Manori walked backward, huffing and puffing. "Is the episode coming back again?" she whispered, a fragile smile twisting her lips in despair. "What the heck is happening to me…"
Every day, her heart would race—yet she wasn't special.
She was here, suffering… being poor for her own future. She would die alone—in starvation—and in all this dirtiness. As she lost hope, she still kept wishing… that someday, somehow, someone would come to save her.
That everything would be alright.
But problems came after problems. Her worth had now fallen to rock bottom—shameful.
And as she looked up, someone was really there. Her eyes were dead.
Everything… was a delusion.
Adam:
A white-haired boy came out of existence as he blinked, trying to understand what was going on—or where he even was. Then, suddenly, he smiled. "Yes! Yes!" he shouted, happy and dancing around. "We did it, Rehan!"
[...]
"Rehan?"
[Affirmative.]
"Yep." He flicked his fingers and smiled to himself, realizing he was finally free from that hellscape—something had ended. But as he looked around the darkness, he noticed a girl standing far away, her arms wrapped tightly around herself against the wall.
His teeth clenched. She refused to cry, standing there as if frozen.
Adam's eyes widened—it was her. But she wasn't the same. She had dark sags under her eyes, her body pale and malnourished, her nails white. Her hair was wrinkled and disheveled, her shirt overworn, dirty, an oversized piece of used cloth.
She was so different from the spotless Manori he remembered—the perfect one with red eyes, a jewel in white clothes.
I don't care, he thought. Because that doesn't even matter.
Mai: "I'm scared…"
Vertigo spiraled against her. Weak, tired, trembling. "Go away."
As the person stepped closer, she screamed, "Get away! Help! Someone! An intruder!"
But even as the words left her mouth, she realized—did anyone in those rooms even care about her? It would almost be comforting to stay like this. Her parents weren't there to charge the rent.
If anyone did come, they would just pass by… strangers moving in and out of her life. She smiled in pain.
"There's a monster…"
She started to run, huffing softly, her pace painfully slow. Her muscles had atrophied after days without proper food. Her heart rate spiked above one hundred thirty beats per minute. The person followed—slowly, calmly.
Fear clawed at her chest. She grabbed a knife.
"Get away! Or I'll kill you! You think I'm weak because I'm alone—but I'm not!"
She stood there, leaning against a pile of garbage behind her, holding the knife toward the attacker. Her vision blurred and constricted. She tried to calm herself. I'm not weak. I can't be weak.
The person before her looked hollow, dark. Her own eyes filled with fear, her thoughts a thousand voices of panic. The person kept moving closer.
Sweat trickled down her face. Her chest tightened as though a heart attack was seizing her.
Before the person could get any closer, she saw it—something monstrous in the dark lunging toward her. She slashed with her left hand, but the figure caught the knife.
Blood dripped onto the floor.
Everything spun out of control. The person held the blade tightly, not letting go.
Mai screamed, punching them in the face.
Then—words.
Adam: "Hey!"
She blinked.
It wasn't a stranger. It wasn't a monster.
It was someone familiar—a feeling of someone she once knew, but couldn't remember clearly. The darkness was still there… yet somehow, it wasn't dark anymore.
There was no threat after all.
A boy smiled softly, setting the knife aside on the dishwasher. His hand was damaged—burned once by a mechanical droid, now cut by a knife.
Adam: "Everything's gonna be fine."
Mai looked at him. The silence between them was awkward… but safe. She didn't know why.
Adam's thoughts wandered. Kiso, Toho, Minori, Piercebox… If I could come back and save them, I would.
[Do you want to save them, Adam?]
Adam: "Well, yeah… sigh. Is that even possible?"
[Why not go to the source—and make it last forever? Make it real.]
Adam: "Huh? How would I even do that?"
[Adam… The Gate is Mai herself. This dimension is different from your real life. The whole world is hers. So something should be different. Because in different worlds, the Gate responds to how the world is—taking its shape.]
Adam: "Huh?"
[Basically… either she's dead and manifesting this reality—hopefully not—or this whole world is bound by her.]
Adam's mind spun, unable to make sense of it all.
Mai: "Hey? Are you there?"
Adam: "Yeah…"