“WE can report back to the chief by phone. Let’s tell him we’ll give him the details tomorrow.”
“Yeah, sure. The real issue is that wall, or rather, now heap of crystal on the riverbank. Can we file it under lost property? Who should we even contact for that?”
With Misaki behind the wheel, Aya took out her cell phone; Shou followed her example, both of them probably calling the police station. Mia was sitting in the back, spacing out due to the flu, her head resting on Ren’s shoulder, swaying whenever the car shook. …It felt so nice. Now that she had realized her true feelings, she could bask in the comfort Ren offered her.
Ren looked down on the peaceful girl, lovingly narrowed his eyes and stroked her shoulder. The two of them looked like the very picture of a harmonious, loving couple.
Shou, stealing a sidelong glance at them, gave a good-natured chuckle. “I guess you could call it the silver lining to the cloud.”
“Nah, that sounds wrong. Still, all’s well that ends well, right?”
The two laughed together in perfect unison. Eventually, Misaki gave the steering wheel a sharp turn and stopped the car in the parking lot of a grill restaurant.
By the time they were getting out of the car, Mia was able to walk without stumbling again. Nevertheless, Ren placed a careful hand around Mia’s shoulders to support her just in case as they walked towards the restaurant. They had to cross the street to get to the grilled meat place from the parking lot they had stopped at, so the six of them stood at the pedestrian crossing, waiting for the traffic light to turn green.
“Ugh, I’m so hungry!”
“Me too, I’m starving! Oh right, did you get in touch with the chief?” Misaki asked Aya.
She nodded and held her phone up for everyone to see. “Yeah, I gave him the brief version. As in, ‘don’t worry, humankind isn’t getting erased for now’,” Aya said jokingly, but Mia immediately cast her eyes down as if slapped.
“I…I am very sorry. Now that I think about it, I was about to do something truly horrific. Yes, I was acting out in confusion at the time, but that doesn’t change the fact that I almost made the choice to erase everyone from existence.”
The more time she spent with everyone, the more the reality of what she had been so close to doing seeped in. With just one word, she could’ve lost everything. Realizing how terrifying that would’ve been, Mia trembled at the thought. Then, a hand gently plopped down on her head. She looked up, and met Subaru’s eyes, warm and compassionate.
“You’re a good kid, we all know it. Your smile will mean more to us than a thousand apologies. Trust me, that’s what will make us the happiest.”
Such kind words. Mia felt as if she could burst into tears again, her heart constricting inside her chest. She hastily wiped her eyes and nodded at Subaru, a smile on her lips.
Not long after, the traffic light turned green. Just then, a family exited the doors of the barbecue restaurant. They were walking towards the pedestrian crossing, merry chatter and laughter hanging in the air around them.
“…Ah! It’s the sorcerer lady!” someone exulted in a tiny voice.
The child, huddled next to his parents, seemed familiar to Mia somehow…
“Oh! It’s the good little future workforce member!”
“…Huh? What future workforce member?” Ren raised an exasperated eyebrow, prompting Mia to tell him a brief version of their encounter.
The boy started running towards Mia, gushing at his parents with an excited gleam in his eye. He was probably telling them how, “that lady is a sorceress, pinky swear”. The parents had a slightly embarrassed look on their face, probably telling the boy in a placating manner, “sure she is, sweetie”.
The light was still green. Mia regarded the child scampering towards her across the road, her head blissfully blank.
Until a huge truck came swerving around the corner down the road.
The piercing sound of screeching brakes mixed with the horrified scream of the mother, and over that, two voices yelled simultaneously,
“Wait!” Ren shouted.
“NO!” Mia shrieked.
It was exactly like an hour ago, when she had erected the crystal wall. Without thinking, she shouted out the only feeling that filled her mind. Her emotions pouring into it, the yell became the trigger that activated her magic. The image that Mia had pictured in her head on instinct gained form, manifesting in the real world.
Magical vines, sprouting from the asphalt, surged up into the sky, and then cascaded down, snaking around the truck and stopping it in its tracks. Some vines shot up from under the boy’s feet, lifting him up in the air. The vines quickly deposited the boy to safety on the sidewalk where the vines unraveled from around his limbs, dropping him safely into the outstretched arms of his parents.
The next thing anyone knew, the scene, already outlandish, gained an otherworldly beauty to it. The entire ground became filled with a medley of colorful flowers, sprawling widely out from the concrete. Daisies, gerberas, marigolds, dandelions, violets, tulips, and many other kinds of flowers. It was clear Mia had studied the tomes on flowers night after night, for there were even more kinds of flowers than they had seen in the flower garden she had conjured up that summer.
A jumbled image she had in her head probably broke free of her mind’s constraints and materialized in the physical realm. A beautiful world. A world of vast, endless flower fields. A world in which everybody was smiling. A world where everybody was happy. Mia’s dream world as she envisioned it, childish and naïve as it may be.
“Thank goodness!” Mia breathed out in relief at Ren’s side, evidently glad to see the boy returned unharmed to his parents.
Her voice sounded completely normal. It didn’t sound particularly tired, so Ren didn’t think much of it. “You can say that again! You okay?” he addressed Mia, concern tingeing his voice, as he looked down at Mia standing next to him.
She should’ve been next to him. Only, she wasn’t there.
Mia lay face-down on the petal-littered road.