A family, separated by fumes and fog, desperately struggling for a breath of life... but to no avail. 

Japan was in ruins. Toxic fumes filled the air, clinging to lungs and blotting out people one at a time. Through the bodies and smog stumbled Dokusei, pink pigtails hanging limply on her back, gas mask torn, leaving her right eye exposed. Tears streamed down her face as she wandered aimlessly forward, no goal in her mind, only longing for the burning to fade from her eye. 

She called for her mother and father, but they had sacrificed their own air for her, strapping the last gas mask over their daughter's terrified face. They had told her to run, run as far away as she could and to not turn around. Run she had, through the sulfur, the fire and through the screams of suffocating people. 

The tear had been caused when a man had tried to rip the mask off her face to use for himself, but she had struggled and soon she had escaped his grasp. 

Now, she could no longer run. She was tired, afraid and so utterly alone. So instead of running, she walked, tripped and dragged herself through the streets, over bodies and around smoldering vehicles. 

Soon, she came to a point in the city where the smog was depleted. It was near the coastline, and the chilly, salt filled air was starting to filter the smog out of this portion of the streets. 

A tall building caught her eye, a dark, noiseless place, free of fire or smoke. Quietly, she slipped through the space between the broken doors. The painful, low moaning of wind filled the empty skyscraper, filling Dokusei with dread. She shied away from the mournful sound, thinking a spirit had followed her into the building. Starting to cry again, she sank against the cold metal walls, hugged her knees and shrank back into her green sweater. Soon, she had sobbed herself to sleep.

Ten years later, the skyscraper was still empty, save for the seventeen year old girl who sat in the twelfth story watching the world go by. The eye she had tried so desperately to preserve had been eaten away by the poisonous fumes, leaving an empty black hole. Her clothes had, of course shrunk, but she would often sneak away from her building to a thrift shop across the street and steal colorful items from the free bin and sew them together to make colorful ill fitting clothing for herself. Alas, the mask had fused to her face, but that too she tried to make beautiful, adding leftover scraps of colorful  fabric to the once unsightly brown. 

Rumors and legends had spread about her, the Black Eyed One, they called her. They told of how she was a murderer, and she had slain her family. Others said that she was the ghost of a suicide victim who had thrown herself from the twelfth story window. Those stories caused no one to visit Dokusei and never allowed her to leave. 

Her only comfort was a sorrow filled tune that she would sing in memory of her dead family. She had created them letters, each she let float over the wind, hoping the spirits of air would carry them to her family beyond. 

One day, Dokusei heard a voice floating through the walls of her building. It was the sound of sobs, heart gripping and desperate. She crept down the stairs to the doorway that lead to the eighth floor. There, next to a broken window teetered a sobbing young man. His hair as brown and curly, his back to the door. He was about to jump.

"Stop!" cried Dokusei, lurching through the door, grabbing the startled man's arm and yanking him away from the window. 

He stumbled back against the wall as Dokusei blocked the window from his unstable body. 

"Who-" the man spluttered, "what-?"

"My name is Dokusei, some call me Kuroi me. I have lived in this building for ten years, with never a way out. My life is full of hopelessness. Yours is not so bad off. Do not jump. Go to your family."

So the man ran, out the door. As he ran, Dokusei stood at the top of the stairs, watching him flee. For once, at least her life could be used for good. 

That night, she heard a whistle coming from the big room on the first floor. When she had descended the stairs, she found a single piece of paper on the floor, upon which was written an address. 1634, Sentaku Lane. 

Late that night, for the first time in ten years she ventured into the night, away from the building, towards the directed street. Soon, she found the house, and scribbled a note on the back of the address, slipping it through the mail slot.

"Keep hoping, thank you for inviting, but it is not my day. Someday I shall see you again. I have gone to see my family. Farewell. Sincerely, Dokusei."

Slowly, she trudged back to the building where she had spent her remaining ten years. Her time was complete, she had saved a life in return for the one her parents had given her. She sang her tune one last time.

With that, she peeled the gas mask from her face. Painful though it was, she managed, leaving it on the floor of her building. The gulp of air she breathed transformed her. Up her spirit lifted from the ground, leaving her body behind her.