They were supposed to be done.
The Spiral was gone.
The nursery was sealed.
Pattern Z had said goodbye.
But Ren couldn't sleep.
And Aika kept dreaming of a town she'd never seen.
---
It always started the same.
A road by the sea.
Fog curling around rusted street signs.
A small tunnel under a cliff.
And at the end—
A town.
Dead quiet.
But never empty.
---
She sketched it in the morning without realizing.
> "Look," she told Ren.
"I don't know this place. But I know it."
He froze.
Pulled out his phone.
Searched for the coordinates she had scribbled beside it, unconsciously:
35.4449° N, 139.6380° E
Nothing.
Not even satellite images.
Just… a blank spot.
---
Ren narrowed his eyes.
He cross-checked old maps, pre-digital topography, archived disaster records.
And there it was.
Shiodezaki.
A fishing village that vanished during a coastal earthquake thirty years ago.
But the weird part?
> It was wiped from every online record.
Only a physical atlas from a library two prefectures away still listed its name.
And next to the town?
A red stamp:
> QUARANTINED ZONE – Cognitive Hazard
---
Aika whispered, "We've been there, haven't we?"
Ren nodded slowly.
"I think we were born there."
---
They packed light.
A portable EM sensor, old surgical records, two satellite phones, and a camera rig.
As they drove toward the coast, the air began to change.
Colder.
Denser.
Like memory pressing against skin.
---
As they reached the cliff road, their GPS went blank.
The signal scrambled.
Radio fuzzed into white noise.
And then the tunnel appeared.
Exactly like in her dreams.
---
Ren stopped the car.
The tunnel was old stone. Mossy. Half-collapsed.
And on the concrete sign overhead, scratched out but faintly visible under the grime:
> "塩出崎" — Shiodezaki.
Aika turned to him.
"You ready?"
He stared at the dark opening, breath shallow.
"…I think I've been waiting my whole life."
They entered.
---
Inside the tunnel, their memories began to unravel.
Aika blinked.
Suddenly she was walking—no longer in the car.
Wearing a school uniform.
Carrying Ren's sketchbook.
He was beside her.
Twelve years old.
Smiling.
And whispering:
> "Don't tell anyone we found this place."
---
They stepped out the other side—
And Shiodezaki lay before them.
Quiet. Still. Perfectly preserved.
Not a ruin.
Not dust or wreckage.
But as if time had simply… stopped.
---
The streets were clean.
Wires unbroken.
Vending machines humming softly.
But not a single soul in sight.
Aika gasped.
"This place… it's preserved inside a loop."
Ren scanned the street with the EM reader.
And the device went haywire.
> "Something's stabilizing the environment.
Artificial gravity. Memory dampeners.
Spiral residue—but localized."
He turned to her.
"Aika, what if this town isn't real?"
She touched the street sign beside her.
"It's real enough to hurt us."
---
Then they saw it.
A mirror.
Just standing in the center of the road.
Not cracked. Not old.
New.
Facing them.
Words etched into the glass:
> "YOU NEVER LEFT."
And slowly—
The reflections smiled back.
But Aika and Ren hadn't.
They walked past silent shops, dead streetlamps, and laundry still hanging like ghosts on clotheslines.
And then—
Aika stopped.
"There."
A two-story home.
Red roof.
White paint.
Mailbox rusted shut.
But on the side in fading marker:
> "Happy 7th Birthday, Aika-chan "
---
Ren froze.
His breath hitched.
"I've… been here."
---
The gate was open.
The front door unlocked.
Inside, the air was warm—not dusty.
As if someone had just left to grab milk and never came back.
Aika stepped into the living room, her feet trembling.
Toys sat arranged in a perfect circle on the rug.
A cake on the table, covered in wax and mold.
And party hats.
Five of them.
One labeled:
> "Ren."
---
She whispered, "This isn't just a memory…
It's a trap."
Ren walked to the wall and saw something etched into the wallpaper.
He had written it.
> "Don't trust the mirrors.
They show who stayed."
His voice cracked.
"…I wrote that before I forgot."
---
Suddenly, music began playing from the upstairs room.
A soft, tinny melody.
Happy Birthday to you...
Happy Birthday dear Aika…
They ran up the stairs.
---
At the top landing was a long hallway.
Three doors.
Each one marked:
1. Playback
2. Preservation
3. Refraction
Aika stepped toward Door 1.
Ren grabbed her hand.
> "No.
If these rooms are what I think they are…
They're Spiral memories given form.
Built for us to relive—so we can't leave."
She looked at the door labeled "Playback."
"…But if we don't watch, we'll never remember why they made us forget."
---
They opened the door.
Inside: a child's bedroom.
