was I to becoming him, how close was I to becoming his sister. How close am I still?

…

“I can’t kiss you,” I say as I reach out towards him, “but I think I can hold your hand.”

Silently, he closes his hand around mine and we watch the scene unfold again. Very quickly he seems to decide to let go and then everything starts returning to its original state. What it was before we laid eyes on it, interpreted it and gave it form.

I notice now that it wasn’t that Keisuke decided to let go but that he no longer has a hand to hold mine with. His arm is being ripped apart by some unknown force, it climbs to his shoulder, consuming it and then spreading to his torso and neck, pieces of his flesh splitting from his body before swiftly disintegrating.

But he’s smiling. Of course he is, he’s crying too. This personal hell he thought he’d be trapped in for eternity is ending. He’s watching the scene play out for a final time, the entire station is being consumed just like Keisuke himself now. Little Keisuke and his sister are at the vending machine and the rate of deterioration is so fast that everything will have completely disappeared.

I look down at my own hands and I’m surprised they’re still there. I am not disappearing. The siblings manage to make it to the yellow line just before their bodies vanish and I’m left in an empty black void. It's not an unfamiliar place to be.

I close my eyes.