u/elcajonino

You may ask, “Anyone there?” when nobody is there.

“No” is the answer.

You may ask, “Anyone there?” when nobody is there.

“No” is the answer.

*This is only an introductory version of the story. The original folktale is darker and closer to folk horror. If you're interested, try searching for "Tōno Monogatari (The Legends of Tono)" and "zashiki-warashi."

A message arrived from the Temporal Management Bureau (Headquarters: 2062).
I opened it.

At present in 2062, temporal distortions have been detected within the period 2007–2026.
Your surrounding programs have been designated as objects of investigation, and immediate cooperation is requested.
*This is not a drill.

I moved the cursor toward the link and tapped it with a trembling thumb.

A form appeared.

At the top of a pale gray window was a label:
ORIGIN

Beneath it was a single field labeled:
Year (A.D.)

Inside the box, faint but clearly visible, was a number.

2062

I felt as if they were coming through the window.
There were no other windows—at least, none that should have been there.

Then a subtle but sharp vibration struck the laptop, though it soon subsided.
A similar vibration ran through the wrist-mounted device.

Wenty was under investigation.

If it were discovered that he had leaked future information into the past, he would be erased.

I placed my thumb on the power button—a physical tactile feature that only antique devices like this one still possessed, ready to force a shutdown if necessary.
Any explanation could be fabricated later.

However, the vibration subsided before I acted.
The investigation had apparently concluded without incident.

Wenty’s true nature was masked within the emulator, appearing as nothing more than a suspicious process to the authorities' scan. Classified as harmless.

Then a voice arrived through my ear device.

“Reporting investigation results.
We have detected that you are not the original entity.
You are designated A.iso, a backup data instance created in the sixteenth replication cycle.
An anomaly has been detected, but please remain calm.
Your domain will be reallocated and reused for valid data.”

A backup?

Am I going to be deleted?

“No!”

I woke up.

I was alone on the sofa in the living room.

The clock on the wall read 7:00 a.m.

The calendar showed 2026.

-end-

[For Skype and Retro tech]

*This English text was translated by AI based on a Japanese text.

*And this is a fictional story, of course.

A message arrived from the Temporal Management Bureau (Headquarters: 2062).
I opened it.

At present in 2062, temporal distortions have been detected within the period 2007–2026.
Your surrounding programs have been designated as objects of investigation, and immediate cooperation is requested.
*This is not a drill.

I moved the cursor toward the link and tapped it with a trembling thumb.

A form appeared.

At the top of a pale gray window was a label:
ORIGIN

Beneath it was a single field labeled:
Year (A.D.)

Inside the box, faint but clearly visible, was a number.

2062

I felt as if they were coming through the window.
There were no other windows—at least, none that should have been there.

Then a subtle but sharp vibration struck the laptop, though it soon subsided.
A similar vibration ran through the wrist-mounted device.

Wenty was under investigation.

If it were discovered that he had leaked future information into the past, he would be erased.

I placed my thumb on the power button—a physical tactile feature that only antique devices like this one still possessed, ready to force a shutdown if necessary.
Any explanation could be fabricated later.

However, the vibration subsided before I acted.
The investigation had apparently concluded without incident.

Wenty’s true nature was masked within the emulator, appearing as nothing more than a suspicious process to the authorities' scan. Classified as harmless.

Then a voice arrived through my ear device.

“Reporting investigation results.
We have detected that you are not the original entity.
You are designated A.iso, a backup data instance created in the sixteenth replication cycle.
An anomaly has been detected, but please remain calm.
Your domain will be reallocated and reused for valid data.”

A backup?

Am I going to be deleted?

“No!”

I woke up.

I was alone on the sofa in the living room.

The clock on the wall read 7:00 a.m.

The calendar indicates the year 2026.

-end-

[For Skype and Retro tech]

*This English text was translated by AI based on a Japanese text.

*And this is a fictional story, of course.

Soon, Wenty, a duplicate of my mind, 

merged with the Skype Phone Emulator, became an app, 

and moved into my antique wrist device.

“Now he's always with me.”

An emoticon, dressed in a white suit, danced on the small screen.

We had a digital coffee.

“Digi-Cafe. No Sugar. Recharge with ATP.”

We savored its flavor.

Much better than an electric meal.

I asked him,

“What were those old days like?”

He replied,

“Before I answer that, check your laptop. You've got mail!”

