Tomorrow's Twilight

The rest of the day passed in a blur of half-ass lectures and forced conversations as Celeste - and pretty much every person in the rest of country - forced themselves to pay attention, as instructed by Tokyo's government.

Presumably, the call for calm and ordinance was a strategy to avoid nationwide chaos while the authorities and their bosses search for a solution to the mysterious phenomenon. At least that was the story civilians were fed - about an hour after the emergency broadcast aired.

In all fairness, most - if not all - everyday citizens of Japan were not capable of operating outside of the government's leadership.

And perhaps just like many others at her school, Celeste found herself constantly feeling a gnawing anxiety in her chest. But for someone as paranoid as her, she could hardly suppress her revealing mannerisms. If it wasn't a shoulder twitch or the bat of an eye, it was her impulsive neede to flinch at any rushed movement caught in her peripherals.

She noticed the little things - like the flickering lights in the lecture hall, the shadows that seemed to shift at the edge of her vision when ever she wasn't looking for them. Whatever was happening, it seemed all too familiar.

So, the question was: were she and everyone else somehow imagining the same thing at the same time, or was the world actually breaking?

If only that question came with an answer.

Ugh! This is just too much.

As the sun began to set, casting an orange glow over the campus, Celeste found herself walking home alone, the chill in the air matching the unease settling in her gut.

"Man, this cold is bitting," she said as passed a group of pastry shopkeepers looking up to the night sky, hands clapsed together, worshipping the fractures as if they were some kind of second-coming or religious prophecy.

That alone made Celeste cringe in boiling anxiety.

"Why did I break curfew again? Tsk."

Against the government's public order - and against Haruki's avid advice - she superstitiously took a detour through the park, harboring the memory of her earlier encounter.

Even as foggy as her mind was with all that had happened and all that was still happening, the memory was still overwhelmingly vivid. A mind like hers - that's been diagnosed early with paranoid schizophrenia - held no real chance at rationalization in these circumstances, especially when the rest of the world finally saw what she did.

That in its self was triggering.

Well, I guess now that everybody else sees what I see... no more discounts on meds for me then. Blah... I never liked the way they make me feel noway.

At any rate, she'd no longer have to deal with the stares and whispers from the people that just couldn't understand her. Maybe now her disorder would no longer be her disease - a reason for anyone to fear being near her.

On the other hand, she found some peace in solitude - rather by circumstance or not. Haruki was a constant reminder of a normalcy she'd dreamed of, and that's all she needed.

In the distance, Celeste could see a few people running in her direction.

First three. Then six. And then nearly a few dozen pairs feet kicked up a larg cloud of dust and debris, barreled towards her at full speed.

"What the hell?!"

At first she couldn't tell, but once she finally saw what was happening, it was clear that they were fleeing.

But what they were fleeing from wasn't something chasing them - not exactly.

It was a phenomenon that could only be described as the touch of death - or what the people of Japan had known about it.

It was as if some invisible force was snatching their souls right from their bodies as they ran... and dropped so abruptly - one after the other.

Actually, the closer she looked, the phenomena seemed random. Some further away would drop to their deaths, then some closer to the front would fall in the like.

Clearly, there was no point for them to run. It wasn't like they were being attacked by some physical thing, it was more like a supernatural occurrence.

So, while nearly half of the fleeing group mysteriously fell to their deaths, Celeste shifted her gaze back up to the fractures, noting how they widened only slightly with each body that smacked the ground, and then she began running into the fleeing crowd head on.

Her reason for this impractical reaction alluded even herself.

Yet, somehow, she found herself doing something a person like her never would in any normal circumstances. However, this wasn't exactly what even she would call a normal circumstance.

The world seemed as though it was ending. And, by god, she was determined to confront the source of her paranoia before it did - her sanity be damned.

I know I'm not crazy!

At this point, hundreds of people were barreling past her, fleeing in the opposite direction with a mixture of grief and terror etched on their faces - some, rich folks that lived in this part of the city, others, poor worker class citizens looking to earn their scraps. But, presently and despite their margin of difference, they all shared one thing in common...

The primal need for survival.

"This is mayhem." Celeste managed, but found herself stumbling over an elderly woman that had been trampled amongst the panic.

But Celeste - surprisingly - never hit the ground. A hand caught her flailing arm just as she tripped, gripping tightly around her forearm, and then pulling her back to her feet with little effort.

"Celeste... Are you okay?"

Unexpectedly to her, it was Haruki. Somehow, he found her among the chaos, and without hesitation, he reached out to save her from the same fate the elderly woman inevitably met.

"What the hell are you doing here, Haruki? There's a curfew."

Haruki smirked at her comment.

"I could ask you the same thing, Celeste."

He pulled her closer to avoid a collision with a frantic man yelling at the top of his lungs - something about forgiveness for leaving his daughter and wife behind - sprinting with closed eyes without regards to his own safety, let alone another person's.

"Waoh there. I thought you had eyes behind your head, little miss schizophrenia?"

A laugh escaped his lips, but Celeste wasn't laughing back.

In fact, her expression darkened with fear. It wasn't long before Haruki caught on to the shift in her eyes, but it was already too late.

"Haruki- "

"..."

His body dropped the moment she called his name. And without a doubt in her mind, he was dead.

The sound that escaped her lips was deafening - a scream so loud, it made the chaos around them seem to vanish.

After a few seconds that, her lungs were empty, and then her legs began to give out.

For what felt like an eternity, her gaze remained on Haruki's lifeless expression. It was strange seeing his eyes not filled with the light it usually held. They were cold now, and dilated - a shock to see for someone who'd never seen death up close before, especially for a diagnosed schizophrenic. It was a breaking point.

"Haruki..."

Her voice was weak, cracking as she repeated his name.

"Haru - ki... Please..."

The tears that had been pooling in her eyes finally fell in that moment. Meanwhile, the trees swayed and the earth shook, and then she tore her gaze from Haruki's body until it found the fractures in the sky.

They were wide - wide enough for her to catch a glimpse into what looked like another world.

From her position, it was beautiful, green and blue hues with specks of colors that only nature could produce. The land seemed unscathed by the touch of modern man - no towering skyscrapers, no factorys or nuclear power plants to be seen in the vastness of it.

Most favorably, there was no sign of chaos - a place where peace could possibly be a reality for someone like Celeste.

And that thought alone brought on a different kind of tears.

But before a single one could even drop, her legs finally gave, and Celeste felt the weight of the world pull her under.

Then, everything thing went black.

And in that darkness, a faintly familiar voice whispered into her soul:

"Goddess Of All! Your kingdom awaits you're return. Should you find your reign..."