Chapter 1:

Chapter 1: The Last Normal Morning

Eclipse Zero: The One Who Kept Walking

02:15 AM — Overthinking in the Dark

The dull blue glow of a dual-monitor setup washed over Kazuki’s bedroom, casting long shadows across the clutter on his desk. Outside, the neighborhood was dead silent, save for the distant, rhythmic rumble of a night train.

Kazuki zoomed in on a single timeline track on his editing software. 30 frames per second. Cut. Shift by two frames. Render.

He scrubbed the playback head backward for the fortieth time. The transition felt half a second off. Was the audio peak lining up with the visual flash, or were his eyes playing tricks on him after hours of staring at raw pixels?

He leaned back in his mesh chair, pressing the heels of his palms against his temples.

'Why am I even stressing over a fifty-dollar commission?' he thought, watching the ceiling fan slice through the dim light. 'I’m twenty. Half my college classes feel like filler. My economics degree is leading nowhere, and here I am at two in the morning, obsessing over a light-leak effect for a stranger on the internet.'

He checked his bank account on his phone. The balance was pathetic. Rent, tuition, equipment upgrades... every path forward felt trapped. He started mapping out every worst-case scenario for the next five years, a cold weight settling in his stomach.

A soft knock at his door broke the spiral.

Kazuki turned his head, his expression softening. Yui stood in the doorway, rubbing her eyes while dragging her faded stuffed bunny along the floorboards.

"You're clicking the mouse again," she mumbled, voice thick with sleep. "It sounds like a bug."

Kazuki’s shoulders dropped, the quiet dread evaporating. He ran a hand through his messy hair and smiled softly. "Go back to bed, Yui. I'm almost done."

"Bring me the strawberry custard buns tomorrow," she demanded, barely conscious. "The ones from the station bakery. If you forget, I'll tell Mom you were up all night."

"Yeah, yeah. Deal. Now go to sleep."

03:00 AM — The Neon Glow

Even after shutting off his PC, Kazuki's brain refused to turn off. When Ren texted the group chat asking if anyone was up for late-night karaoke, Kazuki jumped at the excuse to escape his own head.

Inside the sticky booth, blue and crimson lights swept over empty soda cans and discarded tambourines.

"Dude, put the phone down!" Ren yelled over the blaring pop track, slinging an arm around Kazuki’s neck. "You’ve been rendering drafts all night. You’re gonna turn into a ghost."

"Just sending the final file," Kazuki said, flipping the phone screen-down.

Across the booth, Sora tossed a fry at Kazuki’s forehead. "You overthink everything, man. You spend three hours tweaking a two-second clip nobody is ever gonna notice."

"Details matter," Kazuki muttered. But Sora wasn't wrong. Kazuki overthought edits the exact same way he overthought life, picking at every seam until the whole thing unraveled.

On their way out into the midnight chill, they passed an elderly man huddled against an alley wall beneath a thin sheet of cardboard. While Ren and Sora walked ahead, arguing over ramen, Kazuki slowed down. He reached into his pocket, slipped a warm canned tea and a thousand-yen bill beside the sleeping man, and jogged quietly to catch up.

08:00 AM — The Last Morning

When his alarm went off five hours later, Kazuki felt like he was moving through wet cement. He splashed cold water on his face, pulled on a dark hoodie, and dragged himself downstairs.

The kitchen smelled of toasted sea salt, hot miso, and grilled fish. His mom set a steaming bowl in front of him without looking up. "Eat. You look like a ghost."

Across the table, his dad lowered his newspaper slightly. "If you miss the 8:40 express, Kazuki, I’m not driving you to campus."

Kazuki picked up his chopsticks, nodding silently as Yui kicked his ankle under the table, shooting him a smug look over her juice glass.

Mom wiped her hands on her apron, handing him a crumpled slip of paper. "On your way back from the station, I need eggs, green onions, and rice. Don't forget."

