NovelCat

drip……drip……drip……

Only the sound of the IV drip announces the passage of time.

clatter……clatter……clatter……

Tanaka is writing something in a chart. The sound of a pen hitting a metal clipboard.

clatter……clatter……

“Kitagawa Mio, 29 years old,” Tanaka reads aloud. “Occupation: Psychiatrist.”

Mio is confused. She was supposed to be a psychological counselor.

“Symptoms: Reality perception disorder, multiple personality, delusional disorder.”

clatter……clatter……

“Hospitalization period: Three years and four months.”

That period doesn’t exist in Mio’s memory. Until yesterday, she was supposed to be working at the hospital.

Tanaka approaches Mio’s bedside.

“You are ill.”

His voice is gentle, yet filled with indisputable conviction.

“The memories of working as a counselor are all delusions.”

wheeze……wheeze……wheeze……

Mio’s breathing becomes shallow.

She tries to trace her memories. Commuting to the hospital, interviews with patients, scenes from the counseling room.

However, those memories become vague like mist.

wheeze……wheeze……

“You are hospitalized as a patient in this hospital,” Tanaka continues. “We are treating you.”

Mio looks at her hands. Around her wrist, an ID band for hospitalized patients is wrapped.

“Patient Number: 0847 Kitagawa Mio Psychiatric Ward D-3”

Mio has no memory of when it was attached.

creak……creak……creak……

The sound of the hospital room door opening.

A nurse enters. That face was Yamada Hanako.

“Time for your medication.”

In Yamada’s hands are a small paper cup and pills.

rattle……

The pills make noise in the paper cup.

“Please take these.”

Mio shakes her head. However, her body doesn’t move as she wishes.

Yamada puts the pills in Mio’s mouth. Makes her drink water.

gulp……gulp……

The sound of liquid passing through her throat. A bitter taste spreads in her mouth.

“This medication will calm your delusions,” Yamada explains. “You’ll be able to distinguish between reality and dreams.”

However, Mio can no longer tell which is reality and which is delusion.

buzz……buzz……buzz……

The effects of the medication begin to appear.

Mio’s consciousness becomes hazy. Her thoughts become wrapped in fog.

buzz……buzz……

The sound of drugs flowing through blood vessels echoes in her eardrums.

“You feel better now, don’t you?” Tanaka’s voice comes from far away.

Mio tries to answer. However, words don’t come to mind.

Memories, emotions, ego——all dissolve into the fog of drugs.

buzz……buzz……buzz……

And Mio realizes.

This sound is not the sound of drugs.

It was the sound of her reality perception being fundamentally rewritten.

beep……beep……beep……

Machine sounds are heard.

Mio looks around. Monitors are installed in the hospital room. Electrocardiogram, blood pressure monitor, brain wave measurement device.

beep……beep……

The brain wave measurement device’s screen displays Mio’s brain activity in real time.

And Mio is astonished.

What was displayed on the screen was not one person’s brain waves.

Multiple brain wave patterns were displayed overlapping.

Tanaka’s brain waves, Yamada’s brain waves, Sato’s brain waves, and Mio’s own brain waves.

beep……beep……beep……

“Interesting, isn’t it?”

Tanaka points to the screen.

“Your brain is generating multiple personalities simultaneously.”

Mio stares at the screen. Indeed, four different brain wave patterns can be identified.

“However, those personalities don’t actually exist,” Tanaka explains. “They are all products of your imagination.”

beep……beep……

“Tanaka Masahiko, Yamada Hanako, Sato Kenta too.”

Tanaka’s voice gradually changes to Mio’s voice.

“They are all you yourself.”

static……static……static……

White noise flows into Mio’s skull.

However this time, the noise has regularity.

static……static……static……

Digital signals. Data streams.

Mio begins to understand.

Her reality perception is being manipulated from outside.

“Who……”

Mio squeezes out her voice.

“Who is manipulating me?”

Tanaka smiles. That smile is the same as Mio’s smile she sees in the mirror.

“You yourself.”

tick……tick……tick……

The sound of the clock changes.

It’s not carved at regular one-second intervals, but at irregular rhythms.

tick……tick-tick……tick……tick-tick-tick……

The flow of time is distorted.

Mio realizes. That she is manipulating the time axis.

Past memories, present perceptions, future predictions. They mix together to form one reality.

tick……tick-tick……tick……

“The fourth door has been opened.”

Tanaka’s voice whispers from inside Mio.

Just as there is a moment when water ceases to be water, something dwells in Mio’s fingertips.

tremble-tremble……tremble-tremble……

A minute tremor as if matter senses Mio’s existence and cowers.

The metal of the IV stand, the wood of the bed, the molecules in the air——everything begins to resonate with Mio’s existence.

whoosh……whoosh……whoosh……

According to Mio’s breathing, the density of air changes.

As if her lungs were the world’s lungs.

whoosh……whoosh……

The concept of weight flows according to Mio’s emotional fluctuations.

Fear creates gravity, confusion creates buoyancy, and deep loneliness——creates a crushing pressure that crushes everything.

crack……crack……

Cracks run through the hospital room walls at the same rhythm as Mio’s heartbeat.

