The road was now beginning to collapse- I could see that now. The cracks had grown wider and, although nothing was falling apart just yet, I somehow knew that what I had seen happening on the other side of the giant hole would happen on this side, too- I was certain the entirety of the Closed Space would soon fall into the ocean of spirals spinning below us. And, even more worryingly, everything was starting to come together- the fusion of universes, the Eternal Spiral, the Outer Gods wanting to feed on disorder...everything we had been theorising about was suddenly coming true. The end of the universe...as far as I knew, that could have already happened. Nagato, Asahina, Kujo, Fran, the real Koizumi...Haruhi and I were the only ones left.
And what of Ayumu? Was the real Ayumu truly that terrifying monster that had attacked us in the theatre? Or was she another victim of the spirals? What if her original home was in Kurouzu-cho? What if she had been possessed by the spirals?
I was shaken out of my thoughts by a sudden quake, and I ended up tripping over one of the a part of the road that had been forced out of place. Checking to see if Haruhi was safe, I happened to gaze up into the sky...to see spirals, everywhere. The sky was no longer its former colours of...well, mostly grey. It was now a psychedelic bright yellow, with what looked like red clouds spiralling into nothingness. No matter now much I think about it, all I can see is a big bowl of vanilla ice cream, with raspberry swirls. Cataclysmic ice cream, maybe.
I picked myself up and tried to run, but soon found that the street had turned into what was basically a giant rocky pathway. Things had gotten more precarious. I made my way forward, staring at the highway ahead, which seemed oddly unaffected by the earthquake. Slowly I picked my way over each piece of street, pulling Haruhi with me. If I had dropped her into the spiral ocean, that was it. My last hope lay in her somehow managing to get us out of this, somehow. I guess if she was responsive I'd have dangled her a bit, maybe, but I digress.
As we worked our way further and further, the street seemed as though it was turning back to normal. Well, I say turning back, I mean it was looking more like normal, flat street, rather than some sort of cliff face. As I looked into the sky, I could see the number of red spirals growing. There were now so many of them that I didn't bother counting, and the trails leading out of each spiral seemed to stream together, forming one giant spiral in the sky.
I looked down from this horrific sight and helped Haruhi climb back down to the normal, flat street. As soon as her feet hit the ground, I set off running again. My target was the highway...but I saw that the highway was actually pointing up into the air. So now where was I supposed to go? Definitely not back, and I couldn't take one of the side streets in case I got cornered...well, I decided that my best bet was to just keep running and make my stand at the end of the highway. As if on cue, the rumbling returned, and I looked behind me to see the broken street I had just scaled fall into the spirals.
The being that had been Koizumi was walking just in front of it.
Throwing all doubt to the wind, I ran. Oddly enough, I felt Haruhi's grip on my hand loosen, and as I looked to the side I could see her running aside me, rather than trailing behind slightly as she had been doing before. I kind of got my hopes up that she had returned to normal (As out-of-character I might sound) but no such luck. As we ran, I could hear the street continuing to collapse behind us, and the ruins of the buildings around us seemed to fuse together, rising into giant spiral towers such as those I'd seen around the giant spiral globe. The spirals in the sky grew more and more abundant in number, and the giant spiral began to glow, giving off a bizarre light that illuminated what remained of the Closed Space.
Stumbling and weak, we eventually reached the highway, leaping on before the street collapsed into the spirals below. I didn't look back to see if the Koizumi-thing had made it. Taking Haruhi by the hand again, I started to run up to the end of the highway...and, as if to top off the series of weird and nonsensical events, I saw it begin to slim down. Well, let me put it this way. If you've ever seen a highway lead off into the distance, that's what it looked like.
We caught up to the end of the strip of road, only to find that it was somehow extending further. Weirder still, it also seemed to be extending...upwards. Maybe I'm wording this badly. To put it simply, what looked like a giant, spiralling staircase was unfolding in front of us.
And it wasn't going slowly. The staircase was rapidly extending, stretching higher and higher. With no other choice, I ran onto it, pulling Haruhi behind me, and started to climb. I only looked behind me once, to see the Koizumi-being walking towards the bottom of the stairs. Disturbingly (Although probably not surprisingly), I could see no other buildings, streets, anything remnant of the closed space left. There was only a sea of spirals below, and a glowing sky of spirals above.
And then we reached the end.
Author's note: Well, this is the first time I've actually talked in this. I want to keep this brief, really, just to address a couple of things.
For one, I apologise for Kyon's OOC moments. I've tried my best to write in his frame of mind, but because of my writing habits (ie. Writing a load of chapters all at once) I realise that this can waver and sometimes erode away completely. So sorry about that. The story itself is almost finished, and if there's enough demand for it I'll go over and edit it, add in parts, take parts away etc.
And the final thing is; if you've stuck with this story thus far, or if you're reading it at all- thanks a lot.