I'm falling, no matter how desperately I swim upstream, I'm still falling. www.biquge.info I wanted to run, but I couldn't feel myself running anyway, and the fatal ups and downs, the rhythmic mocking grunting, were telling me about a situation that was too acute. I was being bruised and shattered by this sharp stab that only I could realize.

Even so, I was still struggling desperately, desperately swimming, desperately shouting, crying out in this darkness that was empty, as if I had everything and as if I had nothing.

I am here! I'm right here! I'm not dead yet!

I don't want to end here. My plans, my dreams, my life...... You can't just give up halfway.

If that's it, when you're running, you're about to do it, and everything breaks down, then ...... Isn't it ridiculous?

Whoever is going to be my hero?

I shouted, only gurgling.

Suddenly, there was a touch on my shoulder, then my chest, my back, as if an invisible person had embraced me. The warm and firm touch suddenly illuminates this dark and deep terrifying sea.

"I'm right here, Agawa. As I said, I've always been by your side, all the time. "It was so familiar, as if I wanted to indulge in it, that the silence in the darkness broke through and reached my ears.

The next moment, the terrible landscape of "sinking to the bottom of the sea" collapsed like an illusion, and before my eyes was still the mechanical, pale, complex and vast landscape of the Ruling Bureau, still full of destruction, destruction, sorrow and pain. And I, unconsciously, have broken away from the rush and stopped. An indescribable feeling of exhaustion spread from my brain to my limbs, and I felt that my body had no strength, and it was all up to Tomie to hold and hold on, so that I didn't fall.

At what absolute point in time did the hallucinations begin? Was it the same way I thought when I was running that sparked the opportunity? What is the "tentacle" that grabbed me from the abyss of thought? What does that breathtaking sea-like world represent? These questions kept popping up in my heart, and they were like demons that haunted me from the past to the present. I don't want to think about the answers to these questions, and I wouldn't even think about them nowadays, if I had a choice—and yet they always pop up in my mind and make me miserable.

It's really painful to think.

The hurt caused by thinking will always remain in the heart of the person, even if it is more encountered later, enough to tell oneself that it is okay to dismiss or laugh at the hurt. In the silence of the night when you don't want to think about anything, in the occasional glimpse of the dull life, this scar will suddenly jump out, making you wonder if you are dreaming. The more I think about it, the deeper this scar becomes, and in the face of this deep scar, all forgetting is a lie.

After all, people will remember the pain of being forgotten by themselves from the fragments of their lives, and have a nightmare that they have long forgotten in a trance.

"I can't breathe, I can't breathe." I never imagined that this sudden, nightmarish hallucination would make me so embarrassed. I've experienced hallucinations like this in the past, but in terms of feeling, it's a completely different level of depth and intensity. It's like when you don't even notice it, you suddenly become sensitive to such injuries.

It came so suddenly, I didn't even think it would burrow into my mind in such a strong way.

If it weren't for Tomie's embrace, maybe the "me" here would really collapse. And is this kind of injury because I am "Gao Chuan", a patient with doomsday syndrome, and the inevitable deterioration of my condition? Or is it because I, according to normal logic, shouldn't have appeared at all, so this "violating" self has been punished? Now I don't know at all. It's not that I don't want to figure it out, it's that I simply don't have the ability to do that.

"It's okay, it's okay, Achuan...... Don't be afraid...... It's okay. Tomie's voice came close to my ears, and for a moment it seemed to be far away in the sky, and then it seemed to be close at hand, almost making me think that hearing her voice was also a hallucination of my own, "I'm right here, I've always been by your side, Achuan." ”

I gasped hard, and the suffocating sensation gradually weakened in Tomie's voice, and I felt like a drowning person, and I almost seemed to be in a puddle of water, but, as Tomie said, that terrible hallucination was over.

"Do you want to stop?" Tomie asked, and her hug was as powerful as her voice, making me feel like I couldn't say anything to stop.

No, I don't want to stop there. I still remember the intense longing I felt when I was suffocating in that hallucination. In this world, no one can save me, no one can be my hero, so I have to save others and end this terrible cycle. Tomie pulled me out of the hallucination, however, she couldn't be my hero because ...... Because......

Why? Tomie and the other "Jiang" have helped me so much, but I have never felt that they are my heroes. I just love her, and I know very well that my passionate love is completely different from my longing and love for heroes. Is it because, in fact, I also have to admit the relationship between "Jiang" and "virus"? Is it because, in fact, I also understand that even if we distinguish between "river" and "virus" by definition, can we not deny that it is still the culprit that makes me and everyone suffer from these irreparable pains?

Yes, I think so. It's like when a multi-personality mentally ill person kills someone because of a murderous personality, will the victim ignore the subject and only hold the murderous personality accountable? Although in many countries, laws are used to distinguish between the crimes of the mentally ill and those committed by normal people, but can this rational division comfort the sensibilities of the victims?

Absolutely not.

No one can judge the "virus", because people can't even grasp the tail of the "virus", but whether the culprit can be judged and punished is not directly related to how to treat the culprit -- the relationship between "Jiang" and the "virus" is precisely the reason why it is emotionally impossible to get rid of the guilt, and from a rational point of view, it is necessary for the two to continue to maintain such a relationship, so that all the current plans, whether mine or Dorothy's, can have the possibility of success.

