Future

[Somewhere]

The windows were open. Outside, continuous flashes of lightning struck without pause.

The room was dark.

A masked man wearing a heavy hazmat suit walked to the window. He held a radiophone in his hands. And he spoke politely over the radio.

"Follow those two for me."

On the other end of the radio was a girl. She called him commander. But he wasn't. He was the commander's errand-runner.

Another masked figure approached him.

"Enjoying the fresh radiation, are we?"

She was a girl. A woman. Ignoring his reply, she looked outside the window.

No tress, no grass, no sign of love from mother nature. Beauty was stolen from this place, but still... The clouded sky left just enough space to reveal the shattered pieces of the once rounded moon revolving around the largest fragment. It shone the lights of the sun on the surface of the colorless earth. It was the only sign of a fading beauty that had once been a part of this world.

Under the sky, people were walking on the street. They were all covered in heavy hazmat suits. Her eyes went to the market that sold sealed foods. Food is life. And life went on, even in this ugly landscape, despite unsurvivable radiation levels.

She took a photo from her pocket and stared at it wide-eyed. But she couldn't look at the photo for long. It pained her. So, she looked outside the window again.

"Commander... Why are you going this far?"

She looked at her errand-runner with a smile.

"My father. He was a sincere man... I'm just trying to fix a simple mistake this world made."

"Fix the whole world?"

She had turned her gaze back to the people outside the window.

"Look at them. They don't deserve this harsh life. It's filled with so many ways to die. I tried helping them as much as I could.

"But the world always ends.

"These people... All of them... They will all play a part in this drama—an act to fix this world. And then there is her... She... Will be the one to do it."

"Commander-"

He wanted to know who she was referring to. But she cut him off.

"Address me as Akari, not 'commander.' There is no reason for you to call me 'commander' anymore.

"I did my part by killing everyone responsible...

"You guys can prepare to escape. Evacuate everyone to the wormhole I had opened. Enter in haste, right after it begins."

Was this really what the future set to be? It didn't matter how many years into the future she looked. Humanity came to an end anyways.

She looked at the photo again. It was a delighted Ninomiya, holding a baby in his arms with all his love.

"Father..."