I can hear the voices of insects.
Insects?
*gasa gasa* I brush through the tall grass…
A child of young age earnestly climbs a leniently inclined path in the pathless brush.
Is that me?
I wonder if that’s me.
A world, submerged in a deep green.
A silent forest, removed from village or personage.
A scene of which I have no memory.
However, there’s a mysterious sense of nostalgia…
Ah, that’s right.
I’ve seen this landscape before.
This is a dream. A vestigial dream.
A vestige of the dream I saw, cradled by a train rushing through the midst of twilight.
What’s different is my point of view.
The child is being pulled by someone, by the hand.
The one being led must be me, I guess.
I have… sensation.
I have it, yet now, as if I am a mere spectator, I’m staring at that child’s back.
I wonder who’s pulling my hand?
That person is wearing something like a kimono.
A small, pale hand.
It’s not the hand of an adult man.
That person… turns to face me.
You mustn’t…
Ah, again.
It’s this will again.
Ahead of here is a large tree.
And we are hurrying in that direction.
Why would you… stop us?
You mustn’t…
It drapes itself before my eyes.
Like layers of thin silk, one sheet after another, a pale curtain of light smothers and hides the dream world.
Don’t get in the way. What mustn’t I do?
You mustn’t…
Even if you tell me that…
Why shouldn’t I?
—: You mustn’t, Kei-chan…
Accompanied by a voice, a light lashes out.
Kei: -Eh!?