First Serial Experiment—[Lain]—Distortion, Layer: 05—Arrival of Nyarlathotep

Nothing can protect us from cosmic anomaly. Beings exist that can capsize our universe with a casual brush. They are beyond our imagination. Mika just had tea with Cthulhu.

The precise moment wherein Mika crossed over was when she read the message on the handkerchief. But why didn’t she notice? How did she miss her body breaking apart? Maybe it was gradual. Here are some estimates:

1. Lain was not physically standing in the middle of the street. Mika was seeing her in the wired.

2. Lain’s existence inside and outside of the wired have grown less distinguishable. Lain’s friends are impressed by a high-profile hacking effort that Lain doesn’t remember being involved with. But surely she’s heard the story, being the hyper-informed tech-head that she is, right? Unless her experiences are being broken between multiple personalities with their own memories…

3. The Mika trapped in the wired is no longer connected to her physical self. She is a passage of that person’s information into the wired, exclusive from her. This is no different from what the suicide cases have been doing, except that A. Mika (apparently) doesn’t know that she exists separately in the wired and B. she doesn’t kill herself.

Lain learns from many sources in the wired, wherein she visits an alternate version of her room, apparent in full body and full range, just as she bragged she’d be able to do in episode four. Her parents are among her sources, which raises some questions. Are these ghosts of her parents, like that of Mika? Are her parents actually accessing the wired? Do they even exist in the meat? Lain’s questionable sanity and our overall lack of information make it difficult to even speculate. For now, we won’t.

This episode opens even more doors, but closes none. The spectre of Nyarlathotep looms over the wired.

The other side is crowded. The dead will have nowhere to go.

– Layer 05, from #ab rebuild an omnipresence in wired