The Lullaby of the Void

The world ceased to exist under the weight of an impossible dome.

(¡¡¡BOOOOOM-HUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-SHHHHHHHHHHH-KABOOOOOOOOOM!!!)

Following the roar, the horizon was devoured by a hemisphere of pure energy that did not resemble fire, but rather a stellar storm caught in an instant of infinite expansion.

{It’s so... bright...}

Boreal colors intertwined upon its surface with a silent fury; emerald and violet veils collided, shedding trails of white light and sparks that vibrated like a cluster of galaxies being born and dying in the same blink of an eye.

"I can still feel it..."

It was an architecture of absolute light that transformed the darkness of the night into a sanctuary of fluctuating, vibrant colors.

"It hurts... doesn't it?"

And at the epicenter of that phenomenon, suspended between glory and the abyss, Mireya floated like a broken doll.

"It's agonizing... and at the same time, so comforting..."

His long, loose silver hair projected backward, waving violently under the thrust of thermal currents rising from the constantly expanding crater.

"It’s so scary... Ugh... But..."

Through the silver strands, Mireya’s vision began to fragment; the glow of the aurora turned into blurred, kaleidoscopic spots dancing before his white eyes.

"But even so... you feel a longing... don't you...?"

A slow, heavy gasp charged with static escaped his parted lips as his mind clouded further, drifting between past events he could not remember and futures that surely will not exist.

"Sss-huuu... Fff-uuuh... Why do you want to live...?"

Every breath was a battle.

"But even so... why do you long for death...?"

The nervous system, saturated by a flow beyond what his "human" body was capable of enduring, began to collapse in order to persevere.

"Is it because you were created to be this way... or perhaps... were you born to be this way...?"

The ringing in his ears drowned out the roar of the energy, and the sensation of his own limbs began to fade, leaving him at the mercy of a painful weightlessness.

"If that’s the case... for what reason do you live...? To fulfill someone else's expectations?!"

As his consciousness unraveled and his body began to yield to the void, the eight paper shikigamis broke their formation. They glided around him, intertwining their orbits to create a web of invisible energy that caught him in mid-air.

"Hey... I don't know if you can answer... But... are you okay with that...?"

At the same time that the unanswered question was whispered to the wind, the boreal dome began its process of absolute contraction.

(¡Vvvvvmmmm-NNNNNNNN!!)

The space around the phenomenon began to roar; a sound that did not come from the air, but from the very fabric of existence being twisted.

(¡¡¡SKREEEEEEEE-TCHHHH!!!)

The immense hemisphere of constantly changing lights began to shrink toward the epicenter, and with every meter it yielded, reality seemed to groan under incalculable pressure.

(¡¡¡¡GRRRRR-UUUUUMMMMM—SHHHHHHPPP!!!!)

It was a roar of dimensional agony; the remaining asphalt and rock buckled inward, drawn by the gravitational vacuum generated by that energetic amalgam. They were forces full of contradictions that, somehow, managed to harmonize in a unique display.

(¡¡SHHHHHHHUUUUUU-OOOMMMM!!)

The stellar lights and sparks that previously orbited the dome were sucked toward the center, compressing with such violence that the air itself began to crystallize into fractals of light.

(¡¡¡KRRRR-STALLL-ZIIIIIIIIINNNNGGG...!!!)

Reality folded in on itself, creaking like glass under an invisible hydraulic press, while the surrounding world distorted in a gravitational lens effect.

(¡SKREEEEE-EE-CHHHHH—KKKKKKKK!!!)

In the midst of that cataclysm of compression, where space screamed to be restored, Mireya descended in a deathly silence; an ornamental and impassive figure who, despite the agonizing pain...

"... This isn't fair."

He continued to force his body, his consciousness—no, even the very core of his essence—to resist.

**(¡¡VVVVMMMMNNNNNNNN—SHHHHHHHUUUUUU-OOOMMMM—KRRRR-STALLL-ZIIIIIIIIINNNNGGG—SKREEEEE-EE-CHHHHH—KKKKKKKK!!) **

As he descended, a new thread of blood, warm and dense, welled from his nose, sliding over his pale, trembling lips.

"It’s so scary... It hurts so much... And yet... why...?"

At the same time, his eyes teared up, starting to blur as he felt the emotions he feared facing most.

"Why did you do this... for whom did you do this... was it worth doing this?!"

Between cries that sought answers, between questions asked to no one and frustrations that simply escaped from the deepest part of his soul.

"This world... is not fair..."

Mireya focused his attention on the dome, which was now contracting until it became a spherical nucleus the size of a fist.

"But even so... this world... is so, so..."

At that focal point, reality became illegible: space and time twisted in violent spirals, and logic itself splintered before the density of the energy.

