1 Prolouge

"Grandma! Grandma!" A girl, around 7 years of age, whose polished brown hair was tied to a ponytail, stumbled as she ran towards her grandmother. Her voice was soft and calming however it was still obviously a voice of a child.

Her brother, who seemed seven years older than her, frantically ran after the lass, "Ionna! Grandma needs rest!" He walked towards Ionna who has already wrapped her wrinkly grandmother in a hug. His footsteps squeaked as it came in contact to the ancient floorings underneath him.

He scooped her little sister away from their grandmother but then realized her eyes were apparently open the entire time. He almost dropped Ionna because of astonishment.

Imagine unearthing a pair of eyes that belong to a beast that should not be awake. Whatever kind of uneasiness a normal person would feel in a situation as such is the same kind the young boy felt as he stared into his grandmother's eyes.

"Grandma…" The young boy breathlessly said, still recovering from the shock, "You're awake…"

The pale and wrinkly face of their grandma suddenly revealed a warm smile. She slowly and carefully spoke up, saying, "Ben… let your sister hug me… it is rather boring to just lay in bed hoping for the sheep I count to sing a lullaby."

Ben opened his mouth to protest, aware that his grandma is in need of some sleep, but the young girl he is carrying tugged on to his shirt and demanded with her soft and quite voice, "Put me down. Grandma wants hug."

"Grandma needs sleep, you little imp." Ben explained as he put Ionna's two small feet back on the ground with a squeaky sound.

As soon as her legs could properly function, the young girl took off and embraced her grandma while giggling uncontrollably. Ben scratched the back of his chocolate-brown hair and started to wonder if he was like this when he was also seven years old.

His grandma seemed to have noticed the look on his face and so she called out to him, "Ben, why don't you come hug me too? It's winter, after all… I'm not the only one feeling cold between the three of us, am I?"

Ben examined his grandmother's smile and he then looked down on the floor to hide the rush of silent sadness in his eyes. He knew his grandmother's memory will ultimately be fragmented one day but seeing proof that it really was getting worse every single day made him queasy.

He murmured in an inaudible voice, "Winter was four months ago…"

"What was that, dear?" Grandma perked up.

"Nothing. I'd just rather have some hot tea rather than a hug." Ben slipped a lie out of his tongue as he sat down beside his grandma, on the soft linen bedsheet.

Ionna stared at her brother and asked, "Why?"

Ben didn't bother answering that question, knowing that there's probably 50 more lying in wait behind it's question mark. He, instead, diverted his attention to his grandma and asking, "Hey, grandma, why don't you tell us a story instead, to pass the time?"

Ionna nodded enthusiastically but in a reserved way.

Their grandma's grin widened as she gestured the two kids to sit closer to her, "Okay then… It won't be a very warm story though…"

Ionna blinked, "I'm okay with stories involving murder and genocide."

Ben looked at his little sister awkwardly and noted that he should ask their parents to incinerate all of their father's books that revolved around war and killing. Seems that his sister is getting too comfortable with such stories.

Their grandma patted Ionna's silken hair with her bony left hand, chuckling, "Alright, I'll start the story then."

Ionna and Ben inched closer as they eagerly waited for their grandma to speak a word.

"This world is an entity that will soon cease to exist." Their grandma exclaimed after she put her left hand on the patterned shawl on her lap.

Ionna's eyebrows furrowed because she never encountered the word 'Entity' before.

"It's not like it has passed its age of prime and it's not like this world shows signs of exploding, but this world was never really going to last long in the first place. It's lifespan and existence was determined even before it came to be."

"It would have been a delight to be ignorant of how close the end of the road is. The beings that dwell on this world could have worn smiles on their faces until the dawn of the inevitable." Their grandma continued even though Ionna's face was twisted in confusion.

Ben, on the other hand, seemed to have been entranced by the way his grandma was speaking.

"But you cannot forget something you already know, especially the knowledge of what would come to be. For it will haunt you as if a ghost until the decided time comes." Grandma smiled sadly as she closed her eyes.

Ionna frowned, "Grandma, I don't think I understand this story…Can you tell a different one, instead…?"

"So what should the beings do before the decided time comes?" Ben suddenly blurted out, obviously enchanted by the words that came out of his Grandma's mouth.

