A/N

Written by Again With This. :3

Suzuno Wada: Black long hair, straight bangs, honey-colored eyes.

Bailey Lox: Orange, curly hair along upper back, with light blue eyes and freckles.


"Ooooh, Bailey I wish you were here," a young woman complains, staring out at the cold rain that comes with living in the Pacific Northwest in late autumn. She lost all contact with her best friend months ago, and the world has spiraled severely in that time. Her gut instinct is that Bailey is… that her best friend… is…

"No! I refuse to believe that someone that stubborn got sick with that virus, she's probably hiding somewhere. Wish she was hiding with me," the woman thinks, banishing negativity with a shake of her head. She gets away from the window, knowing that even the area's beloved, fabled Sasquatch could be a snitch to the government these days. Her parents are barricading their family in their vacation home that they're never usually at in wintertime like this, but desperate times call for desperate measures. It's nothing special, but it is off the beaten path.

"Suzuno, are you up? Your father should be home soon, get down here and help me!"

Suzuno, having nothing better to do as she's read all her books and their generator for electricity is turned off, calls in response that she'll be right there. Piling her long black hair onto her head, she secures it into a bun with a hair tie and races downstairs. She isn't sure what her mom would need help with when greeting her dad; it's not like they sit down to family dinners anymore.

"What's up?"

Her mom, the tiny Japanese-American lady that Suzuno mercifully didn't inherit her height from, turns a stern eye on her.

"Your father is bringing a guest back from town to help plan and build a cellar. The very least we can do the first night he is here to welcome him is make a dinner that isn't–"

"That isn't the work of desperation. Okay," Suzuno finishes, as her mom stutters to find the right words. The Covid-19 disaster and world-ending crisis hit her well-to-do country club mom pretty harshly. Suzuno herself adapted because what else could she do? She watched Preppers! She bets she can make a mean pickle, too.

It takes an hour, and her father arrives home with the guest. As soon as they walk in the door, Suzuno feels… off. The guest, a tall, middle-aged white man, doesn't seem right. And it doesn't help that this man's smile became more interested when his eyes landed on her.

"A creep, a creep! Bailey help me, you deal with them better!"

Despite any of her internal alarm bells, she stays polite and shakes his offered hand. The overwhelming desire to wash afterward is one she can at least find cover for; Covid is still amongst the world, after all!

Dinner was terrible. The food was fine, yeah, but this dude her father brought in the house sat across from her. And kept saying things that had to be euphemisms. Like, "we who are left must wander and spread the seeds of hope again," and "there is no need to be hyper-selective anymore, we must do what it takes to survive."

She and Bailey watched the shit out Criminal Minds, she knows what he means. Her parents, of course, are none the wiser, because this man is going to help with their doomsday cellar. Did it ever cross her dad's mind that it's a bit weird that he knew perfectly well how to build a doomsday cellar in the first place?!

"Mr. and Mrs. Wada, your daughter is a fine example of why we have to keep on fighting. We'll get to work in the morning on that cellar of yours," the man mentions, having noted Suzuno's willingness to clean up the table and pack up the leftovers. She shivers.

"Ew ew ew, he better not be thinking what I think he is! Bailey, where's your strong Gaelic warrior genes when I need them?!" She zips to her room on that thought after her chores are done, lighting a candle to ward off the evening darkness. In her heart, she knows what Bailey would tell her to do.

"I have to get out of here. Don't know where I'll go, but I'm trusting my gut," she mumbles, foraging through her closet for a bag. Finding her old camping backpack, she grins in almost manic glee and darts to her wardrobe next. Anyone listening in will just think she's getting ready for sleep. She's sneaky! Now all her brain power can go to figuring out the best time to leave and which direction to go. Not along the road, her dad could catch up, which would be counterintuitive. Straight into the woods is more or less the option, it's just the direction she should choose…

"I hate overthinking," she grumbles, wincing when she hears that strange creepy man who gives off bad vibes laugh downstairs. She finishes stuffing her bag with her chosen essentials around the room.

"Oh, I nearly forgot!"

She turns to her bookcase, her comfort in this darkened world, and skims the various spines. She and Bailey made a photo album and she'd never leave it behind, not for anything, especially if…

Suzuno shakes her head of the negative thoughts.

"A-ha, here you are! In the bag!"

But upon sliding her photo album into the bag, a different book plops to the floor, having been stuffed in next to it. Suzuno is used to it, and bends down to get it. Only, once the old, unassuming tome is in her hands, she scrunches her nose.

"I don't remember this book. 'The Universe of the Four Gods.' Huh," she grunts, then opens to the prologue to get a better idea of what the heck it is. Maybe her mom snuck it in her collection cuz it didn't fit anywhere else. Or maybe Bailey is sending her a sign…? It was right next to their cherished photo album.

She reads:

"Herein contains the tale of four young ladies and their quest to gather the seven Constellations of Seiryu, Suzaku, Byakko, and Genbu. And if you, the esteemed reader, should read to the story's end, the spell contained within this book shall bestow upon you the powers of the heroines, and grant you your wish. For indeed the moment the page is turned, the story will become reality."

Letting the words circle in her brain for a few seconds, she hums. Wishes would be nice. And she can't leave right now, so why not kill some time?

Seventeen-year-old Suzuno Wada turns the page and is immediately engulfed in golden light. In the matter of moments, even her terrified shriek is completely absorbed by the book. Once she is gone inside, it plops to the floor, old and unassuming as always.


Breathe.

She wants.

To breathe!

She can't. Not on her own, not anymore. She can hear them, in those precious painful minutes between morphine doses and dreamless slumber. The hollow wracking coughs of those still strong enough to do so. She used to be there. She used to be in that cacophonous ward. Now her room is the one reserved for death. A machine distributes an automatic dose of deliverance from a pain no one deserves. She used to think, just like everyone else, that only the old and the weak could die from this virus. She was neither, but here she is.

She wants to breathe again.

She's awake now, knowing clarity is the last gift her spare moments of life are giving her. She won't see her family, her friends, Suzuno, and she will fulfill nothing. An old gray room filled with the intubated, drugged, and forgotten. That's what she gets. She's left to die what living society deemed a "merciful" death.

"No," her mind calls out. Words form for the first time. "I refuse this, I can't die like this!"

And though it should be an impossibility for her to be awake, for her to be conscious, for her to even move, a more impossible thing happens right at her fingertips: A book slides into her lap. Or had it always been there? Either way, she had it now. Her foggy brain felt a joy it hadn't known in months at the sensation of paper. Maybe that bookworm Suzuno sent it to her.

Seventeen-year-old Bailey Lox summoned strength unknown to open the mysterious book and smiled. The radiant blue light must be death, and what comes after. She fought well, and at the very least, in her mind, her last moments weren't terribly uninteresting.