The Threat
脅迫
In the days that followed, Sora began to feel that she was being watched.
A grey car had been parking outside her building every single evening.
She had been noticing the same man near her office for a week.
Never had she felt so walking down her own familiar street.
One night, her phone rang from a number she did not .
A calm voice asked how her sister in the countryside had been keeping.
Sora's blood ran cold, for she had never mentioned her sister to anyone.
"Accidents happen," the voice said, "to people who forget where they ."
The line went dead before she could force a single word out.
She had been building her courage for weeks, but now it nearly collapsed.
Never before had a stranger reached so deeply into her private life.
She checked every lock, though she knew locks would not stop such people.
The company, she understood, had been protecting this secret for years.
Whoever they had hired, they were , patient, and utterly without .
Sora had been sleeping poorly, and now sleep abandoned her completely.
Rarely had she imagined that telling the truth could feel so dangerous.
She thought of the Harpers and forced herself to keep breathing .
If she vanished now, the evidence would quietly along with her.
She made three copies of the drive and hid them in separate places.
One she mailed to herself; another she buried deep in her memory.
Never had a decision demanded so much from someone with so little power.
The fear had been growing, yet beneath it something harder was forming.
They wanted her silent, and their fear told her the truth mattered.
So long had she been afraid, she had almost forgotten her own strength.
That night, trembling but , she decided it was time to find help.