Volume 4 – Chapter 14: Beneath the Broken Sky

Date: September 20

Last 11 Days.

The morning was heavy with mist, fat and wet in the air. Wherever they turned, it seemed to cling on to their clothes, their skin, and their faint-boned bodies.

First to move was Kaito, rising from the semi-padded floor made under a broken concrete awning.

Looking over at Rika, embellished with peaceful slumber as he was, he saw her frail chest gently rising and falling.

Kaito let his eye dwell on her for a moment.

Those moments were fewer now.

Moments when he could pretend this world was not falling apart all around them.

He brushed a strand of hair from her forehead. She twitched a moment but slumbered on.

Kaito smiled to himself.

He stood, tightening his jacket around his body, and stepped into the cold dawn sky, which was now gray.

By midday, the mist had cleared, brightening the desolate panorama in front of them: burnt automobiles, crumpled bridges, just skeletal remains of towns rotting away.

The nearby southern shelters seemed to be in worse shape with each passing hour.

"I don't like this," Kanna told him, pulling alongside him on her bike.

"Feels like... we're walking into a trap."

Kaito kept silent for the moment.

His eyes continued scanning the ground without responding.

"It's of no consequence if it truly is," he finally replied. "It's the only road left."

Kanna frowned but didn't argue.

Along the way, that afternoon, they found another group: ragged survivors huddled inside the ruins of an old mall.

These fellows were desperate, starved half to death, and at first suspicious of Kaito's convoys.

Out came the guns.

Shouting filled that empty air.

But it was Rika who stepped toward them with her palms raised in calm.

"We're not here to take anything," she said, "We're heading south. There is still a chance- a real chance- come with us."

In some time of stillness, all eyes were glued onto her.

Then, hollow-eyed and dragging a dirty child behind her, the first woman moved forward.

"We will come," she said, her voice cracking.

Then others began to follow suit like dominoes.

That night saw them gather at a larger site, noisily and actively.

It should have felt soothing.

Yet Kaito set apart from the others, his eyes turned upward toward the shattered sky.

There were more stars visible now, with no dazzling city lights to wash them out.

They looked so close, so bright.

Who knows how many stars had already died-giving out light just now?

Ghostly lenses of worlds long gone.

As he started shivering, he wrapped the jacket closer around his cold shoulders. It was going to be very hard from the very next day.

Tomorrow they would plunge deeper into the darkness.

And with each step, the clock was ticking.