Volume 4 – Chapter 4: Echoes of a Future Never Lived

Date: September 10

Last 21 Days. 

The morning had been harshly windy.

Rika was standing at the very corner in shelter. hair straightened back, eyes gaze at the pale horizon. It had been clear skies for a couple of days, however, the heaviness in the air made the world feel like it was holding its breath for the storm that was never to come.

And Kaito was there holding two semi-steaming cups made from dented tin. Without any word, he handed one of them over to her. She then received it and gave a faint smile.

"You didn't sleep," she said.

"Did you?"

She shook her head.

There was silence between them, which was not discomforting but, instead, it was full. They drank slowly, simply watching nothing happen.

Behind them, Kanna was sketching again. The charcoal lines on her notebook were rough and urgent, almost as though she feared it would evaporate before she could finish. She had no idea when Rika sneaked up next to her.

"What are you drawing?" Rika asked quietly.

Kanna hesitated and then held the notebook high.

A house.

Not a real one, but some imagined: a wooden frame with a big window, plants growing wild around it. Inside, there are standing three figures - rough and faceless but close together.

"It doesn't exist," said Kanna.

"It may never," replied Rika.

"But it's something," murmured Kanna. "I don't know. Drawing it helps."

That day, they later dug shallow trenches - not for defense, not for escape. Just planting space. Rika had saved a few precious seeds, cradled in an old envelope. Tomatoes. Basil. Anything that could survive even for a few weeks. Kaito crouched beside her, pressing a seed into the dirt with far more care than he'd shown toward anything else that day.

"Will they grow in time?" he asked.

"No."

"Then why?"

Rika met his gaze. "Because I want them to try."

And perhaps that is what everything was now about.

When dusk came, the three spent the nights sitting around a barely flaming fire. The air was still. No one spoke. An open notebook lies beside Kanna, with the house staring up at them like a reminiscence of a life that never happened.

With a crack, it then crackled once again, and eventually, there was nothing.