Digital lifeforms—
The first time Mako heard that term was three days before she was taken to the hospital.It had slipped casually into a conversation with her friends, almost as an afterthought.
It was exam-prep week, so classes ended earlier than usual.Mako and five of her friends were staying behind after school, studying together in their classroom.
Each girl had her digital study device open, jotting notes while occasionally helping each other with difficult problems—without using the search function.
Under normal circumstances, they would've relied on computers for explanations.But with the recent "digital restraint movement," analog studying was strongly encouraged.
That was why they had bothered to meet up in person at all.
Just as everyone's concentration was beginning to fade, Shizuku Kugimiya muttered:
"Hey… do you guys know about digital lifeforms?"
"Oh, you mean that slightly occult rumor that's been going around lately?"
Another friend chimed in, and the atmosphere instantly shifted from studying to chatting.
"Digital lifeforms?" Mako tilted her head, and Shizuku's eyes lit up.
"So, my dad works at a network company, right? And he told me recently that there might be a kind of… 'lifeform' inside the net. One with its own will."
"A lifeform… with a will? Isn't that just AI?"
"Well, yeah, it sounds similar, but it's apparently different. AIs are made by humans.But digital lifeforms supposedly… appear on their own. Naturally."
Her friends leaned in, curiosity piqued.
"There was this rumor," Shizuku continued, "about an avatar on a social network that nobody— not even the admins— created. And some people say half the weird posts on message boards are actually digital lifeforms."
Mako gave a small nod, and another girl laughed.
"Come on, that's just AI avatars. Every app has those now!"
"But AI avatars stay inside their apps, right? Digital lifeforms can show up anywhere on the net. They can go wherever they want. Servers malfunction, communication glitches happen… and then unexplained logs show up.Dad called them 'phantoms'."
Shizuku's voice grew more excited with every sentence.
But—
"Okay, enough!"
The class rep raised her voice sharply.
"Chatting time is over! Study at home! Focus!"
With a collective sigh, everyone reluctantly returned to their textbooks.
…But Mako couldn't get the term "digital lifeform" out of her head.
While pretending to study, she secretly tapped her device and searched it.
There were articles, but all of them were vague rumors—just as Shizuku had said.Still, one name stood out to her.
—Kana Chiyoda.
The genius programmer who created B-language.
Modern digital devices and computers—almost all of them ran on Prometheus OS, built entirely on B-language.
B-language had rendered earlier giants like C-language and most conventional operating system structures obsolete.
Its defining feature was groundbreaking:
A program that could evolve on its own.
Kana Chiyoda—the woman who changed history.
But why was her name linked with digital lifeforms?
Mako leaned closer, wanting to dig further—
"Mako-chan! You've been messing with your pad-device way too long!"
The class rep caught her in the act and snapped at her.
"Ah—sorry, sorry! Um, then can you help me with this part of the factorization…?"
Mako promised herself to investigate later at home, and reluctantly focused on her studies.
On the way home, she walked with Shizuku and asked a bit more about the digital lifeform rumors.
In the online world, some people believed these entities "lived normally," and that someday they might even manifest in the real world—
Listening to that, Mako felt an uneasy flutter deep inside her chest.
When she got home, she immediately opened her device and resumed her investigation.
What she learned was this:
People only started whispering about digital lifeforms after Kana Chiyoda's death.
Some rumors claimed her soul roamed the net…And that digital lifeforms were born from it.
Most of the stories were nonsense, hardly believable.
But that was exactly why they were called "phantoms."
Just as she tried to dig deeper—
Her device screen began to flicker violently.
A flash of blinding light.
Mako's vision blurred, pain stabbed through her skull, and her stomach churned.
Her entire body convulsed from a photic seizure—
And then everything went dark.
She lost consciousness on the spot.