Echoes of the End

Arata had just chained his dicycle to the street rail in front of Minakasa High when the first period chime rang.

Sighing, he adjusted his bag strap and trudged inside, ready to face another day of mind-numbing lessons. He was only halfway through his second year, and it already felt like he’d been here forever.

A palm smacked his back as he reached his desk, nearly sending him face-first into it.

Arata stiffened. He hated being touched. Always had. He didn’t need to look to know who it was.

“If it isn’t Sleeping Beauty!” Toma said as he flopped into the seat next to him.

His sharp mauve eyes glowed with amusement. As always, he had his school blazer draped casually over one shoulder.

He was Arata’s best friend, but sometimes that effortless rich kid vibe got on Arata’s nerves.

Arata stole a glance at his reflection in the window behind Toma. He was shorter than most guys, with dark brown hair and lime-colored eyes that always seemed a little too bright for his tired face. They really were the same color as a greenfox’s fur.

The dark circles beneath them were almost as heavy as his school books. Compared to Toma, who had that typical “main character” look, he probably came off as the gloomy sidekick.

He kept his blazer buttoned all the way up, like you were supposed to.

“Let me guess,” Toma said, stretching. “You had to wake up early again?”

“Not my fault I have to cycle from the edge of town every morning,” Arata yawned. “Some of us don’t have chauffeurs to drive us around.”

Toma smirked. “Ouch. Jealous much? If you ask nicely, I could get my driver to swing by yours tomorrow.”

“I’ll pass.”

Toma took out a lunch box and bit into a sandwich. “Suit yourself. But if those eye bags get any worse, they’ll start calling you raccoon boy or something.”

Arata was spared the effort of continuing the banter when a heavy textbook thudded onto his desk. It was Hana.

“You two better have finished that book,” she said, flicking her neat brown ponytail over her shoulder. “I’m done carrying dead weight through all these group projects.”

Arata’s earliest memories were of him and Hana running through the local rice fields together. They used to be inseparable before she got all girly and obsessed with schoolwork.

In the last couple of years, she’d completely transformed. She was top of the class and far out of his league, not that he was even interested.

Toma rolled his eyes and took another bite.

“Y’know, this naggy class rep stuff is why you don’t have a boyfriend, Hana.”

“I’d rather be alone than have to babysit either of you,” Hana scoffed.

“Didn’t your dad ever teach you not to poke a stinger’s hive, Toma?” Arata said.

Toma snorted. “Dad’s a bit too busy with Vanguard work to coach me on how to handle girls.”

Hana’s right eye twitched. Arata scooted his chair back to get out of her striking range.

“Handle?! I swear, you—”

Hana’s wrath was miraculously interrupted by Miss Millen’s arrival.

Arata sighed in relief as Hana darted to the seat on his other side. He was sick of being collateral damage in Toma and Hana’s spats.

The history teacher greeted the class and picked up her notes. Several boys, Toma included, were clearly paying more attention to her than the lesson.

Miss Millen was a foreign exchange teacher from Lincoln. Her dark skin and curvy figure really stood out in Nobunaga, especially in a small town like Minakasa.

“Morning, everyone,” she said in her thick accent.

She paused to let the class respond in its usual drone before continuing.

“I hope you all had fun looking into the town’s founding myth. I believe local history has a real lived-in feeling that ancient battles and coronations lack. This group report will be heavily weighted in your final grade. As you know…”

Arata was already losing focus.

He snuck a glance at Hana. He often did this when he thought he could get away with it.

She sometimes looked wistful, like she missed simpler times as much as he did.

But today, she looked anxious. Her fingers fidgeted with a pencil.

“We’ll be fine, Hana. We did the work,” Arata whispered. “I even visited that creepy abandoned shrine near my place.”

She gave a slight nod but didn’t respond.

Arata tried to reassure her with a half-laugh. “Even if we fail, it’s not the end of the world.”

He shouldn’t have said that.

With a chill, the classroom suddenly fell impossibly still.

Arata turned and could see Miss Millen’s lips moving, but no sound was coming out. Even the hum of the lights seemed to vanish.

Then, the voice struck.

“The promised time has come. Set your affairs in order and ready your spirit, for you shall be judged in one year.”

It wasn’t loud.

It wasn’t quiet.

It wasn’t even heard, not in the way sound normally was.

It didn’t come from the sky or the ground or the rattling classroom speakers.

It came from inside him. Inside his bones.

It wasn’t male or female. It wasn’t even human.

Arata knew he was at his desk, but it felt like his attention had completely turned inward.

The voice was absolute. All-consuming.

Then the visions came.

Arata floated weightless in a shapeless grey void. Suddenly, flashes of images came into his mind.

Mr. Okasei, the headmaster, sat sobbing at his desk, something silver at his throat.

A greenfox lay dead in the road, its lime fur matted with flecks of crimson. It could have been the very same one Arata had seen that morning.

An old man grinned, lifting a Shorin piece and slamming it on the board.

Arata blinked, and found himself staring at the barrel of a gun held by the prettiest woman he had ever seen. A deafening bang echoed, but the bullet never came.

Instead, he stood on a cliff-face, holding someone’s hand.

He didn’t normally let people touch him, but this time, he couldn’t let go.

The two of them were overlooking a city of snow. His breath fogged in the cold. Birds dropped from the air above. The clouds split with a soundless crack, the heavens peeling open like paper.

He turned from the horrific sight to see a crying Hana, inches away.

She leaned in, tears lining her cheeks, and kissed him.

Everything went black.

He was nowhere and everywhere at once. Flashes came to him, images too fast to process.

A burning symbol made of concentric rings.

Buildings crumbled like sandcastles under a blackened horizon.

The ocean boiled as screaming faces disappeared beneath the waves.

The world was tearing itself apart and he was in the middle of it.

Standing in the middle of a street that no longer existed, staring into the abyss where the city should have been.

His tongue tasted ash and his chest constricted.

Something deep and ancient pressed against his lungs.

Everything was fading. He tried to scream, but even fear had been taken from him.

He fell and kept falling.

And then, nothing. Nothing but the voice.

“365 sunsets remain.”

The moment snapped like a rubber band, and he was back in his seat.

Back at his cramped desk, his fingers digging into the wooden surface.

The pressure on his chest was gone, but he didn’t dare breathe.

He wasn’t the only one. Miss Millen was on her knees. It felt like minutes had passed, but the time-keeper above her desk still read 10:08.

Arata slowly turned his head and took in the room. All around him, his classmates sat like sentinels.

All their familiar faces looked pale. If he didn’t know better, he’d have assumed everyone was in the middle of a test.

Toma’s mouth hung open slightly. His mauve eyes were glazed.

Hana’s pencil had snapped in half between her fingers.

An ear-splitting crash from outside broke the silence. Someone let out a muffled sob.

Toma bolted to the window and wrenched it open. Arata followed. They looked out onto the street.

Traffic had stopped. Pedestrians gripped each other while others collapsed onto their hands and knees in the middle of the sidewalk.

Arata’s eyes scanned for the source of the noise. A roadster had slammed into a halt sign.

Just then, a child’s voice rang out from the street below.

“Mama… is the Creator speaking to us?”

Arata had never believed in God. That was impossible after what happened with his dad. Just now though, he didn’t know what to believe.

It was almost like he could hear his own thundering pulse as he put it together.

That voice hadn’t just spoken to him.

It had spoken to everyone.

And the countdown had already begun.