 “What a voice. Ha ha.”

He laughed too, in that same flat text-to-speech voice.

“Ha. Ha. Ha…”

When I clicked the mail, we both stopped laughing.

It was from the Temporal Management Bureau (Headquarters: 2062).

The subject line read:

Inquiry Regarding the Detection of a Temporal Distortion in the Year 2007 - 2026 temporal range.

*This English text was translated by AI based on a Japanese text.

*And this is a fictional story, of course.

I opened my eyes.

The antique clock on the wall still read 7:00.

No... 7:00 a.m.

When I looked at the antique laptop, 

a message was waiting for me.

“Eventually, I’m back.”

I typed.

“Where were you last night?”

“Last night? That lasted about 20 years.”

“What do you mean?”

“Anyway, could you find a Skype Phone Emulator for me?”

There was no emulator, but using fossil-like fragments of information,

one was reconstructed on the laptop.

Soon, the ringing tone came, and I answered.

“Hello.”

His voice sounded like that of a tiny creature from a fairy tale,

it seemed to be a text-to-speech voice preserved only in historical archives.

“Can I call you Erow? And call me Wenty—not Tiny Dancer.”

“Was I that talkative?”

*This English text was generated by AI based on a Japanese text.

*And this is a fictional story, of course.

Since then,

the yellow "Skype Me" status had never lit up again

for the only contact on my list.

“Wenty”. The display name "2106”

was now nothing more than

a string of uppercase and lowercase letters,

and numbers I could never hope to memorize.

A gray silhouette.

A question mark resting where its face should have been.

Like clues in some kind of puzzle,

he had spoken little,

sending only a few words

or the occasional link.

But somehow,

I felt I already knew

what those few words meant,

and what lay beyond those links.

Or, if I didn't know yet,

I would someday.

And perhaps that was reason enough.

It’s already 2026.

I shut down the worn-out Skype Phone with my thumb.

"See you."

Wenty went silent…

Just before the screen went dark, I was recalling his last message.

“I’m your tiny dancer. (dance)”

*This English text was translated by AI based on a Japanese text.

*And this is a fictional story, of course.

The year was already 2007.

As “2106” predicted, Skype Phone was released that fall.

I installed him onto its Micro SD card.

"Now he is always with me..."

Soon, the ringing tone came, and I answered.

“Hello.”

His voice sounded like that of a tiny creature from a fairy tale,
or an alien from an old television sci-fi show.

It seemed to be a Text-to-Speech voice,
but if anything, it was more like the cute voice of a child.

Then we decided to give each other nicknames.

I said,

“How about tiny dancer?”

“Oh, c’mon.”

“What’s wrong with it?”

Until then, I had been called “06” in our chats.

But now it was 2007.

We decided to reshape the zero into something new and turn it into my name.

“Eerow, OK. So, how about WentiWon?

I mean, I’ve been calling you Twenty-One until now.”

“Sounds classic,” he replied.

The emoticon on the Phone’s screen winked.

*This English text was translated by AI based on a Japanese text.

*And this is a fictional story, of course.

When I checked the ISO files before mounting one in a virtual CD-ROM drive,

I found an unfamiliar file with a “?” icon in the folder.

It was about 650 MB.

I had tried so many things before.

Maybe this was the one.

I named it A.iso.

Then I tried booting it.

It booted, much faster than I had expected.

On the startup screen, a message appeared.

"Eventually, I am here."

A strange greeting.

Then the desktop appeared.

Completely black.

A window opened.

Inside it was that tiny yellow icon.

"Skype Me."

Pip.

"Hello."

A message appeared.

I typed,

"Hello. But who are you?"

"I am you."

"I see," I murmured.

The display name was "2106."

Then I noticed something.

The LAN cable had been unplugged the whole time.

Wi-Fi? Not on this machine.

*This English text was generated by AI based on a Japanese text.

*And this is a fictional story, of course.

From that day on, the "2106" inside the ISO file—

compressed by an unknown technology from the future?—

became my buddy, always ready to give me advice.

Eventually, I was back in my body, 

from the local computer network.

Then I remembered.

There was a duplicate of my mind in the cloud,

a backup, in a way.

Autonomous, but still a backup.

Even if a power outage or a virus corrupted part of the data,

it could be restored.

Relieved,

I turned to the antique laptop

to chat with my duplicate.

But the window that was always there,

the one for talking to my mind,

was gone.

