A Year Left

337 Days

Rika hadn’t stepped outside in days.
Not since Sayo left.

She barely left her desk, really—except to grab the delivery bags left at her door every three days. Convenience store snacks. Overpriced TV dinners. Enough to stay alive. Enough to keep from starving. Enough to keep working.

She still wore the same clothes from that day, same hoodie, same loose pants. Her coffee cup hadn’t been washed, just refilled, reheated, and left untouched again. It sat beside a stack of crumpled papers and open notebooks, all arranged in a mockery of order. She tried to keep it neat. Tried. But it always ended the same—pages toppled to the floor, notes scattered, equations ripped through in red pen. There were more scratched-out notes than not.

All because she wasn’t getting anywhere.

Sayo would’ve told her to take a break. To breathe, take a walk, or drink some water. Maybe even to give up.

No… forget Sayo.
Sayo would just smile. Shrug. Let the world burn.
Wait for some miracle to show up five minutes too late—and somehow make it beautiful anyway.

That’s just the kind of person she is.

Rika tightened the knot on her makeshift bun, a tangled mess that looked more like a furball than a hairstyle. She scratched her scalp and didn’t bother to wash her hands afterward. She hadn’t looked in a mirror for days. Maybe longer.

There was no time for that.

If she stopped—
If she even glanced out the window—
If she saw how close the moon had gotten to the Earth, the way it loomed like some godless omen in the sky—

She’d want to give up.

The feeling of doom would crawl beneath her skin, curl around her ribs, and make her blood freeze, and she’d stop moving. Just like that. It wasn’t safe to look. Wasn’t safe to pause.

Instead, she kept her eyes on the screen. Her fingers hovered above a keyboard. Pages of half-formed theories waited beside her, full of gravity maps, scribbled timelines, letters to scientists who never wrote back.

On the far side of the desk, a red notification blinked on her phone.
Voicemail.
From Sayo.
It was surprising that Rika was even still on the brunette’s mind.

She didn’t listen.
She didn’t delete it, either.

Rika picked up the cup of cold coffee, took a sip, and grimaced. She didn’t throw it away. Just set it down again. She was used to the taste of things gone bitter.

She’d fix this.
She had to.
Because if she didn’t—
Then what else is the next year of her life for?
What was the point of being an aspiring scientist who wishes to make new discoveries?
What was she even doing with her life?

She continued typing away at the screen, ignoring the pain and the ache of her back, shifting seating positions every few hours or so. Her spine made an audible crack as she shifted in her chair again. She muttered something about becoming one with the seat cushion. Posture of an armadillo, soul of a raccoon, determination of a starving artist.

She leaned forward again, resting her elbows on the desk, eyes burning from the screen's glow. Her fingers typed faster, more erratic now—if she stopped, the silence would catch up. The kind of silence that sounded too much like a voice she missed.

Her fingers hovered, unmoving, over the keys.
A breeze passed through the memory—lemon shampoo. Sayo’s.
The scent used to cling to the sleeves of Rika’s hoodie.
She tugged at the fabric now, sniffed, and hated herself for trying.
It didn’t smell like anything anymore. Just dust. Just time. Just the stench of a girl who hasn't showered.

The screen dimmed, reflecting what she looked like back at her. She stared at herself for a moment.

Pale skin, chapped lips, hollow eyes. She looked like a sketch of a girl, one on a piece of paper dunked repeatedly into muddy water. Her hoodie hung off one shoulder, the neckline stretched, like it was trying to unravel itself, like it was giving up. The fabric was mapped with stains of liquids she doesn't remember spilling. She’s a girl who used to have plans, yet now she can hardly remember what day it was.

Outside, the moon moved just a little closer.
But Rika didn’t look.
She couldn’t.
She wasn’t ready to admit the world had already started saying goodbye.

Rika pulled herself from the chair and collapsed face-first onto the futon.
Her spine popped again. She muttered something about being 22 going on ancient.
But her eyes stayed wide.
The silence roared.
The blinking voicemail light flashed through the darkness like some dying star.
She reached for her phone, thumb hovering over the play button. Just a little shift and the audio would play. But she pulled away, rolling over the other way.

She got back up after twenty minutes. The chair in her workspace welcomed her like a trap. Maybe it was safer not to sleep. Maybe sleeping was a waste of precious time.