"Guys? Can you hear me?"
The audio came through crystal clear, no distortion, no lag. The connection bar stayed green, his voice was clear and there were no choppy cuts. The connection here is fine, but Nobita still couldn't get a single call through to Nerima.
Kenichi, the first to join the call and pick up Nobita's sudden message, spoke up with a puzzled tone.
"Loud and clear. What's is it? You down for some games?"
His carefree question earned only an indifferent no. Soon after, the rest of the group began to join in one by one. Nearly everyone was present now, except for Miki and Ream.
"I can't reach my parents. Have you guys tried calling yours?"
Sensing the urgency in Nobita's voice, Eri volunteered to call her mom. It had been a while since they'd last spoken. They argued often, clashed more than either liked, but beneath it all, she still truly loved and missed her. So, fulfilling her duty as a filial daughter, she pulled out her phone without hesitation and dialed, waiting patiently for her mother to pick up.
"Let me try… What the? Deadline!?"
The moment those words left Eri's mouth, Nobita's anxiety surged. His grip on the phone tightened.
One after another, Kenichi and Eiichi tried calling their own parents too, but none of them could reach them.
Vulgarities were muttered, wild guesses flew, yet no one had an answer to the one question that gripped them all: why couldn't any of them reach a single soul outside central Tokyo?
"But I can still hear you guys perfectly!" Eri burst out, frustration in her voice.
"Calm down. Maybe it's just a temporary line issue." Eiichi said, slipping into the role of mediator in Ream's absence, tried to soothe everyone down. He understood that they were concerned, but maybe the line could be down for the moment.
Of course, that seemed ridiculous in hindsight, since most of them used different apps and services to call family in other cities. For all of them to fail at once? That was far from normal. Still, with his rational nature, the boy genius clung stubbornly to the idea that some reasonable explanation existed… even if he himself had no clue what the hell was happening.
"Eiichi's right, let's just wait a bit Eri. Once Miki and Ream log in, maybe we'll figure something out together." Nobita added, forcing himself to sound calm.
They waited in tense silence, the cursor blinking on an otherwise empty chat. Then...
"Fuuuuu!!"
Fuuko's sudden cry of pain shattered the quiet. The sharp, agonized sound made Nobita jolt, heart pounding.. He turned instantly, rushed to her side, but before he could reach her to ask what's wrong, the power went out.
Every streetlight outside blinked off in an instant. The PC screen was now pitch black, as was the room as well, the whole apartment fell into suffocating darkness. Even the glowing digits of the digital clock faded away, leaving only the faint red glow of the emergency lights bleeding through the hallway crack in the door.
"P-power outage?"
The sudden power outage sent a chill racing down Nobita's spine, every hair on his body standing on end. The once comforting rhythm of rain against the windows and roof now only reminded Nobita how quiet and dark the house was. No traffic can be seen and the cars that were once on the road, mysteriously stopped right then and there...
"Fuu…"
Fuuko's strained whimpers brought him back to his senses.
Nobita scrambled to her side, pulling her into his arms, hands trembling as he checked her for injuries. His fingers brushed against the soft fabric of her Dorakokko outfit. it was warm, but her body shivered violently.
"Hang on, Fuuko!"
The daughter of the wind writhed in pain, clutching her head as though something inside was tearing her apart. The agony wracked her body, twisting her in spasms as she struggled in vain to contain it.
Nobita's heart clenched at the sight. And he could do nothing. Nothing at all. Just like this useless, powerless apartment he was trapped in, he was helpless!
Clenching his teeth, he groped blindly across the table for his phone. He found it, thumb pressing the screen, nothing. Dead. Just like every other device around him.
Nothing worked.
"What… what the hell!? This has to be a joke!"
Every piece of electronics was not working, even things that were not connected to a power source.
His eyes widened as the realization dawned. Fuuko writhing in pain, the blackout swallowing the city, all electronic devices shutting down all at once, this wasn't just a power outage. This was clearly the result of an EMP.
Strong electromagnetic pulses that can fry computers, phones, radios, and even satellites.
