Chapter 16: The Last Step
The sky had no color anymore.
Not gray.
Not blue.
Just… blank.
Shiro walked alone down the road that should have led to school. But the street was unfamiliar now. Houses shifted shape when he looked away. Streetlights bent over like trees. The pavement cracked in pulsing veins beneath his feet.
He didn't sleep the night before.
He hadn't eaten in days.
But he wasn't tired.
He wasn't hungry.
He was just… empty.
Like something inside had been peeled out and replaced with fog.
At some point, he found himself at the edge of the woods again.
He didn't remember deciding to go there.
He didn't have to.
It had been calling him for days now—no, weeks. Maybe his whole life.
The trees whispered his name as he stepped through.
Shiro…
Each step sank deeper. The leaves turned black. The roots clawed at his shoes.
His reflection walked beside him in every puddle.
Sometimes ahead of him.
Sometimes behind.
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But always smiling.
The shrine stood where it always had.
Except now it was broken.
Split wide like a jaw, stone steps cracked and crooked. Moss dropped from its edges like blood. The air was thick with the smell of iron and rot.
He walked up the stairs.
Each one a memory.
The day his mother yelled at him for crying too loudly.
The first time he felt like he didn't exist in a room full of people.
The laughter of classmates that was never meant for him.
The silence of Daikis back when he walked away.
The sound of his own thoughts screaming in the dark.
He reached the top.
And she was there.
The girl from before.
Or rather… what was left of her.
Pale skin.
Hollow eyes.
Veins like vines wrapped around her throat and wrists, holding her in place. Her body dangled above the shrine gate, crucified by memory.
She smiled.
Welcome back, she said. You never left.
He didn't respond.
He stepped forward.
She tilted her head.
Why do you keep pretending? she whispered.
You never existed past this place.
His body felt light.
He couldn't feel his hands.
His breath fogged in reverse, being pulled inward instead of out.
She drifted toward him, arms open like an embrace.
Let me take it away, she said.
All the noise.
All the thoughts.
All the pain.
Shiro looked at her.
Then down at himself.
His skin was flaking off like ash.
From his arms. His chest. His face.
Pieces of himself turned to dust and floated upward, into the sky that no longer remembered what color was.
He took one more step.
And she kissed his forehead.
Good boy, she said.
And everything shattered.
He stood in a hallway of mirrors again.
Except now, all the mirrors were broken.
Except one.
At the end.
The one from before.
He walked to it slowly, bare feet over glass.
He looked inside.
And saw a life.
One where he had never gone into the forest.
Where he was just a kid in a classroom.
Where he had friends.
Where he laughed.
Where Daiki still called him his best friend.
Where the pain was just… dull. Manageable.
He reached toward it.
But his fingers passed through.
And it was cold.
So cold it burned.
The girl's voice echoed behind him.
That one was never yours.
He turned.
And she drove her hand into his chest.
Not violently.
Just… gently.
Like returning something to the soil.
And everything—
everything—
stopped.
His body was found three days later at the base of the shrine steps.
Collapsed.
Eyes wide open.
Smiling.
His heart had stopped.
No wounds.
No trauma.
The coroner called it sudden cardiac arrest.
No one believed it.
Daiki didn't speak at the funeral.
But he cried.
Harder than anyone else.
And when he stood in front of the shrine months later, alone, he swore he saw Shiro's reflection in the rain.
Still smiling.
Still watching.
Waiting for someone else to listen.
The END…… ?
