:: Date Unknown ::

"I knew we'd be victorious. Sacrifice my ass! Right... Luiza...?"

She collapsed into herself. All sound, cry and shout alike ceased.

The emptiness is so real it's palpable.

A bell jar; the world still in motion around her, but she is not involved — she can't feel it.

In the last second, her breathing hitched in terror.

"I can't die yet—!"

She startled herself into awareness, her voice fading into the white void of a deafening emptiness.

Dazed, she looks down at her chest and mesmerizes at her ghostly complexion, barely tangible. A feeling so familiar it pains her.

"This place is..." The girl murmurs confounded.

A string of thoughts comes right out of her mouth, unfiltered, unchecked.

"Why am I here...? What about the others? I gotta go back—!"

She sinks on her first step, prompting her to look further down.

Panels underfoot now turn sangria, concealing the yellow throb of a core.

ProtoNet's remnants. Bugs.

"What the...!" It's no use. After kicking the first, Luiza finds three others approaching with what she could only guess as distress.

She pulled back, but really, all she did was merely backpedal. Stumbling on her lost footing, Luiza grunts.

"Am I in the net somehow?!" Nobody answered. "I can't feel my steps—"

The goop lunges, arms stretched for a hold. On instinct, she grabs it and watches her fingers sink inside. "Crap—!" Before it snared her, she swung it at the second and used the momentum to dodge the third.

She studies her surroundings: red variants with a few blue puddles. Their cores now emitted a faint glow.

They bound desperately, aiming to overwhelm the human only to be used against themselves, swiped, or kicked.

Every move felt so seamless. Even after the unceasing scuffle, the girl hasn't perspired nor fatigued.

Except...

"...I ...I'm not breathing...?"

During her realization, Luiza gets pinned on her stomach and hurriedly consumed. As she gasped, the girl notices she couldn't drown — or feel any pressure at all.

The space pressed against her felt absent, empty. Only gradually did she begin to feel their presence.

Cool and oddly peaceful.

After so much struggling, she halts, looks down, and finds one of the bunch attached to her torso.

"P...piss off...you little..." Her belligerence waned after watching its thin arms wrap around her.

Shivering.

Glitching.

Regaining touch with her surroundings, Luiza felt submerged in a cold heap, concealed at the center like an embryo. Her movements turn so sluggish that she eventually gives in to observe.

They had no mouth, no sharp edges, no more blunt helms. Together, they only sought for safety.

It took her a few moments in peace to realize it, but once she did, Luiza dipped into acceptance.

"...Am I dead?"

Something prickled down her spine, prompting her to rise back up in defiance.

"No! I can't!"

She pushed herself out of their grasp, kicking back on her feet and stumbling off.

"I gotta think of a plan...On my own."

Loneliness slowly crept into her heart, but she fought it off after swallowing her fears. After watching her surroundings for a second time, the abyss overhead looks a little less daunting.

Like gazing into a nebula, she has yet to learn how to appreciate it in order to forget about it.

In the following hours, the scurrying of viruses should help her endure the dreadful silence.

Some time passed since she got acquainted with her unlikely audience. During that eternity, Luiza understood what made them different from common-type viruses.

Despite the absence of ProtoNet, ProtoBugs still prowled — like animals searching for a meaning other than consuming.

Such a search was proven difficult as she frequently caught one or another surrendering into their desires and chewing at their platform. This prompted her to be creative when punishing them.

Shoving, lecturing, stretching...flinging them off the ledge only to watch them defy gravity and boomerang their way to her, or crawl from underneath the platform.

Honestly? Examining them was therapeutic; it helped her cope with the absence of a second voice.

However, being exposed to them for so long had many an effect on her. Most noticeable occurring when she held a virus in her hands: its data stream became less and less jumbled until it was finally readable — like a holograph. Luiza didn't know what the lines meant, but every time she made a conscious effort to remember them, the matrix was then stored inside of her ghostly form.

By exploring this newfound ability, Luiza turned away from the concept of death and began viewing her environment as some sort of cyberspace. This theory gave her hope, as well as something to debate with herself as her jelly audience listened ever so amenably.

It felt good to share her findings, for once. But that peace didn't last another eternity.

While exploring the borders for any cracks or glitches, something she turned into a habit, Luiza found a strange variant creeping up from underneath the platform.

Garbed in gold, it exuded energy only Proto itself could emit.

"What the hell...? Where did you come from?" She murmured, watching it melt into the panel underfoot.

That same panel disintegrated, tearing open the data stream which structured it. In a blink of an eye, it was no more than a data marsh.

Realizing what she may have stumbled upon, Luiza cautiously backpedals.

"...Could it be that an exit opened up?"

Her hopes reignite as she turns from it. But it seems to appear everywhere she looked.

From the corner of her eyes, she notices a strange agitation in the existing bugs.

Shock? Fear? Amusement?

