Not My Reality

Toyo peered down at the view beneath her. The sight before was far from what she could’ve ever imagined. The village appeared as though it had begun to disintegrate into the atmosphere. Like debris drifting away into the expanse of outer space. “After you,” Zida goaded, gesturing Toyo to continue down the path.

They cautiously made their way down the cliff and onto the village land. There were several people already on site carefully analyzing the anomaly that had taken place. By now it had become clear to Toyo now that she was intended to just be another piece of the puzzle. A potential source of answers for Zida to pick away at.

Nonetheless, Toyo could barely keep her mind clear as the images surrounding her stole her attention time and time again. The village wasn’t just dissolving, but almost like it was beginning to pixilate. Buildings ripping away from top to bottom, breaking off into tiny cubes. Bit by bit each cube dispersing into smaller ones as it slowly raised into the sky.

Zida stood behind Toyo as she paced her way from house to house, quietly observing the leftovers of a once thriving community. She dipped her head through an open door of a house equally suffering the same fate. What was once a home, had upended into nothing but fragments. The sense of life within now vacant as everything inside crumbled away.

They approached another home just further down the road, where small toy floated in the doorway. A knitted stuffed animal with a pendant around its neck. Toyo swiped her hand through it, slightly grazing it as it lightly bounced away as if in zero gravity. The particles raising off of it spread like a trail following its path. Toyo couldn’t help but imagine the young child who must’ve held on to it.

“Where are the people?” Toyo asked, her eyes still lingering on the stuffed toy as it continued its trajectory upwards. “We’ve moved them,” Zida answered pointedly. “All of them?” Toyo questioned, a grit strewn across her face.

Zida guided Toyo to a makeshift tent-like structure further towards the center of the village, where inside she was met with scores of human bodies all suffering the same fate as the rest of the town. They were all frozen in time, as if eternally stuck in their final moments. A man and his child casually walking through the neighborhood carrying a bucket of yard tools. An old man seated a bench, perhaps watching something passersby. An entire family in the middle of a meal; siblings heckling each other, a traveling merchant mid transaction, and crowd of what looked like students causing a scene. Toyo could almost visualize it all playing out in front of her; captured like a photograph. What was left of it at least.

But the true horror came when she noticed the ones that foresaw their fate. The terror on their faces, the fear in their eyes, trapped within them until the very last strand of their life would ultimately vanish. It was like staring down the true face of a nightmare.

“It didn’t happen all at once, huh?” Toyo proposed. “Doesn’t seem so,” Zida replied.

“Why did it stop? Why aren’t we still affected by it?”

Zida took a step back, staring up at the roof of the tent. “Another question without answers.”

Toyo then glimpsed through the opening in between the tent walls, noticing the outside environment. “And why aren’t the trees falling apart?” she probed as the oddities kept piling on.

“It appears that only things that are not considered native to this environment were affected,” Zida explained. He leaned against one of the support poles with his arms crossed, panning his eyes over the numerous dissolving bodies around him. “So, if it was built, or introduced from somewhere else, or otherwise removed from its original form in nature, then it’s now literally being ripped from existence.”

He then met Toyo by her side and looked towards the trees in the distance. “The fruits on those trees are just fine,” then drawing her attention to a basket within the tent, “but the ones over there are almost all gone.”

“What about the animals?”

“The only animals we found were ones being held by people. Farm animals and pets. Some of them known to be native to this region were okay, but ones brought in from elsewhere…”

Zida slipped through a gap in the tent, making his way out into the surrounding field. He then peered up at the open sky. “Since we’ve been occupying this area, not a single bird has flown above. They’re literally avoiding this place.”

“Does that rule not apply to humans?” Toyo asked, her eyes solemn and deflecting.

Looking back upon her with a dead stare, Zida answered with his words striking, “You tell me.”

In a quiet defiance, Toyo pulled away from him, passing another glance at all the silent chaos before her, internalizing it all. The people that appeared before her were no longer alive. Their final words forever unspoken. But even still, she could feel the weight within their hearts.

“Did you see any of your friends you were looking for?” Zida called out, but Toyo simply shook her head. He then gripped her shoulder, the strength of his palm dropping down on her like weights.

“You know at some point; what you see here may spread across the entire world. And when it does, it likely won’t be just some unexplained phenomenon that causes it.”

Toyo let out a gasp of air before crumbling to her knees. Her voice a mere weep as she decried, “This isn’t real…”