And Then, Nothing

It began at 7:00 a.m.

A gray sky stretched flat above the school rooftop, heavy like stone. No birds. No sound.

The students arrived in silence.

But none went to class.

They gathered in the halls. The stairwells. The windows.

Watching.

Waiting.

In the center of it all stood Miko.

Clothed in a strange uniform — a hybrid of school blazer and ritual cloth, stitched with chalk spirals and inked glyphs.

He no longer smiled.

He didn’t need to.

The Signal

At exactly 7:11 a.m., Miko rang the old brass bell in the school’s defunct tower.

It hadn’t rung in ten years.

The sound cut through every floor like a razor — low, deep, wrong.

Some students began to scream.

Others fell to their knees.

The Remaining stood still, eyes rolled back, mouthing phrases that sounded like prayers and static.

And below the building, somewhere in the rotting sub-basements that weren’t on any map—

The foundation cracked.

Collapse

Light flickered.

Walls pulsed like lungs.

Time stopped following rules.

Classroom clocks spun backward.

Water reversed down pipes.

And from the sky, instead of rain—ash began to fall.

One teacher jumped from the third floor, eyes empty.

Another simply disappeared mid-sentence, leaving behind her clothes.

In the Ritual Room

Miko stood before the open notebook.

Its pages were now entirely black, words carved into them like scars.

Kana’s voice echoed faintly:

“ You finally did it. ”

“ You didn’t save them. ”

“ You made them like you. ”

Miko whispered:

“ There is no world. ”

“ Only belief. ”

“ And they believe in me. ”

Then—

He opened his arms wide.

And everything bent.

The walls.

The sky.

The students' minds.

Reality groaned like a dying animal.

And began to fold inward.

Somewhere Below

Sena and Takamura ran through the warped hallways, dodging impossible geometry, screaming students, staircases that led nowhere.

Blood on lockers.

Hands on walls that weren’t attached to bodies.

Takamura shouted:

“ He’s unmaking it! He’s actually unmaking the world! ”

Sena gasped, clutching a piece of Kana’s notebook she’d found earlier — the real one.

With the original symbol.

The one that could stop this.

Maybe.

If it wasn't too late.

Miko stood at the edge of the school roof.

The sky above was fractured — like a mirror dropped from the clouds, its shards still falling.

The bell tower had split open.

The halls below were labyrinths now. Screaming. Chanting. Laughing. Silence.

Time had unspooled.

People moved like echoes, sometimes in reverse, sometimes not at all.

And through it all, Miko smiled.

“ It’s quieter now. ”

He could no longer tell what part of him was real — what part was memory, what part was dream, what part was Kana.

But it didn’t matter.

The Moment

Below him, The Remaining gathered.

Some knelt.

Some clawed at their own eyes, weeping in joy.

Some simply stared at the sky, mouths wide, waiting for salvation — or obliteration.

Miko raised his hands.

He spoke no words.

He didn’t have to.

His thought was enough now.

Language was obsolete.

The world shivered — then fractured again.

The sun blinked out.

Not night.

Not darkness.

Just... the absence of “ sun. ”

Then gravity loosened.

The school began to rise.

Bricks pulling apart like ash.

Desks spinning upward in slow motion.

Pages fluttering upward.

Students, too — weightless.

A beautiful silence fell over the chaos.

And in that moment, Miko closed his eyes.

Inside His Mind

Kana was there.

So was Takamura.

And Sena.

And Haruto.

And Kawasai.

And himself — the boy he used to be.

They were all sitting in a classroom.

Normal.

Quiet.

Peaceful.

No gods. No voices. No cult. No world to save or destroy.

Just sunlight on desks.

And Kana whispered,

“ You still have time to stop it. ”

He opened his eyes.

Reality Crumbles

No more school.

No more sky.

Just fragments of thought.

Soundless screaming.

The wind itself breaking.

And Miko — floating above it all, arms outstretched, the only anchor in a sea of ruin.

And Then

Silence.

Blank.

Nothing.

No time.

No space.

Just Miko.

Alone.

Forever.

And maybe…

That’s what he wanted all along.