We remember your faces, but why is it that you're here? We are trying, trying to forget why we are here. Or not why. The why is because it is peaceful, so peaceful down here. Everything is melting away and away and away, nothing may harm us. We are far, and away, and safe…

…why? Why? We cannot, we do not want to remember how we got here…

Alright. Alright, we shall try.

It was so dark when we thought to run, almost as dark as the darkness that had swallowed us up in the first place. We ran, and ran and ran until the breath rattled in our throats and pulled our chests tight and there was no magic to light our way. We could not summon it, not when we had to put everything into running away and putting distance between ourselves and that girl. After what we had seen her do, we couldn't stay, couldn't let the rest of us die too. We wanted to live, that was all.

We wanted to live.

And we ran and ran and ran, with no sense of where we were going and then suddenly there was no ground beneath our feet and there were the biggest splashes and we fell. We sunk, further and further and we thought that was it. That somehow, that girl had managed to find us anyway and had drowned us instead of doing what she did to Hibi. But that wasn't the case at all, because then Otohime-san found us.

And Otohime-san knows, you see. She knows what it means to be scared and to be lost, to be so untethered after seeing something horrible and we were nothing but those feelings, we were, when we crashed into her pool. And she came to us in her human form and she hissed softly and put her hands on our heads, one at a time. She showed us the little hollows of her cave where we may sleep and the little fish that we could play with and the light, the light threaded through the particles of water. It was so dazzling and yet rather than hurt our eyes after all that darkness it soothed. And the water soothed too. Otohime-san did not use words, but she did not need words to tell us what we needed to hear.

Why, that was that here we would be safe. Far and away and safe from everything that had hurt us. If she tried to reach us, Otohime-san would protect us and in time as we became more of the water and less of ourselves and we would never have to worry again. Far and away and safe, with each other, that's all we needed. And now we have it…it has been a long time, since we have seen your faces last, has it not? The trees, all that red and orange and yellow…so pretty….

Oh, what a long time it has been, what a long, long time and…we forgot, you know. The memories, we let them bubble away up to the surface so we could swim and float light and free. It was as if we'd never been those girls, those girls who had seen what they had seen…who are those girls? Those names you are calling, they are ours? They must be, the sounds of those names, of Rain and Jan and Risu and Juu…they pull at us, a little. Your names pull at us. They are pulling us up when we want to sink further and…it all, it all scatters far and away, it drifts away and bubbles up and now you ask us to pull them back together again and…Kyouki, oh Kyouki. Don't cry, please. And you…you, will you leave us be, if we try to tell you?

Okay, alright.

We shall try but…

…the day all five of us disappeared, we don't really know what happened. We know only that we went back along the forest path to find Hibi's lost purse, only the path but…but the dark swallowed us up. We don't know from whence it came or why, but it was all we could see. We could feel nothing except ourselves, our heartbeats, our skin. We could hear nothing but our voices, our breath, our footsteps. We lit the way with our magic, and the shapes looked so pretty against the blackness…Hibi's butterflies, they led the way when it happened. When it cleared, that is.

We were in Aeternum, still, we think? We do not know…maybe you are right, that it makes sense. Maybe. But the dark faded, a little, but it was night when it did and so it was still dark, dark enough that if we hadn't had our magic and if we'd just been stumbling blind then we wouldn't have seen what that girl was doing. Maybe then, things would have been different…but we are here now, far and away and safe. It's so beautiful here and-

Ah! The girl. Do you know her? She's older, we think. Like second year or third year, not like a girl who's of age-another student. We didn't see her face, at first, she was turned away from us and her white hair glowed. She had a …head thing-hat- like yours, Cookie. Except not…not that colour. No, not that colour. She wasn't alone, though…but that other one, we recognised, from the….pictures, on walls? The pictures that asked you to find them. The first one, with the purple clothes and a name like the moon. She was hurt. The glowing-hair girl was hurting her and-don't ask us how, we don't know how we…

Let us go. Let us go, please.

I…Cookie, we didn't understand it then, even when we were fully us. What we were seeing. Just that somehow, the missing girl was getting hurt. She was getting hurt and she was slipping away, away, away from life but her eyelids kept fluttering and then…and then they opened and they looked right at us, right at us.

The girl who was hurting her noticed, and spun around to look right at us too and she had no face.

Ah, it was, well…eyes were there, nose was there, mouth. But…no feeling. No anything. And the knife…it dripped onto her shoes and she didn't notice. But Hibi…we said, we should run, run but Hibi didn't run away, she ran towards. To try and help her, the girl with the moon name and purple clothes because of those eyes, those big liquid-brown eyes that looked right at us but…

So, so much blood.

Let us go, please.

Pleasepleasepleaseplease-

Oh, we remember, now, you're making us remember. Alright, alright. What next…the blood, so much, everywhere. Hibi crumpled to the ground like she was just paper, no cry or scream, no nothing. Just dashing forward, then stopping as the knife dragged through her and crumpling like paper when it was pulled out. And the glowing hair girl, that girl with no face, she didn't blink. She didn't move away, she didn't anything. Just looked at Hibi and then at us with that knife still held out, the blade completely red now and we knew, we knew that if we didn't get away that the same would happen to us because we'd seen. We'd seen. We didn't understand but we. Had. Seen. And so we ran, ran and ran, like the wind, faster and…

We didn't look to see whether that poor girl's big eyes were still pleading with us.

We didn't stop to try and bring Hibi home, to at least bury her in the way that would send her off.

Goddess forgive us, we just ran.

And ran and ran and ran until we tumbled down, down into these waters, until we were far and away and safe. Until the drops of blood that had splattered onto us washed away, until the light in the water began to work its magic. Until slowly, the memories left and we were just us. Not those girls but just us with no past and no future, just this present. Even you, Kyouki, though you are precious and could have been loved we had to forget, forget everything until there was nothing else we needed. Just the crystal caves to sleep in and the fish to play with and rock arches to swim around and under. The sun glittering high above each day, the moon following each night, more glorious from a distance. And laughter…we found laughter again and we were at peace and then…and then you saw us and pulled us here with your voices, and now…

We don't know, where Hibi and that girl may be. Maybe she's dead too. Maybe that faceless girl buried them together, deep in Aeternum. We hope so, maybe. But we don't want to hope, not really.

We want to forget…she's still there, out there, isn't she? The girl without a face…if we're here, if we're here, far and away, she can't hurt us, can she? She cannot. She cannot so please. Please. We have told you, now, the threads of memory strung together and pushed up to the surface. We do not want them anymore, we cannot bear them. We just want to go back, back far and away and safe.

Let us go.

Let us go, let us go, let us go.

Let us forget.