𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝘂𝗲

(𝒍𝑰𝑺𝑻𝑬𝑵 𝑻𝑶 𝑰𝑴𝑷𝑹𝑶𝑽𝑰𝑺𝑬 𝑩𝒀 𝑱𝑼𝑹𝑨𝑺𝑺𝑰𝑪 5 𝑾𝑯𝑰𝑳𝑬 𝒀𝑶𝑼 𝑹𝑬𝑨𝑫 𝑨𝑵𝑫 𝑫𝑶𝑵𝑻 𝑭𝑶𝑹𝑮𝑬𝑻 𝑻𝑶 𝑷𝑼𝑻 𝑰𝑻 𝑶𝑵 𝑳𝑶𝑶𝑷) ∇∇∇

-The world was a cacophony of meaningless noise, a relentless symphony of shallow laughter and vapid chatter. It grated on my nerves, a constant, irritating hum that vibrated through the very air I breathed. They moved with such carefree abandon, these... *people*. Their faces, so often plastered with smiles that seemed too wide, too bright, too *genuine*. It was sickening. Their joy felt like a personal affront, a blatant disregard for the quiet, suffocating weight that perpetually pressed down on me.

Two years. Two years that i lost her....my joy. Two years since that parasitic presence wormed its way into my being, twisting my thoughts, coloring my vision with a sickly red hue, and forcing a mask of cold indifference onto my features, it was so quick that i can't even complain anyone, i have just to watch on silence, just suffer on silence. And after a few time...i dont feel anything anymore...

Shibuya. It pulsed with the same infuriating vitality as its inhabitants. A concrete jungle teeming with life, a relentless current of bodies flowing through its veins. Nowhere was this more apparent than Scramble Crossing. A chaotic ballet of humanity, a seemingly random collision of individuals all rushing towards their own insignificant destinations. They bumped shoulders, exchanged fleeting glances, their minds undoubtedly filled with trivial concerns - what to buy, who to meet, what to post. Their collective happiness, their mundane preoccupations, it all felt so... distant. Unreal. Like watching actors on a poorly lit stage, their emotions exaggerated, their motivations hollow. It was frustrating....annoying, i hate them all...

I usually avoided this place, this epicenter of irritating exuberance. The sheer density of people was suffocating, their thoughts - even unheard - a palpable pressure. I preferred the quieter corners, the shadowed alleyways, the places where the city seemed to hold its breath for a moment. But today... today was different. There was a disoriented haze clinging to my thoughts, maybe just my regular anxiety and depression striking again, like my daily annoying neighbors.

I had to deal with all this...alone while all those people have friends and family and companion...and i just can't get over it, get over her...Why did i had to be the only one that feels all this? I hate them...everyone around me...t-they took her away from me...i-i cannot **live** without her....it just... don't make any sense...

I don't get them, I don't care about them, i hope they all just desapear... **Shibuya, curse you...**"

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-One moment, I was... I don't even know. The next, a rough texture against my cheek, the dull ache of concrete pressing into my back. My eyes fluttered open, assaulted by the blinding glare of the afternoon sun. Above me, a dizzying swirl of legs and feet moved with relentless purpose. The air vibrated with the familiar, yet somehow newly jarring, sounds of Shibuya - the distant wail of sirens, the tinny melodies spilling from storefronts, the incessant drone of countless conversations.

Disoriented, I pushed myself up, my limbs heavy and unresponsive. A wave of nausea washed over me, and I gripped my head, trying to quell the swirling chaos within. Where... where was I? The familiar landmarks slowly coalesced into recognition. Scramble Crossing. But why was I lying in the middle of it, like some discarded piece of trash?

My gaze drifted upwards, past the towering buildings adorned with flashing advertisements, until it snagged on the colossal 104 billboard. Usually, it displayed some vapid commercial or a trendy music video. Today, however, stark white letters against a black background screamed a message that sent a shiver down my spine, a primal fear clawing at the edges of my awareness:

Seven days for what? What was this? A morbid prank? My fingers instinctively went to the pocket of my skirt, finding something smooth and metallic. I pulled it out. A pin, circular and obsidian black, with a stylized, almost predatory, design etched into its surface. It felt strangely cold in my hand, yet... familiar. A flicker of something I couldn't quite grasp danced at the edge of my memory. On my other hand was my phone but it was already there, not the same as the strange Pin.

"What the...?" I muttered, the sound of my own voice rough and unfamiliar in the overwhelming noise of the crossing. I turned the pin over in my fingers, a knot of unease tightening in my stomach. This felt... important. Ominous. Yet pretty...strange?

Ignoring the wave of questions echoing my own mind, I tried to stand, my legs still shaky. "Okay, Tsugumi, calm down," I told myself, the stoic mask already beginning to settle back into place, a familiar defense mechanism against the rising panic. "Just...go home. Figure this out later."

I started walking, or rather, stumbling, towards the familiar direction of my apartment. The crowd parted around me, their hurried movements creating a strange, almost unnatural, flow. It was as if... they didn't quite see me.

