Aki trudged through the snow, boots sinking into icy crust with each step. Tokyo had gone quiet since the sinkholes came, swallowing cities whole and leaving ruins behind. The cold bit at his face, but he barely noticed it anymore. His mind was circling the same dark thoughts he always had like a vulture over carrion.

A month since the world ended, and Aki hadn't seen another living soul. He scoured empty streets and rifled through abandoned stores, searching for supplies and, futilely, for signs of life. Each day chipped away at the fragile hope that his family, his brother Rei, might still be out there. They’re gone, he told himself. Swallowed by the earth or taken by the cold. It didn’t matter anymore.

Aki pulled his scarf tighter around his neck, though it did little to shield him from the harsh wind. His lungs burned with every breath, and he knew it was only a matter of time before they gave out completely. He’d spent his life in and out of hospitals, tethered to machines that kept him going. But there were no hospitals now, no nurses, no family to care for him.

He had always felt like a burden, even when his family insisted otherwise. They had showered him with love, sacrificing their own comfort for his sake, but the guilt never left him.

A sharp, sudden pain gripped his chest, and he stopped in his tracks, clutching his ribs as a violent coughing fit overtook him. He dropped to his knees in the snow, gasping for air, each cough ripping through him like shards of glass. When it finally subsided, he collapsed onto his back, too weak to move. The snow cradled him, cold seeping into his bones as he stared up at the dull sky.

The snowflakes fell lazily. Aki watched them in silence, his breath coming in shallow, ragged puffs. This is it. No reason to keep moving. He would die here, alone—and yet, it didn’t seem so bad. The numbness was a welcome reprieve from the ache in his chest, the ache in his heart. Then he heard it.

The faint crunch of footsteps in the snow.