Note : An AU nobody asked for. . . An inspiration from Owari No Seraph, Audien's song with Lady Antabellum; Something Better, The Host and other myths.

PREPARE FOR A SORROWFUL ADVENTURE.

RED EARTH

PROLOGUE

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"Once upon a time, there was a boy. He lived in a village that no longer exists, in a house that no longer exists, on the edge of a field that no longer exists, where everything was discovered, and everything was possible. A stick could be a sword, a pebble could be a diamond, a tree, a castle. Once upon a time, there was a boy who lived in a house across the field, from a girl who no longer exists. They made up a thousand games. She was queen and he was king. In the autumn light her hair shone like a crown. They collected the world in small handfuls, and when the sky grew dark, and they parted with leaves in their hair.

Once upon a time there was a boy who loved a girl, and her laughter was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering."

― Nicole Krauss, The History of Love

They said that once you meet the seven persons sharing your features and looks would you then face your death. But what if there was an eighth person? What if other universes had the ninth or tenth people were also identical? Does it mean that life would kill the three people until the only remnants were to be seven – forever seven? Do you believe in reincarnation? Or whoever breaths a new life was considered reincarnation if, by chance, they – she, he, whoever – somehow looked a tad familiar from the memories of your shared contacts with others?

The world is indeed a mystical place; one that we deemed discovered was in fact, still full of mysteries yet to be solved. Still, thousands and millions of questions remained unsurfaced and they hung in the brains of a wonderer, those who worked miracles, like ghosts desperate to be blessed and rest in peace. We, humans, often searched for logic in things that are supernatural that we did not bother to fuse science and extraordinary together because these kinds of things are in contrary and will never interlink. It is impossible. Because science is facts and numbers and words describing logical explanations of phenomena; supernatural only asked us to believe. There's no definitions derived from anything. Ghosts, aliens. . . Supernatural fans believed it was just there the moment Earth was born to.

But we all know things are ever to be as constant. Even universe expands, according to Physics theories, through the factors of heat. And so, we know that Earth wouldn't remain as it would billion of years ago. Changing is a norm, a pace we all know bound to happen to all beings. Like humans, we grow in terms of physical and mental. Humans evolved. Volumes of our voices becoming louder as generations passed by simply because we tend to transfer information twice as much as before, the cells in our brain connecting to form new thoughts and conspiracies, theories and ideas – expand, expand, expand. Expand, being the keyword of life and nature.

So it wasn't shocking at all, that one day, our world changed into an unpredictable turn of events. It was one night I woke up not knowing where I was. Simply to say, I was actually startled. I was wondering if I was still in my deepest slumber and this was just a lucid dream. And deep inside, I was wishing my eyesight wasn't fooling me, that I was up in a midst of a blackout, seeing Tokyo had been thoroughly undergoing a chaotic transformation of catastrophe. There wasn't any visible sounds, lest my ragged breathes weren't considered apparently. I would have thought an apocalypse involved the echoes of citizens and the towers littering every corners of Tokyo screaming their concrete and metals to ash, dust and rubble, massive plumes of grey smoke bellowing to join its kind of family above. I expected an apocalypse to be violent and brutal, not at all a silent massacre. I was wrong at the theories of apocalypse. Of course, I wouldn't know it would be one if it wasn't for me to peer towards the cold pane, my cheek pressing against the surface till a circular, foggy mark was present and from the thirtieth floors of the flat (the name's Sunshine), seeing dead bodies littering the apparently silent streets. Yet, the streets were far from being the bloody rows of battle arena people would often imagine a war breakout would be. The death, or whatever it was, was too clean and quick. And I wouldn't have been so sure if my parents were still breathing but they weren't anymore. They lied on their bed as if they were sleeping yet their chests weren't moving and their eyes were opened, no irises. Only the whites remained. Their jaws had been pulled like they were suffocating, gasping for air but there wasn't any signs of fingerprints around their necks.