Ionna stared at him, "Wait, what deciding time….?"

Their grandma heartily laughed, "That is not something I know, dear."

Ben was about to speak up again but he heard his mother call from the kitchen, asking for some assistance in preparing the table. He politely excused himself and went down their stairs, leaving Ionna with her grandma.

Ionna and her grandma looked into each other's eyes for a few minutes and nothing but the whispering of the wind could be heard in the room. Her grandmother examined Ionna's peculiar orange eyes like how her granddaughter was looking into her own.

Young but curious. Her grandmother thought to herself that if Ionna gets the answers to all her questions before she turns sweet sixteen, she won't be surprised. Her granddaughter's eyes showed such demand that Ionna might not even need to ask about something for someone to tell her all the details.

As the grandmother thought of this however, Ionna's thoughts were of a different light. Her mind was a sea of words that she cannot comprehend just yet and as of the moment, she was still trying to find the right question to ask. When she finally managed to connect some words to ask a question, she spoke it out, unyieldingly.

"How will the world stop existing?" She asked, her eyes showed her eagerness to know.

Her grandmother stared at her for a moment. She grinned and patted Ionna once again saying, "That's something we have yet to know, Ionna."

Ionna frowned a little but then her grandma suddenly pinched her cheeks, "You're such a brilliant little child! That question was formulated very well."

Then, Ben nonchalantly walked in with a carrot in one hand, "Mom said that the two of you should go downstairs and wait for the food, now. It'll be cooked soon. We're having soup."

Ionna nodded and watched Ben walk out of the room once again.

Grandma grinned and held out her hand, shakily. A stick, that was roughly the same height as Ionna, shakily flew towards her open hand but the stick fell to the floor halfway through the trip. Grandma frowned a little and sighed in frustration, "Oh, if only old age did not affect one's magic. I would not need to be watched over all the time."

Ionna plucked the stick off the ground and carefully heaved it to her grandma and then she assisted her grandma out of the room.

"Ionna." Her grandma spoke up and she asked the little child, "What kind of magic do you wish the Lord would give to you?"

Ionna blinked and thought hard for a moment.

She then answered, "Maybe teleportation…? Or time travelling…! Or maybe something like Mom's magic…! Being able to read people's memories as if they were books!" Her voice softly showed hints of thrill as she spoke.

Her grandma chuckled, "Is that so?"

Ionna squinted her eyes in thought and then blinked, "Wait, forget everything I told you just now! I thought of a better kind of magic!"

Her grandma laughed, "What kind of magic could be better than time travelling?"

"The kind of magic that can delay the end of the world!" Ionna beamed, her orange eyes that usually looked silent yet demanding suddenly had a bit of a shine to it.

Her grandma stared at her for a moment and then smiled. She wanted this moment, this conversation between her and her granddaughter, to last a little longer.

"That sounds like a great kind of magic."

The next day, she never woke up.

Ionna stared blankly at her grandmother's cold and lifeless body that was carefully placed in a coffin and then ogled at the peaceful smile that rests on her grandma's face. She could hear her mother silently sobbing behind her and she could feel her big brother's shaking hands on her shoulders. Ionna couldn't look behind her shoulder and look at her brother because her eyes were fixated on her grandma, and her entire body seemed to be suffering some sort of paralysis, but she knows her brother must be lamenting as well.

It would have been a delight to be ignorant of how close the end of the road is.

Ionna can clearly remember that her grandmother told her that the other night.

Before she knew it, water welled around the edges of Ionna's eyes even when she had decided not to cry.

Her gaze fell down to the floor along with her tear drops. Her mind wanted to flip a table so badly, to throw bottles into the ocean, to destroy everything she has the power to destroy. She kept all this unstable urges brought about my melancholy inside herself and choked on them.

She angrily thought to herself that what her grandmother told her was wrong.

It's not delightful. It's not something she wants to feel. It doesn't feel good to have been unaware of death and experiencing loss all of a sudden.

Ionna's read her father's books about war and suffering before and she thought that she's read enough to be able to automatically adjust when the time comes that she does lose someone special but she was also wrong.