And Fuuko… Fuuko's body was especially vulnerable to such forces. As a wind spirit, her very existence was tied to the flow of natural elements, her form a fragile weave of air currents and unseen energy. A pulse this strong tore at that balance, disrupting her body, and hammering her with waves of pain that left her reeling in migraines.
Panic clawed at Nobita's throat, but he forced it down. He had to act. Now.
What do I do? Think! Think! Heat… warmth… that's it!
"Fuuko, hold on! I'll be right back!"
Fumbling through the drawers in the dark, he finally found a candle and a lighter. With a sharp flick, a tiny flame bloomed, shadows quivering across the walls. He scowled at how dark and quiet everything was, the only form of light was the flashes of lightning that branched across the sky and the fragile light before him.
"It's okay now..." He gently pulled Fuuko closer to the candle, ignoring the icy rainwater seeping across the bedsheets. All that mattered now was keeping her warm, easing her pain.
Slowly, her pained expression softened. The spasms eased. The faint currents of air around her body stirred, as though she was absorbing the warmth.
Relief washed through Nobita's chest. He tightened his hold on her, watching and waiting for her strength to return. His eyes flicked toward the window. Outside, angry voices rose, shouts and arguments echoing through the building. Fuuko whimpered again. He quickly drew the curtains, allowed the pitch black room to do it's magic.
Silence pressed in.
It was strangely calm, oddly surreal, sitting in a room swallowed by darkness, with no glow of screens or stream of notifications. For once, Nobita realized just how much of his life was spent online and connected. The only time when he was not using his phone was during showers, hence the term shower thoughts, where you are not preoccupied with distractions.
But that fragile tranquility shattered all too soon, broken by the sudden, panicked screams of nearby neighbors cutting through the silence.
"Seriously? Again!?"
The neighbors living next to him were a dysfunctional couple desperately trying to patch their relationship up, with little no success. It is a pretty sad sight and worse of all, the two are always arguing with one another. Normally, Nobita would drown them out with music or YouTube videos. But now… No signal, no Wi-Fi, nothing at all... Every bitter word carried through the thin wall, raw and clear.
Fuuko needed quiet. He couldn't just ignore it this time.
Nobita shut his eyes, inhaling deeply, preparing to yell back...
Bang! Bang!
Gunshots.
Nobita froze.
Bang!
Definitely gunfire. And then came the screams, raw, panicked, echoing through the suffocating dark.
Something terrible was happening outside. His instincts screamed at him to stay away from the window. Don't look. But curiosity clawed at him stronger.
Hand trembling, he pulled the curtain aside and pressed himself to the glass.
Despite the rain blurring the view, he still saw it, the chaos unfolding down there.
Muzzles flared in the darkness, their flashes mingling with the terrified screams rising from the street. Nobita squinted through the rain-streaked glass, catching signs of movement, many of them. Small figures flooded the street, eyes glowing with an aggressive red light. He could barely recognize them given the high attitude of his apartment, but he noted they were bipedal with a long tail.
"What… what is that!?" Nobita stammered. But before he could process it, Fuuko wrenched herself free of his arms.
"Fuuko!? Are you alright?"
She turned to him, gave a small nod, the pain within her body had gradually subsided.
Then, in a blur, she darted onto the windowsill, eyes wide with alarm as she scanned below.
"Fuuu!"
The distress in her voice was obvious, whatever is moving in the shadows are not friendly.
Screams of terror pierced the night, joined by the crash of shattering glass and the slam of doors hastily barricaded. The torrent of noise rattled the walls and twisted in Nobita's chest, feeding his panic. What the hell was happening out there?
No answer came. Instead, a flicker of orange caught the edge of his vision. He turned just as a roar of flames rose, a blazing inferno swallowing a nearby block and painting the neighborhood in violent shades of orange.
Gunfire cracked in rapid bursts, sharp against the storm, and faint voices of police officers carried through the chaos, issuing desperate commands to fire at will.
And then, in the fire's light… he saw them.
Rats.
A swarm of sewer rats.
A swarm of sewer rats devouring a man alive.