Volume 0: Ren One

The story began on a cold afternoon in December.

The setting was on the rooftop of the local high school. Ren stood there alone — fidgety from both the tension and the cold — as he constantly checked his watch while noting every passing second. 4:42 pm, 23 seconds in. Tick, tock, tick, tock.

He breathed in, he breathed out, white clouds forming with his every breath. Ren believed that the chances of failure were extremely low.

First off, he lined up his assets inside his head. He had the looks. The confidence. The money. And most importantly, the brain. Everything a girl could ask for, he could offer at one wave of his hand.

4:42 pm, 50 seconds in.

Ren knew they got fairly well enough. They always crossed paths at the library, her silently reading her books at the corner while him hosting a group study for his friends. One thing or another led them to exchange sneaking glances at each other. After a few weeks, they began exchanging greetings, albeit very short ones. And before they knew it, they were comfortable talking about their favorite books with each other.

4:43 pm, 17 seconds in.

Ren understood that he was taking a risk. He knew that the balance between their presupposed friendship was fragile. An event like this would surely change their relationship for better or for worse. But he was desperate for change. And spurred as well by his meddlesome childhood friend, this moment was the only time he had.

4:43 pm, 56 seconds in.

Ren's heart tightened up as soon as he heard hurried footsteps climbing up on the stairs to the rooftop. But the footsteps mysteriously stopped right at the door — paused — and turned back running as well.

Ren sighed nervously at the intense pressure released by that false alarm.

But his respite was not to last. The footsteps came back, more gingerly than before, and the door to the rooftop opened with a creak.

4:44 pm, 44 seconds in.

“...Ren? About that letter...” a soft bell-like voice called out for him.

She was finally here. Soft brown hair carefully braided into pigtails, a heavy coat over her uniform, and a book clutched within her arms — it was his one true love.

Without further ado, his spilled out all his feelings and emotions into this one moment in time.

“I love you! Please go out with me!”

4:44 pm, 50 seconds in.

“I don't like you. I like someone else, and it happened that he isn't you. But thank you anyways.”

She left just as fast as she arrived, leaving Ren all alone in the cold.

These were the events that happened a year ago. Aside from the unbearable indifference about this whole situation, the next thought that came into Ren was how a shame it was for his surprise to go to waste like this.

This is how our story began.

[ Prologue: Gone and Back ]

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Four strange students emerged from the rooftop's door, wearily carrying a heavy-looking box to the center.

“Careful! Careful!”

“Hey! Lift it up a little bit to your side.”

“I know what I'm doing, four eyes!”

“Just a little more push!”

“Here we go!”

And as soon as they safely placed it on the floor, everyone simultaneously gave out a sigh of relief. Their arms felt like rubber, and their legs gave out and made them all drop to the floor as well.

“Ha... Come on, up to your feet!” the student council president, Rosellier, called out to everyone as he forced himself to stand. He was tall, and his glasses made him look more like an intellectual, so he looked like everyone's leader. “Lunch break won't last forever!”

Although reluctantly, the rest went back to their feet and began unboxing their cargo. Another box — made with iron sheets — revealed itself, and everyone lifting that cover together revealed the machinery's wire-filled guts.

Ren unfurled a roll of blueprint on the ground and gave it a quizzical look. “Everything looks fine to me.”

Ros gave his friend a suspicious glare. “Ren, last time you said that we almost blew up the whole school.”

“Don't be such a scaredy cat, Ros. Have a little more confidence in me,” Ren replied with a smug smile. Seeing that Ros wasn’t buying it, he folded. “No? Okay okay, let's do some checks.”

They began working on their own parts of the machine. They double checked every wire and circuit and made sure that everything was where it was supposed to be.

“Hey, you think this will work?” Ros asked, trying to make some small talk with Ren as they both meticulously checked for loose wires.

Ren paused, thinking about it seriously. He then came into a sound answer. “Theoretically, it should. Realistically, it won't. But it's my design, so it will work. Probably.”

“I've never seen you this unsure of yourself, you know? Even since you were kids. I mean, I've seen you run away from home, and you were never this unsure. It gives me the creeps.”

