Volume 3 – Chapter 20: Last 40 Days

Date: August 21: Last 40 Days

Count down-the last 40 days-it was no longer just a number; it was a heartbeat, slow and thunderous, breathing through every moment in their existence. Forty days left. Just forty. There was a number that once perhaps meant time enough to build something, to plan, to hope. Now, however, it felt closing like a ghastly reminder. The very beginning of the end.

Kaito stood outside safehouse, the cracked earth beneath his boots dry, sundered like an old wound. The sky was washed out, colorless, as though even the sun itself was unwilling to shine too riotously about a dying world. Dust washed in the wind instead of light. Silent birdsong presided over all.

He didn't tell her he was leaving, but she would know. She always knew when he needed space—when the thoughts became too jumbled to be contained by walls and whispered comforts. Nearly an hour of walking, alone, past what had once been a field now standing only brown stalks and decay. The rug fell, and there was no hiding it anymore.

He sat on a rusted bench over a forgotten roadside, where time froze in the posture of things left behind-an overturned stroller, a faded plastic toy, a sun-bleached sign warning against school zones, no longer filled with laughter. Every object now whispers stories that no one is left to hear.

Forty days.

Kaito pressed down the palm into his own chest. It felt the constant rhythm alive, stubbornly alive. Why? Why go on? For what?

It was the thought that haunted him through every quiet moment. Not really out of despair-not anymore-but a need for understanding. Not "Why me?" but "What now?"

The struggle had become mere survival, and survival was something much more primal-choice. Every day they choose to get up. To keep breathing. To try. And somewhere in that trying, maybe that one thing remained human. Maybe there are even things worth saving.

Footsteps behind him. Soft against the grass, careful. Rika.

"You didn't leave a note," she said softly, standing just behind the bench.

"I didn't plan on coming here," he said without turning. "I just... happened to end up."

She walked around and sat beside him. For a time, neither said anything. The silence was thick, but not uncomfortable.

Then Rika spoke, her voice thoughtful. "Forty days sounds like nothing. But also... it's a long time if you really live it."

Kaito looked at her, eyebrows lifted. "Live it how?"

She hesitated, pulling her legs up to the bench, hugging her knees. "Not pretending we can change what's coming. But maybe doing something with what's left. For the people we love. For ourselves. Maybe even for those who will never see it."

Kaito rolled his eyes. "Do you think that is really going to be enough? Just doing something?"

"It has to be," she said. "Because the alternative is doing nothing. And I've seen what that looks like."

The idea of deserted cities flashed in both of their minds. Streets filled with abandoned things. Walls scrawled with last messages. Rooms where time simply stopped.

"Everyone's breaking in their own way," Kaito said after a pause. "Some hold on to plans. Others hold on to rage. Or maybe to religion. Or the illusion that it's still-going-to-be-okay."

"What about us?" Rika asked. "What do we hold on to?"

Kaito thought for a moment and then reached for her hand. "Each other."

She smiled faintly and leaned her head against his shoulder. "Then maybe we already have something most people lost."

They remained like that for what felt like an hour. Without words, nor decisions. Breathing, inhabiting. At that point of time, that was all.

Eventually, she sat up again as the wind turned and began to lengthen dusk with its creep across the sky. "Let's make a list."

Kaito blinked. "A list?"

"Of the things we still want to do," she said. "Before it ends. Big or small. Even silly things. Let's give these forty days something to carry."

He stared at her, the tiniest beak of a smile curling at the edges of his lips. "Okay. I like that."

Rika pulled out a folded page from her pocket, along with pencil stub. She was already begun. He watched her write:

1. Watch sunrise without a word.

2. Dance under the rain, even if cold.

3. Tell it all to our families. No secrets anymore.

4. Eat something sweet each day.

5. Even when it hurts, say I love you.

She handed the paper to him. "Now it is your turn." Kaito stared at the list. Each item was so human. So simple. Yet all of them belonged to a countdown world that had since somehow turned them into acts of defiance. Small rebellions against the void. He took up the pencil and added: 6. At least sleep under the stars once.

7. Find one who has given up and fetch him back.

8. Create something. Anything. Just to prove we still can.

9. Forgive somebody.

10. Forgive myself.

They looked at the paper together. And for the first time in maybe a few days or few weeks, Kaito felt a little lighter. Not because the world had changed. They had chosen to do so. In forty days, if the world scored the end, they would fill it with something more than simply waiting.

Rika folded the list and tucked it safely into her jacket. "We start today?" Kaito got up and dusted his pants. "Yeah. We start today." So they walked back toward the safehouse, hand in hand, though the sky still appeared gray but was no longer entirely empty.