Prelude To The End

Maybe it was always there.

Lurking.

Hidden beneath the veils of what was known, where it lay dormant until its time of emptiness arrived.

When it began its arrival, every question before lost its meaning. The only inquisition that mattered anymore was, “What is that?”

Too few asked. Too few noticed.

It started with a handful of scientists sharing academic papers discussing anomalies in the foundations of our universe:

Voices lingering long after sentences were finished.

Light failing to appear.

Shadows bending against the sun.

Oceans turning still as glass for seconds.

Tremors far from fault lines.

“What is that?” they asked one another in labs full of nervous fretting.

Something was wrong. Something was very wrong.

But none of them were heeded. Every request for concern or further investigation was brushed aside. Life continued on its normal path as the warnings built in the shadows.

Birds began to fall from the sky.

Fish washed ashore by the tens of thousands.

Compasses froze.

Rivers reversed their flowing paths.

Yet still no one reacted in action. Politicians, businesses, and religious leaders sat by, focused on profit and the status quo.

The requests from the scientists became begs. Yet still nothing was done. And soon it was too late.

One day It appeared in the sky.

Winter’s clear coldness had left the sky above Fukuoka a pleasant, bright blue. Beaches were active with families and tourists alike. When the tremors began, all of them feared it was an earthquake. Panicked shouts and screams rose as calmness gave way to concern.

That concern descended to horror when the still air began to hum with gnashing, grinding cries that sounded as though they were rising from the very earth itself. There was an inhale, then reality broke.

A black, void-filled rip appeared in the sky that reached from Fukuoka to Marrakesh. Like a tear in the fabric of time itself, the sky exposed itself, and within the rip was nothing.

No light.

No gravity.

Emptiness.

One moment the known truth of the world was written in understanding on the pages of reality, the next it was in shreds. Then people paid attention. Then the panic set in. Then the scientists were heard.

Then everyone screamed, “What is that?!”

But it was too late.

Gravity was collapsing, pulling time and being into complete lessening. The Calamity was here, and it was giving existence a timer.

Horrified minds did their best to process what The Calamity was warning. What it was. What could be done to stop it.

But no answers were found. Every test failed. Every attempt at understanding ended up returning the studies to the same conclusion. The Calamity was spreading. It moved around the globe like a glove. Its vast emptiness severed those beneath it from the heavens, blocking the sun and stars from ever being seen again.

It moved in tandem with the planet, as though anchored to its origin points. Silent, bitter black hovered above the world, growing every second.

Scientists dared to calculate its growth rate, and eventually they dared to unveil their findings.

One day in January, coalition of international scientists sent a broadcast to every living soul.

If their worst fears were correct, The Calamity would engulf the entire planet in a little over a year.

Whereas civilization had thought the galaxy would exist for trillions of years, it was now an undeniable truth that existence for all was limited to only a few hundred days at best.

Society began to crumble almost instantly. Panic purchasing eviscerated food supplies in a single day. Riots broke out across the globe. The murder rate increased by seven-hundred percent in a single week. Religions proclaimed it was proof that their god was the true god and declared war on non-believers. Millions died in days. Through it all, the politicians and businesses commanded the populace to stay at their jobs, to stay sitting in traffic, to stay at their cubicles, to stay focused on keeping the status quo moving forward. Economic expansion would be expected until The End.

Homes were seized by those who refused to pay. Dissidents were taken in black vans and never seen again. The masters of the world had decreed that nothing would change.

The populace refused, and within weeks, the masses of ordinary people had laid siege on the strongholds of the powerful, and when the blood had dried, none of them were left alive. The shackles of the old world had finally been snapped, and the last days of existence were set to be experienced in liberation.

Grieving mixed with release, as the pressures of day-to-day existence vanished with the understanding that none of it mattered anymore. It was in this world that Kageyama Kureha was alone on her eighteenth birthday in Asahikawa, where she was slowly pressing a santoku kitchen knife to her wrist.