Headphone Actor

This is the fourth song of the series. The story about doubting your eyes.

Background
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Enomoto Takane (Ene when she was human) was very bored on this average day. She turns on the radio when a country's president in tears announces that the world is ending today. She had a half finished game with no save and a textbook. She was scared and to stop her body from trembling she put her headphones on. Listening to an unknown song, by an unknown artist, a voice from her headphones suddenly asks her, if she wanted to survive. She claims the voice is her own. It told her to go 20 seconds ahead and cross the hill, better or worse she would find out what her voice meant. On her way she crosses a crowed intersection and mentions a sobbing girl. Her voice tells her that 12 minutes are left. She says if everything was going to vanish, she had no other choice but to listen to the voice from the headphones. Many minutes pass as she runs, having only one minute left. Enomoto claims she can no longer hear the voice because the hill that she is supposed to cross is right in front of her. When she gets to her destination scientists congratulate her. She finds out her town was an experiment that was no longer needed. One of scientist calmly tosses a bomb. She is told she was living her whole entire life in a box. Then she looks at her town which is now a burnt wreckage. From her headphones she hears a faint "Sorry" and the viewers see an outline of Ene.

Theories

 * Fans think Ene was trying to save her past self from dying in bombing.
 * Enomoto mentions a sobbing girl. That girl could be Hiyori.
 * Many think Kenjirou (Ayano's father) is one of those scientist that blew up Enomoto's town.
 * Enomoto somehow lost her body in an experiment. When meeting Shintarou in the first chapter of the manga she has no memory since she says she really doesn't know. She could have lost her memory when escaping to the cyber world.

English Translation


It was an extremely average day,

Without a single obstacle in my path

Until I was bored, listening to the radio,

And I heard this said:

"It's very unfortunate I have to say this,

But the world is going to end today"

So said some country's president,

In tears as he spoke.

Out the windows was a huge flock of birds,

Congesting to cover up the sky

Swallowing up the crescent moon,

Headed some unknown direction...

I had a half-shinnied game with no save;

A scarcely-touched textbook lay on my desk

And to stop my body from trembling,

I promptly put on my headphones

Just as I was listening to an obscure artist,

A number they did with an unknown title,

Just as it came to my ears, I heard:

"You want to survive, yes?"

Waving over the wriggling world,

The skyscrapers seemed to tremble

This voice seemed unmistakable:

It was my own, which I tired of hearing

"If you cross that hill, then in twenty seconds,

You'll know what I mean, for better or worse

Don't doubt, just listen close - go twenty seconds ahead."

The intersection was crowded, of course;

Man, woman, child, it didn't matter

I was buried under people yelling and babies' cries.

Rioting people, a sobbing girl,

A priest praying, I passed them all by

One single person headed the other way,

Towards what was beyond that hill.

The voice from the headphones persisted:

"Twelve minutes left," it told me

If everything was going to up and vanish,

Then I had no other way.

The chorus of shrieks and screams

Turned to tearful eyes in ten seconds

I had my doubts, but no matter who did what,

There was no ending humanity's song

"Run, run, there's one minute left,"

But I couldn't even hear it by then;

The hill which I thought to cross

Was right before me.

My breath faint, I finally arrived

Before a wall which projected the sky.

Behind it, scientists in white applauded;

"Magnificent," they said -

Doubt.

From there, I saw the town

Was some kind of experimental facility;

"No longer necessary,"

A scientist said, and calmly tossed a bomb

I was told I had been living

My whole life in a little world in a box.

So I could only stare, dumbfounded

At the burnt wreckage that had been the town.

And from the headphones at my ear,

I heard a faint "sorry"...