The darkness is absolute. Pitch-black in every direction.
My restless mind slow to focus.
Finally, my senses begin to sharpen.
Even though I can't see anything, it feels like I'm looking over everything.
Then a pinprick of light dimly fades into view out of nothingness in front in me (who has become nothing but a viewpoint).
It's soon joined by countless other small, sparkling lights.
Stars?
Once, it was said that the stars and galaxies spread throughout the heavens were the gods, or atleast their dwelling place.
If that's the case, then this might be the viewpoint of such a being.
Stories I once read come to mind in rapid succession.
"Hikoboshi and Orihime" and "The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter", "Le Petit Prince" and "Night on the Galactic"...
Why do those stories told under the stars' light always harbor such tinges of sadness?
Why must such tales conclude in such heart-wrenching tragedy?
Just then, the Swatch of the stars begins to pulse, and starts to group together like constellation. Which means that...
Those weren't stars?
They brach out into dendroid colonies before my eyes. Their once-nostalgic twinkling starts to resemble more the throbbing pulse of organic life.
This is precision equipment... No, maybe the flashes of neurons?
No. I realize my misconception in almost no time flat.
The true nature of the lights is... A metropolis in the dead of night.
The skycrappers' neon lights brightly cut through the darkness.
Cars fly down the Metropolitan Expressway like high-speed steel fireflies.
A perfect diorama of the sleepless megalopolis, worthy of Daedalus himself.
If this is reality, then I must be looking down at the city from a high altitude.
If so, then what does that mean?
The moon is high in the night sky. Normally, it's form would be that of a perfect circle. Normally...
Before my eyes, that divine circle begins to wane. It's like a giant wheel of cheese, and an even bigger rat just took a bite out of it.
A complete lunar eclipse.
The Earth's one and only satellite is being completely consumed by the planet's shadow. It's usual white luster is lost, and is replaced with a wondrous brown radiance.
A crimson moon.
At the same time it appears—
The city descends into darkness. And I...
"UWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" (???)
I jump towards the riverbed below without a lifeline. It's a plunging feeling so horrible that, I'd rather die than experience it again.
My mind is blown past the limits of comprehension and straight into the realm of panic.
I can no longer hear my screams. No, am I really screaming at all? I can't feel my body, mouth, or ears.
The world is wrapped up in the thunderous roar of silence. The shining darkness is throughly burned into the depths of my eyes.
My whole body, which shouldn't exist, is dismembered by numbness.
I am nothingness incarnate, an imaginary number of whose existence is forbidden.
Stranded between time and space, I just scream out of loneliness. But I know that this voice...
W o n ' t r e a c h a n y o n e.