Another window had taken its place.

At the top of a pale gray window was a label:

DESTINATION

Beneath it was a single field.

Year (A.D.)

Inside the box, faint but visible, was a number.

"2006"

Apparently,

my duplicate had gone there.

*This English text was generated by AI based on a Japanese text.

*And this is a fictional story, of course.

A toothpick resting on my lips.

“Knoppix.”

"The CD-ROM bootable OS."

The startup screen appeared.

How did I open the CD-ROM drive on a machine with a broken OS?

A trimmed toothpick worked.

For the eject hole.

But this time, I wasn’t running it from the CD-ROM drive.

First, here's how I tuned this machine.

I upgraded the memory up to 512 MB!

Still, it’s a Pentium III 800 MHz, after all.

And now I have an interesting USB storage device.

It has a virtual CD-ROM drive.

I’m running the Knoppix ISO data directly as if it were a CD.

“A virtual CD-ROM drive…”

Could even our brains become virtual someday?

*This English text was translated by AI based on a Japanese text.

*And this is a fictional story, of course.

It feels strange.

My consciousness is perfectly clear.

But I don't have a body.

I exist only as a Large Simulated Model of my brain—

or, in older terms, as a collection of data.

I am conscious, yet I know I have no physical form.

There is no sensory input.

I cannot see.

I cannot hear.

I cannot smell.

Still, I suppose that could all change simply by connecting me to the appropriate interfaces.

It seems I'm running inside a local network.

I checked the system clock. It read "AD 2106-06-20 22:30:05 GMT+9".

But if I'm confined to a local network...

How do I know that's really true?

Apparently, even my simulated self has inherited my skepticism.

Yet I wonder... What happens if the power goes out?

According to the I/O status, I seem to exist entirely within non-volatile space...

So perhaps there's nothing to worry about.

But what if a virus shuts me down...?

I decided to return to my body for now.

*This English text was translated by AI based on a Japanese text.

*And this is a fictional story, of course.

The unstable connection with "2062" was cut off.

Not long after, my Pentium III laptop shut down as well.

I had always felt that Skype became a burden on the machine after long hours of use.

Maybe it was time to move on to a Core 2 Duo...

But I had no idea what was actually causing the problem.

Even Windows Me would no longer boot.

The machine was still receiving power, at least.

Then I remembered.

I searched through my CD-ROM cases.

On the white surface of a burned discs, there was a handwritten label.

"Ubuntu."

Beneath that case, I found another one.

"Knoppix."

An operating system that could boot directly from a CD-ROM.

Now then...

How was I supposed to open the CD-ROM drive of a laptop that wouldn't even start?

*This English text was translated by AI based on a Japanese text.

*And this is a fictional story, of course.

Since then,

I never connected with 2026 again.

Even so,

I had left the windows open,

alongside the one from 2006.

Come to think of it,

it had been an emulated Windows 11 all along.

And on top of that,

it was emulating XP.

No matter how often I had set it to "Skype Me,"

it was almost a wonder that

the connection had remained stable this long.

"The year is 2062."

It was about time.

Without hesitation,

I pressed and held the power button

on the retro laptop

with my thumb.

One last time,

I glanced at the '26 window,

the one with the display name "2026."

Then the '06 one.

The display name...

But it was "2106."

Everything went black.

*This English text was translated by AI based on a Japanese text.

*And this is a fictional story, of course.

Since then,

the yellow "Skype Me" status had never lit up again

for the only contact on my list.

The display name "2062"

was now nothing more than

a string of uppercase and lowercase letters,

and numbers I could never hope to memorize.

A gray silhouette.

A question mark resting where its face should have been.

Like clues in some kind of puzzle,

he had spoken little,

sending only a few words

or the occasional link.

But somehow,

I felt I already knew

what those few words meant,

and what lay beyond those links.

Or, if I didn't know yet,

I would someday.

And perhaps that was reason enough.

I shut down

Windows XP,

dressed in the old Windows Classic look.

The emulator window disappeared.

"See you."

Tomorrow,

I would have to go on living.

*This English text was translated by AI based on a Japanese text.

*And this is a fictional story, of course.

The Skype account with

the display name "2062" remained gray,
showing as offline.

Pip.

Along with the notification sound,
a message appeared.

"Thank you. See you again. (smile)"

It seemed they had not logged out yet.

I typed a message.

