2:14 P.M.

2:14 P.M.

 

Hashizaka Makoto was only eight, and never thought it was weird that he didn’t have a father.

He knew that he officially didn’t have one, but his mother Shizuka was always saying things like, “What would he think of that?” so it felt less like he didn’t have one and more that there was something secret about him. At kindergarten, his class had once been told to draw their fathers, and he hadn’t hesitated at all, just gone ahead and drawn one.

But when he showed it to the teacher, she looked confused.

“Makoto-kun, what is this?”

“Daddy.”

But the picture she was looking at was a monster with six legs and something growing out of its back that was either a tail or a spike of some kind.

“Your father looks like this?”

“He doesn’t look like anything,” Makoto said, firmly.

This teacher didn’t know he came from a single-parent household. It was in her notes but she’d never read them.

“Is this a joke? Take this seriously,” she scolded.

“I am,” Makoto said, indignantly.

“But…”

“When I dream about Daddy, he’s like that.”

The teacher’s frown deepened, and she took a breath, ready to yell.

Fortunately the other teacher, who did know about Makoto’s family, noticed what was happening and stepped in.

“H-he does? Let me see!” He took the picture from her, whispering, “Single mother,” in her ear. She cringed and he hastily covered for her, distracting Makoto by saying, “What a great drawing. Does it have a name?”

“Mm. Zoragi!”

“Zo…? I…I see. What a great name!” With a smile and nod, he gave the picture back to Makoto. “Why don’t you try drawing me next?” he said, concerned about the questions he’d receive if there was a picture of a monster between all the other dads.

“Okay!” Makoto said, and did what he was told, drawing a normal person.

None of this bothered Makoto in the slightest.

But after that he didn’t talk about Zoragi much. Especially with his mother. He was sure if he told her his father was a monster she’d get angry.

Makoto wasn’t actually sure if that monster was his father or not. He said he dreamed about it, but it didn’t seem like he only saw Zoragi in his sleep.

For example, his mother once took him out on a walk around town, and he looked up at the sky and thought he saw Zoragi’s giant face looming between two buildings. Another time they were in a café in a department store several floors ups and he thought he saw something go past outside the windows. But everyone said it was just his imagination. If he insisted it wasn’t, they’d all start looking worried, so he stopped.

Makoto had named it Zoragi. He wasn’t sure where that name came from. It just seemed to apply to everything scary. The kind of scary thing that was right there, like it owned the place, but nobody else noticed.

In his dreams, it was even more blatant, flattening the city underfoot. It didn’t care about people, buildings, roads, factories, or schools, it just stomped them all flat. Even when they were flattened, people didn’t notice; they just kept going about their lives. Makoto watched all this with no trace of alarm. To him, this was just the way things were.

 

***

 

“Unh…unhhhh…”

Makoto was curled up, clutching his head, as the Moon Temple shook.

Zoragi was circling the building. Every footstep felt like an earthquake.

Kentaro had told him to wait here, and then went upstairs, but he hadn’t come back, and Makoto was all alone and scared.

Why was any of this happening, anyway?

Even Makoto knew the song they’d heard was named “Custard Pie.” It was a song his mother listened to sometimes. The words were in English so he didn’t understand them, but when she listened to it she always looked so mad. Makoto didn’t know why—it seemed like a happy song to him.

But shortly after his mother dragged him into the Moon Temple, that song started playing, and everything got weird.

The people around him had suddenly vanished.

His mom was gone, too, and he was left alone in the Moon Temple, like the place had suddenly died. Nobody else there. The thing with insect-like, clouded-glass eyes did not appear to him.

He considered crying, but with no one around to hear him it seemed like a waste of time, so he just wandered outside. The doors weren’t shut or anything.

There was no one outside, either.

The streets were deserted, with rows of silent buildings looming overhead. Once, he’d gone to a temple and cemetery for the funeral of one of his mother’s relatives. Hashizaka Shizuka’s relations with her family were strained enough that she usually didn’t go to services or visit graves. But the rows of black square things and hard grey things he’d seen that day, in quantities that had seemed too vast to comprehend, looked just like the city today.

Like rows of giant gravestones.

“………”

He kept walking.

Oddly enough, he didn’t feel lonely or afraid. Fear is born from the idea that something’s there or something’s going to happen, but here, it didn’t seem like either of those concerns applied.

When he got tired he laid down by the side of the road. Nobody was here to yell at him.

He had no idea how far he walked, but he’d gone a long way before anything changed.

People. It seemed like they were the other people from inside the Moon Temple.

But none of them were talking. Or even moving.

Like mannequins, they just stood perfectly still, not moving a muscle.

They were standing here and there, at random locations unrelated to each other.

“Weird!” Makoto laughed. He pointed at one. They didn’t react.

Then…

He heard a low growl, and the entire city started shaking.

 

After that, all he did was run. Zoragi trampled the silent, unmoving people underfoot, flattening them, chasing Makoto. It didn’t seem like he was actually trying to trample Makoto, more like he was aimlessly wandering in the same direction, but since they were going the same way, he was doomed to get flattened like all the others.

Along the way he met Kentaro. Unlike everyone else, he saw Zoragi, and was running away from it, but now he was gone, too.

I’m sure Zoragi ate him.

Makoto was no longer unafraid. He was clutching his knees, shaking like a leaf.

Thud. Another impact rocked the Moon Temple.

Makoto looked up, and saw a giant hole yawning in the side of the Moon Temple. Zoragi’s front leg was yanking rubble out of it.

“Grrrrrr.”

A strange voice somewhere between a threatening growl and just his normal breathing. A red eye peering down at him.

“A-aughhh!”

Their eyes met. Makoto screamed.

Zoragi’s massive maw opened, and bit into the side of the Moon Temple. Cutting edge resilient, modern architecture crumbled like a cracker.

“E-eeeek!”

Makoto scrambled away. The ground in front of him was vanishing rapidly.

“H-help! Somebody, help me!”

He scrambled away across the floor, flailing his legs uselessly like a bug.

Until his back hit something hard.

“…!”

He jumped, and turned around. And his eyes went wide.

A shadow stood behind him.

“Hello there. What’s wrong?” the shadow said.

It wore a black hat and a black cloak, but its face was white with black lipstick. Very sinister. He couldn’t tell how old the thing was, or even if it was a boy or a girl.

Makoto’s mouth moved, but the words that came out didn’t make much sense.

“Z…Zozozozoragi…”

“Zoragi?” The shadow looked puzzled. “What’s that?”

“I-It’s right in front of us!”

“Hmm?” the shadow followed Makoto’s finger, looking right at Zoragi. “I’m afraid I can’t see it.”

“What are you talking about?! The monster! Run before it eats you!”

“A monster, hmm?”

The figure made a strange face, half smiling, half playing dumb.

“A giant monster. So that’s your King of Distortion, is it? And one with actual destructive capabilities. Well, that’s quite a thing, isn’t it?”

“Hunh?”

Makoto didn’t get what this shadow was saying at all.

Zoragi chomped down on the building again, shaking it.

“Can I ask one thing? Did this monster stomp everyone flat?”

“Y-yeah…”

“I see. So that’s why they don’t say anything but ‘Help’.” The shadow shrugged. “Well. This is a pickle. I’ve never fought a giant monster before,” it said.