Chapter 7: When Names Start to Rot
> "Names were never meant to last.
They're just masks worn by silence."
— Unknown Speaker, heard in dream-layer 3
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The city was unfamiliar again.
Same corners. Same skyline. But none of the signs had words anymore.
The letters had peeled off.
The meanings had bled out.
Even sound seemed to hesitate.
Ranzō walked past a group of people — or things pretending to be people.
They all wore blank faces.
Identical.
Smooth.
No eyes.
They turned toward him in perfect unison.
> "You still have a name," they whispered in a voice that echoed from their necks.
He said nothing.
They began to hum — a fractured melody — like static tuned into grief.
He took out the notebook.
This time, it opened to a page he hadn't written.
A name was scrawled across it in frantic, uneven ink:
> RANZŌ — crossed out.
SYN-0 — rewritten.
He blinked.
His body felt slightly too distant — as if it lagged behind his mind.
Something was overwriting him.
Suddenly, pain pulsed behind his eyes.
Memories that didn't belong to him tried to surface:
A girl screaming underwater.
A tower made of hands.
A classroom with no students, only mirrors.
He dropped the notebook.
It hovered before hitting the ground.
Then — someone else picked it up.
Another Ranzō.
Same coat. Same eyes. But smiling.
The copy looked at him and whispered:
> "You should've burned your name when it still belonged to you."
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> Names are roots.
When they rot, so does everything growing from them.
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