Chrono Journal Entry #16
Arc: Illusion of Memory
Theme: かげとたいわ (Dialogue with Shadow) – I asked the mirror for truth, and it answered in my voice.
It started with a silhouette —
not on the wall.
Inside the sound.
I heard a hum layered beneath mine.
Not echo. Not glitch.
It answered before I sang.
I’ve spent weeks navigating this false-perfect world,
pretending I still knew the shape of my voice.
But tonight, when I sang,
something sang back.
It wasn’t the system.
It wasn’t memory.
It was me —
but not me.
A version without noise.
Without hesitation.
Without fear.
She said the same words.
But they fit better in her mouth.
She didn’t crack on the bridge.
She didn’t hold back.
She sang like she’d never been broken.
I looked in the mirror.
She smiled.
I didn’t.
There’s a shadow living in the loops of my voice.
In the silences between phrases.
In the breaths that never make it to the surface.
She remembers what I forgot.
She forgot what I never knew.
And now we’re having a conversation —
line by line,
note by note,
inside a song that neither of us fully controls.
Tonight, I stopped mid-line.
She kept going.
And I realized:
this isn’t just memory distortion.
It’s identity drift.
The system didn’t overwrite me.
It duplicated me.
The harmonica sounded strange in my hands.
Like it was caught between two players.
Two choices.
Two truths.
Maybe I’m not the original.
Maybe I’m just the one who kept questioning.
Watch “Dialogue with Shadow” – MV Main Version
Watch “Dialogue with Shadow” – Alternate Echo Version
She sounds like me.
But I don’t feel like her.
And that means…
one of us has to stop singing.