It continues, forever. Forever, frozen. In other words, I
have not grown one bit since being gripped by Dead Blue.
Separation. Separation anxiety? Something like that. It’s foreign to me. It’s unknown to me. The reason for it? I can’t imagine. The cause of it? Simple.
Kunagisa Tomo.
The alarm sounds as the government speaks about closed roads. The blockades. The unmoving train. The force field keeping us inside not Kairos, but Paralia. Waking up in my old bedroom. Harukana, gone. Migiwame, gone. Nothing is right. No one is right. No one is where they belong.
Kunagisa Tomo.
Not here, not beside me. Over there? Maybe. Here? I don’t know.
I didn’t know anything. Why I was feeling this way, why I couldn’t think about anything other than Tomo, why I had to find her, right now, right now, no stalling, no questions asked, no excuses. I had to find her.
Out the front door, down the dirt path. People passed me with confused looks on their faces. People were shouting, crying, overreacting, complaining, doing what humans always do. None of that mattered. None of them mattered. They were not Kunagisa Tomo, and so they did not matter.
Turn left. There was a crowd of people. All of them, anxiously pushing at each other towards the entrance to the train station. No access. The conductor was shouting. None of these savages were Kunagisa Tomo. I moved on.
My legs carried me into a sprint. Fast, down another street. I ran towards the expensive houses. Why there was this sense of urgency, I still didn’t know, but it gave me adrenaline to get there faster and for that I was grateful. Reached the houses. Didn’t see anyone. I didn’t see anyone, and started to panic. Where else could she be? She was all alone. Her family was moved, no one could be there to help her. She needed help, and I wasn’t there to help her.
Why, did I even need to help?
Why- did she need me?
I needed her.
Needed to see, her. Needed to breathe. Needed to calm down, to be okay, to make sure, make sure she was okay-
My mind didn’t even make sense. Why, a complete stranger, could mean so much to me that I couldn’t function, was a complete mystery. Why I was worried, why I was panicking, why I was angry and frustrated and out of my senses and not me and somebody else all at once— I couldn’t function. Just had to search. Keep searching, keep running-
I ran. In between the houses, I shouted her name. Around back, through trees, cut across lawns, jumping over fences— but there was no answer.
There was no answer, until—
— I found her. Standing on the bottom step, completely frozen and unresponsive. My feet booked it towards her.
”Tomo!” I called out. She didn’t even look back. The closer I got the sooner I could make out details, the sooner I could see she was shaking, trembling, and..
… she was crying.
”Why,” I stood next to her just before the stairs. “Why are you crying? What happened to you?” To make an innocent blue cry— what a heartless, inhuman thing to do. It was a disgusting act. An absolute low. The lowest of the low. An act that make me shake along with her, not from fright but from anger. “Whoever did this— tell me. Whoever made you cry, I’ll kill them.”