Volume 2 – Chapter 12: The Choice

The figure’s words hung in the air like a heavy fog, thick and choking. The beat of my heart thudded in my chest and echoed in my ears. “The truth about why you’re here,” it said in a voice that was soft yet authoritative. "The truth about the flood. And what you must do next."

I couldn’t breathe for a minute. Each word weighed upon me, filling my bones as if the air around me thickened. The flooding… was it really just an accident? Had the world really been laid waste by some random act of nature? Or was this something larger, something we couldn’t comprehend? What was this figure going on about, and why did I feel I was already inside the story it was about to tell?

Rika squeezed my hand more tightly, her nails digging into my skin slightly. I could sense her body tense up, the fear that had settled in her like it had in me. But there was something else there as well — resolve, a quiet strength that I didn’t know how to engage with. We were in this together, come what may.

The figure froze, eyes glimmering festering iron in the gloom. There was no warmth to its eye, only a calculated, penetrating intensity that left me chilled. It knew everything — about us, about what had happened, about what would happen next. But it didn’t speak. It didn’t need to. It was worse than anything she could say.

“What do you want from us?” I finally managed to speak, though it was a quivering whisper. I didn’t know whether I wanted the answer. “Why are we here?”

The figure did not answer immediately. Instead, it reached one long, pale hand toward me, its fingers long and awkwardly delicate. The truth, it whispered, so softly it was almost inaudible. “The truth of why you’re here, of why the flood came, of what you have to do next.”

Her voice was so quiet, but there was an inescapable strength behind it, a gravity pushing against me that made each word hit me like a punch to the solar plexus. They flood — it hadn’t been an accident. It had not been some bizarre force of nature. No, it was playing a piece in a greater symphony, a grander opus. The earth beneath then was moving, as though the world was about to fall over and there was nothing I could do to catch it.

Rika came closer to me and her voice was fierce even when I could see the fear in her eyes. “You’re speaking like we know something. What are you saying? Who are you?”

The figure did not immediately respond. Its hand was still extended, but now it appeared to draw back, as if weighing the question. “I am one who has been watching,” it said, its voice low, deliberate. "You and your friend. I have seen you run, try to run away from something already coming for you.”

“Escape?” I echoed, my mind racing. “We have been running because of the flood. Because everything is—”

“No, not just the flood,” interrupted the figure, its voice growing more demanding. “The flood was just the start. It was a result of choices, of actions that you didn’t know about but played a role in, anyway.”

The words washed over me, leaving me breathless. “What do you mean? What choices? We’re just trying to survive!”

The figure’s eyes glittered as it spoke again, its words furring with a cold, calculating certitude. “No. You are here because you are a part of something greater. You have always belonged to it. And now, what has been set in motion you must face. You cannot escape it. Not anymore.”

My mind spun. I was beginning to understand, but that wasn’t what I wanted to understand.” The world had been flooded. It had been ravaged by something — something that was more than nature’s anger. Something somehow caused by us, or at least a party to. But I couldn’t process it. I don’t understand how on Earth we were in this, you know.

“What do you want from us?” “Read!” Rika insisted, her tone now more forceful. The shaking had subsided, but she remained tense. “What are you trying to say to us? What do you keep saying ‘we’re part of it’?”

The figure’s lips curled up slightly in an almost mocking smile. “Do you still not understand, do you? That’s the problem. You you believe you’re running away from something. But in fact, you’re running toward it.” There’s literally no escape, no safe space for you. Not anymore. The flood was just the start of something much darker, much stronger. It’s not over. Not by a long shot.”

Everything around me melted away as the words consumed me whole, leaving nothing but a haze of faces and sounds. The city, the flood, the chaos — it felt far away now. What mattered was the figure before us and the truth it was about to reveal.

“You do not have a choice in the matter,” the figure said, taking a step closer to us, its presence feeling heavy. “The world as you know it no longer exists. It has been wiped clean, and what remains is something entirely different. Born of the flood, born of the consequences of actions you cannot begin to comprehend. But you’re here, and you’re in it. And you will find out why. Eventually you will know what needs to be done.”

For a moment, I stepped back, as if I were now standing at the lip of a precipice, staring down into nothingness. “What must be done?” I said, my voice breaking. “What are you talking about?”

The figure did not respond immediately. Instead, it reached its hand out to me once again, only this time its movements were uncomfortably smooth, like a predator stalking its prey. I felt Rika grip my hand tighter, but she said nothing. She was equally confused, and equally scared. But there was something else in her eyes, too. Maybe even a glimmer of understanding? Or was it hope?

“You have to own it,” the reality said, at a lower register. “You need to confront the truth, Kaito. You have to confront what the flood actually signifies. And then... you’re going to have to make a decision. Judge whether you’re going to fight or whether you’re going to let it eat you up.”

The words rattled through my head, contorted and twisted, so that everything felt unbearably heavy. I had no idea what was real anymore. Was I some piece in a larger plan? Was the flood an element in some great template? And then what did I need to do?

I stood frozen, my heart racing in my chest. The figure was waiting for me to decide, to step forward and accept whatever truth it was presenting.

But the truth was terrifying. The truth was something I didn’t know how to face.

“Come with me,” said the figure again, now commanding. “You don’t have a choice.”

I looked up at Rika, and, for the first time, didn’t have words. Should we follow? Should we run?

But the person had already made the choice for us. Before I could respond, it advanced a step, a hand reaching out to me. And right then, I knew–there was no going back.