The air was thick with smoke and despair, suffocating, clinging to my skin like a ghostly whisper. In the distance, sirens wailed—a desperate, haunting cry lost beneath the chaos of screams and explosions.

Shattered glass crunched beneath fleeing footsteps. Twisted metal, once part of proud structures, now lay in ruin. Flames painted the sky in shades of orange and red, their hungry tongues consuming what little remained.

Then came the tremor.

The ground beneath me quaked, a deep, guttural roar tearing through the heavens as if the very world itself was crying out in agony.

And then—darkness.

Silence.

Suddenly, the destruction faded like a cruel dream dissolving at dawn. The suffocating heat, the deafening noise—it all vanished, replaced by the gentle rustling of wind through soft pink petals.

I stood beneath a sakura tree, its blossoms drifting like snowflakes in the breeze. The air smelled sweet, fresh, untouched by the horrors of before. It was peaceful.

And there—just a few steps away—she stood.

A girl.

She smiled at me, a warmth so gentle it made my chest ache. Her eyes held something… something I couldn't quite grasp.

Then, in a whisper that felt like a promise itself, she said,

"Don't forget our promise, Daichi."

I opened my mouth to respond, but the moment shattered.

Like a fragile mirror, the image fractured—petals turning to dust, the sky breaking apart into jagged shards of light and shadow.

And then—

I gasped.

My eyes shot open, my body jolting awake inside a confined, capsule-like bed. Darkness pressed against me, thick and unmoving.

Silence.

The kind that wasn't just the absence of sound, but something deeper. Something unnatural.

I took a breath—no, I tried to. But there was no warmth filling my lungs, no heartbeat drumming in my chest.

Something was wrong.

I raised a trembling hand, sluggish, almost uncoordinated. My fingers brushed against my chest, expecting the familiar rise and fall of breathing—expecting warmth.

What I found was neither.

Smooth. Cold. Unnatural.

Then I felt it.

A hollow cavity. Perfectly circular.

A sickening dread coiled in my stomach. My breath caught—not because of shock, but because my body didn't need to breathe.

"What… is this?" My voice came out hoarse, distorted—static clinging to the edges like an old, broken radio.

That sound—it wasn't entirely human.

Panic surged through me, tightening around my thoughts like a vice. Fragments of memory flickered—

A laugh. Soft, warm.

The scent of sakura in bloom.

A world filled with light.

But as my vision adjusted, the world I saw now was nothing like the one in my memories.

The sky loomed above—gray, suffocating, as if the heavens had turned their backs on the earth. The air carried a metallic taste, thick with rust and something bitter.

I looked around.

Ruins.

Buildings, once towering, now barely held themselves together, their skeletal frames reaching for each other like desperate hands. Vines crept over the cracks, nature reclaiming what man had abandoned. Rusted cars lay abandoned, their shattered windows like empty, lifeless eyes.

A stuffed bear sat among the wreckage, dirt-stained and forgotten, staring at the sky with button eyes that would never blink.

A sharp pain lanced through my skull. I pressed my fingers against my temples, my breathing unsteady—if I could even call it breathing.

And then—

"Don't forget our promise, Daichi."

The voice.

Her voice.

Familiar. Gentle. It wrapped around my mind, sweet yet distant, like an echo reaching for me through the void.

"Promised… what?" My voice trembled, barely above a whisper.

The pain struck again, white-hot, making me clutch my head. The memory, whatever it was, disintegrated into static, slipping through my fingers like sand.

"Hello?" I called out, my voice cracking. It bounced off the ruins, eerie and hollow. "Is anyone there?"

No answer.

Nothing.

I was alone.

My body felt strange—heavy and unfamiliar. I tried to move, forcing myself to stand. My limbs responded sluggishly, like they weren't entirely mine.

Then, as I straightened, something caught my eye.

A glimmer beneath the tattered fabric of my clothes.

With unsteady hands, I pulled the cloth aside, revealing what lay beneath.

Cold. Hard.

Metal.

Not skin. Not flesh.

Wires ran beneath plated armor. No warmth. No sensation.

My breath hitched—

No.

No, no, no.

I staggered back, my fingers trembling as they traced the unnatural contours of my body.

"What am I?" My voice came out small, barely audible, like a prayer lost to the wind.

The ruins stretched before me, an endless graveyard of the past. A toppled streetlight flickered weakly, its bulb struggling against the darkness.

I clenched my fists.

"Hey!" I shouted into the silence, desperation clawing at my throat. "If anyone can hear me, say something!"

The wind howled in response.

A broken sign swayed overhead, its rusted hinges creaking like a dying breath.

I grit my teeth.

"Damn it!"

I slammed my fist against a crumbling wall.

The concrete cracked. Fractured.

Dust rained down in soft clouds, but my hand—

Not a scratch.

No pain.

No feeling.

I stared at it, my fingers flexing mechanically, no longer a part of something human.

Slowly, I sank to my knees. The weight of it all bore down on me, an invisible force crushing my chest.

"What am I…?"

The question barely escaped my lips, fragile and lost in the empty world.

And this time—

Even the silence had no answer.