A/N: This two-shot was originally going to be a one shot, but I decided that for cosmetic reasons it should be two chapters. This story is a future-based one, and I'll let you infer what the background of it is. The cause of the disaster is very vague for that reason. The story is told in past tense because that's what it is: in the past. Lots of things happen between the 'disaster' (ooh mysterious) and the present, when it is being told. I suppose I'll have to explain more in the next chapter, as it raises more questions (and answers some too), but I just want you to read this part and remember that it is full of so much symbolism I'd have to make a list. I hope you enjoy:)

Mechanics of Axis

Part I

When someone dies, the world should Stop. It's supposed to Stop. Illogical it may be, but is anything logical when dealing with death? I am the symbolic manifestation of death; my existence is anything but logical. Symbolism is lost on me. Always has been. But the world should have been ending right then, shouldn't it have? It didn't.

When someone you love is gone, a piece of you is ripped out, stolen by a thieverous event and never replaced until you have lost more tears, more shuddering breaths, more energy. You'd think a cure would have been made by now. You'd think that if I've seen the downfall of so many people that I'd know how to prevent such a decline of spiritual morale and enthusiasm.

The truth is that loss is a vengeful sprite that delivers a sucker punch to your gut when you least expect it, leaving you breathless, hurt and tearful. For all my experience I would never trade anything for this knowledge. In this instance, ignorance is pure bliss.

The world continued on its way, shuffling its feet in the same manner it always had, with people moving along with it at simple placid paces. They are not all like that; there are some who are yanked back by the force of Stopping, much like the feeling you get when a speeding car suddenly gets the brakes put on. I joined the ranks of those people that day.

With my friends gone, my employer gone, and the Spirit World itself a ball of destruction in the heavens, I was left wondering why the world was still spinning. Wondering why people didn't notice or care. Oh, there were the people who knew about the crisis, and they were upset, but I couldn't fathom a reason everyone else continued their lives. Why nobody had this innate sense that something was wrong wrong wrong, and that when their life leaked out of their toes and into a transparent, foggy imitations of what they once were, they would have nowhere to go. Nowhere to turn to. The parallel dimension that they lived in, that dimension that served as a one-way mirror to the living world would soon become so crowded they couldn't fit. But oblivious they were, and therefore I had to leave. So I left to look for you.

I found you, on your island in the sky, a beacon of heat and oasis of summer. You stood in front of your mother's grave, speaking of things which I will never hear. Perhaps you spoke of feelings which are beyond my comprehension. Perhaps you spoke of anger and retaliation or of sorrow for your lost childhood. You could have said many things, but it is my belief that you felt it. The wrinkle in reality has been pressed out. The fold where souls once hid has been ironed flat. The news had not yet reached you, but you knew. So you returned to the place you sprung from.

I think you were surprised when you saw me standing there, shivering, waiting, watching, you were the only thing I regarded as living from that moment on. You looked straight in my eyes then, remember? Even as they blurred with wind and wetness, even as I told you what became of my world. I knew I would break if you looked the other way, abandoned your gaze, my eyes. And I think you knew that too. How fragile I was, I mean.

I don't know what you thought of me then, and I don't really want to ever find out. I just know that you changed in that moment. You took me back, back to the safety of the ground, back to the warm air currents and dark nights. Neither of us really forgot, but we learned to work for inner peace. We learned to lean on each other for support until we got our energy back, our breath, our tears.

The world continued turning, chasing the sun west. It is and was illogical for it to Stop, but then, in front of your mother's grave, with the wind at our backs and the storm blanketing us safely on all sides, you put your arms around my shaking shoulders and pushed me into the oblivion of sorrow and grief and letting go and insanity.

The world Stopped.

I whispered.