I can't see Tomie as a hero, perhaps precisely because, as a kind of personality embodiment of "Jiang", Tomie's existence cannot be severed from the "virus" in any way, and this relationship is also the key to my own plan, so I can't completely cut Tomie and even other "Jiang" from the "virus" from my own heart and recognize it as an independent other existence.

There is no doubt in my love for Tomie, but there is also an undeniable sense of guilt. I could even feel the sadness and pain in this fiery love - not only for Tomie, but also for other people.

I don't think there's anything more complex in the world than the one I feel - and if there were, those people would have died.

Even then, I had to go to the end. This is the path I have chosen, the lover I have chosen, the relatives I have chosen, the life I have chosen, the battle I have chosen, since I have not chosen to commit suicide, then, no matter how much torture there is, I must go until I can't walk anymore. I said this to myself, my limbs still did not regain all their strength, but in this weak self-examination, in this painful, sad and complicated momentary thought, I could not help but want to laugh.

I don't understand why I laugh myself, it's like torture to the end of a mad mind, and people can't help but want to laugh.

I guess I was really laughing, my head was so confused, I didn't feel too direct.

"Well, you laughed." When Tomie said this, she seemed to hear the voice in my heart, but it was also possible that I didn't realize that I was already talking to myself in a nervous way?

"Well, you're talking to yourself, Achuan." Tomie's embrace became tighter and warmer, and I felt like my soul was about to melt in her embrace.

It was only then that I heard my own voice and heard myself say, "LKE...... Sand...... Babbling...... Babbling...... JAMG......#¥%%&¥#@#¥%......&+"What a terrible sound, even if I heard it myself, I couldn't believe it was a sound I could make—it was impossible to make such a sound either physiologically or consciously—but I did."

I have a similar pronunciation of "jiang" in my voice, but I'm not sure if it's explicitly referring to what I know as "jiang". I didn't even understand what I was talking about, the voice was supposed to have content, but it was full of messy fragmentation. The more I ruminated that I was reminded by Tomie and suddenly heard my own voice, the more an extraordinary fear crept into my brain, gnawing at the already scattered reason.

I was trembling, even though Tomie's hug was so tight, I could clearly feel that her chest was so full, and her body was so soft and warm, but everything that was so full of humanity couldn't make me stop trembling. More clearly than ever, I have the feeling that it's closer, closer.

What exactly is it? I can't answer, I just think that the closest thing to this meaning is "virus", but in terms of how I feel about the word, it is unpredictable, and the default is that the "virus" of all etiological subjects is just a "fragment" of it. A "virus" is called a virus precisely because it is more like it operates purely on instinct, and the results are complicated by a chain reaction, but the mechanism by which any "virus" operates is simple and powerful - and because of its simplicity, it has terrible power, and therefore can make people feel that there is a loophole.

But what if "virus" isn't just that simple virus? No, from the symptoms of doomsday syndrome, it is certain that the "virus" will definitely not be simple. All researchers, including me, may still think that the culprit of patients with doomsday syndrome is too simple, or the culprit is too beyond imagination, so in the end, only the "virus" is the most in line with our own common sense, and we have to completely replace the unfamiliar parts with it.

It's not that we ourselves are unaware of this, it's just that the "virus" alone is tricky enough, and if the "virus" is not just a virus, but something above it, then all the will to resist will collapse - the human protection mechanism may have been in effect since we tried to explore the "virus", and this mechanism prevents us from recognizing it as a "virus", so that we can continue to study it, rather than collapse immediately.

However, such protection is still one-sided and fragile in the face of that terrible existence. I feel that it is getting closer and closer, approaching the earth from a non-physical, immaterial perspective. Because of its proximity, its influence is amplified.

Moreover, I think that the other me, the prosthetic Takakawa, must have felt it, and had the same feeling as me at this time, and maybe even nightmares and hallucinations will show inexplicable continuity.

"There's no time, Ajiang, we're out of time." I did my best to free myself from the embrace that seemed to melt when I was indulging, grabbed Tomie's shoulder, and said to her with a sense of verification, "It's coming, isn't it?" ”

"It? What is it? Tomie just looked suspicious, and then smiled, "You're too nervous, Achuan, nothing will come at all, everything that should be there is already here." Didn't come and didn't leave. ”

Is my feeling wrong? Is it because of my human limitations that I misunderstood something? Was it because my condition had worsened that I had hallucinations so deep that even the intuition of an occultist could no longer be trusted?

"I've been saying it all the time, don't be afraid, I've always been by your side, always there, why can't Ah Chuan always remember? Why can't Ah Chuan understand? Tomie looked slightly troubled, but then, the trouble melted away like snow, "But it's okay, because I've always been by Agawa's side." ”

She said I couldn't understand it, and I wanted to refute it. The phrase "always by your side" is so clear and clear that there is no possibility of misunderstanding at all, no matter how rich the meaning is extended, but its most basic meaning is still concise. However, just as I was about to refute, I suddenly couldn't say anything. Are the meanings that I understand already all the meanings of Tomie's words? I, in fact, can't be sure.