Ren went back to his work, but not without trying to alleviate his friend’s fears. “Failure isn't a real thing, you know? It's a state of mind. A concept we created to explain stuff that doesn't go our way. Trust me, I know what I'm doing. In fact, let me tell you what will happen in a few more minutes. The box's gonna work, you're gonna get the recognition that you want, Ken's gonna be exempt from school for the rest of his life and Yuu's gonna drown buying his... figurines. When I'm in charge, in that brief moment, I am a god.”

It was a bold declaration by his longtime childhood friend. But Ros felt that Ren always had good intentions in his heart, even if it wasn’t obvious. “Yeah. Yeah, that's right. Just as you have that unfounded confidence in yourself, I've got confidence in my work as well.”

A short guy with wild blonde hair came in between their talk. His name was Ken, and he looked like the kind of student who smoked cigarettes behind the school building with his other delinquent friends. But he wouldn't be here if it wasn't for his boss, Ren.

“Boss, the regulator's busted. What's next?” he asked, showing a circuit board in his hands.

Ros turned to Ren with a worried look. “Please tell me you predicted this. I'm losing what little confidence I have with every passing moment.”

Ken, for whatever reason, took that as an insult to himself. “Hey four eyes, are you telling that I'm at fault here?” he shouted.

Ros wouldn’t be outdone. “I wasn't, but now I will.Your kind's only good at destroying things. I bet if you got lost and went back to kicking trash cans, we'd be done here in no time.”

“What'd you say? Bastard, I'll kill you!”

“Try it, blonde freak. I'll teach you not to mess with the people above you.”

Ros adjusted his glasses and Ken cracked his knuckled, but in the midst of this Ren was unaffected. He took a second to think of an alternative solution for the broken regulator, then called over Yuu who was fiddling with the wires. Everything about him was average, maybe except for his slightly strange hobbies.

“Yes?” Yuu asked with a tilt of his head.

“Can we build a new regulator on time?”

Yuu took the circuit board and looked at it with his trained eye. “Let me see... harmonic signature set at 1233458. No good, the circuitry's busted. I don't think we'll be able to do anything about it for now.”

It was bad news, but Ren wouldn’t be stopped now. “No worries. We'll just manually regulate it. I'll handle that. We'll have Ros and Ken monitor the data and make sure nothing's going to go boom. Yuu, do the final checks and turn on the machine.”

“Got it,” Yuu replied as he returned to his battle station.

Ken, hearing his boss’ orders, temporarily backed away from his staredown with Ros. “...Tsk. I'm gonna sock your face next time.”

“Sure thing,” Ros replied with a smile. His expression immediately turned serious as he faced Ren. “I hope you know what you're doing.”

“Of course.”

Everyone scattered to their own task. The time was right, and everything was at place. They carefully placed the box's iron cover back, with multiple wires sticking out from the bottom towards their portable computer, three car batteries, a small switchboard and the manual regulator.

“Beginning the first run of the Harmonics Box!” Ren shouted, signaling the beginning of a new age.

As soon as Yuu flipped a switch, a low hum filled the rooftop. Ren raised the feed and entered the harmonic signature in the manual regulator. Gradually, the hum grew louder and louder, to the point where it hurt their eardrums. It felt as if bees were crammed inside their skulls. Everyone instinctively covered their ears in hopes of easing the pain.

“Ros! Ken! Anything unusual?” Ren shouted, trying to carry his voice over the hum.

“Everything is just as we predicted!” Ros replied, his eyes never leaving the monitor.

“We predicted this!?”

Ken shook his head. “The numbers, boss! But this noise, no!”

It wasn't over, not yet. There was one more switch to flip. The flip that would determine if the Harmonics Box was a revolutionary tool that would change the world or a piece of junk. One more step.

A wave of nausea hit Ren that drove him to his knees. He tried to wipe his face to clear his mind, but his shaky hands were instead stained with blood. His nose was bleeding. His whole body shook as his world shook.

He felt fear, a primal fear of what he created. For the first time, he felt that this machine should not have been born to this world. But he was a scientist at heart, and no secrets of the universe could be kept from him. Curiosity took over his soul as he raised the final signal.

“Do it, Yuu! The final switch!”

“Here we go!”

The sound of the switch rang throughout the whole rooftop.

A blinding flash of light burst forth from the box. Everything was engulfed in white for a moment.

And suddenly, everything died down. The noise and the light disappeared as if it was never there in the first place, and the machine was as dead as a rock.

