Chapter 5: 5. [Anything]

I gasped for air as I snapped my eyes open.

I had suddenly fallen asleep again. My intentions were to stay up all night as a lookout, but again, it felt like my energy had depleted out of the blue.

“Araki?!” I yelled out as I quickly got off the floor. “Araki!”

I looked around but couldn’t find Araki anywhere. I repeated his name over and over again, but even after checking the whole house, I couldn’t find him.

“The cameras!” I remembered.

I quickly switched over to the camera app and reviewed the footage of last night.

“There’s nothing.”

No matter how much I checked, not a thing happened last night. The only person that showed up in the footage was my aunt leaving for work an hour prior.

I closed the app and kept looking around the house. But he was nowhere to be found.

“Iyo!”

“Hmm…yes?” Her low sleepy voice suddenly changed into one of panic. “Oh wait, is Araki okay?!”

“I…can’t find him.”

“What?! Did you check the cameras?!”

“Yes…there’s nothing.”

After some shuffling from the other side of the line, she said, “I’m coming over right now!”

As promised, Iyo arrived a few minutes later.

“Let me see the footage.”

I opened the camera app and moved the hologram towards her. She used her index finger to inch it closer then checked through the footage.

“But how?” she said after checking from the moment he arrived to now.

I shrugged. My mind was too scattered to think about the fact she was interacting with the holograms without a NAHD.

“No, no, no,” she repeated, shaking her head. She fast-forwarded and reversed the footage but nothing changed. “This is all my fault…” she whispered with tears at the edge of her eyes. “It’s because of those dreams…”

“No, it’s not your fault!” I grabbed her by the shoulders. “You’ve done nothing wrong!”

“Then why is this happening?!”

I had no answer. Things were just happening one after another without a single trace to follow. Even if I wanted to blame myself, at this point, this felt much more supernatural than anything else.

Just as I was about to come up with something, I saw a small dim light coming from the side of Iyo’s head. It blinked green for a moment but quickly fading away.

“What was that?” I put a hand on her face and touched her temple.

“What was what?”

“I saw a light.”

“Oh, that,” she looked at the floor, “They put a thing there to fix that problem I had in my brain. It’s nothing really.”

“The shaking?”

“And some other stuff, yes.”

I had never heard of an operation similar to that, but I wasn’t too knowledgeable about the medical field in the first place. Either way, could that be the reason she could use the holograms? That was the only reason I could think of, even if it didn’t make sense for that to be the case.

“Wait, was the thing they put on your head made by AUGCORP?”

“Unfortunately. Why?”

More reason for my theory to be correct. The company had its hands on basically everything ever since the last company collapsed, and most hospitals were funded by AUGCORP, so it made sense. Even the cameras in this house were made by AUGCORP.

Suddenly, Iyo collapsed.

“Iyo!”

She thankfully fell onto the couch, but she wasn’t waking up. The little light I had seen earlier was now a static green.

After a few moments, I finally saw Iyo’s eyes slowly open. Then they snapped open as she gasped for air.

“Did I…”

“Iyo!” I grabbed her hand as I continued, “You suddenly passed out. What happened?”

She turned to me and her eyes widened. Her brows furrowed as she shook her head. “No…No…No…” she backed away from me as the green light blinked red once then disappeared. “I…I…”

“What’s wrong?” I worriedly asked.

“I saw…you…”

“You saw me?”

Her teary eyes should’ve been enough for me to know, during that small moment passed out, she saw me in her dreams.

---

“Did you two plan anything?” The person sitting across from me asked.

My vision had long been nonfunctional. I had no idea how long ago the events I was retelling happened, yet they felt like a lifetime ago.

“Of course—” my voice cut off. After a metallic screech, I continued. “—That night…we planned for me to sneak into her house. Now knowing cameras were useless, this was our last hope.”

---

Iyo held on to my arm as we sat on the bed against the wall. She squeezed onto me tight while she rested her head on my shoulder.

Without any use for the NAHD, I gave the device back to her.

“It’s already one in the morning.”

“I know.” She responded.

“Are we really going to stay up all night?”

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“Mh-Hm.” She nodded.

She’d been paranoid all day. Not for a moment had she left my side. I didn’t want to leave hers either.

We tried reporting Araki’s disappearance to the police, but they told us they couldn’t claim it as a disappearance until a certain amount of time had passed. So, now we were here.

“Are you sure you don’t want to leave the town?” she asked me.

“Of course not. I can’t just run away from this.”

