A loud sizzling echo swoops over our falling bodies. I feel an intense heat brush past my back. In seconds, I have no chance to think about myself. I only need Mya to be alright. Then, an awful sound of something heavy meeting solid earth erupts. I feel the entire world beneath us quake, and I'm not sure why, but I knew something terrible has befallen us all.

*BOOOOM*

I dive over Mya, and at the very same time, a blinding light covers the entire Meguro River. The next few moments, I see nothing but a blinding white light. Then the eventual quake of the earth beneath us, which feels as though the entire world around me has exploded. Seconds later and my vision trails into darkness...

"..."

"Wh...wh-what's...that ringing sound?"

I taste cobalt in my mouth. The air feels like it's burning me, and all I see is darkness.

Someone...somewhere distant is calling me.

"M-mya?"

"Da-…

"chi...

"Dai...

"ch...i"

"DAICHI! GET UP!"

A deep gasp almost bursts free from my mouth, and my body suddenly becomes alive again.

"I'm...alive? A-alive..." I stammer, unsure whether this is all a dream or not. I take a frantic look around me, chaos? people are wailing, fleeing, confused whilst hiding between any crook or crevice they can find.

I feel a strange fatigue washing over my entire body. This is real. Mya? She... she's crying. Why is she...

"Daichi! Th-thank goodness you're awake." She falls into my arms, and I struggle to hold her. Only now do I realize my entire body is writhing in pain, and I find myself seated against the cold ground. Her small body is trembling; I've never seen her so distressed before. Something bright flashes from the corners of my eyes. At that moment, I remember where we are.

The Meguro River... b-but what is this... I barely understand what's going on... wh-why is there... b-blood.

"Daichi, get up now! We need to get out of he-here-th-they're coming." Mya orders me. I stare blankly at her disheveled appearance while she peels herself away from me and attempts to drag me to my feet.

Wh-what is going on? I faintly still hear a constant ringing sound within my ears, distracted by Mya's distress, with no time to properly understand why my body is in such a state I obey her every word and rise to my feet.

Just when I am poised to move, a terrible sound fills my ears. I nervously twist my neck towards the left side, hearing the firm sounds of bones being crunched. I move my eyes and discover a scene so out of place, I immediately tell myself inwardly, 'I must still be dreaming.'

The creature in front of my very eyes is slender, malnourished even to the point I can see its veins and the organs bulging beneath its palish blue skin. Azure would be too dark for the tint, it reminded me of that true blue kind of tones. Madonna.

It has not a single spec of hair against the visible parts of its body. Its cranium is noticeably larger than a normal person's. My mouth slackens into a gape once I see the proportion of its mouth. Its maw is as large as a human's head with rows and rows of tiny sharp teeth inside. Around the maw are four long tentacles holding something before it in place. Five horribly long misshapen fingers rip and tear into the flesh of something I can't quite see. A few seconds pass, and my horror reaches its fever pitch; the creature turns whatever it's eating on its side. And there I see it. Two deadpan eyeballs, staring directly at me. The whites are riddled with red veins. Blood oozing out the corners of its sockets. The vendor selling foods is being eaten. 

I hear that grating fleshy sound again, and I suddenly feel the urge to vomit.

'W-h-wha-what is g-going on...is this..h-hell'

"DAICHI! WAKE UP! WE-WE HAVE TO GO...NOW!" Mya almost roars at me, but it does the intended effect, and I painfully hoist myself up to my staggering feet. Finally standing upright again, I take a look at my surroundings more clearly. I shudder almost instantly. Chaos surrounds us. There are bodies... everywhere? Dismembered, dying... crying... some look to have given up and simply sat on the ground. 

Laughing to themselves with their heads in their hands.

I glare worryingly towards the river, others jumped over the railing and were inside the river in a bid to escape I almost feel the urge to gather Mya and do the same, but then.

A sudden gasp leaves my raspy throat as my eyes disbelief the scene before me again.

I see a horde of those vile-looking creatures, slenderly tall with sickly blue skin. They formed a strange ring, a ring around...'b-bodies? Piled so densely into the riverbed that the waters are dyed carmine. Men, women, old... and even the young. The bodies almost look to be bizzarely crystalized into this giant ball of human flesh. I feel a terrible shiver writhe against my entire body. 

'This is madness.' 

I grit my teeth and find the courage to finally move. Mya holds my hand and attempts to run back the way we came from. "Wait!" My voice holds her in place.

Just taking a single look down that side of the bridge we were once walking along with peace and love in the air, I already sense our chances of surviving are slim.

'But what lies in wait behind us?' I turn around, and my eyes shudder as barely audible words escape through my mouth

'Th-this can't be... real. Can it?'

