"Hey, Mika, which one should I use for these leaves?"
Alice was sitting under the ginkgo trees with her childhood friend. Studying her surroundings and reviewed the palette as best as she could. To be certain, she tugged on Mika's shirt before asking which color to use for the leaves. Distinguishing hues would be a simple matter, but for her it was limited rather to the intensity, to the luminosity.
Mika, accustomed to her birth quirk, gently pointed to the appropriate portion of her palette. After thanking Mika, Alice resumed painting, filling the canvas with her own dedication and passion to the task.
Such earnest hard work and dedication, in spite of her flaws, was a gift. One Mika admired very much.
(It should take awhile to get the details right... Okay!)
Going back to what they were doing before, Mika continued playing a nylon string acoustic guitar. Alice continued painting while listening to the background music. Although she was further away from the guitar Mika was playing, she could hear it much more clearly than anyone else.
To her, to Alice, it was beautiful. She wondered if perhaps Mika would find her painting beautiful too.
The wind gently swept across the two, rustling the ginkgo leaves on its way.
Overnight, without warning, the world ended.
Oh, I'm Alice, by the way. Not that names matter too much at the moment. Anyway, I'll explain.
Pieces of the world are disintigrating away. Asphalt is floating, suspended in the air. Water is flowing at irregular paces. Buildings had been falling in a loop for the past few hours, like the sort of glitch you'd see in a buggy video game.
Such is the state of the world.
I wonder what sort of colors this world has... would I see something different if I were normal? Then again, what is being normal in a world like this anyway? Speaking of this world, is it a dream? Am I sane?
It's not a dream, and I have confidence in sanity. At least, that's the only person whose sanity can even be a contestant.
After all...
Nobody is here. I am alone. I don't just mean "I'm the only person in the room." I also don't mean "I'm the only person in the house." Right now, it seems like nobody else exists in the world. This has probably been said before, but proving a negative is tough, so I can't say for certain that nobody else exists at all. That is how it seems to be, though.
In a situation like this, I think you would normally feel afraid or anxious, wondering what might happen next. For me, this just feels surreal. With this surreal feeling in hand, and some other tools, I head back to the park to paint the ginkgo trees once more.
Sometime last night, somewhere between 02:20 and 05:24, the world had ended.
I doubt there's any significance in saying this, but my name's Mika.
Alright, let me describe the situation.
The world is falling apart and it seems everybody has been spirited away, basically. If reality were some sort of simulation, it would be buggy at best. For example, the world right now is similar to a CD skipping, but on a much larger scale.
I'm not sure how I became a snowflake, how I'm so special... Yet, somehow, I was exempted from the sudden dimensional travel plan, or whatever this was. Nobody told me to get my tickets ready I guess; must've missed out on the meeting, not that I'd ever heard about it.
Aside from the difference in the landscape, there's a notable difference in the soundscape too. It wouldn't be very clear to me normally, but I've been listening as carefully as I could.
This world is silent.
Normally you might be feeling some sort of anxiety about what's going to happen next, or fear about what might happen to you. This world is just too surreal for me though. Exchanging such feelings with my guitar, I head back to the park to play under the ginkgo trees once more.
The world had been separated.
Split into multiple realities.
Fractured.
Fragmented.
Alice was sitting under the ginkgo trees, painting a nostalgic scene from her memory.
Mika was sitting under the ginkgo trees, playing a nostalgic tune from memory.
Although they were both in the same place, neither existed. Their realities overlapped without touching.
They were now isolated.
The trees, not caring about the consequences of breaking the laws of physics, moved their roots about. Wriggling, twisting, searching, intertwining. The roots connected the two fractured pieces. Slowly, it became reality.
Alice and Mika were together again, once more, at the end of the world.