DAY 7 DIMENSION: 7 FINAL OBSERVATION I opened my eyes. But there was no scenery. No white. No black. Not even light existed. And yet I could see everything. Every world I had passed through. The world that was only a single line. The world that had become a flat plane. The world where I lived with Misaki. The future where I died. The countless lives I had never chosen. And 1,048,576 worlds. All of them existed inside me. My smartphone vibrated. Only one line appeared on the screen. FINAL QUESTION “What is reality?” I couldn't answer. At that moment I heard footsteps from beyond the darkness. A man appeared. He had the same face as me. The man I had seen on the sixth day. “You finally made it.” That was all he said. “Who are you?” The man didn't answer. Instead he held out his smartphone to me. An old video was playing on the screen. A hospital room. Misaki was lying in a bed. Beside her I was sitting. No. That wasn't me. He was slightly thinner than I was with deep shadows beneath his eyes. Holding Misaki's hand the man was crying. I heard a doctor's voice. “I'm sorry. There's nothing we can do to save her.” The video changed. It showed a white laboratory. Countless monitors. In the center stood a single machine. Words appeared on the screen. REALITY BRANCH OBSERVATION DEVICE PURPOSE: SEARCH FOR A WORLD WHERE SURVIVAL IS POSSIBLE The man asked the machine a question. “Does a world exist where Misaki survives?” The machine answered. “UNKNOWN.” “Then find it.” “THE REQUIRED NUMBER OF OBSERVATIONS CANNOT BE CALCULATED.” The man didn't hesitate. “Create them all.” A chill ran down my spine. The worlds hadn't existed from the beginning. They had been created to search for a possibility where Misaki could be saved. The man spoke. “You've forgotten everything that happened after this.” The video continued. One world was created. Then two. Four. Eight. Sixteen. The multiplication never stopped. But there was a problem. Simply creating worlds wasn't enough to determine their outcomes. Someone had to live inside them and make choices. So the machine created an observer. Me. More precisely a being created by copying my memories and personality. Again. And again. I held my breath. “Then what happened to the real me?” The man looked at me. “He's gone.” The final record appeared on the smartphone. The man in the laboratory. The original me. He was sitting in front of the machine. Misaki was already dead. Among the worlds that had been explored there were worlds where Misaki survived. But in one of those worlds someone else died. In another Misaki had never known me. And in another I had never existed at all. There wasn't a single perfect answer. Even so the man couldn't stop searching. “One more time.” “One more world.” “Maybe the next one.” The number of worlds kept growing. Eventually the machine asked him. “DO YOU WISH TO END THE SEARCH?” The man stared at the screen for a long time. Then he answered. “I can't.” At that moment I remembered. That voice. That despair. That wish. All of it was my memory. In the end the man had saved his own memories inside the machine. But he had deleted one thing. The memory of losing Misaki. Because if every copy carried that memory they would all make the same choice. They would keep creating more worlds. So he threw that memory away. He created a version of me who knew nothing and began the seven stages of observation. At last I understood. “The seven dimensions weren't worlds.” The man nodded. “No.” “They were stages designed to bring the observer outside.” In the first dimension I learned that there was something beyond the world. In the second I looked inside myself. In the third I discovered another life. In the fourth I stepped outside time. In the fifth I saw the possibilities I hadn't chosen. In the sixth I observed the worlds themselves. And then the seventh dimension. A place completely separated from every world. Only here could the choosing finally end. I looked at the man. “Who sent me to the first day?” “You did.” “Not the me I am now.” “That's right.” The man pointed to his chest. “The first observer.” The very first copy that had been created. After failing again and again he had finally sent himself back to the first day. To end the observation that would never end. My smartphone vibrated again. Three choices appeared. DELETE WORLDS MERGE WORLDS END OBSERVATION Below them a new message appeared. “IF YOU SELECT END OBSERVATION ALL WORLDS WILL CONTINUE TO EXIST INDEPENDENTLY.” I stared at the screen. “They won't disappear?” “They won't.” The man answered. “Even without being observed they'll keep living.” The me who lived with Misaki. The me who lived alone. The me who would die tomorrow. The me holding a child. The Misaki who didn't know me. And the world where I didn't exist. Which one was real? I had wondered for so long. But the question itself had been wrong. Even if a world was created by someone else the laughter within it wasn't fake. Neither were the tears. Or the love. Or the loss. For the person living there it was their one and only reality. I pressed “END OBSERVATION.” A warning appeared. “THE OBSERVER CANNOT RETURN.” I smiled. There had never been anywhere for me to return to. “EXECUTE?” I placed my finger on the screen. Then I asked one final question. “Is Misaki alive somewhere?” The man smiled slightly. “Yes.” I smiled too. That was enough. EXECUTE. The lights connecting 1,048,576 worlds went out one by one. The worlds hadn't disappeared. I simply couldn't see them anymore. Finally the first question appeared again on my smartphone. FINAL QUESTION “What is reality?” This time I had an answer. “To live even when no one is observing you.” The screen turned white. ANSWER: ACCEPTED ENDING OBSERVATION. GOODBYE. And then my consciousness went dark. * Morning. Misaki opened her eyes. Beside her a man she didn't recognize was sleeping. He was her husband. It was an ordinary morning. Misaki got out of bed and looked at the smartphone on the table. For just a moment the screen lit up on its own. Words she had never seen before appeared. OBSERVATION: OFF Before Misaki could touch the screen the words disappeared. Outside the window the world continued as if nothing had ever happened. No one knew anymore which numbered world this was. And there was no need to know. Because to the people living in that world it was their one and only “reality.”