From somewhere distant in the black swirls of my sleep, I think I hear Shizuka's voice. It whispers in through my head formless like a ghost. Maybe there's a ghost in the box. Maybe I'm the ghost.

But I know I had terminated her contract along with mine. I would no longer be perceiving the world in symphonic embryonic union with hers. I would not hear her voice again. It saddened me, yet I knew it had to be done at the time. Maybe I shouldn't have. But her existence couldn't just be surrendered to an organization on my watch, with my body as the channel. I would not give her away - us away - to someone else.

But yet, there it is again, it's still here.

It's dark, it says.

It sounds like me. But sounds like Shizuka. And sounds like Shirayuki. I freeze and say nothing.

I've come to like the dark. Do you like the dark?

I say nothing.

The dark is something I've become used to. There are the extremes of darkness and of light. There's nothing in between. Either right or wrong. It makes more sense to believe you're wrong sometimes. You're the devil, the darkness tells us. It's easier that way.

I say nothing.

You just have to listen and let them do whatever they want to you. It's better that way. No need for anything else.

I say nothing.

Just be a part of the darkness. Even in the light, I try not to see. There's nothing to see really.

It sounds like me, but it sounds like Shizuka.

How long have you been here?

I have trouble understanding. So for a while I don't reply. There's not even the sound of breathing. I am almost certain these words had always existed, since the beginning of time, and had no definite source. I touch my fingers to my lips. Finally, I break the silence: not long, but it seems long, like an eternity had passed, I say. But I don't know if I'm saying anything at all. My voice feels inadequate and small in the darkness.

Is this how they treat all their prisoners? I ask.

There's much worse to come.

Like what?

You become nothing, you become a ghost. A real ghost. Nothing left inside you. Absolutely nothing. They drain you. With special ways. That's what they do to people who have something alive within them.

Are you a ghost?

Hmm, I don't know. Like I said you become nothing, a real nothing, not some pretense or impression of nothingness. Nothingness is a confusing thing sometimes. Sometimes you can think you are nothing or you are in a sea of nothingness, but it's not really nothing. But these people, they can really make you nothing. You lose everything. So I don't even really understand the concept of ghost or what that means. It just happened to come from my mouth.

If it came from your mouth, surely there's still something remaining inside you. You don't sound stupid, you sound quite eloquent for a nothing.

Maybe, but impressions can be deceiving. I don't know anymore, in my mind, it's just black like this place. I'm just describing what's in my mind. Which is nothing.

There's some silence. Then I respond: but simply talking about this nothingness in words is something already.

Sure, maybe I'm not completely nothing yet, since they are still keeping me here. I guess their job isn't done. Maybe in a while, I don't know how long, I will really be a nothing and then you will be able to tell. A pile of silent flesh. But by that time, you'll probably be on your way too. So you wouldn't understand. We all just take our turn.

What would you do when you become nothing?

I don't know, function as nothing. The world is made up of nothing and someone has to do the job.

That's a lot of nothing if you think about it, I say.

Sure is, my companion says, but the greatest nothing is the nothing in your mind.

You don't remember anything?

No. I don't know how long I've been here anymore. A long time. A really long long time. Maybe since I was born, since I don't remember anything.

Yet, there must be a reason why you are here. Some sort of crime or something you've committed no? You don't remember it at all?

No. Not at all.

A pause.

I somehow can't see that happening. There must be something. It might not be visible right now, but I dare to think, not everything can be taken away, is what I manage to say.

No response.

I look around in the darkness but of course, there's nothing to be seen. I clench my fingers into a fist just to make sure I am still alive. I am still here.

What about you? Why are you here? the voice says.

I stop and think.

Why am I here? I ripped apart some papers. That was the last line I had crossed. I pause and think some more. I rack my brains for a further elaborate answer but for a long while things escape me. Like chasing long lost legends from an unfamiliar ancient past.

Then there's something in the distance, like a glint of a silver coin in murky water. It's tumbling, soon to disappear from sight towards the bottom of a bottomless sea. It's there, though for a split second, and I reach for it. I miss. No. I reach again, diving for it. This time I touch it but it drifts away. I swim after it.

And then in my hands is a porcelain cup. I pull with all my might and slowly it comes closer. Soon enough, I can make out its form and I draw it to my lips. I drink from it -

Then I say: I'm here because I once had a connection with someone. I loved her. I loved her a lot. But I had never remembered it. I had never realized it. I couldn't, maybe. And I doubted and had no faith. I failed to see what I've had there. What we've had. I didn't hold on to it. I threw it away. Then I had been stripped down to nothing because they were afraid of me, of us. I lost a piece of myself one at a time, taken away by a greater force, pushing me this way and that, all the connections I had left have been severed, and they were about to take all of her too, all of her, and it would be my fault. All that I've left now is this cup of caramel chai tea latte. Funny isn't it? That's all I remember. No images, no nothing, I just have this strange concept.

For a while there's silence. I don't know where this person is or if there is even anyone in here in the first place. I listen and listen to the darkness and hear nothing. No breathing, no movement. As if what I had said shattered the distinction between fantasy and reality, so that the byproduct of the mixture can no longer be sustained - nothing remains. Everything slips away like sand down a slope. Once again I can't conclude if I'm conscious or not.

I sit there and drown. Receding into the corner where I had been. Sinking, sinking, in a cold black sea.

Then I hear a something snap, something sickening and violent, but whether it was audibly or in my head I couldn't tell. From where I couldn't tell either. It might have echoed. I hear something akin to a whimper. Do I know you? The voice says. It's weak and subtle. It might not exist at all. Some far off source. Almost inaudible. Naoki? Is that you?

I struggle to listen but things continually fade away as soon as I reach to obtain them, to make sense of them. There is no tangible existence here floating in the listless sea of consciousness and the folds of the human collective.

Naoki?

"Naoki?"

The voice is right next to my ear now, choking in disbelief. A puff of hot breath in my ear. Something had moved and I feel warmer. There is without a doubt now. It is much too loud and focused to be something imagined from within my sleep. It sounds weary and thin.

My lips tremble. I reach out gently and slowly, and my fingers touch warm skin. She gasps. Then shudders and flinches. She seems to inch away - but I grab her by the shoulders and pull her closer. She falls on me, and I feel her weight crush me, like a limp corpse.

And I know. It's her. It's her. It's her. I am shaking. But I steady my voice. "Shizuka."

I feel her tears before I hear her break down, body racked in sobs. And in response, I start to cry. Like fresh rain, it pours hot and unrestrained, drenching my shirt, with her tears or mine, I don't know. Her body is solid and warm, and seems so real, and real, and real, no abstract concept, no elusive perceptions, no fabricated reality, no intangible substance, I can touch her, I can hear her, I can feel her heartbeat, and the flow of unrelenting emotion, unclogged and unobstructed almost a physical force, fills the black box with, something. She's here. And it's all that matters.