Note: I know this is a sci-fi/horror, but these first few chapters are about mourning. We get to the up-at-night action soon enough, don't worry.

Masamune knelt at the edge of what had once been a building, feeling a little silly.

CAT trucks had been coming through all day, piling fresh earth into the crater. It took tons and tons of it to fill the entire thing. A nicely-shaped mound now rested on the top, cold and lifeless, out of place against the buzz of the city.

All around him, people knelt. Mothers and grandparents, sons and daughters, uncles and friends and cousins and nephews. Husbands tried to comfort wives as their own tears fell, brothers handed their sisters flowers. People left by themselves, standing alone at the edge of the hill of earth.

All around the country, hospitals had rearranged themselves, foster homes had opened up, and blood banks had filled. But their were no survivors to hospitalize, none badly hurt so as to need blood. All of is was gone, just gone in the span of a few minutes, the relationships and first impressions and soul felt structures built over years, crushed. Or melted.

Young couples left single. Mothers childless and children parent-less, Best Friends Forever wiped away in the blink of an eye.

Every kind of person gathered around the parking lot now, bundles of flowers and little statues in their hands, wiping their eyes to no avail. Men in suits and little girl in dresses stood together at the top of the hill, gently sticking flowers in the earth and clustering memorial statues around the edges. Masamune tugged the necklace from around his neck and left it at the very peak, the tiny wooden horse resting upright at an angle in the earth, a tribute to the ones resting beneath it. He had worn it for as long as he could remember, but it felt like it belonged here more than anywhere else.

As another flight from Egypt came in that afternoon, a small brown face pressed itself to the window. Smudging his nose against the glass, if he looked really hard, DeMorae could just see Masamune's lethalized head bobbing through the melancholy crowd, making his way to the edge of the parking lot. DeMorae wondered if he'd been paying his respects to the dead.

Then he felt a tap on his shoulder. "DeMorae, get your face off the window. You're going to get it dirty."

Reluctantly he turned away. Nile stared ahead, emotionless. He'd been like this the entire trip, even when the news of the collapse had come over the radio in the plane. Not a tear did he shed, nor show that he had any care whatsoever for those affected by the alleged melting. DeMorae knew he should be worried about Nile. Yet he felt somewhere that there was a reason for his unresponsiveness. And so he let it be.

6 months later

The snow had finally melted off in the city, its grey remains running into the gutters as the first flowers appeared in the gardens of the walkways.

All around the country, all around the world in fact, people were acknowledging the 6-month anniversary of the Tokyo Meltdown.

Gingka, Madoka, Yu, Kenta, Kyouya, Hikaru, Masamune, Nile, Ryutaro, Tobio, Maya, and countless others stood in a ring around the temple of earth, hands linked with the one next to them, and eyes shut before the tower of pink buds. Many had come and gone this early morning. Many had left pieces of themselves behind in the just-thawed earth. Thousands had lost their lives, but they had never forgotten.

And the 12th day showed that the sun still rose
As we tried to find our way
Through the steel and smoke, though it smouldered
We were cold and blanketed by grey...

None saw the news reporter across the street. Nobody was there so they could get on the news.

At the top of the hill sat a small statue that the people of Tokyo had donated money for, anchored in the ground solidly. Around its neck hung a small wooden horse.

And our scars have made us stronger turning strangers into brothers
We remember, we recover as we hold on to each other
And our scars have made us stronger turning strangers into brothers
As we hold on to each other in a silent moment we think of you now

Every day for months, the parking lot had been full. From the early dawn-tainted sky to the quiet hush of the witching hour, somebody was remembering.

These empty spaces, across a bruised skyline
The names and faces, I can't erase them from my mind
These empty spaces, across a bruised skyline
The names and faces, I can't erase them from my mind

Madoka opened her eyes as the last line of the lonely song beat out into the morning sky, and let go of the others' hands around her.