The sakura trees that I love and adore have been uprooted, almost none of which were young nor the feeble kind of trees. They were old oaks, thick as iron, and yet. Something was strong enough to rip them from their roots and toss them aside. The closer I observed this way, it seemed almost like an absurd sort of barricade had been formed. Using the oak trees to block anyone from leaving.

'Damn it! That leaves only one route... Yamate-dori ave.' 

I make sure Mya is slightly a few paces ahead of me. She's only a little thing in comparison to me. I fear she might not be able to keep up, but how wrong I was. Call it an adrenaline boost or something otherworldly, but Mya flies down the bridge with me fighting my hardest to match her pace.

We zip past countless bodies littered against the ground. The fallen sakura leaves are dyed in crimson now. My heart feels an intense surge of pain muddled with a drowning sensation of fear and the desperate objective of surviving. 

I feel the same emotions from Mya, her eyes glazed with tears but she remains steadfast in running. We don't even say anything to each other; perhaps we're scared a single lapse of our focus would spell the end. Those blue creatures are everywhere, their heads lift up once they hear our footsteps. We aren't the only ones fleeing, but their lack of attention, for some strange reason, leaves them unmoved to chase us. Only those who would fall or run too close to them are being snatched and eaten. I found myself tuning out the callous sounds of bones being snapped like brittle twigs or the slurping sounds of guts and blood being inhaled.

Run. I just need to keep running.

I feel my lungs desperately heaving in and out along this desperate dash through the hellish madness. When was the last time I had ever run like this? But please... please don't give out on me. By now I can taste blood from my exhaustion levels reaching their utmost peak. Mya's countenance is also not looking so good. How long can we keep this up for? I can't think like that. We have to make it...

"L-look... we're almost... there." I laboriously groan. I suddenly feel a euphoric sense of ease slowly creep into my stomach. I must be making the ugliest smile as a soft chuckle dares to escape free from my gaping mouth.

"M-mya... we're going to make it." I say, and we can see the opened gates which will take us back into the busy night streets of Tokyo.

"Y-yes...we're almost... Daichi, LOOK OUT!" Her scream pierces through the chaos, snapping my attention to the rear. An immense shadow looms, a colossal sakura oak tree, defying gravity, arcs menacingly through the air. Its surreal flight defies logic; my mind reels in disbelief. Mya's grip tightens on my sleeve, pulling me back to reality. I react instinctively, ensnaring her arm under my armpit and drawing her close. With a desperate lunge, I shield her beneath me, ensuring my weight doesn't crush her fragile frame. A chilling coldness seeps into my bones as another ominous shadow and a guttural snarl freeze time itself.

The tree crashes with a thunderous roar, its massive trunk rolling across the bridge, flattening the helpless in its path, finally arrested by the stone wall of the open gate. In the midst of this pandemonium, a blood-curdling howl, akin to a baby's scream, silences the world. The sound is unnatural, its impact turning my blood to ice.

'Wh...what the h-hell...' Words choke in my parched throat as I muster the courage to turn. A small, pink orb, glinting like a ruby, rises from the river. Its surface, smooth and glass-like, ascends like a malevolent sun. Horrific realization dawns as I recall the ghastly sight in the river. "Th-those bodies..." The grotesque vision of corpses, forcibly amalgamated, haunts my thoughts. Before I can voice this horror, a deafening cry, like a typhoon, assaults our ears.

Gwuaaaaaaaaugh!!

The sound, a thunderclap, heralds the orb's transformation. Its shell cracks, spewing a cascade of carmine shards.

The crowd, transfixed, steps back yet watches with fevered anticipation. We're drawn to what feels like the birth of something otherworldly.

When the blood disperses, a strange creature emerges free. An infant-like being with azure skin and bulging white veins floats before us. Its eyes, large and glittering, open, instilling an unprecedented terror in me. The moment I lock eyes with the creature, I lose all sense of marvelling hope. I grab Mya, still entranced, urging her to flee.

"We need to move...n-now." My voice, hoarse and trembling, is cut short by the resurgence of dread.

"Oh-no..."

I turn, blood chilling, as the creature points directly at me. A magenta light forms at its fingertip, its expression morphing into a wide, crazed grin.

The earth trembles, two mighty oak trees uprooted and hurled towards us.

'We...we can't outrun that...' Despair overwhelms me as I face this nightmarish scene.

The ground quakes violently, Mya's screams drowned out by the deafening impact. I envelop her, shielding her from the flying debris, whispering empty reassurances.

'It's... it's going to be okay,' I lie with a broken smile.

As the giant oak tree looms over us, a defiant spirit surges within me. In the face of certain doom, I ponder my powerless state.

'Damn it all.'

I close my eyes, embracing Mya, awaiting the merciless descent of the once beautiful sakura tree.

In the engulfing darkness, a voice, as soothing as a warm, flowing river, beckons me.

"Arise...Arise and heed my calling...my champion."