Elior woke with a start. The city's normal hum greeted him immediately, cars honking, engines rumbling, people shouting to one another. His chest heaved. His mouth moved, and for a moment he thought he was screaming, but only a small gasp escaped.
He looked around. The street was busy, alive, mundane. He was standing near a crosswalk, the familiar gray asphalt stretching before him. Shops lined both sides, the usual mix of cafes, clothing stores, and newsstands. Pedestrians passed by, glancing at him oddly, but returning quickly to their own concerns.
And there was Aria, beside him, mid-sentence, the phone in her hand. "Elior? You just—" she stopped, her voice catching. She frowned, trying to read his face.
He turned to her. "I screamed?," he stammered. The words sounded strange to his own ears, foreign, heavy. He remembered the sound, or at least he thought he did. The memory was sharp, almost too sharp, stabbing through the calm of this ordinary street.
"Calm down," Aria said, concern growing in her tone. "You were yelling? What happened? Are you sick?"
"I… I don't know," he whispered. His hands shook. The sunlight reflected off a car window, blinding him momentarily. His mind raced, trying to make sense of it.
He checked his watch. Date and time. Seven days earlier. Exactly seven days.
He froze. His eyes widened as a cold realization began to form. It was too precise, too perfect. He remembered the sky, the heat, the collapse.
"The sky…" he muttered to himself, more to test his memory than to speak. "The green sky."
Aria tilted her head, confused. "Green sky? Elior… what are you talking about?"
"I—I saw it," he said, almost desperate now. "The sky… green… people screaming… everything falling…" His voice rose, but he quickly stopped himself. People were staring. A man waiting at the crosswalk frowned. A child tugged at his mother's sleeve.
Aria grabbed his hand gently. "Hey, slow down. Look at me. You're shaking. You're scaring me."
Elior forced a breath, trying to steady his pulse. He wanted to explain, wanted her to understand, but the words felt meaningless. "It wasn't a dream," he said finally. "It was real. I… I saw the world end."
Aria's eyes softened, but the disbelief was clear. "Elior… it's early. You probably just had a nightmare. You're stressed. Maybe too much work, too much school. Look at me."
He shook his head, pulling his hand back. "It wasn't a dream. It was… everything. Gone. All gone."
A bus rumbled past, the noise grounding him back in the mundane world, the ordinary world. Elior's heart pounded. He tried to steady his thoughts, tried to rationalize. But the memory of the green sky, the pressure, the heat, was real. Sharp. Persistent.
"Elior, calm down," Aria said again, holding his shoulders. "Look around. The city is fine. People are fine. There's nothing wrong."
He swallowed hard. He knew she was right. Everything seemed normal. The street was crowded. Cars moved in predictable patterns. Children laughed in a nearby playground. And yet, in the deepest part of his mind, a single image burned: a green sky, unnatural, pulsing, alive. The sense of wrongness, centered on a single point, returned to him even here, in the ordinary.
Elior's hands fisted at his sides. He tried to shake it off. Maybe it had been a dream. Maybe he had hallucinated. Yet the memory was too vivid, too precise, too sharp to ignore. The world had ended. He had stood at the center. And now, standing here, seven days earlier, he could not forget it.
Aria's voice cut through the spiraling thoughts. "You are scaring yourself, Daniel. Come on. Let's sit somewhere. Drink some water. Everything is fine."
He nodded mechanically, walking beside her toward a small café on the corner. The streets were alive, but in a strange way that felt separate from him. Like a film playing while he existed outside of it.
He ordered a coffee, sitting silently, eyes fixed on the steam rising in soft curls from the cup. His mind replayed the green sky, the unnatural light, the stillness, the heat. Nothing else mattered. Not the café, not the pedestrians, not Aria's worried gaze.
Finally, he spoke. "I remember it," he said quietly. "Everything. Every detail. The sky… the green. It was real."
Aria frowned, uncertain. "Elior, are you sure you are okay?"
He looked at her, and for the first time, he felt truly alone. Even in a crowded café, even with her beside him, he was the only one who knew. The memory could not be shared. It could not be explained. And in that quiet, ordinary moment, he realized something impossible: he remembered the end.
The green sky.
It was real.