Author's Note- Several years ago I did an exchange in Japan and I was there during the first anniversary of the Great East Japan Earthquake. As a geologist I could understand how and why the earth moved, as a disaster responder I could understand the rescue efforts, but it was not until a became good friends with a girl whose sister did not survive the event that I was able to get a glimpse of human toll. When someone dies they leave echoes in the lives around them. When they die unexpected those echoes can haunt people for years.
Disclaimer- This story takes place during Episode 11 and as such as spoilers for the end of the series. Also I do not happen to own Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 so this interpretation is completely fanmade.
Echoes…
I have changed in so many ways in the month Great Tokyo Earthquake tore my life to shreds. Nightmares terrorize my nights and well-meaning people haunt my days. Even as I watch Tokyo being rebuilt around me, I can't stop feeling like I am falling apart. The people around keep trying to rescue me, they tell me that there is nothing that I could have done. Deep down I know they are lying. My brother is dead and it is all my fault.
I do not doubt his death. I watched the life dissolve from Yūki's little frame, I watched his ghost fade before my eyes, I watched as his body disappeared in smoke when he was cremated 3 weeks after the earthquake. I have prayed at his little shrine in the middle of the night when no one was awake to hear me cry. Yet, even though deep down I know that he is gone for good, I can't help but wonder why I still hear his voice in my dreams…why do I wake with the echo of Yūki's hand still clutched in mine…
Sometime in these past weeks I become a living ghost who wanders the halls in my brother's stead. I haunt the rooms my brother and I use to share. I only take care of myself when someone else prompts. I have lost enough weight that my parents whisper about getting me help. I have made the choice to place one foot in the grave in the unspoken home that Yūki's spirit would return to myside…that I would no longer be alone in our suffocating apartment.
End Note- For the souls whom remain broken long after the wreckage has been cleared. Buildings can be rebuilt, but not always the lives that surround them.