"Okay, Kyon! Now this is interesting!" Haruhi yelled, her old enthusiasm back with frightening momentum. "As your Brigade leader, I demand that you find a way to move this rock!"

"If I knew how, wouldn't I have done it by now…?" I murmured, exasperated. She was wearing me out already, and it was only five minutes since she'd woken up. The sound had stopped its random outbursts by now, and had settled into a low drone.

"I don't…hrmmm…" She grumbled. "You've been saying that for a long time now, Kyon! I thought you made this!"

I didn't know how to respond to that, so I just said nothing and continued to stare up at the stream of bodies flowing into the centre of the spiral. Where did it lead…? I can't remember my Math classes exactly, but I had heard something about a golden rotation, a spiral that lasts for infinity…was this what our universe had come to? We were just stranded on a rock as the spiral went on forever…?

Yeah, I guess I was being pessimistic. The situation just seemed so hopeless that all I could do was think on the bad side. I know, I know, I should've been more optimistic seeing as I had God herself on my side.

"Kyon, if you didn't make this…then…" I could see her eyes lighting up, and straight away I got a bad feeling. "Then this means it's…it's…something interesting!"

Haruhi leapt up from the ground and started rapidly searching around the piece of debris, presumably for anything that could help propel us towards the giant swirling mass.

"Wait a minute! Let's not get too hasty about thi-"

"Oh, shut up, Kyon! When have you ever seen something like this before? Go on, tell me! When?"

I decided not to argue with this. Besides, there was probably no way she could find a way to move this thing in the first place, I thought.

And then I realised that Asahina's face was only centimetres away from my own.

In confusion and embarrassment, I pulled myself away, falling back onto the ground as I did so. I could hear Haruhi cackling on the other side of the rock.

"Kyon, what the hell are you doing? That's not really Mikuru, look!"

And with that, she marched over to where I was and mercilessly shoved her arm into Miss Asahina's torso. I have to admit, I winced a little when she did this, but as expected, Miss Asahina just continued to flow through the stream of souls that seemed to be drifting from the centre of the spiral. It looks like they really were souls, or ghosts, or something similar. Many might say that I accepted this fact far too quickly, but I refer those people to the events of the past year- or, indeed, the events of earlier on.

The next thing that came to my mind was this-

"Haruhi, how did you…how is this moving?"

"Hmmm…I don't…" she began, then paused for a moment. "Hah! It's a secret! Brigade leader's secret, Kyon!"

Yeah, right, I thought. Rolling my eyes, I stood up again and began looking around. Since I could no longer see the spiral itself, I had to assume that we were travelling inside it, or at least towards the centre. And it was only then I realised that the sound had stopped completely. All I could hear instead was what sounded like the wind blowing…as if the atmosphere needed to get any creepier.

Suddenly, I became aware of an incredibly bright light emanating from the front of us, the direction in which our platform was travelling. A couple of minutes' observation showed me that the bodies were streaming outward from this point of light, creating the impression that we were heading to the bottom of a vast pool, like something you'd see in vacation commercials with shining sunlight and deep, clear water.

Haruhi seemed as transfixed by the sight as I was- she had moved her attention away from the soul-stream and was just staring into the light…yet I wondered exactly what she was staring at. Of course, the possibility existed that the centre of the spiral was having a soothing effect on her similar to the effect of the giant globe on Kirie, but I highly doubted that this was the case…although I would have loved to have thought that Haruhi could have been calmed by something as simple as a bright light. No, it was as if Haruhi was focusing on something…beyond the light. If that makes sense, of course. Well, it will in a second.

"Kyon…" she murmured. "Why can I see…in the light…?"

"Hm? What is it?" I asked, staring deeply into the light but seeing only a faint silhouette- not clear enough to resemble anything.

"It's…Kyon, why can I see Ayumu in there…?"

My heart seemed to freeze in my body for a moment. Ayumu…yes, that would make sense. Fake Koizumi had said that they had imprisoned her…hadn't he? Imprisoned or trapped her somewhere, so that they could take over her body, or mind…or something like that. I began to wonder what would happen if Haruhi came into contact with her, but…

These thoughts were cut short as the platform we were on collided into the mass of light. All that I could see was a huge, shining glow- the soul-stream now having disappeared completely. The rock quickly crumbled into nothingness, leaving Haruhi and me floating weightlessly in space. It took my eyes a few seconds to get used to the overwhelming brightness, but when they did everything soon came into perspective.

Ayumu was drifting through the sea of light, hands outstretched as if trying to hug some invisible being. Her eyes wide open, I began to wonder if she was conscious or simply comatose- considering Kirie's fate, I doubted that she was completely asleep. I also wondered how long she had been floating like this, as the fake Koizumi had mentioned them gaining control of her before the universe-fusion…I pondered how many years had passed, how long Ayumu had been floating in this void as if she was on the Dead Sea…

Suddenly, I felt the odd sensation of several voices talking, all at once. Combined together, it sounded like one huge mass of incoherent static noise, like at a crossing on a main street. I turned to Haruhi, to see her with her own arms outstretched, seemingly drawn towards the figure of Ayumu. As they got closer to each other, I could hear the voices grow louder and louder, merging with one another and creating a chaotic yet still somewhat ordered swamp of sound.

After this point, events get somewhat vague in my memory…the last things I remember are Haruhi's hands, clasping onto Ayumu's as if driven by some strange force…then everything went white. The voices cascaded inside my head, flowing over each other and becoming recognisable once more. Then I felt as though I was tumbling downwards, into a vast, never-ending pit of nothingness…to get poetic about it. After a few seconds it began to feel like a roller-coaster- the worst designed roller-coaster ever built, that is. Just a vertical drop, straight down…