Then it happened. I accidentally brushed against a young woman rushing past, her face buried in her phone. Instead of the solid resistance I expected, my hand passed right through her arm. A jolt of pure, unadulterated terror shot through me. My breath hitched in my throat, and I stumbled backward, my eyes wide with disbelief.

"What the hell...?" The words escaped as a choked whisper. I reached out again, hesitantly, towards a businessman striding with a briefcase. My fingers met nothing, passing through his suit jacket as if he were made of smoke.

Panic seized me, a cold, suffocating wave. This wasn't real. This couldn't be real. Was I dreaming? Had that... *thing* somehow returned, twisting my perception of reality?

I backed away, my heart hammering against my ribs, my gaze darting around the crossing. The people moved around me, oblivious, their laughter and chatter now sounding like a mocking chorus. I was here, in the middle of this bustling chaos, yet utterly disconnected, intangible. A ghost in my own life.

Desperate, I reached out again, needing to feel something solid, something real. My hand passed through a lamppost, the cold metal offering resistance, I could touch it but those people don't. A strangled cry escaped my lips.

"What's happening to me?! Urgh! Tsugumi remember! What you put yourself into now?"

In my escalating panic, my hand clenched into a fist, the obsidian pin digging sharply into my palm. A sudden jolt, not of pain, but of something... else. A strange, overwhelming influx of...a strange energy floating around my veins. It wasn't their voices, they weren't talking, it was something internal, a chaotic torrent of thoughts, emotions, desires and i could hear it, loud and clear.

*"Gotta get that limited edition bag..."*

*"Ugh, this headache is killing me..."*

*"I hope Kenji texts me back..."*

*"Man, I'm starving. Ramen sounds good...I hope that new place don Dogenzaka opens soon!"*

The voices, raw and unfiltered, slammed into my consciousness, a jarring intrusion into the fragile remnants of my own thoughts. I recoiled, clutching my head, the sheer volume of it threatening to shatter my sanity.

"Stop! Please, stop!" I cried out, but the mental onslaught continued, a relentless barrage of mundane worries and fleeting desires. It was overwhelming, unbearable.

Then, as suddenly as it began, it subsided, leaving a ringing silence in its wake and a cold sweat slicking my skin. I gasped for breath, my vision blurring, the world around me tilting precariously.

Slowly, cautiously, I unclenched my fist, my gaze fixed on the black pin in my hand. It pulsed faintly, a subtle thrum against my skin. The voices... they had stopped when I loosened my grip.

Could it be...? This pin... was it the source? Was this what the billboard meant? Seven days? Seven days of... *this*? Being a ghost, hearing the thoughts of strangers?

A wave of despair washed over me, quickly followed by a familiar surge of cold anger. This was unfair. Cruel. I hadn't asked for this. I hadn't wanted any of this...at all...

But amidst the despair and the anger, a tiny spark of something else flickered to life. A stubborn refusal to succumb. I had endured worse. I had survived being a puppet, a vessel for something alien. I could survive this too.

Clutching the pin tightly, a new resolve hardening my gaze, I looked out at the oblivious masses flowing around me. They couldn't see me. They couldn't touch me. But I could hear them. I could know their thoughts.

Perhaps... perhaps this wasn't just a curse. Perhaps, in this bizarre, intangible existence, there was a way to understand this new reality. A way to navigate this twisted thing. A way to survive whatever was this.

The stoic mask settled firmly back in place, concealing the turmoil within. The irritation at their oblivious happiness remained, but now, it was tinged with a cold, calculating curiosity. These people, their thoughts, their desires... they were the key to understanding this. They were the landscape of this strange new world I had been thrust into. Secrets, problems, liking, everything on my hands...interesting...but yet i didn't liked it.

Seven days. The message echoed in my mind. Seven days to what? Perchaps she had to find out.

Tsugumi sighs slowly. The initial shock of intangible existence and the cacophony of alien thoughts left her reeling, a ghost adrift in the familiar yet suddenly alien landscape of Scramble Crossing. A tremor of fear ran through her body, a bad reaction to the impossible reality she now inhabited for some reason.

Her first instinct was to escape. To retreat to the familiar sanctuary of her apartment, to process this nightmare in solitude. She moved with a newfound urgency towards the edge of the crossing, the buildings beyond a beacon of normalcy in this bizarre tableau. But an invisible force slammed into her, an abrupt and unyielding barrier that halted her spectral progress as surely as a physical wall. Disbelief warred with a rising tide of panic. She tried another route, then another, each attempt ending with the same frustrating resistance. She was trapped.

"What do you think we put ourselves in, Mr. Mew? Tsugumi grabs her plush Mr. Mew with both of her hands, her only companion on whatever nightmare she was facing now.

A sigh escaped her lips, a soundless exhalation in this world that no longer registered her physical presence. Yet, as the initial terror subsided, a strange sense of... relief began to seep in. The constant, low-grade irritation of existing amongst the relentlessly cheerful masses had vanished. They moved around her, their faces etched with their usual preoccupations, utterly unaware of the intangible figure moving amongst them. For the first time in a long time, Tsugumi felt a sense of...quiet.

