May 28

Madoka Kaname had a perfectly normal routine. Waking up, going to school, spending time with her friends, doing her homework, going to sleep. It was the kind of idyllic lifestyle adults write multiple books about. At no point had Madoka imagined that she would get lost on the way home, be attacked by weird dog monsters and saved by two girls wearing beautiful costumes.

But there she was.

"You're lucky, you know. We usually don't patrol around here, but we decided to change things up a little today."

The girl who spoke had the most distinctive appearance of the two. She had blonde hair done in two drill shapes, a dress with long sleeves and a short skirt as well as boots and knee socks. She seemed more mature than her stated age of fifteen. She introduced herself as Tomoe Mami.

"But it's good that we were able to get here in time."

The other girl had braided black hair and wore glasses, her dress was only slightly different from a school uniform, and she wore a black pantyhose. Her most striking aspect were the gray "wings" she showed in the battle, while her partner seemed to simply create guns out of the air.

Also, she was a student that had transferred into Madoka's class only two days before, named Akemi Homura.

"You have a great potential, would you like to be a magical girl?"

And then a white cat-thing made this proposition to her. After everything she saw that day, the cat was Madoka's last straw. She promised to speak to them in the next day, before running home and collapsing in bed.

May 29

"Good morning."

Apparently the cat-thing(named Kyubey) could talk in her mind and was invisible to most people. And was currently keeping an eye on Madoka due to the suggestion of the two girls.

"I can also set up so you can communicate with them via telepathy, as well.

And that. So, Madoka went back to her regular routine, with the addition of the invisible Kyubey giving an extra dose of whimsy to everything. It was slightly surreal, a big difference from the extremely surreal experience of the previous day.

"So, you want to know what being a magical girl is all about before making any decisions, right? This is a pretty mature way of doing things." Mami, who seemed to be the leader of the two, praised her.

That had indeed been what Madoka had suggested. Setting up a meeting with both magical girls had been easy with the help of Kyubey's telepathic network, and she just had to tell her friends Sayaka and Hitomi that she had things to do and they should not wait for her. It was true, after all.

Madoka's decision had been based on the fact that she had seen far too little of what the magical girls did, since their only interaction was them saving her from some weird dog monsters. And she doubted that was all there was to being a magical girl.

The two took her on patrol but they ended up not finding anything. Apparently, after she went back home, the two had searched around and found the "Witch" responsible for the monsters she had met yesterday, and killed her.

They were very apologetic about having wasted her time, but she told the two not to worry, she definitely wouldn't make a decision until she had seen everything firsthand.

June 1

That was when they finally hit paydirt. The two magical girls had split, with Homura escorting Madoka around while Mami searched for herself. In the end, Homura managed to find the entrance of a labyrinth, and then she called Mami, who arrived quickly. The three of them entered into it.

Entering into the labyrinth was a particularly trippy experience. Madoka could see herself and the two magical girls, and they made a ridiculously sharp contrast with the environment. And that was because the environment looked like something out on an animated movie, and one of the more experimental ones even.

The two magical girls were skilled, and Mami was experienced, so between the two of them Madoka was kept safe even as more and more monsters that looked like they were crayon drawings fused with balloons and given life appeared and attacked. Mami summoned dozens of muskets to shoot at the enemies, while Homura increased the size of her wings and swept them around as both attack and defense.

Eventually, they fought the Witch, or rather, Homura fought the Witch while Mami gave long range support while also protecting Madoka. And speaking of the Witch, she was an even more bizarre thing than all of the bizarre things Madoka had seen until then. It was a monster composed of three clown heads connected together by construction style steel beams that formed the outline of a turtle shell.

The monster attacked by breathing molten metal that could turn into metal lions, but with Mami dealing with the lions from a distance, Homura only had to worry about dodging the breath and counter-attacking. It only took around a minute and a half for her to manage to take the enemy down.

After they were out, Mami asked her:

"So... What did you think?"

Madoka had a pained expression "I... I'm sorry... But all that felt too scary... Thinking about fighting like you... I can't..."

Both Mami and Homura were completely understanding of her decision, something that only made her feel worse. But the big thing was... She simply didn't have any wishes that she wanted enough to actually accept doing something so scary.

June 13

The next two weeks passed almost normally. Madoka still saw Kyubey once in a while, and he said that if she changed her mind about making a wish, he would always be there.

However, things changed when Kyubey realized that Sayaka, one of Madoka's friends, actually also had the potential to become a magical girl.

The two discussed about it, and Madoka told her all about her experiences in the witch's labyrinth. And in the end, Sayaka's opinion about the whole deal was the same as Madoka's: She simply did not have anything she wanted so badly as to make a wish for it.

