The sun didn't rise that day. There was no dawn, no light, no color. In the Victorian villages, people stepped out of their homes and stared at the sky, searching for a sun that no longer existed.
In the technological cities, the electricity went out, the flames died, and then everything began to shake. Buildings split apart, trees snapped, and children screamed as they watched the ground slowly swallow the roads. No one knew what was happening… but everyone, at the same moment, felt that this wasn't an ordinary darkness.
At the heart of the continent, inside a small wooden house built in an old Japanese style, a boy lay stretched out on a simple floor mattress, covered by a pale blanket. His messy navy hair fell over his sleeping face, the front strands hiding half his features in shadow.
He suddenly opened his golden eyes. A faint light reflected in them from a strange metal clock beside him, a round device surrounded by small symbols like ancient carvings. It had no hands, only glowing circles moving slowly around a black center. He lazily reached toward it, then frowned.
The clock showed six in the morning, but when he looked out the window, there was no sun. The only thing lighting the room was the glow of the clock itself. He brushed his hair back from his forehead, revealing a thin lightning-shaped mark that stretched like a glowing tattoo across his skin. He blinked slowly, stunned by the situation.
He sat up and said in disbelief voice:
"No way… did the clock break?"
He didn't know that the problem was not on the clock… but the world itself. At that moment, the boy stepped out of his room carefully, dragging his feet across the wooden floor that let out a faint creak. He reached out to feel the walls, searching for the switch to turn on the light. He pressed it several times, but nothing happened.
He began to call out in a low voice:
"Dad?… Are you awake?"
There was no answer. He kept moving, stumbling as his foot hit a small table. He felt his way forward until he reached the living room. His fingers touched the edge of the couch, recognizing it by its rough texture, then he found something familiar on the top of it. The eye cover he used for sleeping.
He picked it up and placed it on his forehead. He slowly lifted his hair until the lightning mark appeared, faintly flickering. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes for a moment, and focused all his thoughts on that mark. Then… the light flared brighter in a golden color, and its glow spread through the room.
Just as he relaxed, the ground suddenly shook. Dishes and books crashed to the floor. The boy swayed violently as he tried to grab the wall, but his small body was thrown between the furniture like a doll.
The lightning glow vanished from his forehead at once, and the place sank into complete darkness. Then he heard terrifying sounds from the nearby rooms. Broken screams from his parents and his sister, mixed with the sound of things falling.
He screamed in panic:
"Eaarthquaaake!!"
The lightning mark on his forehead lit up again. He staggered toward the hallway, crashing into doors and walls, feeling his way through the chaos.
At that moment, he heard his father's voice coming from the corridor:
"Akio! Use the lightning to light the place!"
He froze for a second, his chest was rising and falling from fear, then thought quickly.
'Right… I'm so stupid, how did I forget that?'
Akio raised his hand hesitantly and closed his eyes, trying to gather what little energy he had left. Sparks danced between his fingers at first, then gathered in his palm as a small sphere of glowing yellow light. Its brightness slowly increased until it filled the space.
Through the dust and rubble, his father appeared, standing by the door. He was tall and broad-shouldered, wearing sleep clothes, his short purple hair was flying messily around.
At that moment, another door was opened, and his mother rushed out with fear written all over her face. Her long pink hair fluttered wildly in the dust, and her violet eyes reflected the unsteady lightning light in the room. Behind her stood a girl slightly older than Akio, her hair is also pink but a bit shorter, her face is pale with terror.
The mother shouted with a trembling voice:
"Vanco! Akio! What's happening?!"
Akio raised his voice:
"Hold on to me, all of you!"
The light vanished from his palm, and everyone relied on the glow coming from the lightning mark. Akio moved forward quickly through the dust and began to grab them. With his right hand he held his mother, and with his left he held his sister. The father held onto his wife's hand.
Their steps were slow and unsteady, debris breaking under their feet as they moved toward the door. Vanco slammed it open, and a wind filled with ash and dust rushed in from outside.
They all froze. The world outside was collapsing. Houses were crashing into each other, people were running and screaming, some trapped under rubble, others dragging their children with bloodied faces covered in dust.
Despite her fear, the mother rushed toward the nearest injured person, crying out:
"Oh my God!!"
The sister watched everything with sharp focus. She grabbed her mother's arm to stop her from going farther and said firmly:
"Mom, don't move away!"
They exchanged quick looks, while the shaking only grew stronger.
Elsewhere on the continent, far from the mountains and cities, there was an island surrounded by raging waves crashing violently against the shore. The sea level rose until it flooded the streets, and wooden houses began to break apart and drift away with the current. Even the air became salty and heavy, choking anyone who tried to breathe.
On the top of a slanted red-tiled roof stood a boy in his mid-teens. His messy red hair whipped in the wind, and his black shirt clung to his athletic body. He gripped the edge of the roof with both hands to keep the storm from throwing him off, while water surged around him like a raging beast trying to devour him.
His face was cold like stone, without fear or emotion, his eyes fixed on the lifeless sky. The only source of light was a small ball of fire burning in his right hand.
He muttered softly:
"The full moon was supposed to appear today…"
His gray eyes sharpened as he looked down. Houses were being destroyed, floods coming from every direction. Children ran barefoot through the chaos, screaming their parents' names, their small bodies dragged by the current.
A small boy tried to climb onto some debris, but a powerful wave struck him, tearing his arm from his body, and his voice vanished before his scream could finish. Another child dragged his drowning mother, hitting the water with his tiny hands as he cried without awareness, before a whirlpool of mud and blood-stained water swallowed them both.
The boy remained motionless while watching from above. Then he raised his burning hand and used it to light a cigarette between his lips.
As he exhaled the first smoke from his chest, a sudden, deafening scream cut through the sound of the storm:
"Daaaaaad!!"
The smoke caught in his throat. His gray eyes widened, as if that child's voice had pierced something deep inside him. He gasped sharply, and the cigarette fell from his mouth, sinking into the pooled water beneath his feet.
The shock he felt was not from the cold… but from a memory that suddenly returned to him… an old memory of a similar scream, from another child… on a similar night.
The boy leapt down from the roof with astonishing lightness, landing firmly on the wet ground. He bent slightly, then straightened up.
A long sword was revealed behind his back, its sheath a shining red. He reached his left hand behind him and grabbed the hilt in a natural motion, drawing the blade and moving forward with deadly calm, cutting through the falling debris with precision.
He sliced through wood, then stone, then fragments of a fallen roof in front of him, when he noticed something strange. Between the rain and the air, tiny black particles began to move with unnatural lightness, like living ash. They gathered and vanished, then returned again. He reached out to touch them, but they passed through his hand, yet he felt a sharp burning heat.
He lifted his eyes to the dark sky. This time, he could see the clouds slowly twisting, then suddenly splitting apart to reveal a glowing purple line stretching from the horizon to the highest point of the sky.
It hadn't been there a moment ago, but now it was clear. He stepped back, and inside him, his thoughts roared between shock and disbelief.
'Did the continental wall… the one that separates us from the world… decide to open after three hundred and seventy five years?!'
At that moment, a distant explosion thundered from the direction of the sea, followed by a long echo. Dark purple ash began to fall from the sky like snow, melting away before it touched the ground.