Chapter 3 – Echoes That Aren’t Mine

The classroom buzzed with the murmur of the morning.

The students talked, laughed, scribbled notes, but Aoi remained in silence. His gaze slid toward the polished window.

The sunlight reflected his face—empty, tired.

And then… his reflection blinked.

A second too late.

—"Aoi… Did you have another weird dream?"

Rina's voice broke through the noise.

He didn't look at her.

He didn't dare.

—"It wasn't a dream," he murmured.

Rina leaned in, worry in her eyes.

—"Are you still… seeing things?"

Before he could answer, the bell rang.

Aoi stood up and the students moved to their seats.

But in the glass behind him… a flicker.

Yui's face, for just an instant, appeared in the reflection.

Aoi froze.

Later, at his house.

The bathroom mirror was cracked with silence.

Aoi closed the door and stared into his own eyes.

His hands trembled, and breathing felt borrowed.

—"If she's still trapped in there… then I have to go back."— Aoi told himself.

The air around him went still.

And then... his reflection looked back at him.

This time… like a camera, like it was watching him.

—"You're not ready… not yet."

The voice was soft, unfamiliar, but it was his—inside the mirror.

A crack crossed the mirror.

Aoi stepped back and a drop of blood fell from his nose.

The Threshold had changed.

Aoi and Kureha returned to the world of the Echoes.

They moved atop a floating platform like a shard of glass sailing through an infinite sea of memories.

Around them: floating fragments of lives that weren't their own...

A crying child,

a scream behind a door,

faces Aoi didn't recognize—and yet somehow felt like he did.

—"The Echoes don't belong only to you,"— said Kureha.

—"We all carry something that refuses to die."

She placed her hand over a memory and it glowed, replaying a moment of pain that wasn't hers.

—"These… memories?" Aoi asked.

—"Echoes from others," she confirmed.

—"When someone falls too deep, their pulse breaks… and blends."

A dark figure crept across a nearby fragment.

Kureha shifted her stance and drew a dagger made of pure crystal.

—"Get ready,"— she said.—"This one… isn't yours."

The Echo was a twisted figure.

Semi-human, made of broken faces, overlapping voices in chaos.

It screamed, laughed, and wept—all at once.

It lunged at them, wild and relentless.

Kureha pushed Aoi aside.

—"Link to the pulse!"— she shouted.—"You can't fight it with brute force!"

Aoi closed his eyes.

He listened—not just to the monster's madness… but to its pain.

His jacket responded, crystallizing over his arms.

He stepped forward.

—"You're not me…"— he whispered.—"But you're suffering too."

From his chest, a resonant wave emerged.

It wasn't anger, it wasn't fear—

it was connection.

The Echo stopped, trembled, and shattered.

Light burst from its fragments, revealing a single memory:

A boy was alone at the train station.

The rain fell softly, as if the sky, too, knew that something had ended.

In his small hands, a letter—

wrinkled, stained in one corner.

He trembled, but didn't let go.

The words written on it weren't his.

They were from his mother.

"Forgive me for not knowing how to stay."

"I wanted to protect you from myself."

"You deserve more light than I could ever give."

Each word was a new cut to his chest.

The letter had arrived that morning, with no return address.

Just his name, written in ink that seemed to barely resist fading.

He didn't cry.

He didn't know how.

The adults around him walked by without looking.

A child with a letter wasn't enough to stop the world.

But he stayed there,

under the rain,

waiting for a train that never came.

As if he could return the letter to the sender.

As if that would be enough to bring her back.

And as the rain soaked his clothes,

a single drop fell on the word "mom,"

and erased it.

Then… nothing.

The realm trembled.

Aoi fell to his knees.

His body ached, but something inside him felt lighter.

Kureha helped him to his feet.

—"Why wasn't that Echo… evil?" he asked.

—"Some Echoes don't want to hurt," she replied.

—"They just want to be seen… before they disappear."

Then a sound…

Low…

Deep…

Terrifying.

Something had heard Aoi's resonance.

Something ancient.

In the distance, a figure emerged—

faceless, immense, wrapped in hundreds of Echoes like living chains.

Kureha's voice turned to a whisper.

—"No…"

—"He… has awakened."

Back in his room, the world was silent.

Aoi looked at the mirror.

There, written on it—one word:

> HELP HER

He turned to his nightstand.

There, where nothing had been before:

a crystalline stethoscope, identical to Kureha's.

His breath caught.

"If the Echoes can cross into this world…

then maybe… I can too."

---

Preview of Next Chapter:

Aoi discovers that someone else at his school has also been touched by the Threshold.

What happens when other people's reflections become your enemies?