**(¡¡SSSHHHH-UIIIIIIIIIIII—KRRR-ACK-ZZZZZZTTTT—VMMMMMM-NNNNNGGGGGGGHHH!!) **

But beyond the logical distortion, what Mireya perceived were the pure emotions of a collapsing life.

"Beautiful..."

Through the empathetic bond provided by his magic as a magical girl, Mireya was invaded by a tide of sensations that were foreign yet, at the same time, deeply familiar.

"And terrifying... Cruel... Warm... Cold... Gentle..."

He felt the sharp pain of billions of nerve endings of the swarm being incinerated, crushed, compressed, frozen, torn, and spaghettified; at the same time, he perceived the primal fear of death as a cold terror that seeped into his own bones.

"The world is all of those things... and that is why... it is so chaotic..."

That agony quickly gave way to a devastating sadness and an absolute despair that, paradoxically, gave birth to a genuine euphoria for life.

"That’s why it’s so cruel..."

Experiencing such an explosion of simultaneous emotions, Mireya shed tears and, for the first time since his birth...

"... that’s why it’s so gentle."

Mireya wept.

"I-I’m... so... sorry... Forgive me..."

Tears mixed with the blood on his face as he experienced the fall into the abyss of a mind that only wanted to survive.

(¡¡THUMMM... THUMMM... thummm... sssssss-shhhhhhhhh-aaaaaaahhhhhhh...!!)

In response to that conclusion, the energy nucleus vibrated one last time—a rhythmic pulse reminiscent of an exhausted heartbeat—before dissolving into a rain of light particles that bathed the air.

"Perhaps... we weren't so different... or maybe..."

As Mireya finished his descent, suspended just inches above the crystallized ground, he reached out his free hand toward the center of that fading light.

"Were we the same...?"

What he found was not the remains of a giant, but the original essence of that being that had fought so hard to prevail: a tiny, solitary locust, the biological nucleus of Subject Zero.

"¡¡...iii... iiiii... mnnn... k-k-k-kiii... sssss...!!"

The creature, of an almost unbearable fragility, lay in Mireya's palm, desperately seeking to fulfill the only objective for which it was brought into the world.

(...Mmm-aaa... m-m-maaa-aaaa... k-k-khhh...!)

It was on the verge of total disappearance; its body, translucent and cracked, was slowly disintegrating into threads of golden light that the wind carried away without return. It emitted a weak chirp, an almost imperceptible cry that resonated directly in Mireya’s mind through their empathetic bond.

"Everything will be okay..."

Even in that state of imminent nullity, the creature's instinct had not been extinguished.

"I'm here... I'm not going to run away... I'll stay with you... until the end..."

With an agonizing effort, the little locust desperately tried to bite the glow emanating before its failing vision.

<"Partner... by your look... what do you plan to do...?">

Mireya, his face stained with blood and tears furrowing his cheeks, observed that final gesture of will.

"Good question, Echidna..."

There was no hatred in his gaze, only an infinite sadness at the spectacle of a life that refused to accept the silence, consuming itself in the palm of his hand...

"I suppose... if the world is like this, then... I'm going... to do things at my own pace..."

With a heavy movement laden with somber compassion, he brought his fingers to the wounds on his own face, dragging the blood that flowed warm and dense.

<"Even if you plan to feed it... it's already too late... It won't survive...">

Gently, he bathed the dying creature in his palm with that crimson trail.

"Even so... I..."

The little locust, in its last breath of existence, consumed Mireya’s blood with blind desperation, drinking from the life that welled up boundlessly.

"I don't want to have regrets with a 'what if'..."

Thus, the little locust that was born and died in the same night, while its own body finished disintegrating into particles of light, came to know...

"Good night..."

The act that it had unconsciously sought so much.

{......}

Observing the scene, the small and colorful dreamlike rag doll noticed how the coherence of reality began to fracture.

"I can't... anymore..."

The landscape of The Veil, the crystal crater, and the celestial aurora began to blur, losing sharpness like a painting washed away by rain.

"I'm so... tired..."

Mireya, feeling the weight of the universe finally claiming him, collapsed.

{¡¿?!}

His knees hit the ground as his vision went out completely.

"... I really... want to go... home..."

It was then that, from the shadows of memory, the colorful rag doll emerged from its hiding place.

{¡¡¡MAMA!!!}

Seeing Mireya's figure collapse motionless on the ground, a heart-wrenching scream escaped its nonexistent mouth as it ran desperately, trying to reach him before everything disappeared.

"... Right... I... hadn't given it... a name yet..."

But the fabric of time did not wait; the flow of chronology, until then stagnant in that traumatic memory, resumed its course with hydraulic violence.

{¡¡¡MAMAAAAAAA....!!!!}

The scene dissolved into a whirlwind of lights and shadows, expelling the doll’s consciousness and presence back to the present, leaving behind the carnage of The Veil, returning thus...

"A doll... no, that's... a baby...?"

After a brief encounter, a connection beyond time had been forged.