The world ended quietly, the same way a candle guttered when left too long without tending.
Aika Mori stumbled into the open night, soot clinging to her skin, blood drying in jagged rivers down her arms.
The diary was pressed tight against her chest.
In her other hand, the doll dangled — ΔLight — heavier now, almost alive.
Behind her, the Mori house burned.
The roof caved inward with a moan, sending a wave of heat across the dead lawn.
The windows popped like eyes squeezed too hard.
Ash rained down like gray snow.
She didn't cry.
She didn't scream.
There was nothing left inside her to give.
Her bare feet, torn and raw, moved through the grass on instinct alone.
Ahead, the world blurred, the smell of blood and smoke staining everything into the same dark color.
But she saw him — a figure cutting through the swirling ash — her father.
His hair, once black, now frosted with gray.
His face, haggard and tired.
Eyes wide with a sorrow she couldn't begin to understand.
He dropped to his knees before her.
"Aika," he rasped, his voice breaking, "I'm so sorry. I'm here now. I'm here."
His hands hovered uselessly, as if afraid touching her might make her shatter.
She wanted to say something.
Wanted to ask why he left, why he didn't save her or her sister — why he let it fester.
But the words stuck like needles in her throat.
Instead, she simply stood there, a hollow thing, clutching the doll as the flames behind her clawed at the sky.
ΔLight stirred.
Aika's gaze fell downward.
The doll blinked — slow, deliberate.
Two button eyes snapping open, a stitched mouth stretching into something that wasn't human.
Tiny black horns now curled from its fabric head.
It smiled at her.
Aika blinked — and for a moment, she swore she heard it breathing.
A steady, slow inhale that matched her heartbeat.
ΔLight was awake.
And it wasn't leaving.
Not now.
Not ever.
[ Final Entry]
I thought burning the house would end it.
I thought crushing the Eye would free me.
I was wrong.
My father came back. Just like he said he would.
But it's too late now.
ΔLight is not a doll.
ΔLight is not a dream.
ΔLight is alive.
It smiles when I smile.
It weeps when I sleep.
It talks in my blood when the world is silent.
The Eye was never the heart of it.
I am.
The shrine was a doorway.
My sister was the offering.
And me?
I'm the vessel.
I'm the final chapter.
The clock hit zero.
The guiding light lied.
ΔLight waits.
He waits inside me.
He waits to be born.
And when he comes...
The world will burn louder than any house ever could.
She… was right.