The plague had been successfully contained a decade ago and nearly everyone in major cities throughout the world had been vaccinated against it. When it returned, it was the likes of which no one had ever seen before, and no one was prepared for the...
And it stank, sharp and pungent, like sulfur burning hot in the bowels of the earth. His skin felt too tight for his body, tight enough to snap, as though his insides, heavy as lead, could pour out from every cut and wound at a moment's notice. And his flesh and sinew, barely holding together under the weight – the weight of his body, the weight of gravity, the weight of his sins – could melt, disintegrate under the poison of the fumes, falling apart until all that remained were nerves and bones.
Everything was numb.
The only thing he could hear was the ringing in his own ears, dull at first, but growing louder and louder until it was all but a screech that hammered against his brain and made it ache. Nothing felt real. Nothing felt.
And yet, everything seemed to be blinding white, overwhelmingly bright to the point that it was difficult to see. In his mind's eye, he saw himself on the first day he had returned to Japan, cautiously weaving past the trees lining the highway, wondering about the dust that seemed to coat everything that remained still.
He'd been so naïve then. Part of him wondered, if he could speak to that Rin, what he would say.
Would he tell him to leave, go back, never return?
Was everything that he'd come for, everything that he'd learnt, was it worth it?
Was anything worth this?
He'd lost so much.
So much.
And he drifted.
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Once upon a time, the sea meant everything to him. The perils of growing up in a seaside town, perhaps, but every inch of him longed for the vastness of the ocean, the fathomless depths, the intrigue and the mystery of the great unknown. When he thought about the romance of many-storied travellers that, embarking for the first time on a grand adventure to new worlds guided only by the stars and currents, stoked a fire in his heart.
It was a fire that was doused the day his father died.
A bad storm. An injured body. An inability to fight against the water. That was all it had taken.
The last fleeting thought he had was, like father, like son.
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