Right now, Ionna was pondering what could have happened if she and Ben knew that their grandmother was about to die soon. No, she was pondering what could have happened if SHE knew. Ben seemed to already have an idea of it but Ionna only realized it now.

She came to the understanding that even if she had known, nothing would have changed. Her grandmother would have still been in the coffin this very day.

At the age of 7, Ionna has already realized that everyone has an expiration date. That life will always have an end. That EVERYTHING has an end.

And with this knowledge, she felt like she plummeted into the darkness and she could feel the cold and merciless hand of the truth grabbing hold of her.

"But you cannot forget something you already know, especially the knowledge of what would come to be..." She echoed her grandmother's words out loud without thinking.

Her knees felt so numb… so weak… Is this what her grandmother felt? Is this the numbness that deemed her grandmother unable to walk without a stick?

"For it will haunt you as if a ghost until the decided time comes." Ionna whimpered as her hands grew stiff from shaking.

Everyone is going to die…

Ionna tormented herself with these thoughts even after her grandmother was buried.

She barely touched her food and she grew into a stick, thin and breakable. She couldn't sleep too and one time, her mother found out she was still awake at around 3 AM. Ionna silently stared at the window of her house every day, looking at the living people walking around in front of their two-story house. It wouldn't take her long before seeing them as nothing but decomposing bodies however and whenever she started thinking of such things she would stare blankly into space instead and retreat inside her own head.

But her head wasn't any better.

Ionna blinked back to reality when she heard consecutive knocks on the door. She weakly said, "Come in."

The door went slightly ajar and her brother, Ben, popped his head out from behind it, "Ionna?" A worried expression was sewed all over the edges of his face. He pushed the door halfway open and strode inside, his eyebrows furrowed, "What are you doing here in Grandma's room?"

"I'm breathing."

"No, that's not what I meant."

"If it breathes, it will die." Ionna said nonchalantly, as she leaned on to the windowpane.

Ben inched closer, just to make sure his sister won't have the chance to leap out of the window or fall out of the window by accident, "That's true but I don't know where you're getting at…"

That was a straight out lie. He already had an idea of where this topic will lead the two of them. That's exactly why he stepped closer.

Ionna looked at her brother and asked, with little hesitation, "We're all going to die…"

Ben's face scrunched up into a face that seemed to want to yell, "I KNEW THIS WAS WHAT SHE WAS GONNA SAY DAMMIT" but he tried to hide it by trying to smile. His smile was bittersweet however, as he stepped closer and hugged Ionna saying, "Come on, Io."

Ionna grabbed on to his shirt, shaking, but then Ben added, "I can't leave you like this… You're making it hard for me to leave."

Ionna's eyes widened and she frantically asked, "Don't tell me you're gonna die!"

"THAT'S NOT WHAT I MEANT!" Ben shouted defensively.

He took a deep breath and then explained more thoroughly, "Listen, a lot of things happened lately so I couldn't get to tell you immediately that it's that time of year for the people my age. You know the rules. Everyone at the age of 12 are required to go to a training camp. And I'm already that age, Ionna."

He comfortingly patted his little sister's head but Ionna seemed to have started shaking more. Ben sighed and hugged his sister's head, "Remember what I asked Grandma, that night before she died?"

Ionna stayed silent and then said, "So, what should we do before the decided time comes, right…?"

Ben stroke Ionna's head gently like how their grandmother does and answered with a smile, "Yeah. I think I finally have an answer to that."

Ionna blinked and then looked up at him.

"Enjoy the time left while also trying to find a way to delay the end." Ben grinned, "I think that's the only good thing we can do."

Ionna stared at her older brother for a moment but then Ben messed her hair while chuckling, "You shouldn't think of things like death though! Geez! You're just seven years old! You should be enjoying your time!"

The young girl blinked again but then found herself grinning a little bit, "Thank you, brother."

"Well, what are brothers for?" Ben laughed.

"For beating up everyone that bullies me."

"That… that wasn't the question, Io."

The two siblings went out of their humble abode to witness around 20-30 children the same age as Ben waiting outside with backpacks. Their mother hugged Ben and she and Ionna waved goodbye to him as he and all the others got in some jeeps. Ionna watched as each jeep disappeared through the end of the town.

"Enjoy the time left…" Ionna grinned as she murmured this to herself.