He hastily ushers me back out on the street with my paper cup of coffee. You must be on your way, he says, before they find you. I attempt to ask him what he meant by a key or searching for a concept. Is Shizuka the key or is there something else? What is beyond the gate?

"There's no time to waste." His voice sounds weaker and weaker by the moment. It shakes deep in his throat. So do his hands and his cane like a leaf in the wind. "You can't stay here any longer."

I ask him where I should go and he tells me I should already know. Then he shuts the door on me as if he's boarding up for a storm and hangs up the sign that says it's closed. A Seven Eleven that is closed is quite a sight to see.

I take a walk around the perimeter of the block, drinking my coffee. There is no sign of the brown tabby cat. It is the last thing that had given me any sense of hope. Even this old man and his Paganini carried no answers to questions. I must find some key, find some concept, find Shizuka from somewhere. It grows vaguer than clearer. The deeper into the rabbit hole, the more you get lost, I hear Shirayuki's girlish voice whisper.

As I make my way down the road, I realize I'm heading in the direction of my university campus. It might be an unconscious habit. When in doubt, revert to the old. In my mind, there is little left to hold on to. Like I've travelled into a vacuum in space, orbiting or gripped by some gravitational force without my knowing. All I can see is black space. I am moving somewhere or not moving at all, but I can't see where I am going or where I must go.

Shizuka's disappearance had been too sudden. She left a tremendous vacancy. There is no time to adjust or transition. There is no break up process. She had simply packed up and left. Right when we had been the closest to something. Something she had in mind. So utterly attainable yet in an instant, gone from our grasp. If only she had told me beforehand, I might know what to do now.

I don't know whether I should be angry with her or should I pity myself. There is nothing but the feeling of emptiness. It's a dull ache. I finish my coffee and crumple it up into a ball. I pocket the trash, like it might contain an answer some time from now and shiver in my dress shirt.

I step into the first department store I see and wander through the sections. It isn't a large place so I can keep an eye on people as I look around. No one seems to be casting any glances over. In fact, it's as if I'm invisible. I don't even receive acknowledgement from staff. I purchase a discounted black suit jacket. Something simple and clean. Just in case I would need some sort of a disguise. It's relatively easy to find a cheap suit my size: I have a typical build at a typical height. I'm about to pull out my credit card when I realize it would all be tracked and recorded. Digits, data, code, encrypted and fed into that widespread network with no end. An entire network that must be part of something called the "System". I had never found out exactly what the System is. The capitalist system? The governance of the proletariat? The electronic digitization of individuals? The Collective and the Process? The ownership of each citizen? Or something more? I pay in cash instead. It empties out my wallet entirely.

I put on the jacket and stop by a bank machine next and withdraw almost all of the savings left. They will know I've been here but I would be long gone. As long as I don't break Etiquette by a massive margin, the Images shouldn't pick up on my trail either. I put the money into envelopes, fold them and slip them into different pockets. I realize I had no notion of what to do if my savings were to run out. I had reduced myself from ever thinking much in advance. At first, it had been a stable looped cycle where I never recognized beginning or ends, cause or effect, in which all necessities happened to be covered and each day would pass in uniform. On the other hand, Shizuka would know what to do and all I had to do was trust her like some sort of crutch. But now, surely there was nothing left. I am on my own.

I try to remember that and embed it into my mind. I repeat the phrase over and over. I am on my own, I am on my own.

It's about twelve o'clock, a block from campus, when I see the first pair of Images pass by. I have no doubt that they are fully Processed Images. There's that emptiness in their face and features. Identical. Nothing memorable about them at all. Just phantoms of humanity. Unnatural like they had been molded out of wax. I can feel the hairs on my arms lift. It's surprising to see two walking by in broad daylight, as if they are on a stroll. Their steps are heavy and strained but they are in no rush. I quickly step into a ramen stop and focus my attention on the ticket machine. I am just an employee seeking lunch. They don't seem to notice. They move past, until they fade away from view.

