บท 1: Prologue

A beacon of bluish-white light suddenly shot upward from the center of the school's commons area. Cracks started appearing across the sky, as if someone were driving piles into glass in a sloppy polka-dotted pattern. The cracks from the small holes extended into even smaller fractals of branches that expanded radially outward. Panic ensued throughout the campus. In a peaceful world like ours, something of violence on this scale was sure to traumatize everyone who experienced it. It appeared that no one would make it out alive. This is what my instincts were telling me, even though I'd obviously never seen anything similar to it before.

"What's going on?" my friend hurriedly asked.

"It's not like I have a clue, either, man. Why are you asking me?"

"... Go."

My sister, normally so caring, so gentle, had an unusually agitated look on her face and an icy look in her eyes.

"What? What do you mean? What's going on?" I replied.

*Go where?* I thought, but thinking about it clearly, there really was only one place to go.

"Just leave! I've been trying to prepare you for this your whole life! You're not about to render my efforts nil!"

*This is really my sister, isn't it? What's with that vocab? Is that her true nature? And... preparing me for what?*

"Why are you so mad all of a sudden?" I inquired.

Most likely realizing her abnormal condition, she suddenly froze and took a deep breath, which softened her features back to normal.

"Listen, Jon. As you can probably tell by now, it's not safe here. If you want to survive, you must leave. I'll take care of things on my end. Just trust me, okay?"

"... okay."

How can I say no to her when she's looking at me like that? I looked around the world again, most likely for the final time.

*I don't really get what's going on, but I trust you, sis.*

I turned away from my sister's slightly bewildered smile which seemed to say, "You can really abandon me that easily, huh?" and started off towards the commons.

*I'm not abandoning you. Don't you know of a little something called trust?*

"Come with me, dude." I hollered towards my friend.

"Uh, o-okay! I'm not a third wheel or anything in this situation, right?"

"..."

This guy. Even in a chaotic situation like this, he's still able to keep his head straight and joke around. As expected of someone with great leadership capabilities.

Slowly, step by step, I started off towards the light.

As I ran towards the beacon, it seemed like its light was expanding towards me as well - it seemed like it was rushing towards me faster than I could ever imagine. Then, both pairs of footsteps slowed to a stop. Exhausted, I turned around to look at my friend who was struggling to keep up.

I told him, "Dude, I don't think I can make it any farther... This thing's too bright... And for some reason, it's getting pretty hard to run..."

"Seriously, Jon? I'm sure... even someone as dumb as you... can figure out the world's ending or something, and this light is our only hope! If you can't make it, you're really not gonna make it!"

*I know what you're thinking. You can probably guess that I haven't truly given up yet, right? I guess you're not too wrong, but...*

"So the world's ending, you think? Isn't that quite the conclusion to come to just from what we've seen today? ...Yeah, I know. I'm just getting both of us riled up for no reason, aren't I? I just got Mr. know-it-all over here to say something really dumb!"

"Shut up! It's not like you're that much dumber than I am! Anyway, who knows how long we're gonna last here! ...How about this? Let's play a game."

"A game, huh? You can't seriously mean..."

"When it comes down to a game, Jon, I'm always serious. And you know what it's gonna be."

This is how he always is. Whenever I'm feeling down about myself, he always brings the one thing to light a fire within me again. A game. But it wasn't even going to be a contest. When it came down to physical ability, there's no way I would lose against him.

"Of course. First one to reach the light wins, right? Bring it on. This is just like you; always picking useless fights with me... Let's go."

With the pseudo-motivational speech accomplishing its task, two pairs of running footsteps could be heard once more. The end was in sight.

*Just a little bit farther, now...*

Each step closer to the goal was more difficult than the last. It wasn't particularly exhausting, but the already blinding light wouldn't stop getting brighter. Eventually, the light became so bright that I couldn't tell if my eyes were open or closed. My steps seemed to become more and more hurried, as if running on a treadmill that was going too fast. But I couldn't stop now, or else who knows what would happen to me? Faster. Faster. And then...