The four students froze in shock, their minds trying to comprehend the events that just unfolded. The first one to snap out of it was Ros, who fell down on his butt.

“...Where'd that light come from? Nobody placed some hidden light bulb in there, right?”

“Prez, light won't seep out from an iron box,” Yuu replied, still rubbing his ears from the pain. His reply awarded him with a chop in the head.

“I'm not asking for the obvious.”

Ren also snapped out of it and checked the computer. Everything was showing that the box was indeed turned off. Perhaps there was a mistake in the calculations? A mess up in the wires? Something else? Whatever it was, there was still one fact that couldn't have been made any clearer: the machine didn't work.

“It should've worked. It should've worked!” Ren cursed at the heavens, stomping on the rooftop floor in anger to these unexpected results.

Ros patted his shoulder, trying to console his angry friend. “Not everything works out in your favor. Just like the time you ran away from home. Or the time you got stuck with a perpetually drunk Russian. Or the time you got rejected by your first love. And the time you failed your final exams just because of that. Here, a tissue. Your nose's bleeding.”

Ren frowned. “...Thanks. For the record, I did not fail my finals.”

“Sure you didn't, buddy.”

“Ouch!” Ken reflexively backed away from the box after trying to touch it with his bare finger. “This thing's freaking hot!”

“Let it cool down for a while,” Ren said, finally collecting himself. “Today was unfruitful, but there is always next time.”

His words did not please Ros. “Next time? Ren, don't tell me you're planning on doing this again?”

Still, Ren insisted. “I don't know about you people, but I will not allow all my efforts to go to waste.”

Yuu went to Ren's side and showed him the busted regulator. “I believe we should try fixing this before the next test.”

“...So be it. I'll fix it myself, as well as do some more minor modifications to the machine. As for today, I believe we're done.”

With that, their first test ended up in a failure. They carried the heavy box back to where they hid it in the school's storage room, three floors down, with heavy hearts. No matter their differences, they all had high hopes for this day. But there was always next time, and that was what Ren believed.

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Unfortunately, the regulator wouldn't be fixed until three days. Parts had to be shipped from overseas, and Ren wasn't too intent on using cheap alternatives. This was a mark of a true engineer.

In the meantime, everyone got a well-deserved three-day break. Ren used this time to reviewed the blueprints once more to see if any modifications were needed. He also needed to do something about that mysterious light. His first hypothesis was that a dangerous amount of energy was released as they turned it on, and the light and buzzing was a byproduct of that. That could have explained why the machine overheated as well. But that was impossible. The law of conservation of energy stated that energy cannot be created nor destroyed, and so a “dangerous amount of energy” couldn't have come from three car batteries. Or could it? At the very least, they were not creating a machine that could do so.

On the second day, the ideas stopped flowing, so Ren decided that he deserved a break as well. He went out in the middle of the night to the convenience store to stock up on junk food and iced tea, a force of habit he had ever since he ran away from his family. The feeling of having somewhere to go, even if it was just the convenience store, was comforting. On the way back, Ren caught sight of Ken all alone on a bench in the park, wistfully staring at the stars with a cigarette in his mouth.

Ren took a seat beside him, neither one of them giving out a greeting. This silent acknowledgment of each other's presence was the norm for these two strange souls.

“The stars never change..”

Another long pause between them.

"Here, get some."

Ren opened one of his grubs for the both of them to feast on. Soon the park was filled with the sound of the chill winter winds and the munching of deliciously unhealthy junk. To pass the time, Ren traced the smoke from Ken's cigarette as it rose up above. It was ironic how something as soulless as smoke had more freedom than he, a human, had.

“Is there something bothering you?” Ren asked, feeling that enough time has passed.

Ken puffed his cigarette once more before replying. “Something's terribly wrong, boss. Things don't add up. I'm not sure what's wrong, but I know there's something wrong. It's a gut feeling.”

“Hmm?”

“I went home tonight boss. I saw my parents. You know how I was greeted at the door?”

“How?”

"With a smile,” Ken replied, the fear in his eyes clear as day. “A smile, boss. Those good-for-nothing bastards who did nothing all day but despise me, greeted me with a smile and a warm meal. That ain't right, that just ain't right. Just this morning we were this close to punching each other again.”

“...”

“But I don't know. Maybe they changed. But still, I feel there's something wrong. I know something's wrong. I don't know.”

