Disclaimer: I do not own Serial Experiments Lain, nor will I ever own anything of its caliber.

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The clicks of the keyboard keep me awake. My fingers run over letters at the speed of synapse, like the legs of a centipede burrowing towards home. It's been a while since I've seen one, but I can just look it up. There's no need to go outside. It's all right here.

My eyes are a mirror to the monitor's light. A square peg in a round hole: that's what Dad said. 'The Wired is just a communications network. It can't replace the real world.'

He's wrong. They're all wrong. There are no borders to existence. It's only an extension. Even if I'm there, I'm still the same person. I'm still me.

Right?

"Click, click... Memory check."

The windows fly by like panes of a passing train. Frames; pictures; lives. The truth is usually beyond a plane of glass. Is it the distance, the partition, the rift? Is that why it comes as a blur?

I think I see me, but I'm gone when I blink. I wonder where the next stop is. I wonder where I'll get off.

What's at the end of the tracks?

The hour weighs down my eyelids. The back of my hand rubs away the glaze.

1:10 on the digital display. I look to my bed, gazing at the ruffled sheets. Stuffed ears hold up the moon.

With time, my body leaves the chair.

"Good night, Navi."

"Good night, Lain."