Her hands clench her knees as her long hair falls over the sides of her face, like a curtain blocking out the world around her from sight. Blotted out of her vision but not her mind, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building towers over her. The edge that had been loped off in Yoshiya's video is whole and unmarked as are the skyscrapers around her that had been sliced in half within the confines of her cellphone's screen.

There's a cellphone by her foot with a little plastic kitty attached to its keychain. She stares at it as its little black beady eyes look up at her. It isn't hers, and neither is the purse that she tripped over a few yards back. There's also a canvas bag that she hasn't looked at since she bent down to hide everything from her eyes. A few tourist trinkets spill out as it lays deflated on its side. Judging by the paintings sprawled across its surface, it had to have come from the Opera House's gift shop she ran by only minutes ago.

There aren't too many items, just one or two abandoned things every couple yards. But it's enough. Enough to show that other people must have thought that video was real too, even if all the buildings around her show no sign of ever being destroyed.

The cold finally catches up to Kaori again, and she shivers from that, not from the fear crawling through her body. She pants, the exertion of running for so long finally burning through her lungs.

The sound of her breathing reaches through the air around her; there isn't any other noises, no cars to swallow it up with their rumbles nor chatter of the late-night crowd to trample over it as they head home at this ungodly hour. Just her alone, in the exact same spot her friend had stood.

The enormity of it presses down upon her hunched shoulders. Something had happened here. Those sirens that had jolted her awake; the barren streets, her friend's video reaching out for her in the dark. They're real, it isn't an ill-thought prank, or even a dream because she's biting her lip so hard that the pain would have ripped her awake. This is real and happening, the logic and rules of reality have been undone not on a screen to an anime Kaori's just watched, but to herself and now it's swallowed up her friend just like everyone else who was there beside him—

A shuffling sound crawls over Kaori's ears. With the curtain of hair blocking her sight, she can't see whatever is making that slow noise. But she knows, she just knows that even if it sounds far away that only idiots from horror films believe something like that before they look up and get snatched away.

So she doesn't look up, she scampers back, hands half-raised and legs tense and ready to run. The shuffling noise that her heartbeat nearly drowns out isn't in front of her.

Kaori whirls, knowing that there has to be something right behind her, but it isn't right there either. Several yards away, at the intersection she had passed earlier, a figure has emerged from the gloom of the perpendicular street. Its feet drag against the pavement of the road it staggers upon.

Weird videos, brain dead cops, Kaori wouldn't be surprised if that list finished up with zombies; so, she keeps her distance. It hasn't seen her yet, not by the way it continues to trek forward and away from her. That's good, really it is, gives her time to see what she might be up against. It looks human, a man or a boy judging from the profile of its physique. It's not moving right at all, feet dragging against the ground like its legs are damaged on the inside...Oh, it stopped.

Kaori's breath catches in her throat. It turns, of course it turns, its face too dark to see anything except for the glasses that gleam in the city lights.

Her legs tremble and it drags one foot forward. Her heart throbs and it slowly shuffles closer until several yards become only a few. She doesn't wait for that distance to dwindle down anymore, breaking out of her shock, Kaori side-steps until she slides around the bender of one of the few abandoned cars whose wheels have rolled over the curb.

Somehow, she holds her ground as it stumbles closer. She needs to know now just how smart these things are, if they'll try to climb over cars or lurch around them. There's only one, so she should be fine as long as she keeps her eyes right on its face that finally is close enough for her to see...

Time doesn't stretch, the thing is already shuffling so slowly that her mind can't make anything move any slower. Kaori herself doesn't move, doesn't even think of it when it finally stops parallel with the car. Slowly, the entity raises its arm, but not to reach towards her. At the end of an outstretched arm, a small, silver cellphone points towards the Metropolitan Government Building. The hand that holds it is so pale that it glows against the phone's dark screen.

"Yoshiya..." Kaori finally chokes out. The minutes slip by, and he just stands there, phone aimed at the sky that looms starless and dark over them.

He doesn't respond when his name slips out of her again, doesn't do anything other than stand there with his arm trembling from the strain. Kaori inches forward, hands curled against her chest as she moves past the car and towards her best friend since the elementary grades.

No part of her recalls that she would never approach anyone else who stood there barely seeming human.

"Yoshiya." Her voice barely whispers past her own ears as she comes close enough to reach for him. His eyes are glazed behind his reflective glasses, even when she finally repeats his name loud enough to draw his attention.

Slowly, his gaze roams from the phone to Kaori's face. The rest of his body turns as well just as the hand holding the phone drops to his side. Two trickles of blood flow from his nose and drip past his chin. Kaori shivers as he just looks through her.

She's made a mistake. That realization burns through her as he finally moves forward. She shouldn't have come this close. She really shouldn't have come close enough for him to grab her.

"Kaori?"

He speaks, each syllable catching on the other, making her name near unintelligible. But he said her name. He actually said her name.

"Hey Yoshiya... what happened?" Kaori reaches out, her words as soft as the tentative touch of her hands upon his shoulders. His glazed eyes draw down to her collar bone before he drags his gaze back up to the sky. His phone clatters against the asphalt as he raises his now empty hand and points up to the empty sky.

"It was right there." The blood continues to trickle, curling around the corner of his mouth as he speaks.

"The moon was right there, but now it's gone."