Consumed By The Storm == “NothingRemains“:

Smoke billowed in the air. A kilometer-long path of scorched earth and shattered buildings wound from the ruins of the hospital and out into the city. Bloody footprints lined the shattered asphalt. Screams of confused residents blended into the screams of the young woman who was stumbling half-dead and delirious through the world as she begged for a death that would not come. Even though neon blue flames engulfed her body without end, Miu would not die.

If she had any tears left to cry, they would have simply evaporated on her skin that was now alight with unceasing pain. For once, she was warm. But it was beyond warm. It was beyond heat. It was agony.

Physical torment was ripping at her body, desperate to match the emotional hollowing that was now severing every thread of her soul.

Yuki was dead.

She didn’t want to acknowledge it but something gaping in her soul told her truly he was gone.

Gone.

Gone.

Everything was gone.

Except her.

For whatever unforgivable reason, Miu was alive, and would not die.

Every sob sent out concussions of crystalline wrath and roaring infernos. Strange symbols glittered into existence then shattered all around her. It happened again and again. But Miu did not register any of the details. Agony was all she knew. Incomprehensive, all-encompassing tragedy was all that she could feel.

Eyes clinched shut. Feet drug with strained effort. Saliva dripped from her lips in a dazed flow. Hands hung at her side as though chained to weights.

She didn’t have a direction or goal. Clarity was absent in her mind. Death and release was all she craved. If this fire would not eradicate her spirit from the wretchedness of reality, she would have to find another way. It was in that mental state that she found herself stumbling down the stairs of a subway station. Her inferno ignited the air around her, pushing scorching waves of heat down into the subterranean waiting area and driving out any other commuters who were waiting.

Miu’s footing slipped from the strain and she collapsed forward, falling down the concrete descent with a quiet, uninterrupted thud. Each stone and metal step greeted her body with malicious embrace, sending stabs of pain through her already traumatized skin. Gasps and cries of new pain burst from her mouth as she struck the floor with a slap.

At the top of the stairs, a strange figure glitched in and out of existence once more. Miu finally caught a glimpse of it, but her screams of pain were too overwhelming for her to spend any time reflecting on the spectre.

Only now did she realize she was in a train station.

Trains.

Train.

The bullet train.

They never should have gotten on that train.

They never should have gone to Sapporo.

At best, they should have both died in the hydrogen bomb’s wrath.

At least that way they would have died together, instead of whatever this was.

Transit alerts pinged on the overhead communications system, telling Miu that a regional line would be passing by soon without stopping. Distant lights appeared at the edge of the visible portions of the track tunnel.

That gave Miu an idea for her potential release.

They may not have died together on that bullet train, but this passing battering ram of metal could do the trick. These roaring flames may not have taken her from this world, but maybe this would.

Grunts of strain blended into the flaming crackles as Miu lurched her way forward. Nearby, the mysterious figure glitched into view once more. Tiny glyphs drifted in the air around Miu as she grimaced and clawed to the edge of the platform.

Iridescent flecks of crystal shards appeared all around Miu. Once more, strange chimes hummed in the silence. The train lights were close. She had to hurry. Streaks of blood smeared beneath her crawls and were burned and charred into black stains. Those would be the only remnants of her. Fingertips reached the edge and Miu forced herself to stand just as the train came into view at nearly full speed.

There was no regret. No hesitation. Despair, hate, defeat, suffering, dread, and loneliness were all Miu felt. She had never been religious, and as she stood there engulfed in otherworldly fire, she had no desire to pray to any deity of any faith. None of them had ever helped her or Yuki before, and had instead allowed their misery to devolve to this point. She had no desire to be in their afterlife. All she wanted was an afterlife with Yuki, or nothing at all.

“I’m so sorry, Yuki. It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” Miu wept as she closed her eyes.

Ecstatic suffering danced across her skin as her hair billowed in the changing wind.

Air shifted as the train’s nose pulled the vortex of resistance aside so that it could continue at its rapid pace. There was no time to slow and avoid the fiery girl who was standing at the lip of the waiting area. Horns sounded. More and more flecks of crystal rose into the air. Then she jumped.

“I’ll find you again I swear.”

But just as she reached the open air in front of the train, another foreign symbol appeared. It was larger than her, sparkling white and purple, and shining with ethereal light. Instead of being annihilated by the train’s force, Miu struck the glyph and felt her body vanish.

There was no thud. No crush. No release. If this was death, it was truly painless.

But it was not the death she so craved. Shrieks of crystalline chimes roared in Miu’s head as white and blue flashes blinded her. Then she landed on the glowing ground.

There was no more fire. Agony faded almost instantly, save for the residual mental trauma that was still sending warnings of suffering across her nerves. But the flames were gone, along with the train station.

When Miu’s eyes finally opened, she saw a pulsating crystal floor reflecting hints of her image back to her.

“This is dangerous, I’ah…”

“Agreed. This human is very dangerous. You are being reckless.”

The voices seemed to be coming from directly inside of Miu’s mind. Every one of them sounded like her own voice, which only confused her more. Rage consumed her mind as she shook her head to drown out their nervous words. Rage at being denied death once more. Rage at more confusion. Rage.

Miu let out a crying roar of disappointment as her eyes finally turned upwards.

Only then did the fear mix in with her rage. The roar became a scream.

“No! No, no, no, no, NO!!” Miu cried out in horror.

Before her was an alien, ethereal sight: a half dozen figures of undulating, translucent crystals were hovering over her.

Strands of pulsing light held the fragments of shard-like stone together like netting and bone. Their forms flowed together into circular and oblong shapes. There were no faces or discernible limbs, just light and crystal. But Miu could sense that every one of them was observing her.

“Arcans…” she gasped.