ComeBackToMe://NeverLetMeGo\\:WatchMeBurn

Overnight, the entire planet was changed. Three million died instantly. Every known concept regarding existence and the laws of nature was undone in less than an hour. When the screaming finally stopped, all the world was changed.

Shards.

That’s what they were called.

Jagged. Smooth. Haunting. Beautiful. Enormous. Microscopic. Everything. Everywhere.

Crystals of varying size and color, made of matter previously unknown to us. They arrived almost instantly. In their appearance, they wiped away what was there before or bound themselves to the structure.

Tree leaves became glowing geodes. Buildings of steel and glass became fortresses of gemstone. Clouds collected the tiniest flecks and turned them into murderous rain that fell from the skies like neon hellfire.

Beyond the crystalline transformation of the world that had been known, other strange phenomena appeared. Spectres that could have been considered beings were seen in the shadows. Shapes that could have been towers drifted in and out of reality.

No one in the regular world knew what was happening. In the days that followed, panic seized the populations of every nation. Some thought it was the end of days. Some thought it was an attack from enemy countries. Some thought it was nature’s punishment. All of them were wrong.

Only a handful of scientists, politicians, and military leaders knew the truth. And they intended to keep it that way. Without revealing any fact or comfort to the horrified populace, the powers that be ordered everyone to remain calm and continue on with life. Within a week of the destruction of everything, quarantine zones were sequestered and domes of secrecy were erected around dozens of locations across the world.

In Japan, there were three domes. One of which was in the mountains just outside of Sapporo. Not far from that dome was the remains of an orphanage that had been destroyed on the night everything changed.

When the disaster relief inspectors arrived, they found the bodies of children and adults strewn across the grounds. Some were still alive. Many weren’t. Among the living were two children who were far from the home, where they should have been. At the edge of the property, nearly buried in crystal snow, was a pink-haired teenage girl whose face was bloodied and ripped open on her left side. Twenty meters away, there was a frail teenage boy whose walking crutches were snapped like his spine.

They were friends, but there was no goodbye between them. Each was taken to a separate hospital, where terrified, nervous adults hid their fears of the world’s collapse and did their best to administer aid to all who needed it.

As much as Miu begged, she never got a chance to see Yuki.

As much as Yuki pleaded, he never got a chance to contact Miu.

Her left eye was lost. In its place was a bright blue stone that had melded itself to the scarring that now coated her forehead, cheekbone, face, and jaw. To hide her horror and to let the grotesque wound heal, she was given a simple black eyepatch to place over her bandages.

His legs never moved on their own again. The shard’s jagged collision with his body had resulted in severed nerves within his spinal cord. Crutches were replaced with a wheelchair, and Yuki was forced to say farewell to ever standing again.

Trauma and confusion befriended sorrow and despair, and as the days turned to weeks, Yuki and Miu sat in their hospital rooms alone, separated by an unknown distance and the barriers of bureaucratic secrecy, watching the newly glowing snow fall heavier than ever before.

In time, the wound on Miu’s face healed, and she was released to her new group home. A silent van ride carried her from the stale halls of the hospital and delivered her to her new isolation. It was a simple home, with twenty-one girls all hidden away from society’s eyes. Red brick exterior walls were stained with age and neglect. She slept in a room with three other girls whose names she didn’t even bother to learn.

Whispers of jeers danced in the halls as youthful insecurities and jaded hearts saw her strange eye patch. Miu didn’t care. Even if they ever started to pick on her, she wouldn’t care.

Far away, in another prefecture, Yuki eventually settled in at a small shared home with twelve other boys. He was the only disabled person, so he was given his own small room. A single window in the upper left corner let him catch the occasional glimpse of the neon stars at night.

No one ever explained what truly happened. Such things were reserved for adults. All the children were told was that there had been some sort of accident, and these new forms had appeared from another realm. Any question about the domes or the whispers of strange beings were shot down and disciplined. Occasionally, Yuki heard the adults whispering of quantum mechanics and computers, and his interest piqued.

But his eyes stayed hollow. And his smile never returned. Without Miu there, he didn’t need to smile anymore. His broken body made sure that such a concept would become more and more foreign. There was very little to smile about as he adjusted to never feeling his feet again.

By the time he had soiled himself without realizing it one evening, hate had crept into his mind, and he looked down at his unsteady, bent form with nothing but loathing.

If his legs had worked, that night Miu wouldn’t have had to set him down and run ahead. If his legs had worked, they could have simply run and never stopped. Maybe it would have all been so different.

But it wasn’t. 

Now they were alone. 

Now they were broken, just like the world.

As military craft flew through the sky that was now steadily glowing pink, Miu and Yuki accepted that their time together was officially over. If they were lucky, the occasional visit to the other would be allowed, if they were ever able to find where each person was moved.

For now, it would be up to them to survive this fractured world and hope that in a few years they could finally be reunited.