I order a tonkotsu ramen with chashu and a glass of water and sit down facing the wall to eat. All around me are other men on their own, in suits or shirts, a college boy here and there. No one speaks. I try to still my heart rate and obsess myself with my phone. I need to access my situation from a new point of view. I trace my steps backwards. The first thing that comes to mind are the texts I had received and ignored. If I've entered through a rabbit hole, there's a chance I'm in a new world of some sort. One where Shizuka has disappeared. On the other hand, there's Shirayuki who I seem to have met in April of 2015. There may be a new context, a new structure to familiarize myself with. Shizuka had provided one structure, perhaps one interpretation of the system. I had understood and accepted it as fact. But hadn't I existed in a completely different understanding of the world before I had met her? Whether it was ignorance or not, I had seen things in a different way. Maybe I had never seen things at all in general. But there was a sense of reality. Something I rooted myself into. Just like I had started to root into the world Shizuka painted. At that point in time, it had been that one constructed reality. I slurp my noodles.

I wonder if there are multiple versions of reality. Multiple interpretations of the system that somehow are all real. I have no way of telling what it all means, or what is true, but yet again, there's something changing. Either the world around me has changed or something within me has changed. When I've finished, I return the tray and bowl and look outside and find nothing out of the ordinary. No one is following me. I am just a speck of dust here.

I consider the possibility that in this context, I am not a fugitive on the run, and that the System has no interest in me. But based on the initial presumption that I am an Anomaly and there are still Images, there's bound to be something that's unusual about me. It would be presumptuous to believe that being aware of so much is normal. I think therefore I am. I'm thinking still.

I shrug on a hoodie over my dress shirt and carry my suit. I need a shower. There are facilities available on campus. I would also have to consider where I would be staying tonight. Returning to my apartment is not an option. The Cause had located it and the Sounds hadn't been far either. Come to think of it, I wonder why the Sounds haven't been ahead of us. Why have they always been behind, even further behind than the Cause? The more I think about it, the stranger it feels.

I decide to shrug off that train of thought. In either case, the Sounds are after Shizuka, for breaking her conduct as an espre. I have nothing to do with it now. In fact, I am determined to have nothing to do with it for now. I would have to worry about myself. She had created a vacancy within me that seeks answers. Unless it's filled, there is no way I can consider her situation. If I look within me, I would be able to see a massive black hole, like a well leading deep into the ground, where there is no light. And at the bottom, I'm unsure what I would find. I hope she will be alright; and that I will be alright.

When I step on to campus, I notice several things strange about it. There, trees seem to be blooming, little buds are just starting to appear like thousands of bugs clinging desperately to branches. Upside down, downside up, sideways, pointing in all directions. The air isn't any warmer but there they are: buds. It doesn't seem like anyone else notices, so I pretend not to notice.

On the other hand, there seems to be a gathering of students in the promenade courtyard that joins various faculties and buildings together. There is a bronze statue in the middle of a guy who founded the place. But this gathering isn't ordinary because there are many more students than there would be for a club or some excursion of the sort. In any case, they would be made up of students who look like they're ready to move. They would probably take a walk to their club rooms, grab drinks and dinner or begin to conduct surveys, hand out flyers or posters like Ahn Mi Hyun had, head to a venue to perform their dance routines and so on. But it isn't the case with this group. They look like they are ready to sit down and go to sleep right there. There are perhaps fifty or sixty of them, all gathered in silence, backpacks and handbags set down on the ground, staring at the statue, as if it's telling them something. Some are standing, some are sitting. Entirely entranced. My instinct tells me not to listen in. There is a sense of urgency within me to press on. I continue along, with the rest of the students who have just returned from a lunch break. If no one makes a fuss about something, I shouldn't either. Without Shizuka, I need to keep a low profile as much as possible.

It dawns on me that it's exactly as the Emoto man had said. I needed to fall into routine, and blend in with the crowd. Don't resist the flow, he had said. Whether we had listened to him immediately or not, I have ended up in this position. It's as if there is some powerful cosmic force in control of everything, tugging me on a leash, no matter how much I would prefer to the turn the other way. If this were a visual novel game, I would perhaps be condemned to pick certain routes. Multiple paths split and converge, but still I'm led on. Either the answer had already been determined, or some more omniscient being already knew the answer I would pick and had arranged the path ahead according to it.