A second later, a burning column falls right in front of me, and I collapse backward. A swirl of sparks grazes my face, and the smell of someone’s home briefly surrounds me. A wave of heat follows, and I scoot back. The column, along with a cupboard and a table, are burning before my eyes. Right next to my foot, buried in the mud, is a stuffed giraffe. The flames are roaring so close I could touch them.
“Haah, haah, haah…”
My chest is heaving. I notice a strange smell on the air I’m breathing in. A sweet, festering smell mixed with the stench of burnt things and the fishy smell of the sea. I’ve smelled it before—from the worm. It was the smell of that night all along.
The flames blur. Tears are pooled in my eyes, about to spill over again. Why am I so weak? I harness my anger to give me the strength to stand, and dodging the flames, I run.
I just run.
I run past a car cracking open as it burns, I cut through the garden of someone’s house where I can see living room curtains flapping, and I pass a building with a fishing boat on the roof. Strange, faintly glowing white forms like jellyfish flutter in the night sky over the burning town. They are fragments of towels and handkerchiefs, shirts and underwear. Countless pieces of cloth are dancing lazily through the black sky like this is a reserve for some rare flying creature.
Eventually, the houses thin out, and there is less rubble and fewer flames. There are less cars and more boats. I’m leaving the center of town and coming to the outskirts. Sadaijin and the worm’s head are far in the distance, and the black hill is rising in front of me. Because I’m so close, the blue light at its peak is invisible behind the slope.
I notice that the sucking sound of the sludge underfoot has been replaced by the frozen crunch of frost. Gradually, it becomes the crackling of thin ice. The temperature is dropping. The sweat covering my body is cold and dry now, and my breath is white like in midwinter.
I run up the hill. Ash is drifting onto the frozen black body of the worm. Finally, the blue light reappears beyond the slope.
“Souta!”
The blue light illuminates the chair’s backrest from below, casting its face in shadow. Its three legs are buried deep in the worm, and that’s the part that’s pulsing with blue light. It seems like a current of cold air is flowing from the chair into the worm’s body. I run to the chair and embrace its familiar backrest carved with two eyes.
“Souta, Souta, Souta!”
No answer. It’s only a wooden chair—but it’s my chair. I know Souta is somewhere deep inside it.
I grab the seat with both hands and pull as hard as I can, trying to uproot it from the worm. The chair is cold as ice and stuck firmly in place. I grit my teeth and pull harder. With a grating sound, one of the legs jerks up a few centimeters. Blue light flashes blindingly from the gap that has formed. It shines on my cheek with piercing cold.
“Suzume,” Daijin says, squinting at the light from its perch on my left shoulder. “If you pull out the Keystone, the worm will escape.”
“I’ll become the Keystone!” I scream without thinking. “Please, Souta, wake up!”
I pull on the chair with everything I’ve got. Coldness flows into my hand, turns to frost, and crawls up my skin. Both my arms are frozen.
Suddenly, Daijin scrambles down my arm.
“Huh?”
It opens its mouth and bites the chair leg.
“You’re…!”
Helping. The leg in its mouth moves up slightly. Cold blue light seeps from the crack, and frost covers Daijin’s body. I breath out, then in, gathering my strength. The chair moves up a little more. The blue light shines brighter, and the cold air grows stronger. Far away, I can still hear Sadaijin howling. The rampaging worm has been causing the ground to shake intermittently for a while now. As I pull, I scream frantically, “Souta, I came all the way here!”
The frost crawls over my shoulder and onto my face. Even my eyelashes are edged with delicate ice.
“Souta, answer me! Souta, Souta!”
I can’t feel anything. My eyelashes are frozen, and my eyelids won’t open. But I don’t let up. The determination to pull Souta free runs through my body like fire. With another grating sound, the chair jolts up again. The cold light freezes me. But still, I go on—
’Scuse me.
I hear Souta’s voice. From where? It’s not coming from the chair. I’m not hearing it with my ears.
You know of any ruins around here?
This voice is inside me.
Ruins?
I hear my own voice. Behind my frozen eyelids, I see my own puzzled face staring back at me. I’m straddling a bike, the blue morning sea behind me. This is Souta’s memory of the day we met, four days ago.
Aren’t you afraid of dying?!
Souta is looking up at me. It’s the second day of my journey, and we’re closing the door at the abandoned school.
No!
I’m shouting, my face covered in mud, as I lean over the chair to push the aluminum door.
Aren’t we amazing?
We’ve closed the door, and I’m smiling, proud of myself.
You’re right—what I’m doing is important.
I’m talking to Chika in my room at the inn, dressed in a yukata.
Souta, come hang out with us!
I smile teasingly as I sit on Souta.
You sure are popular.
I can’t hide my jealous pout.
Souta, wait!
As I jump off the bridge, I’m desperate not to be left alone.
Ahhh… So this is how it ends.
Souta sounds so sad. I’m peering at him, tears welling in my eyes.
In a place like this…
Souta is on the worm high over Tokyo, turning into a Keystone. Ice is gradually blotting out his vision.
But I— Because I met you—
I see myself crying. I’m sobbing like a fool.
Even though I met you…!
My crying face is the last thing he sees before the world turns black.
“Souta!” I cry out, unable to stop myself. But of course he can’t hear me. What I’m hearing is his heart’s voice as he turned into a Keystone. Shut away in the darkness, within his fading consciousness, he’s screaming desperately. Screaming with a voice that can no longer reach our realm.