Ren took a moment's time to think his words through. “When did you start feeling like this?”

“...Maybe, just maybe, that experiment we did on the rooftop. The moment that light hit, it felt so wrong. Yeah, that's where it started. That light. Can I express my honest opinion about that box?”

“Go ahead.”

“It's evil.”

That was a surprising reply from the usually wild Ken, Ren thought. What advice should he give? Clearly, he was just in shock with his parents' sudden change in behavior. If Ren's family suddenly turned normal, he'd be in shock too. Although he didn't like dealing with other's problems, Ken was still his friend. Although impossible in practice, he was still a friend.

Ren stood up from the bench, leaving his haul of snacks and iced tea for Ken.

“I don't know what I'd do if I was at your position. But I'll be around as always. And don't worry, I'll cover for you at the next run. Take a break from everything, even from school.”

Ken chuckled for the first time tonight. “That's kinda irresponsible.”

“I'm not student council of anything, so it's fine to have fun once in a while, I believe. I'll even treat you to my favorite milkshake shop.”

“Thanks, boss.”

“Your welcome.”

For a moment, the doubt disappeared from Ken's face, replaced with a subtle smile. He immediately went back to focusing on his smoke, returning the precious silence back in the park. There was no need for goodbyes, Ren just left as silently as he came.

But before he went back home, he returned to the convenience store to buy a second batch of junk food and iced tea for himself.

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On the third day, early in the morning, Ren received a message from Ros.

“Meet me on the rooftop, 10 am sharp.”

Ren left his house at around quarter to 11, as he took his time cozy on his bed arguing to himself if going was a good idea to go out on such a cold Sunday. Not only that, it has been exactly one year since he got rejected by her, so his luck today was probably abysmal as well. But after imagining poor Ros' face freezing all alone in the cold, waiting for nothing just like he had, made Ren believe that the risk was worth it. It was lightly snowing outside, so he brought an umbrella.

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Ren and the other three were used to breaking to school grounds, through a makeshift hidden backdoor at a blind spot on the wall. The rooftop as well was normally forbidden for students to enter — if not for the key they duplicated in one of their many daring heists. There, sitting on the ground with his back on the fence, was Ros. White flakes of snow gathered on top of his head, but he was too busy fiddling with his smartphone to care. He must've been playing his usual mobile game.

“What did you need me for?” Ren asked, cutting straight to the point. Ros, upon noticing Ren, paused his game and stood up, wiping the accumulated snow around his body.

“Hey. How are you feeling? I remember your nose bleeding during the test.”

“Just as I said, I'm fine. Should I greet you as well?”

Ros gave a knowing smile. “Don't bother, I know you don't like greeting people. Anyways, have you heard anything from the others?”

It was weird. Ren knew Ros wasn’t a person who would make small talk like this. “Where are you getting at, Ros? If you know I don't like greeting people, you must know as well how I don't like beating around the bush.”

“Got it,” Ros replied. As usual, his friend knew him well. “You see Ren, I found out a little side effect of our experiment the other day.”

“Hmm?”

“Here, take a look at this.”

Ros threw the newspaper at Ren, dated today. He slowly read the headline for the both of them. “...1-Year Anniversary of Mysterious Class Disappearance: Still Unsolved. What's this about?”

“A years ago at this exact same day, a whole classroom supposedly disappeared in the middle of the day. There weren't any signs of violence in the classroom, nor was anybody found in the vicinity that matched any of the students or the teacher in that class. It was like they mystically disappeared into thin air, never to be found again.”

“I admit, it's quite an interesting phenomenon,” Ren said, throwing the newspaper back to Ros. “But what does that have to do with anything?”

“Ren, this happened at our school. Not only that. You see, the classroom where these all happened? It was the classroom just beside ours, 1-B.”

Ren frowned. He didn’t like what he was hearing. “...If that was the case, then shouldn't we have heard about it already?”

“That's this thing. I called up some of our classmates this morning, and everyone seems to know about it. Even on the internet, there are tons of articles trying to make sense of the mystery. Why can't we both remember anything about it?”

Ren took his time absorbing this new information, but Ros wasn't done yet. “Ren. I have reason to believe that the Harmonic Box scrambled our memories. Maybe there is still some stuff we haven't noticed, stuff we forgot.”

He finally understood why Ros was hesitant about this topic. And rightly so, he couldn't just ignore it.

