Voice

She look at the white door and its orange stripe bearing the name of the girl she loved, Jo Yuri. Will she ever be ready to step inside and face this truth, she really does not know.

Chaewon held her hand tightly and mouthed to her, “Let’s go, it’s ok.”

The pink haired girl put her hand on the palm scanner and the door opened.

Inside was all that is left of Yuri, pictures, videos, her clothes, almost everything about her. The few things they manage to keep of her.

Yena browse all the neatly arrange pictures of the girl. Painstakingly printed on matte board – in times when using paper is increasingly getting rarer here – are printed memories of her.

The pictures from she was born, from pre-school to highschool when they have met, to university. The picture with their friends, the pictures with Chaewon, the picture with their genius friend that she does not want to see and their pictures. The smiles, the silliness, ordinary mundane things that cannot be mimic by an AI program.

She wants all of it to comeback , to turn back the time, hoping she will be on time, just in time to stop the clockwork like working of the city. She closes her eyes and let the tear falls as the last recording of girl’s voice played.   

It was just as she remember it, she smiled.

It was husky, her tone perfect, each note she sang on tune, it was as it always been the music that make her day start.

I’ll go now.

Those are her last word, memories from that day a year ago come flashing by.

“I’ll go now.” Yuri kissed her forehead, she is still to sleepy to get out of bed. She smiled to her and pouted her lips. She receive a peck from her lover.

“You should get up now, or Chae will kill you.” Yuri walks towards the door of her room.

This are some of the last thing she remembers. That day Yuri started her job at the company where their genius bestfriend Hyewon works, infact Yuri is going to work in project where Hyewon is involve. Yena put her trust to it because she is there, she trusted her to take care of Yuri.

The job is lowlevel one, but for Yuri it’s a start to get herself back on her feet after getting fired from the previous job.

Things started the same, on time – precise. That exact job specially required that precision that their city seem to value so much. Yuri is pretty much a cog in the clockwork.

But as much as it value precision, timing, things does go awry and that is what happened. It is not clear, but part of the city system went bonkers, it glitched. The part the new system is being tested, the part where Yuri was supposed to work glitched, She was left in the middle of it.

Just like how everything goes back as it is after a glitch. A cog can get replaced, so does Yuri, she is a replaceable part. No one tried to save her everyone goes back like nothing is happening. Like there is a girl staring at them, eyes asking for help as she slowly, slowly disintegrate.

Yena and Chaewon run to the place as fast as they can, but they are too late.  All they have is a video of the moments before she disappear. Nothing was left of her. They demanded an explanation from everyone, to Hyewon specially but she can’t say anything, she only cried.

Everything about It was wipe out. Just like how Yuri disintegrate to nothingness, everything about the incident is gone.

All she they have been given is a consolation, a consolation she accepted. She is willing to take, because she not ready to face the truth. That consolation ends now, a one year simulation of memory. There she stands in front of the holographic projection of the person she love. She is wearing the exact same thing she is wearing a year ago, on that day.

“Goodbye my love, my duck.”

“Goodbye.”

“I love you.”

Yena wiped her tears and nodded, acknowledging the last words. 

“Those are from the simulation too, right, Chae?”

“No, that was from her. Everything might have disappear but they manage to save her voice, her last words. Those last words she dedicated it for you.” Chaewon said, as she herself sobs – hearing the one true last recording of her bestfriend. 

They slowly watch the clock as it approaches the last seconds before 5.

Chaewon put the flowers beside Yuri’s portrait.  She graced her fingers on the girl’s image. She gritted her teeth and sighed – saying the words she want’s to say in her mind.

“Anything you want to say?” Chaewon ask, Yena just shake her head.

4:56..4:57.4:58..4:59..5:00 and the memory simulation ends.

Chaewon returned Yena’s phone to her, in its screen is a message regarding the end of it.

Yena put it in her pocket, for one last time she look around.

“I’ll visit you again.” She whispered.