Imagine this.
A teenage boy sits in a darkened room of an apartment, staring at a computer screen, busily typing. He has a headache coming on, and all too often he has to take his glasses off to rub his eyes. But he doesn't care. What he's doing right now is too important.
Occasionally, his eyes move from the computer screen to the two sets of clothes hanging on the back of the door on the other side of the room. The two school uniforms. They will be important to his plan. Their plan. But he knows that this is not how they will be remembered. But they will all be remembered. That's why they're doing this.
Imagine this.
On the rooftop of the same apartment, another teenage boy looks at the sky, at how the setting sun stains it red and orange. He sees other colours too, their source being the sounds around him. But those particular colours are ones only he can see. Indigo, lime, silver, bronze.
From this far, the people he can see look like ants. But, all the same, he can see them clashing and coming up against each other. Connecting. Being part of the world. He thinks he'd like to know what that feels like, but even with the school uniforms hanging downstairs, he knows that would never be.
And, as if to drive home that fact, white feathers cloud his vision as the sun sinks further down. He sighs. Just a few more moments, and then he'll go back down to do his bit.
Imagine this.
On the other side of town, in a bedroom of a small and oppressive flat, a girl closes her eyes and curls up in a ball and wishes for the millionth time that everything would just stop. She tries to ignore the sobbing on the other side of the wall and the screaming in her head. She tries to pretend the bruises on the insides of her arms and the lower half of her legs do not exist. She tries to pretend she doesn't care anymore.
And to the world, it might look like she has succeeded, that she is numb. But look closer. As she opens her eyes again (for no reason) there is a spark. Barely detectable, hidden under layers of hurt and a protective shield, but there is light in those eyes. But she doesn't know that herself.
Those eyes come to rest on her school uniform, draped over her chair, and once again, her heart sinks. The world will never stop, no matter how much she wishes it.
Imagine this.
The need to be remembered, the desire to feel companionship, the wish to fade away. Imagine them as threads, stretching across human life. Imagine that the dawn of the next day triggered something that allowed these three threads to cross over each other, for the lives they hung upon to meet in the middle. Imagine that happening, under the hot summer sun.
Now, tell me this-what would happen next?
I wanted to expand this to include Shibazaki and Five at first, but realised that it wouldn't fit into the theme of the story as they were already connected to Nine and Twelve before episode 1. Five is connected from before their escape from their childhood. It's Lisa who is the unexpected quantity.
In any case, please leave feedback.