Then came the thoughts. They bled into her awareness, faint and fragmented at first, like whispers on the wind. A young woman hurrying past worried about a missed train. A businessman muttered about a looming deadline. A group of teenagers giggled about a viral video. The sheer banality of their internal worlds, once a source of silent disdain, now held a strange fascination. They were so consumed by their trivial concerns, so utterly oblivious to the extraordinary circumstances she now faced. A flicker of something akin to pity, tinged with her usual detachment, crossed her nonexistent features. They were pathetic. So easily swayed by fleeting emotions, so consumed by the mundane. Curse them.

Yet, even in this newfound detachment and the subtle satisfaction of witnessing their oblivious struggles, a core of pragmatism remained. She was trapped. She didn't understand what was happening. And despite the temporary reprieve from unwanted interaction, a deep-seated desire to return to her own life, however flawed, began to stir. This spectral existence, while offering a strange form of freedom, was ultimately creepy.

Tsugumi began to explore her prison. She moved through the throngs of people, the sensation of her intangible form passing through solid matter still unsettling, but now examined with a detached curiosity. She observed their movements, their interactions, their unconscious habits. It was like watching an ant farm, a complex web of individual lives intersecting and diverging, all driven by motivations she could now, to some extent, perceive.

She focused her attention on the invisible barrier, running her hand along its unyielding surface. It felt like nothing, a void. Yet it was undeniably present, a tangible limitation in her intangible state. There were no seams, no discernible energy fields, just an absolute, impenetrable boundary.

Hours drifted by in the perpetual daylight of this strange new reality. The energy of Scramble Crossing remained a constant hum, the flow of pedestrians seemingly endless. Tsugumi tried various methods to breach the barrier - attempting to phase through with focused intent, trying to find a point of weakness, even leaping upwards, hoping to somehow pass over it. Each attempt met with the same frustrating failure.

The cryptic message on the billboard, "YOU HAVE 7 DAYS," echoed in her thoughts. Seven days for what? What was the objective of that? 7 days to escape this prison? The questions swirled in her mind, unanswered.

She noticed the pin clutched in her hand. It pulsed faintly, a subtle vibration against her intangible skin. The surge of thoughts had occurred when she had pressed it tightly. Hesitantly, she loosened her grip. The whispers of the crowd remained, a low hum in the background, but the overwhelming torrent was gone. It seemed the pin acted as some sort of conduit, amplifying the mental noise of the living when actively engaged.

Tsugumi began to experiment cautiously. By lightly touching the pin, she could focus on individual thoughts, fleeting glimpses into the minds of those nearby. A snippet of a song stuck in someone's head. The anxious anticipation of a first date. The mundane grocery list of another. It was a chaotic, unfiltered stream of consciousness, mostly trivial, occasionally revealing a flicker of deeper emotion or concern.

This unwanted intimacy was unsettling, yet a spark of understanding ignited within her. This was how she could perceive this new reality, this "prison." Not through sight or touch, but through the raw, unfiltered thoughts of the other inhabitants of this confined space.

But what was she supposed to *do* with this information? How did understanding their grocery lists or their romantic anxieties help her escape this prison?

Frustration mounted. She was a ghost, trapped in a human zoo, bombarded by their pathetic thoughts, with a cryptic countdown looming overhead. The initial allure of detachment began to wane, replaced by a growing sense of urgency. She needed answers. She needed a way out.

Driven by this need, Tsugumi began to actively listen, focusing her attention through the pin, sifting through the mental noise for anything that might offer a clue. A repeated sense of unease among certain individuals, talking about urban legends, These fragmented impressions were like pieces of a shattered mirror, reflecting a reality she couldn't fully comprehend.

She noticed that some individuals seemed... different. Their thoughts were just not there at all. They moved with a purpose that stood out from the aimless flow of the crowd. Occasionally, she would catch a fleeting glimpse of something... odd about them, a subtle distortion in their appearance, a flicker in their eyes that seemed to perceive something beyond the ordinary. Who were those?

Tsugumi tried to approach these individuals, to somehow communicate her presence. She moved directly in front of them, even attempting to make gestures, but they passed through her as if she weren't there. Just looking all busy like everyone else, it was the same.

Despair threatened to engulf her once more. Trapped, unseen, unheard. How could she possibly navigate whatever that was happening, but whatever it was, she couldn't even interact. Was it a punishment? For her hate on people, they deserve it and she knew it.

Yet, the stubborn refusal to succumb, a trait that had seen her through the ordeal of her possession, resurfaced. She wouldn't give up. She had seven days. And in those seven days, she would find a way to understand all that was happening, to break free from this prison. The initial comfort of detachment had faded, replaced by a burning need for answers, a desperate yearning to reclaim her existence. The silent observer was no longer content to simply watch. She had to find a way to be seen. She had to find a way to escape.

                                             To Be Continued...