Dad slid a folded bill across the wood. "Take this."

"Got it," Kazuki said, pocketing both. He glanced at Yui, raising an eyebrow. "I didn't forget your buns, brat. One and a half. Deal?"

Yui’s smug look vanished into a bright smile. "...Deal."

09:15 AM — The Rupture

An hour later, Kazuki was strolling down the sunlit shopping street, matching his steps to the familiar rhythm of the neighborhood—the rattle of bicycle bells, the low hum of the local line.

Then, reality tore open.

It wasn't just a shadow. The light was violently sucked out of the sky. Kazuki stopped, looking up as a jagged, ink-black void devoured the sun. Streetlights burst into spark showers with deafening pops. Birds didn't fly away—they plummeted straight down, striking the pavement like stones.

His editor's eye reacted before his mind could process the terror. He pulled out his phone, framing the black sun through his camera screen.

Snap.

A sudden, sickening pressure spiked behind his ears.

The air didn't just turn cold; it thinned into vacuum-like vacuum pressure, crushing Kazuki's lungs flat. His vision fractured—not into blurriness, but into sharp, mirror-like tessellations that peeled the world apart layer by layer. Beneath his feet, the rough asphalt didn't shake—it dissolved into liquid obsidian, locking around his sneakers like frozen oil.

The scent of fresh morning air died instantly, replaced by the suffocating stench of scorched iron and ozone.

When his vision locked back into place, home was gone.

Above him, vast purple vortexes churned within a sky the color of dried blood. Monolithic black towers sheared through the clouds, their seamless glass faces pulsing with massive, cold displays showing human figures casting blinding arcs of fire and lightning into hordes of living shadow.

'I'm overthinking this,' Kazuki thought, his throat dry, his lungs fighting for oxygen. 'I fell asleep at my desk. I'm exhausted. Wake up. Just force your eyes open.'

He scrambled up, but the world didn't shatter into reality. A wall of strangers in sharp, charcoal uniforms surged past, stepping around him as if he were a street post. His phone screen was dead, the glass cracked straight down the middle.

A violent screech of shredding metal sliced through the plaza.

At the wide glass intersection ahead, a massive armored transport skidded out of control, dark grey smoke pouring from its locked axles as it ploughed straight toward a crosswalk.

In the middle of the street, a teenager in a faded grey hoodie and plain jeans was holding the hands of two young children, walking them across. Hearing the screech, he snapped his head toward the oncoming wall of steel.

He didn't hesitate. With a violent jerk of his arms, he shoved both children hard across the black glass pavement, launching them clear of the vehicle's path.

The collision was brief, dull, and absolute. The vehicle didn't even sway, vanishing into the choked traffic.

A thick pool of dark crimson pooled rapidly across the obsidian floor.

Kazuki’s breath hitched in his throat. Rolling through the red streak were a crushed carton of oozing eggs and a split bundle of green onions.

The little girl who had been saved scrambled back toward the body on her knees, her small hands locking onto the blood-soaked sleeve of the boy's hoodie.

"You promised...!" her voice cracked, raw and shrill against the roar of the city. "You said we’d buy the custard buns together today...! Wake up! Big brother, please!"

Kazuki couldn't move. A ringing noise filled his skull, drowning out the ambient noise of the crowd.

His eyes locked onto the boy's limp wrist resting in the puddle. Wrapped around it was a faded, loosely woven braided bracelet—the exact one Yui had spent three hours making for Kazuki's last birthday, complete with the clumsy, crooked blue knot at the end.

'That isn't a stranger.'

The thought dropped into his mind like a lead anchor, heavy and ice-cold.

Kazuki raised his own hand, looking down at his bare wrist, then back at the body bleeding onto the dark glass.

A mechanical siren began its long, rhythmic wail through the concrete canyons. Then, the first heavy drop of rain struck Kazuki’s cheek—cold, thick, and smelling of iron.

End of Chapter 1