Perhaps, I was hoping for at least a miniscule slip of the crime – I was hoping it was a crime. Anything but an unanswered mystery. I was eight the first time RED EARTH happened. What do you expect a child to do? Plan out a whole survival? I wasn't even prepared for these to happen. I wasn't sure what to feel to lose my family, most of all, my mother. That night, I didn't cry. But my chest kept the numb feeling as if my body was consumed by so many drugs. The only thing in my mind was to search for another companion, another being, alive and healthy and as confused as I am. Ergo, I grabbed whatever that was able to keep me warm and wrapped my neck with a scarf that belonged to Mother. I had my backpack, and even when I don't have that survival plan of some sorts, I knew I'd be hungry so whatever left in my fridge – chocolate bars, biscuits, bottled water, even tonight's leftovers into the fabric casing – and went to the hallway. It was, as I thought, a surrounding of darkness and every child's nightmare and vivid imagination of monsters lurking in every shadow. Swallowing a thick lump, I returned back to slipping back to my abode a minute just to have a flashlight, knowing that kind of darkness wasn't one a pair of eyes could prevail to even for a long time. Walking for what seemed like a long time, finally – finally! – a sound of a human, a child as well, had both my ears and attention perked to the highest awareness.

"Hello?" I swung the flashlight through every corner, creating layer over layer of silhouettes of objects turning into shapes against the wall like a theatrical show. Whoever was whimpering wasn't yet found that I started to check whether my sanity was still intact. "Are you. . . Are you real?"

"Whe – whuh. . . Where are you. . .?" The voice finally responded. I sighed in relief.

"Here! Follow the light!"

A few moments passed, nothing but footsteps and crashing thuds heard. Still dark, and my eyes unable to adjust such intensity that they began to hurt. At the very least, I was hoping the child wouldn't receive such injuries judging from the harsh sounds. In cue with my clumsy prays and quivering fingers curled together, I felt a shift of a weight when I realised mine was getting heavier and I lost my balance. In a split second, I met the hard joint of tile. Not at all a pleasant feeling and the pain doubled when something soft but heavy pressed against my belly. I groaned, the pain double. The whimper only increased in volume yet he or she didn't bother to help at all.

"I. . . I'm sorry!"

"It's – ugh, fine. . ."

"The flashlight!"

"Where?"

"O-Over there. . . Here!"

Warm hands came in contact with mine, leading me to the only source of light. The distance was close, I could feel the child's breathing against my cheek – and warmth spread around me. From the new gasp the child produced, I came in conclusion that it was a male. Just as I obtained the light source I shone at his face, mismatched eyes of raw sienna and bright crimson meeting against a clear cerulean blue for the first time. He was a delight to gaze upon; cherub cheeks and the bluest of his eyes dug deep in the very ocean as well as the silkiest tufts my fingers had ever touched. I found myself nearly gasping as well, but I tried not to. Instead, a quirky, lopsided smile, if not clumsy and awkward, outstretched my lips instead.

"H-Hey. . ."

Who knew I could fall in love in such a young age.

The boy began to rant, however. "Thanks for finding me. . . I. . . When I wake up, my parents and my grandma was dead! I didn't know what to do. . . So, I ran here but it was so dark and. . ."

"Shh, shh. . . It's okay. I faced the same thing as well."

"Really?"

"Yeah. . . I'm clueless as you are."

"I see. . ."

Amidst the dark, I saw the blue in his eyes remarkable as they lit up. They shone like stars, if stars would ever exist up till now. At that moment, there wasn't anywhere else I wanted to land my eyes upon.

When Red Earth happened, the world turned into a monochrome surface of tedious humdrum. Colours fade, vividness wasn't there anymore. The world turned eerily silent. When we thought that everything in Earth was already uncovered, we were all wrong. The world yet again turned into a mystery we had to learn, and a new goal for every of us.

Me and that child – ah, his name was Tetsuya – our goal was to search for that blue in the skies again. To find the purity in what the corrupted universe had left for us, in a population we don't know how much had been decreased; just to gaze at the clearest of the stars when midnight came and the silvery white puffs of clouds when the azure canvas was present.

Our dream was the blue skies, our nightmare the wide sheet of bloody crimson displayed above us for ten years afterwards.

TO BE CONTINUED

Mozu : If you think it's just about apocalypse, think again. I said that it's inspired by The Host and Something Better by Audien ft Lady Antabellum! What does this two have in common? I don't know. Ahahaha! This story will be super slow by the way.

I named it Red Earth because the sky turned red. Population decreases but the cause of massacre was yet to be found. This is a story of an apocalypse, yet it is more than just survival. There will be enemies but they are hidden. And in the midst of these events, they are a duo who imagined everything will be all right as long as they are together. Hence, the quote I gave you.

My sister just got married by the way.

-Mozu The Mochi (2015)