On that day, Yokohama was annihilated.
The blue buildings of the Administrative District - melted away like scorched sugar.
The chemical industrial complex along the shore - evaporated in a blink from temperatures that seemed as high as the sun's.
As though the permission to exist had been abruptly taken away by a fickle god - the cars on the paved roads, lined up in an orderly manner, became a grey shimmer and vanished together with the people in them.
Even the young boy gazing at the blue skies from the window.
Even the couples walking hand in hand in the seaside park.
Even the villains planning their crimes in their cellars.
Unexpectedly, without notice or warning, without even being given the fear that they were about to disappear, anything and everything - was suddenly annihilated in an instant.
Like a trick presented by an illusionist.
Unlike a trick, the annihilated 35 kilometer-radius of land, and the close to four million lives in it - did not reappear with a coy wink from the illusionist, and from then they would never return to their original state.
With Yokohama's offshore as the center of explosion, the high temperatures left almost nothing, and brought everything with them. To a far-away somewhere, never able to return - for an eternity.
The only things barely left were the simmering, cooked land in a red liquid state, the heat haze that wavered like the souls of the dead, and the clear, deep blue skies of summer that seemed like they might pierce through to the universe.
It was strangely quiet.
Even loneliness itself seemed to hang in the air.
Above that, only the vividly white cumulus clouds of summer leisurely swam through the skies, as though expressing their lack of interest in something like a huge, annihilated city.
It was summer.
The zero hour that marked the beginning of this show of annihilation had merely been -
- 55 minutes ago.