But the implications were great.

“We have to postpone the tests, just until we completely understand the phenomenon that occurs around it.”

Ren thought it over in his head, and came to a final conclusion: “...Understood.”

It was an answer that Ros didn’t expect. “I thought you'd be against it.”

“Don't be silly. I know when to stop when we have to stop. Basic scientific discipline,” Ren said. His talk with Ken resurfaced in his mind. “I've heard from Ken as well last night. If your hypothesis is correct, then he might be the most affected out of all of us.”

Although hesitantly, Ros accepted Ren’s silent favor. “...I'll check up on him as well.”

He didn't have anything more to say, so Ros wiped the accumulated snow on his head once more and headed towards the door. But before he could leave, Ren stopped him.

“...I just wanted to check on something. We are friends, ever since we were children, if I recall correctly?”

Ros took a while to understand what he was getting at. “Oh, I see. You want to compare memories. Sure. Yes, we're childhood friends, ever since we were seven.”

Ren nodded in agreement. “Well, it doesn't seem like there's anything wrong there. Remember my little sister?”

“How could I forget, she left a great impression on me. With her foot.”

“...No, the other little sister.”

“You mean the youngest one? The silent one who always stuck her nose in front of the same creepy black book?”

“.....Did I ever have younger twin sisters?”

“Not that I remember.” A thought came into Ros’ head. “Wait, did you have? I can't remember.”

“No, I did not,” Ren said while shaking his head. “Don't worry, it was just a test. Anyways, you were leaving?”

“Ah. Then.”

“Goodbye, Ros,” Ren said with a lonely smile. Ros didn’t understand, but he felt it inside his head-- something was wrong.

“...Goodbye, Ren.”

And once again Ren was left all alone, just like that day exactly one year ago. But instead of unbearable indifference, this time he was filled with both fear and determination. For a scientist, those two emotions were his only weapons against the world.

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Ren sent a message to Yuu.

“Front of shop. Now.”

With an umbrella on top of his head, Ren set out alone towards Yuu's place, where his family ran an electronics shop. Perhaps he was only friends with Yuu because of the great discounts, but it was a great friendship nevertheless.

But it wasn't Yuu waiting for him in front of the shop. The young girl stared intently at the doorknob, unsure whether she was welcome to freely enter or not. And she must have been there for quite a while, as a pile of snow has accumulated on top of her soft brown hair braided into pigtails. And as usual, she was never found without a book clutched in her arms.

Ren hardened his expression and cleared his throat. “Excuse me, I believe you're blocking the way.”

Her eyes widened, immediately recognizing him. “...Ren?”

But Ren had other plans.

“Hmm? Do I know you?”

“Ahaha, you dummy. It's me, Lily. It's been so long. I haven't seen you in the library for a while.”

Ren winced at her casual tone. She was good, but he wouldn’t be beaten. Not again. “...Lily...Lily...Yes, I remember being a regular visitor of the library once. Things are so hectic lately, I've never found the time to return.”

“Oh, is that so? Good luck with whatever hobby you're up to now.”

“Yes, thank you.”

And the conversation ended there.

Yuu finally emerged from the store with an apologetic look. “Sorry, I only read your message now. Haha, I was too busy confirming things...Lily? What are you doing here?”

Ren’s eyebrows twitched.

Lily turned to Yuu and gave him a big pout. “Yuu! You haven't been attending our club activities lately. We've all been waiting for you.”

For the first time in his life, Ren saw Lily's interested expression directed to a person. A slight blush, quivering eyes.

Ren couldn't understand, but there was something he couldn't pass up in her words. “You're in a club, Yuu?”

“Yeah,” Yuu replied. “The computer club.”

“The school had a computer club?”

“It's a fun club,” he replied, fondly reminiscing his fun memories with them. “And I can tell everyone's passionate about it.”

“Are you still being dense, Ren?” Lily interjected. “You haven't noticed that we're all girls?”

Ren’s eyebrows twitched more.

Yuu, oblivious to his friend’s unstable mental state, replied innocently at Lily’s question. “Huh? I think it's great that girls are having a lot more interest in computers.”

Lily slumped. “I can't believe it...if only it wasn't unfair to everybody...”

Ren couldn't understand at all. This situation was confusing — but there was no wonder to be found. Why was Lily suddenly acting like a proper girl instead of a cold-blooded heart crusher? Perhaps this was the phenomenon Ros was talking about. It had to be.