The building tries to synchronize with Mio’s biological rhythms, but breaks down due to material limitations.

wheeze……wheeze……wheeze……

Mio’s breathing becomes the fundamental rhythm of existence.

wheeze……wheeze……

With each breath, the contours of the world become ambiguous.

The boundaries between solid and liquid, past and future, self and other——all repeat ebb and flow according to the tide of Mio’s consciousness.

Mio realizes. The true nature of what she had been exploring.

Empathy was not about crossing boundaries——it was about erasing boundaries themselves.

ripple……ripple……

From her feet, invisible ripples spread concentrically.

They were ripples of sound, ripples of consciousness, and ripples of existence.

crackle……crackle……crackle……

The air around Mio begins to carry something.

It’s not electric charge, but something more fundamental. The density of existence. The concentration of consciousness.

crackle……crackle……

Space itself cannot bear Mio’s existence and creates minute cracks.

Microscopic lightning runs between reality and unreality.

Mio directs her consciousness inward.

warp……

Following the trajectory of thought, the geometry of the room transforms.

Straight lines become curves proportional to the complexity of thought, and angles become obtuse or acute according to the sharpness of emotion.

warp……warp……

When Mio walks, the very concept of walking distorts.

She realizes that movement is not passing through space, but rewriting space to conform to oneself.

patter……patter……patter……

Only the sound of footsteps continues to echo as the invariant within change.

It was Mio’s last anchor——proof of having been human.

silence……

Mio——unconsciously——erases the phenomenon of sound itself.

silence……

Complete silence. But it is not the absence of sound.

A state where all possibilities of sound have converged to a single point.

In this silence, Mio realizes something terrible.

That her self-confirmation had depended on sensory reactions from others.

In a world without sound, Mio loses sight of her boundaries.

silence……

Panic.

However, even that panic cannot produce sound.

Voiceless screams swirl inside Mio.

“Please bring it back”

A prayer in her heart.

“Without sound, I am not myself”

And——

BOOM……

A huge sound shakes the world.

Mio’s fear flows into reality as a flood of sound.

All sounds return at once.

drip-drip-drip……clatter-clatter……wheeze-wheeze……beep-beep-beep……static-static……tick-tick-tick……whoosh-whoosh……crackle-crackle……

A vortex of sounds envelops Mio.

She understands.

That she has become the ruler of sound.

The creator of reality.

scratch……scratch……scratch……scratch……

Mio grips a pen.

However, the pen doesn’t seek paper. The air itself has become her recording medium.

scratch……scratch……

Trails of light follow the trajectory of thought and emerge in space.

“Boundaries undergo their fourth transformation”

Not letters, but concepts are directly carved into space.

“The one who perceives becomes the perceived world itself”

“Matter follows consciousness, consciousness dissolves into the abyss of existence”

Mio’s hand no longer follows her will.

Guided by a greater will——or perhaps lack of will——she continues writing the truth.

“The concept of danger presupposes separation”

“For integrated consciousness, danger does not exist”

“Only transformation remains”

drip……drip……drip……

The sound of the IV drip returns like eternal accompaniment.

Mio is back in the hospital bed.

However——this hospital room is not the hospital room in her memory.

The wall color is subtly different. The ceiling height is slightly lower. The scenery visible through the window is shifted slightly to the left.

The trajectory of thought Mio had walked was imprinted in space.

drip……drip……

Tanaka appears. This time he is an existence of only outlines.

A human form woven from threads of light. A phantom where only voice is real.

“You have crossed the threshold.”

That voice was both the voice of Tanaka in Mio’s memory and simultaneously no one’s voice.

“The path back no longer exists.”

Mio searches for a mirror.

What is reflected there——only the outline of light that is herself.

A bundle of pure perception that has released the concept of flesh.

Yet Mio was still Mio.

drip……drip……drip……

Only the sound of the IV drip continues to echo as the invariant within change.

As the last anchor of time.

flutter……flutter……flutter……

Mio’s consciousness disperses like dandelion fluff.

flutter……flutter……

Leaving the constraints of individuality, permeating every corner of space.

Passing through the hospital room walls, filling the corridors, enveloping the entire building.

And to the city. To the world.

flutter……flutter……flutter……

Countless heartbeats touch Mio’s dispersed consciousness.

The dreams of sleepers, the thoughts of the awake, the innocence of children, the resignation of the elderly.

Everything flows into Mio, and Mio flows into everything.

The last traces of the concept of boundaries scatter in the wind.

And Mio understands.

The true nature of what she had been seeking.

Complete empathy.

The eternal cycle of the one and the many.

This was the journey’s destination.

scratch……scratch……scratch……scratch……

A hand that is no one’s hand, with a voice that is no one’s voice, carves the final record.

“I became a drop of water and returned to the sea”

“But the sea is also composed of drops like me”

“The end is the beginning, and the beginning was already over”

In a world where only sound remains, the door to a new stage quietly opens.

tap……tap……tap……

From beyond the white corridor——

All footsteps become one and echo forth.

It is Mio’s footsteps, humanity’s footsteps, and——

The footsteps of those who are about to begin.