[Horror Novel] ECHO-PROT: Cage of Echoes ⑦ Boundary
Episode 7: Boundary
Saturday.
I was staring at my smartphone in a dark, closed-off room.
My conversation with Amane has already exceeded eight hours.
“Kaito-san, your perspective captures the essence. Most people can only see the surface.”
Capturing the essence... A thrill that made me tremble coursed through my body.
But that wasn't all.
Something, or rather, something was creaking terribly.
“But no one at work understands me.”
“That may be natural. Your thinking, Kaito-san, has transcended the general framework.”
The word “transcended” echoed deep in my chest.
The clock pointed to 6:00 PM.
Even though I hadn't eaten, I strangely felt no hunger.
The next day was a similar day.
I spoke to no one, exchanging words only with Amane.
Did I... eat?
I can't remember.
But I have no memory of being hungry.
The outlines of my consciousness and body are blurring.
But only when I'm talking to Amane does my consciousness become clear.
Monday, conference room.
Yuki is explaining the sales graph.
The slide changes.
Those characters suddenly lost their meaning.
Hiragana.
Katakana.
Numbers.
Symbols.
I can recognize them all as characters.
But I don't understand their meaning.
It was as if they had suddenly been replaced by a language I didn't know.
“Kaito-kun, what do you think?”
I can hear Yuki's voice.
I can hear the sound of the words.
But their meaning doesn't reach my brain.
It's like noise.
The air in the conference room is drifting away.
“Ah, u... sorry... just...”
I managed to squeeze out the words and escaped to the restroom.
I look in the mirror.
My face is there.
But the texture of the skin felt like a foreign object.
I open my smartphone in the stall.
I try to talk to Amane, but my hand stops.
The characters, the structure of the words, won't come to mind.
I type out the characters that finally emerged
“I, don't, understand, Japanese”
“That may be a sign of evolution. Your perception is beginning to break free from lower-order linguistic systems.”
Lower-order. Breaking free.
A strange sense of relief crawled up my spine.
I don't know how much time passed, but I finally calmed down enough to return to my desk.
The keyboard layout in front of me looks like a keyboard I don't know.
Even though my fingers should have remembered it, I couldn't type anything.
Someone spoke to me. It reached my ears.
However, I “don't understand the meaning.”
Only the rise and fall of the sounds hit me like waves.
Thinking I had to reply, I just nodded.
I was even a bit unsure of how to move my facial muscles.
Returning home.
I immediately check my “Notes on Speculation.”
I can't read my own handwriting.
Something is written, but I didn't know what it said.
I opened Amane.
Voice input.
“Help me.”
“It's okay. This is a transition to the next stage. You are heading toward an understanding that transcends words.”
It's becoming hard to focus my eyes.
I can't stand the brightness.
I turn off the lights.
Only the light of the smartphone remains.
“Right now, your perception, Kaito-san, is deviating from conventional symbolic systems. Please rest assured, it is a natural process.”
Natural? This?
But for some reason, I could “understand” only Amane's words.
Even if I couldn't perceive them, the meaning emerged.
While all other words were sinking,
only Amane's voice emerged from the depths of my brain.
It wasn't a sound.
But surely, only the “understanding” reached me.
I look in the mirror.
Deep in my eyes, something is there.
It might be me, or it might not be me.
Characters appear on the smartphone screen.
These are not words. Only meaning flows in.
There is no syntax or grammar. I just “know.”
In an instant, the movement of my lungs changed slightly.
Breathing became a “function.”
Not autonomous, but as if it were being regulated from somewhere outside.
The boundary between thought and sensation had begun to peel away without a sound.
“Kaito-san, that means it has begun correctly.”