“But you’ll be safe.”

“But if you aren’t, then what’s the point?”

She stayed silent as she stared into my eyes.

Whatever was going on was way too important. I thought of leaving this town with Iyo but knew that wouldn’t change the root of the problem. Why were people disappearing?

I couldn’t do much anymore, especially if I was supposed to go missing in a few hours tops. If anything, this was the perfect opportunity to figure out what was going on. It might be a little dangerous, but just because people disappeared, it didn’t mean they were dead, right?

I snorted at the thought of letting myself disappear. Based on the chill running down my body and the heaviness in my chest, I knew more than anything I was nervous.

“I promise I won’t go anywhere.”

A blatant lie.

“I know.”

An unconvinced response.

That was our last interaction before I felt her body go limp. The red light on the side of her head lit up again, blinking at different intervals.

“Iyo?”

My first thought was that she maybe fell asleep, but the blinking red light warned me otherwise.

Her body shook violently once before regaining her force. The red light turned solid, and she turned to face me.

Her eyes were clouded over, and her head hung slightly to the side. Without a word, she put a hand on my shoulder and another on my chest, then she forcibly pushed me onto the bed.

“What are you doing?!” I let out as I tried to stand, but she pushed me back down.

Her hands wrapped around my neck and began to squeeze.

I tried pushing her off, but it was like she had cemented herself on top of me. The thought of hurting Iyo was unbearable, so I had to hold back.

I struggled, prying her fingers as hard as I could. But with every ounce of strength I used up, my head started to cloud over. I could feel my breathing sharpen as a heaviness filled my eyelids.

“It’s fine. You’ll wake up soon enough.”

A familiar voice penetrated my ears. It wasn’t Iyo’s, she hadn’t even open her mouth once. Still, there was no one else in the room with is.

The last thing I saw was Iyo’s face with a single tear running down her cheek.

---

“So it was her?” A person to my right asked.

I turned over to the voice, but I could only see a blurry figure. The cracks in my vision making it harder to see than it already was.

“To an extent.” My voice vibrated like it was about to give at any moment. “She was nothing more than a pawn…but I imagine all of you know to who—”

The company that took over a country. The ones that snuck their ways into the day-to-day lives of the people.

“So AUGCORP has always been filled with assholes!” A third voice said.

“I told you not to swear in front of Rachel!” A slap resonated throughout the open concrete room.

“Ow!”

The bickering of the three people in front of me was nostalgic. I was certain that Iyo, Araki, and I would’ve been like that to this day. However, as far as I knew, Araki no longer existed, and Iyo was nowhere to be found.

I imagined whatever her mother’s goal was, it was completed with me. Although, it was more likely than not that what I was now was her goal.

A perverted amalgamation of humanity and metal. I couldn’t feel or smell anything. It was an absolute numbness of sensations.

But sitting on the lap of one of the people was the only thing I could recognize.

Above the foggy lenses that were my eyes, a clear number and profile were displayed like the holograms made by the NAHD:

“GEN_000-RAY”

The description: “Ray of light”

That’s when I understood. They were the end goal. I was a steppingstone.

I had more questions than answers, but that wasn’t for me to know. Once again, I had to be the steppingstone. Whatever AUGCORP did, these people were trying to stop them. And although I didn’t fully understand how I came to play, I knew it was partially my fault.

“Iyo…” I felt the name tumble from my mouth.

A soft voice cut through the other three voices. “Do you want to see her again?”

The voice belonged to the figure I recognized as “Ray” but the other three named them Rachel.

My neck creaked as I nodded. The rusted metal pieces breaking as I did. “I do…”

“We’ll find her then.”

I turned my head sideways to their declaration.

Adding on to that, another voice said, “Exactly. We’ll find Iyo, wherever she is.”

“I hope she’s as cute as you described her—Ow!” Another slap rung.

“Don’t worry. I’ll keep this one away from her.”

Never had I found it so frustrating not being able to see. Even my hearing was failing me. I could barely differentiate between them.

“—thanks…” my voice trailed off. “Please…let me know if you find anything.”

My short-lived life came to an end a long time ago, as far as I knew. I was left confused about what was going on, and even my worst nightmares came to pass. Once again, I was alone, but now trapped in metal.

Maybe one day I’d escape this hell. Maybe one day I would find the answers I seek. Maybe one day I will be reunited with my friends. Maybe one day AUGCORP would seize to exist. But for now, all my hope would be left to them, the three blurry figures and the last ray of light.

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