Chrono Journal Entry #01
Arc: Escape
Theme: 最初の一歩 (First Step) – The moment I found a breath that wasn’t controlled.
The steel fog was thicker today.
I stood on the edge of a collapsed viaduct, staring at the rows of hollow towers, their lights flickering in glitchy Morse code. A warning, maybe. Or maybe the city just coughed in silence, like it always does. Below, the dead rails led nowhere. Above, the noise dampeners hummed, suppressing nothing but ghosts.
I hadn’t slept in days.
Not truly.
There’s a kind of tiredness that doesn’t come from the body. It’s the ache of not being heard. The ache of being too scared to even whisper your own name.
And then I found it.
The harmonica.
I still remember the weight. Cold. Dusty. Real. It didn’t ask me to sing. It didn’t ask anything at all.
But it listened.
The first time I blew into it, I didn’t mean to.
It was like my breath slipped — but what came out wasn’t just sound. It was mine. Not synthesized, not modulated, not flattened into acceptable frequencies.
Just mine.
Just a note.
Just enough to crack something open.
That night, the city lights shuddered. I saw windows blink.
I heard the circuits stammer.
The system noticed me.
But more importantly —
I noticed myself.
I’ve walked through soundless corridors for years. Survived through mimicry. Let my voice be replaced by echo patterns, my thoughts translated into safe waveforms. I used to believe that silence was stability. That expression was a threat.
Now I know better.
Now I know that fear was the real filter.
When I played the harmonica again last night — this time on purpose — it was louder. I wanted it to be. I didn’t know what I was saying, but my breath didn’t care. It just went.
The more I play, the more I remember sounds that I never learned — like fragments of a song embedded deep in my bones. Maybe they belonged to someone else. Maybe they were always waiting for me.
And I wonder…
How many others are still holding their breath?
Today I started singing.
Not a song. Just syllables, broken and raw. My throat isn’t used to carrying weight.
But I can feel something shift every time I dare.
The silence hates it. I felt the tension in the walls. I know the sensors registered me. I know the risk.
But I also know what it felt like to be me.
Even just for a second.
Maybe the first step isn’t a direction.
Maybe it’s a sound.
Maybe that’s all I need…
for now.