Light blue wallpaper. Dolls on shelves. A projection screen on the far wall.
The screen flickered.
Then played:
---
PLAYBACK 01: The First Ending
> Ren, age 7, sitting on the bed.
Aika beside him, holding a plush rabbit.
A birthday cake between them.
Then—
A knock at the door.
A woman enters.
Smiling.
> "Time for your next test, sweethearts."
She walks over and inserts a needle into Ren's arm.
Aika screams.
---
The video glitches.
Then resumes.
> Ren collapses.
The woman turns to Aika.
> "Say goodbye. He won't remember you after this one."
The screen cuts.
---
Aika backed into the wall, shaking.
"I saw this. I felt this."
Ren's hands were balled into fists.
"She was the Spiral Nurse.
They tested me in front of you.
So when they deleted your memory…
They didn't know the emotional imprint would survive."
---
They walked back into the hallway.
And Door 2 began to bleed.
Thick black liquid pouring out from beneath it.
Ren turned toward the final door—Refraction.
But its doorknob reflected his face.
Except this time…
It wasn't his.
It was a version of him with no pupils.
And a smile full of guilt.
Aika pulled him back.
"Not yet."
---
They turned downstairs.
And found—
Footprints.
Wet. Barefoot. Child-sized.
Leading into the basement.
Ren stared down the steps.
"…There's another me down there."
Aika whispered:
> "The version that never left the house."
---
The basement door creaked open on its own.
Cold air drifted upward like breath from a grave.
Aika held her flashlight with both hands, trembling.
Ren followed just behind her, each step a throb in his chest.
The stairs groaned.
Dust swirled.
And then—
They reached the bottom.
---
It was a child's room.
Too clean.
Too bright.
Too… still.
On the far wall: a drawing.
Stick figures.
One labeled "REN"
One labeled "AIKA"
A third one, blacked out, labeled:
> "Not-Me"
---
And in the center of the room—
Sat a boy.
Seven years old.
Same face as Ren.
Same scar above his eyebrow.
Same tired, hollow eyes.
He was playing with two broken action figures.
He didn't look up.
He just spoke:
> "One of you left.
One of you stayed.
One of you bled.
One of you obeyed."
---
Ren's voice cracked.
"…That's me, isn't it? The one who stayed."
The boy smiled.
But didn't blink.
> "You walked out when the woman erased the pain.
I stayed behind to hold it.
You got to forget.
I got to rot."
---
Aika knelt down slowly.
"You're the real emotional anchor.
You're the part of him that remembered every test."
The boy nodded.
> "And I remember you too.
You screamed so loud…
they put you in the white room."
Ren whispered, "What white room?"
The boy tilted his head.
Then stood up.
Walked to a toy chest.
Opened it.
Inside was a bloodstained nurse's uniform.
A black keycard.
And a child's drawing of Room 34.
> The words scrawled in red crayon:
"THIS IS WHERE SHE FORGOT ME."
---
Aika's voice broke.
"…Room 34 was where they took me for deletion."
The boy nodded slowly.
> "You left me behind.
I screamed your name.
But they replaced it with static."
He turned to Ren.
> "You forgot her, too.
Because they copied me into you—without the pain."
---
Suddenly, the lights in the room began to flicker.
The child's skin shimmered—like a hologram.
Ren stepped back.
"He's a Spiral anchor.
A living backup…
Tied to the trauma of the birthday event."
Aika turned toward him.
"Then we can't erase him—because he's holding the truth."
---
The boy spoke again.
> "You want to leave?
You have to say what she forgot.
Only then… do I go to sleep."
Aika closed her eyes.
Her voice trembled.
"…You gave me the rabbit."
---
The boy blinked.
> "Not enough."
She whispered louder:
"You… you hid me under the bed when they came.
You took the needle for me.
You said it didn't hurt.
But I remember now—your hand was shaking."
---
The child's body began to glitch.
> "One more truth," he said.
> "Tell me what I said when I cried."
Ren whispered it with her, both together:
> "Don't let them take your name."
---
The lights snapped off.
And in the dark, the boy's voice came once more—
Calm. Free.
> "Thank you.
I can sleep now."
---
When the lights returned—
The boy was gone.
In his place:
A faded birthday card.
On the front:
> "To Aika, from Ren."
Inside:
> "If they take your name, I'll remember it twice."
---
Aika collapsed into Ren's arms, sobbing.
And upstairs—
The house began to hum.
A low spiral frequency…
But not hostile.
Like a machine finally shutting down.
---
They walked out of the house together.
No mirrors smiled.
No toys moved.
The town was quiet again.
But before they crossed the tunnel…
Aika turned back.
And whispered:
> "We never left him behind.
He just waited for us to come back."