She could try and get a reading on the intruder. But as she turns, it was no longer there.

In a heartbeat, Luiza scampered off, narrowly avoiding getting caught by the mass. She quickly scanned her surroundings, spotting her little neighbors bundling into a heap away from the action. "Hey, it's oka—"

She feels her right arm tug, losing balance in the process. As she examines it, Luiza's face warps in horror to find a few fingers missing from her essence. Corrosion drips from her hand, rejoining the assailant next to her as its core regains a brighter glow.

This being didn't seek warmth like the others. It knew what she was.

Jolting back, the girl folds her hand into a fist, clutching it with her free hand as the pain slowly crept up her arm. Not giving herself time to acknowledge it, Luiza swiftly employs a strategy and lures the invader away from the existing inhabitants, all the while mapping its trajectory.

"From beneath..." She mused, recollecting its possible origin.

Another sharp turn, she slides on her knees, feeling the formless invader graze her torso. It was right next to her when she kicked-up, gobbling her up had she not rolled off.

She made a run for the edge as it kissed her heels, foretelling her leap to end it all in one quick snatch.

But the human dove for the abyss instead.

She held onto the ledge, swinging clockwise to the bottom side of the platform. The world shifts upside-down and pushes her flat back on stage. As she scrambled over the melted panels, her sight deceived her.

"Luiza?!"

And so did her hearing.

"Over here, dammit!"

Or did it?

"Grab on! We're going back!"

She blindly followed the voice, wishing it not to be a projection of her madness.

"Alpha!"

Erasure and distortion filled the black-hole that stalked her.

"LOG OUT!" She erupts her last command before tackling his figure.

Just like that, everything collapsed in itself and reverted back into nothingness.

Luiza gasped awake when that very warmth she held onto returned the affection.

"Oh. I didn't mean to wake you. Are you alright?"

Looking up, she found worry in her sister's blue eyes. "You are soaked...Another nightmare?"

"I...Yeah..." She felt Tokemi brush back her hair, clearing her face only for her to tuck it away in the hold. "...Sorry."

The redhead twin hummed in negation. "Here, I will do it this time," She looks to the nightstand past Luiza and commands: "Malady. Start the morning playlist, please."

"Affirmative. Initiating playlist...now."

Percussion fills the room like a sharp inhale, giving way to a rhythmic beat and smooth bass. It was all the same until the bubbling of a xylophone cradled Luiza into comfort, loosening her grip. From here on, she mentally walked a familiar road, gently shushed by the supportive piano.

"...I wanna play like that someday."

"Is that so?" Tokemi fed her sister's groggy remarks as a way to soothe her nerves. "That keyboard is still there."

"...Yeah..." She had closed her eyes again when the tune progresses, clenching her trembling hand. "...But my fingers—"

"Once you feel it in your bones, nothing will stop you from playing. Nothing." Gentleness followed her fading words as the mellow groove reverberated into its motif, taken over by the progressive harmony.

Quietness followed when Luiza broke from the hold, cued by an acoustical lead of another melody. She rubs the sleepiness of her eyes in tune, eventually turning on her back.

"Is something else in your mind?" The redhead inquires, catching on that pensive look her sister sported.

"A lot." She keeps it brief, exercising her hand and watching her pinky and ring fingers failing to react.

"You seemed bothered when you went to bed last night," Tokemi recalls, now prompting her top half on her elbow. "Did something happened between you and Auturo?"

"No, but..." A sigh followed. "We had to call it a night 'cause somebody was trynna eavesdrop on us. So...BloodMan cut the connection." Her words ride on the melancholy of a piano. "But it's fine...We spoke enough." Where her words end, the gentle conclusion follows with the next chirpier tune.

Breathing out the impurities, Luiza sits back up and lets the sunlight crack through the balcony doors as she hugs herself, feeling the aftermath of yesterday's scuffle. Her attention guided to the outside at the sound of a nostalgic flute, whispering hope.

"It's Autumn Equinox..." She recites this date from memory, looking out to the sliding doors. "...Today I'll go to the cemetery."

Author's Notes

Well, that turned out much longer than anticipated, and we saw a lot in this chapter.

Docile viruses with a fraction of ProtoNet's sentience; Human consciousness are like living scanners in the cyberspace; Human consciousness also cannot think as they are embodyments of thoughts; And my take on a server overrun by viruses. I hope you guys had as much fun reading it as I did writing it.

On the topic of music, Cafe de Touhou CDs have been doing it for me. They were blissful AND crucial for keeping me in track of this chapter. I also couldn't help drawing comparisons between navis to our current digital assistants, especially during the playlist bit. Maybe the MM BN universe isn't that far from us now.

Trivia: The place seen in this chapter also shares similarities with the net before the final battle in BN3. That's because it's turned into a virus "node", a server overrun by ProtoBugs.

Stay safe everyone out there. I see ya next chapter.