Buckle up, because this is where serial experiments lain starts to get weird. Layer 05: Distortion’s voice-over says, “If you can hear it, then it’s speaking to you. If you can see it, it’s yours to have.” The first part is true enough. The episode proper begins with the disembodied voice of Eiri Masami lamenting that mankind can no longer evolve, and tells Lain that he’s “God.” Lain speaks to a series of apparitions of a doll, a mask, her mother, and her father, each of whom speculates on prophecy and the nature of the Wired. At school, Lain’s friends ask about a hack she apparently did of the city’s traffic system, but Lain has no memory of it. Mika keeps seeing the message “Fulfill the prophecy” and is replaced by a double at the end of the episode.
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