Prologue – The Day the World Went Silent
The sky was clear. The streets were full. For once, everything felt… right.
Haruki strolled beside his mother through the city square, arms full of shopping bags, grumbling half-heartedly about carrying them all. His mother just laughed—that warm, familiar laugh that always made him feel like the world was safe.
"Come on, you need the exercise," she teased, bumping his shoulder gently. He rolled his eyes, but smiled.
They stopped by a fruit stall. As she reached for an apple, mid-sentence, Haruki froze. Something was… off.
"Mom?"
Her voice cut off.
Her form flickered.
And in the space of a heartbeat, she was gone.
The apple hit the ground with a dull thud.
Haruki stood frozen, staring at the empty space beside him. His hands trembled. He spun around, eyes wide, but the people… they were gone. Not just his mother. Everyone.
The bustling city square was silent.
No screams. No chaos. Just… absence.
Phones lay abandoned. Cars idled with no drivers. The city breathed, but it was empty.
---
Days passed. Or maybe weeks. Time had started to blur.
Only 100 people remained on Earth.
No explanations. No answers. Just an impossible silence—and the growing fear that they were not just alone… but being erased.
Then, a new horror began.
A small island off the coast of Japan simply vanished—overnight. No tremors. No waves. Just gone.
Then a patch of desert. A village. A slice of forest.
Scientists—what few were left—ran numbers and panicked. They called it a pattern. A rate. A decay.
Each year, exactly 0.0033% of the Earth was vanishing. Slowly, precisely, inevitably.
Not just the people. The world itself.
And Haruki? He refused to sit and wait for the end.
Someone had taken everything from him—and from the world.
Now, he was going to find out why.