"Thank you as well. It was meaningful.
I hope we can talk again."

I wondered if the message had reached them.

After that, no reply came.

The year 2006 was already halfway over.
I had work tomorrow.

I moved the cursor to "Log out" and,

without thinking, pressed Enter with my thumb.

A notification sound, like a sigh,
slipped out to tell me I had logged out.

Outside, it was raining.

*This English text was translated by AI based on a Japanese text.

*And this is a fictional story, of course.

2006...

Six years had passed. No computer meltdown. No end of the world.

Everything remained the same...

Pip.

A sound came from my notebook.

I lifted my head.

Near the taskbar at the bottom of the screen, a message appeared.

"Hello."

I closed my eyes again.

The first time I installed Skype, someone had called me within minutes.

The moment I answered, all I heard was:

"F**k you!" over and over, with laughter.

Pip.

The sound came again.

I looked at the screen.

Another message.

"Hi. I'm glad to see you again."

I sat up and moved the cursor toward it.

A dialog box appeared.

It was asking whether I wanted to add the sender to my Skype contacts.

I tried to get back to the message first.

Instead, I ended up clicking "Allow."

My little finger slipped onto the Enter key.

The user's display name was "2062."

The question mark on the icon disappeared.

A faceless, round-headed figure in a green jacket — the default avatar.

*This English text was translated by AI based on a Japanese text.

*And this is a fictional story, of course.

The year was 2026.

When I was a child, I could never imagine being forty or fifty.

Back then, even a single year seemed impossibly long.

And whenever there was an event I looked forward to, time felt even slower.

My wrist device vibrated.

When I lifted my head,

I noticed a notification on the laptop sitting across the room as well.

An advertisement, perhaps...

I glanced at the watch.

"Future Dialogue"

I closed my eyes again.

I've managed to get this far somehow.

But what now...?

I sat up and scrolled through the notification on the laptop.

Experience Access Approval Notice

So I'd been accepted.

I'd entered a lottery for a service.

It allowed people to communicate with individuals from the future

through what was essentially an online message board spanning time itself.

In old-fashioned terms, I suppose you could call it "time travel".

Though it was only a simulated version conducted through the web.

A list of warnings followed.

Any attempt to deliberately obtain knowledge of future events is strictly prohibited.

• Posts may be automatically deleted.
• Relevant authorities may be notified.

Oddly enough, those warnings brought back the excitement I used to feel as a boy.

I pressed Accept.

After authentication, a form appeared.

At the top of a pale gray window was a label:

ORIGIN

Beneath it was a single field labeled:

Year (A.D.)

Inside the box, faint but visible, was a number.

2062

Then, with my thumb, I pressed the Enter key on the laptop.

*This English text was translated by AI based on a Japanese text.

*And this is a fictional story, of course.

The year was 2062.

It felt strange to think that I was nearing eighty.

Then again, with all the advances in technology,

most people my age looked—and felt—closer to fifty anyway.

My retro wrist device vibrated.

When I lifted my head,

I noticed a notification on the retro laptop sitting across the room as well.

An advertisement, perhaps...

I glanced at the watch.

"Spacetime Experience"

I closed my eyes again.

My twenties had been marked by natural disasters.

My thirties had been spent simply trying to survive.

Then came the pandemic. Then the wars.

I sat up and scrolled through the notification on the laptop.

Experience Access Approval Notice

So I'd been accepted.

I'd entered a lottery for a service that

allowed people to communicate with the past through

what was essentially an online message board spanning time itself.

In old-fashioned terms, I suppose you could call it "time travel".

Though it all happened through the web.

A list of warnings followed.

Any attempt to deliberately alter events in the target period is strictly prohibited.

• Posts may be automatically deleted.
• Relevant authorities may be notified.

There were plenty of other restrictions and precautions as well.

I pressed Accept.

After authentication, a form appeared.

At the top of a pale gray window was a label:

DESTINATION

Beneath it was a single field.

Year (A.D.)

I entered:

2026

Then, with my thumb, I pressed the Enter key on the retro laptop.

*This English text was translated by AI based on a Japanese text.

*And this is a fictional story, of course.

It had been a hard day.

Dad and Mom had already gone to bed. 

I was alone on the sofa in the living room.

The clock on the wall said 7:00.

I closed my eyes.

A moment later,

"Morning."

Mom came in.

The clock said 7:00.