It wasn't like they said anything.
Jeremy didn't come out and call me crazy. Suzuki didn't confront me with some after-school lecture. They just… changed.
We used to hang out every day.
Now it was "I've got errands" or "Need to study" or just plain silence in the group chat.
It wasn't anger. It was fear.
I could see it in the way Jeremy avoided eye contact. In how Suzuki started walking on the far side of the street. Like I'd become radioactive.
And maybe I had.
The Gate still whispered.
At night. During class. In the silence between words. I would zone out mid-conversation, blink, and find people staring. Like they could sense something gnawing at the back of my skull.
But I didn't care anymore.
Because something bigger was happening.
---
The Reports Begin
They started popping up on the news.
"Sudden Psychotic Break in Student – Claims to See 'Gateway of Light'"
"Unexplainable Murders in Setagaya – Victims Show No External Wounds"
"High Schoolers Found in Trance-Like State – Authorities Baffled"
Dad tried to keep calm. Pretended it was just noise. But I saw the way his hands shook when he read the articles. He wasn't surprised.
He recognized it.
I started digging into his files—covertly, quietly. There were photos from years ago. Files marked with strange runes. A list of incidents dating back decades. All tied to one thing:
The Gate of Truth.
And always… a name redacted in black ink.
"Subject Z–00."
My mom?
---
In Another City…
Someone else was watching.
A woman—mid 40s, sharp eyes, streaks of gray in her otherwise jet-black hair. Her badge read "H. Shimizu." Her office was filled with case files, string maps, pinned photos—like a detective's cliché wet dream. But this was no TV drama.
She was real.
And she was blood.
Half-sister to my mother.
A name my father never spoke.
An agent working under an obscure division of Japan's National Defense called The Occult Incident Response Bureau (OIRB)—a department so buried, even most politicians didn't know it existed.
And she had eyes on me.
---
Back in My Head
I stopped dreaming like normal people do.
Now I stood before the Gate every night. It didn't talk anymore. It judged. I could feel its gaze—cold, unblinking, ancient. Like it was waiting for me to prove something.
I started seeing signs of it in real life. Glitches in reflections. Time slowing around certain people. One teacher looked at me and just… dropped. Like the weight of existence crushed her skull.
I didn't even blink.
Suzuki asked if I was okay. That old concern in her voice.
I wanted to say yes.
But I said nothing.
Because part of me… didn't want her around anymore. Not out of hate. Out of some primal instinct. Like if she stayed too close, she'd get pulled into the fire. Like I was a storm growing teeth.
---
And Jeremy?
He came to me one day after school. Just stood beside me at the gate.
"Whatever's happening to you," he said, "we're not ready to stop you. But if it comes to that…"
He didn't finish.
He didn't have to.
I just nodded.
And for a moment, I almost felt human again.
But that moment passed.
And I turned my back.
Because deep down—I knew this distance wasn't their choice.
It was the Gate's.
It wanted me alone.