Faint Echoes

Kathleen sat motionless beside Samantha’s still, unconscious form, her gaze fixed upon the woman’s face. Every detail—the faint rise and fall of her chest, the soft curve of her features—betrayed nothing of the truth she had just learned.

The physicality of the woman in front of her was as real as it had ever been, yet something felt irrevocably wrong. She could feel it in the air, in the way her skin prickled as her fingers brushed against Samantha’s.

Kathleen found herself unable to shake the words Takumi and Tomoya had spoken earlier. Each hour that passed since their revelation only deepened the truth she had been unwilling to accept.

The once-familiar woman before her, whose soul had been bound to the realms of both time and circumstance, now lay before her as nothing more than an empty shell. Takumi’s careful explanation, Tomoya’s anxious tone, all of it had reverberated in her mind, carving away at the stubborn disbelief that had initially taken root.