“Ah, I forgot to introduce you both. Ren, this is Lily, my clubmate and close friend. Lily, this is Ren. He's a friend, and is actually the leader Of the Harmonics Box project.”

Finally, the dam exploded.

“You told someone outside of the secret project about the secret project!?”

Yuu backed away from Ren’s glare filled with murderous intent. “Wait, Lily can be trusted, I swear with my own life!”

“There's no point in a secret if you tell people about it! I bet you plastered a poster about it in your all-girls club!”

“No! I only told Lily because she was interested in helping! In fact, she helped me develop the software for the box!”

“Is that— so...?”

Ren and Yuu stood frozen in their spots with the sudden strange developments unfolding beside them. On Lily's once pristine face were tears, freely flowing down like a leaky faucet. Her lofty demeanor broke into sobs. She was clearly just forcing herself to stand — but even then, she forced her mouth to give out a bitter smile.

“Ah... So this is what you meant... ahaha. I might...I might have understood everything,” she said between her sobs. “How cruel... You could've just...told me everything right from the start...”

This complete 180-degree turn on events was too much for Ren and Yuu, and they began throwing the blame at each other.

“I believe she's mad because you stopped coming to the computer club.”

“Eh? No no no, isn't she looking at you?”

“Do you want me to check your eyes for any ill aftereffects from our experiment?”

They kept going on like this, until a soft chuckle escaped Lily’s lips. She did her best to compose herself and wiped out the tears at the corners of her eyes. “Ahaha... Yeah. It's you after all. Everything also works out in the end if it's you. Ren, I know this is a strange question, but do you want a completely random 7-digit number?”

Ren cast a suspicious gaze at her, but accepted in the end. “...I can use a number right now.”

“Okay then. Here goes: 3, 2, 2, 1, 4, 2, 8 and 6. Have you memorized it?”

“Yes, I do believe I did. 32214286.”

“Mn.”

And without a single explanation or at least a goodbye, she left them both in a daze. Nobody understood what happened. As usual, Lily was incomprehensible.

“It's me, isn't it. Is this because I didn't attend club? I feel so awful,” Yuu said with a guilty face.

Seeing his pathetic face, Ren snapped out of it and remembered his purpose in coming here. “Yuu, go get the computer and the manual regulator. And a sturdy box. And a dice, and some coins. And, I don't know, three random stuff from your room.”

“Wait, are you going to try starting the Harmonics Box again? Why? Aren't we supposed to continue tomorrow?”

Ren gave him a smile brimming with confidence. “Science waits for no one. Now get going!”

The road to science is never feared — only walked. For there was the path to progress. And this was the only path left, if Ren's fears were right.

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It was at around 4 in the afternoon when Ren and Yuu finished the preparations on the rooftop.

The snowfall has finally stopped, but cleaning up the snow on the floor took most of their time. With just the two of them, they carried the Harmonics Box and the rest of the things all the way to the top, hooked everything to the car batteries and did the final checks.

“Um, is it okay that we don't tell the others?”

“I don't know, you're the expert on telling others here,” Ren replied with a harsh tone.

“...Like I said, I'm sorry. But if you know Lily, she's very dependable. In fact, if it wasn't for her I'd still be struggling with the box's code.”

“I'd trust you more than her, and I don't trust you at all.”

“That kinda hurts.”

Ren wanted to test something out. He had an aching suspicion about this whole situation, a theory that might clear up everything that has happened so far — and this was the only way to confirm it.

There was no time to fix the regulator. Classes resumed tomorrow and Ren wasn't confident enough to be able to sneak the box from Ros' sight then. There was no time like today.

Yuu tried changing Ren’s mind one more time. “...I really believe we should wait for the regulator to be fixed.”

Ren didn’t budge. “It is fixed. The manual regulator is as good as any. We are even able to manually input the harmonic signature. Anyways, have you noticed anything strange about your memories ever since the experiment?”

“Huh? Hmm, nothing, I guess,” Yuu answered with a shrug.

“Is that so? Have you heard of the incident that happened last year? About the classroom disappearance.”

“Of course I have. I mean, who hasn't? Isn't that partly why we're doing this project?”

Panic signs blared within Ren’s mind, but he pushed through. “Last question, what class was Lily from last year?”

