Yes, another story about the Japanese earthquake. I heard about the disaster when I woke up this morning, but I had no idea about the magnitude of it until I saw the news reports after school. I wrote this at about 11 p.m. just to get my feelings about the situation out, so don't expect it to be good. I may add more chapters to this later. This is in memory of the victims and their families, and I hope everyone who reads this will remember to keep them in their thoughts and (if you're religious) prayers.

Kiku Honda had never been terribly prone to insomnia. He had always been a sound sleeper—once he slipped past the mental border into unconsciousness, he tended to stay that way until the sun rose.

But tonight was different. Tonight, he blinked his deep brown eyes open and was met with the darkness of the pre-dawn hours. He sat up in bed and brushed black locks out of his face as his vision gradually began to adjust to the lack of light. Tonight, he could sense that something wouldn't go as planned. Perhaps he didn't have the black magic of England or the superstitious fortune-telling methods of America, but he had learned from experience to trust his gut. And right now, it was telling him something was looming in this early morning, just on the horizon.

Tonight, he could tell that something was coming.

And later that day, he would be proven right.

It was sunny in the beginning. That was the thing he would always remember, how beautifully the day began. He hadn't been able to fall back to sleep before dawn broke and painted the nearly cloudless sky a light golden color. With a small grin, Kiku stood and stretched. He gazed out the window, allowing the gentle sunbeams to stream through. And yet, he expected to see something…else. He felt this peace was almost fake. Still he couldn't shake the feeling that something was amiss.

I'm probably being illogical, he thought to himself. This day will be no different than any other, I'm sure.

But still, the feeling would not disappear.

And it still hadn't disappeared by the afternoon.

That's when the pain came.

It happened quite suddenly, the pang of discomfort that flared up inside him. He winced a bit and put a hand to his chest, where the epicenter of the ache was located. As much as he tried to ignore it, the pains would not stop…in fact, it escalated from a simple cramping sensation to a sort of throbbing that seemed to be spreading throughout him. And the strangest thing was that this pain was familiar. But where had he felt this…where?

Rumble.

He heard it coming before he felt it, like approaching thunder. He recognized the sound—another earthquake. It was impossible to live in Japan without becoming used to the feeling of the ground moving back and forth beneath one's feet.

Rumble.

The chandelier above him began to sway slightly. The pains were getting much harder to ignore now.

And then…he remembered.

His usually serene eyes widened with a striking sense of panic. He indeed did recognize the pain he was feeling. The last time he'd experienced it had been on August 6, 1945…just before a nuclear bomb had devastated Hiroshima. On that day, the aching he felt had been nothing compared to the suffering and agony of the bomb's aftermath.

RUMBLE.

Perhaps this wasn't just another quake…