Volume 4 – Chapter 6: What We Tell Ourselves

Date: September 12

Last 19 Days. 

The wind had grown somewhat cooler today. Not cold, only edged with almost a whispered promise of autumn. Of endings.

Kaito sat outside the shelter with fragile, broken sections of a mirror in his hand, directing it in various angles to catch the sunlight and reflect it down onto the ground. A childlike gesture. Abstract. However, it kept his hands busy. His thoughts were much less manageable.

Kanna plopped down in front of him, silent at first. Then she asked softly, "Do you think we've done enough?"

Not that he looked up. "To survive?"

"Nah. I mean... for each other. For the people we couldn't save. For ourselves."

He didn't answer immediately. The mirror caught his face- strange, older, thinner, eyes harder than he remembered.

According to his latest statements, "I don't think there's such thing as 'enough' anymore." Some days, it feels like we've done as much as possible, which is what he describes. Other days I think we just ended it way early."

Kanna nodded with a small, almost ethereal voice. "I used to believe that all this is in preparation for something at the end, some hidden understanding."

"And now?"

"Now I just want the end to come easy."

Inside, Rika was folding clothes that they had washed the day before. She overheard them through the cracked wood walls, and her hands slowed. Then she spoke, loud enough to carry.

"We tell ourselves stories to survive," she said. "I don't think it's about meaning. I think it's about choosing what story we believe in."

Kanna's head tilted. "So what's your story, Rika?"

Rika walked outside. She looked tired but calm.

"That love matters. That holding someone's hand when the sky falls means something, even if the sky falls anyway."

Kanna blinked. Her throat bobbled like she might cry, but she remained composed and stood up to hug Rika tightly.

"Okay," she whispered. "Okay. I want to believe that, too."

Kaito did not speak. Just watched them, that sliver of sun dancing on the ground.

Still telling themselves stories.

And they were still here.