I. The day after the emotional disorder
The world didn't collapse.
But it didn't remain intact either. With the fall of the Song of the Identical, the patterns that had begun to synchronize millions of people were disrupted.
The result?
Unprecedented emotional chaos.
In Elytrum, clinics collapsed as citizens couldn't decide whether they loved or feared their families. In Vorlenn, old poets returned from their silences to write unordered verses. And in Syriem, entire groups of duplicates broke their synchronized routines and began to wonder for the first time if what they felt was their own.
Humanity became, for a few days, a field of unleashed emotions.
And at the center of it all… Sael got sick.
II. The fragmented child
He didn't have a fever.
He wasn't bleeding. But every time he woke up, he asked something new:
—"Am I real today?"
—"What if I'm someone else when I sleep?" —"Dad… why are you crying with my voice?"
Akihiko didn't respond.
He just hugged him.
Riva performed a neurosensory scan: "The core collapse caused many of those connected to the emotional network…
to simultaneously experience conflicting memories. Sael is processing emotions that aren't hers, but that also… are hers. "
Lirea, through tears, decided not to leave him any further. "I'm going to teach him how to be… even if he doesn't know who."
III. The Return of Ezra
In an intercepted transmission, a familiar signal reappeared: Ezra.
The dark-eyed Lethal. The one who spoke softly and disappeared without a trace.
This time he wasn't talking to Akihiko.
He was talking to the world:
"Kaelis fell for it because she wanted to create a single song. But she forgot that true synchronicity…
occurs when each instrument plays from its own imperfection."
Ezra had left the Ebon Shadow. And not because he'd changed. But because now he wanted something worse:
"I want the world to keep everything.
Every emotion. Every pain. Every desire. Until it drowns in its own freedom."
IV. The Trap of the Absolutes
Riva detected a network of active coordinates in cities with no direct connection to previous systems. Ignored areas. Small. Fragile.
There, a new pattern was emerging: groups of people claiming to remember things they never experienced.
—"They're not duplicates.
They're not reprogrammed humans. They're people who… believe they've felt false things. "
Some described loves that never happened. Or pains they'd never faced. And yet... they cried, laughed, and reacted as if they were real.
Ezra explained it like this:
"If we all feel everything… No one knows what to feel first. And that, my dear ones… is the true end."
V. The Journey to Mirror Bastion
The team headed to an old laboratory known as Mirror Bastion , a facility that had previously served as a chamber for interpreting collective emotions.
There, they discovered an active psychic network:
A collective meditation room where dozens of people sat in silence… and felt emotions without a source.
Akihiko walked in with Sael.
They both sat in the center.
And in an instant, Akihiko felt fear that wasn't his own.
Sadness from someone he didn't know. Joy from a love he'd never experienced.
And then… a voice: —"Which one of them are you?"
Ezra was there. Physically. In a dark suit. Bottomless eyes.
—"I'm not here to kill.
I'm here to show you the inevitable. In this world, no one will ever be able to feel only their own way again."
VI. The impossible decision
Ezra offered a choice:
"Activate this pulse, and everyone will once again feel only their own.
But with that, all real connection with others will be lost. Each person will be an island. Without bridges. Without echoes."
Or:
"Let the Bastion remain active…
and you'll live in a world where every emotion you feel…might not be your own."
Akihiko looked at his son. To Lirea. To Juno, Marek, Riva.
And he said, "I don't want to isolate the world.
I don't want it to lose its voice either. But I do want it to learn to distinguish. To choose what to feel. And why."
Thus was born the empathic filtration protocol. A system that didn't block other people's emotions,
but instead marked them with internal signals.
A humanity where you knew what was yours…
and what came from the other.
VII. The first experiment – feeling with another without losing yourself
In an empty room, Sael was connected to the new protocol.
In front of him, a girl named Elya, a victim of faulty shared memories.
They both touched hands. And they began to cry.
But for the first time…
they knew exactly which part of that emotion belonged to them.
And which part was shared.
And they didn't care.
Because they learned that it was not necessary to be one to feel together.
END OF CHAPTER 153