Volume 4 – Chapter 23: The Last Light

Date: September 30

There is only 1 day left until the world ends.

One last glow seems absent since the daybreak of the last day. The colors of the world have faded, it seems, exhausted from existence even for the sky.

Kaito stood outside the tiny shelter, watching the horizon interlace with the grayness of the day. No flaming sunrise, no victorious blaze to bid farewell-everything only was dying light.

Rika had awakened behind him, hugging herself as she stepped wordlessly into the cold. Neither spoke for a long moment. Words felt frail now, small things that could not hold the weight of their emotions.

People of the settlement moved slowly and grimly purposeful. Some barricades were still being worked on. Others shared food or mended clothes quietly. Noone was saying anything about tomorrow.

There will be no tomorrow.

"Kaito," Rika said, finally breaking the stillness. "What do we do now?"

He turned to look at her. The answer should have been simple: survive, fight, hope. But the truth was...he no longer knew.

"We just live for today," he said after a pause. "We hold on to one another. We will remember. We will not let this world take us."

Rika nodded slowly, her eyes shimmering. She slipped her hand into his, fingers intertwining by instinct and desperation.

Kanna, nearby, sat by the last flickers of the fire, gazing at the coals. She had not spoken much since they arrived, Kaito suspected, not because she was afraid but because sometimes there was nothing left to say.

A bell pealed across the settlement-an old, rusted thing attached to a rickety wooden post. It was a summons they all understood.

Come.

They walked together to the center of the tiny camp, where Nora stood with a few others at her side. She looked tired, but her speech carried conviction.

"Tonight," she said loudly enough for all to hear, "we stand together. Whatever happens. No running. No hiding. If this is the end, let us meet it together."

There was a murmur of agreement from the people. Some shed silent tears, some clung to their dear ones, but none turned away.

Something raw and potent erupted in Kaito's chest-not quite fear, not quite hope, but the beautiful, terrible weight of living.

Kaito sat with Rika and Kanna on what they assumed was the last sunset, maybe in the last days of the project, watching the slow descent of the sun into memory while wrapped in blankets before their shelter.

They talked about everything and nothing. About foolish memories from before all of this-Rika laughing about watching Kaito trying to cook instant noodles in a microwave and breaking it. Those times made Kanna roll her eyes; she'd had to save both of them.

And between the laughing and the tears was love. Not the loud kind. More like the kind that slipped just under the surface, the kind that existed in the quiet between the two of them, in the warm space of shared breath.

When the first star appeared in the bruised sky, Kaito turned toward Rika.

"I love you," he said, firm in the statement.

"I love you," she said, barely keeping out the mischief from her tone.

Kanna glanced at them both; she was tired, yet whatever smile she had was real.

They never said goodbye.

There was no need for one.

The world might end, but this feeling-the great things they had-would live, like the unending stars.