“Did you forget? She was our classmate last year.”

A huge bomb dropped within Ren’s world, but he did his best to hide it from Yuu. Now was not the time. Instead, he ordered him to bring out the things he told him to.

Yuu laid out on the floor the things he gathered from his room: A box with a magical girl design and a heart lock, a dice, five coins, a figurine of a catgirl, a perverted book about a girl with flat chests, and a small toy sword that must have come from another figurine.

“...This is random?” Ren asked, looking at Yuu’s collection with a complicated expression.

“Yeah, I just grabbed whatever without thinking about anything.”

“It shows.”

With the dice, Ren rolled for ten numbers and noted them on a small piece of paper: 1, 6, 2, 1, 3, 1, 2, 2, 3, and 5. With the coins, he tossed them one by one and noted them on the same paper, with H as heads and T as tails: H, H, H, T, and H. Thus, on the paper was: 1621312235HHHTH.

He placed that paper, along with the random things from Yuu's room, inside the strange box and handed it to Yuu. "Keep that. How are the final checks? All green?"

Yuu nodded. "Yeah, I think. I hope. No, yeah, they're all good."

Ren patted his head for a job well done. "Good. Now go away."

"...What?"

Ren forcefully pushed Yuu all the way towards the door.”What are you planning?"

"Just an experiment."

As soon as Yuu was at the other side, Ren slammed the door to his face and locked it by slipping an iron bar on its handle. He was still mad that he told Lily of all people about the box, but he wasn't stupid enough to make him unconsciously risk another person as well. And besides, he needed a control group.

Ren walked over towards the box. It reminded him of a story called Pandora's Box, where Pandora's curiosity led her to open the box that unleashed death and many evils to the world.

But there was hope. There was always hope.

Ren flicked the first switch, and a familiar low hum filled the cold atmosphere.

"Ren? What are you doing?"

Ren ignored Yuu's question on the other side of the door as he began increasing the feed of the regulator. As for the harmonic signature, he entered 7 completely random numbers: 32214286.

"Um, should I be calling for someone? The police? The fire station? The morgue? Oh, wait, prez. I'll call prez."

This was the only chance to try the box once more. He wanted to make sure, with complete certainty, that his theory was wrong. Ros' explanation of how the box scrambled their memories didn't fit something in his head. Because he remembered the events exactly one year ago as if it was yesterday. And on that day, Lily clearly went on this very same rooftop just to reject him. Those events were as real as can be.

But how could that be, when Lily was from class 1-B, the class that mysteriously disappeared? She was not his classmate last year. That was just impossible. Was the box really capable of creating false memories like that? Was the box that complicated to do so?

There was another explanation that could solve all this.

"Ah, I forgot my phone. Ren, I know you're busy, but can I borrow yours?"

The hum grew to an ear-shattering level, drowning the world in a buzz. He could feel blood flowing out of his ears and nose. It was even stronger than last time. But Ren didn't flinch, he knew it was coming. His vision blurred and his shaking hands stopped responding to him.

"*************************************************"

But this was the only path. With his hands out of commission, Ren used his forehead and placed it on top of the final switch. In this moment, he was truly alone. This decision was for him and him alone to make. Not by fate, not by a higher power, but himself.

And he flicked the switch on.

As expected, an immensely bright light burst forth from the box, filling everything in white. The pressure in Ren's head felt like it could crack his skull at any moment. His bones felt as if they were repeatedly crushed to a fine powder. His innards were twisted and pulled by a child. It was pain unlike which he has ever felt before, and he did not have a voice to shout, for his tongue was stuck in his throat.

It was the kind of pain that broke his spirit, that made him regret his decision. One that would make him abandon his ideals.

An eternity passed, and the buzz finally settled down, followed by an oppressive silence. Not the whirring sound of the box, not the cold December winds, not even the voice of his friend. Only silence. The pain gradually faded and he began to regain control of his self, but the world was still white as snow. The first thought that came to him was worry if he was permanently blinded like this.

Breaking the silence was a small chime-like voice, soft as a whisper.

"What...are...you...?"

Ren did not recognize this voice, but he answered anyway. To ensure that he was still sane even after everything. But his voice would not come out.

"...Ren...?"

A loud explosion erupted from within his mind, and the world turned black.

Volume 0: Ren One— End