But still, days later, Sayaka reappeared as a magical girl to save Madoka from another witch. And when asked why she had made a wish, her only answer was:

"I found something worth wishing for."

And Madoka could only cheer her friend on, as she went to fight.

June 23

Madoka could barely understand how things had gotten so bad. She had heard the news about an approaching storm, but only realized how powerful it was when her mom came home early, saying that they had to go to a shelter.

Even from inside it, Madoka could tell that the situation was deteriorating, with the sounds from the outside getting increasingly terrifying, and the adults who had information revealing dark expressions.

And then Kyubey appeared, saying that the culprit for all of that was a witch. A powerful witch that her friends were facing at that very moment. And they weren't winning.

Upon hearing that, Madoka couldn't help herself. She sneaked out of the shelter and set out to go towards her friends, without even thinking about what she wanted to do when she got there.

It wasn't difficult to know where to go, since she just had to follow the destruction to its epicenter, but actually going there was by far the hardest thing Madoka had ever done in her life.

The wind and rain of the storm were very strong, so much that Madoka had to struggle just to move forward without falling. And the path wasn't straightforward either, with tons of wreckage spread all around, forcing Madoka to watch her step constantly as she slipped and fell more than once while climbing over those precarious paths.

And yet, the wasn't the worst thing. The absolute worst part were the bodies. The first one Madoka saw was mostly buried in the remains of a house, with only an arm sticking out, as if trying to escape even to the last breath. That alone was enough to drive Madoka almost to her breaking point, but the further she walked towards the center, the more and worse things she saw.

Madoka got a front row seat to the true tragedy and horror of a disaster of such magnitude. She saw people's faces contorted in pain, saw mothers holding their children while trying vainly to protect them until the end, she saw blood and guts.

Madoka was shocked into numbness, unable to process despair at such a scale, and she kept walking more due to sheer inertia than any other reason. And that was probably a good thing, because as she got closer, the side effects of the battle started affecting her surroundings, resulting in several near misses that would have filled her with too much fear to move, were she not so numb.

Eventually, she reached the actual battlefield, and she saw the terrifying witch that had caused all of that. It was a building sized figure vaguely reminiscent of a jester, floating upside down and releasing a broken sound with only a vague resemblance to laughter.

Two figures were jumping around it, flashes of blue and red. Walking in their direction, Madoka almost stumbled upon yet another horrible scene: It was Mami, who was obviously dead, her body cut in half at the waist. And recoiling away from it, she saw Homura, dead on the ground, her clothes soaked with blood.

That broke through her numbness. Madoka's eyes teared, but she still did not cry. She looked back at the fight, and realized that the blue figure was her friend Sayaka. Moments after, the witch spun and hit Sayaka, shooting her at high speed in Madoka's direction.

The girl landed a few feet away from Madoka.

"Sayaka-chan!" She screamed, and ran to the side of her friend.

"Madoka-chan? What are you doing here?" Sayaka asked, struggling to try and sit up as well as looking around with unseeing eyes.

"I-I wanted to see if you were okay..." Was the only answer Madoka could give.

Sayaka smiled grimly, shaking her head "That's just like you." She then forced herself into a sitting position "You don't need to worry... The witch is slowly growing weaker... We can defeat her..." And with a grunt, she stretched back upwards "Be careful." She spoke before jumping back into the fight.

+0+

Sayaka had not been lying, and the two eventually managed to kill the powerful witch. Madoka ran towards them, now that the danger had passed, and found the two magical girls lying side by side, their bodies riddled with injuries.

"Are you two okay?" Madoka asked as she approached, even though she felt a sinking feeling in her heart that the answer was no.

"Ah. We won." Sayaka said "Just like I told you, Madoka." She spoke in a detached way.

"Your name is Madoka, huh?" the other girl seemed only slightly more aware "The answer is no. I'm too hurt to move anymore... not enough magic to heal... I don't think she's any different."

"My name is Sayaka." Said girl spoke, sounding annoyed "Sayaka Miki. Ah-" She seemed to suddenly think of something "I never caught your name. Thank you for coming to help, by the way."

"I'm Kyouko Sakura." The red-haired girl identified herself "And I just... Felt like it, I guess."

But Sayaka did not respond to that. She had finally closed her eyes and breathed for the last time.

Madoka turned away, tears falling from her eyes, and she spoke:

"Kyubey."

He appeared.

"Do you have a wish you want to make?" He deduced.

"Yes." Madoka said, filled with determination "I want to be able to go back and save everyone!"

A white light shined, and then the world changed.