Part 1: A Morning Awakening

——You must survive for a certain reason.

——I'll guide you until the day your existence is no longer needed.

"——Mya?"

You awoke with a scream on a certain winter morning.

You'd fallen asleep with your feet tucked under the kotatsu, still clutching the video game controller.

Just like that, ten seconds.

……Was it just a hallucination?

With that decision made, I drifted into the pleasant world of a second nap...

And then, at that moment.

Dong, dong! Keep going, keep going!

A loud knocking sound in my ears.

Half-awake, I sat up, thinking it might be a home delivery, and with sluggish movements put on my glasses, only to notice that the game I'd been playing right up until bedtime—the kind where you repeatedly slaughter zombies—was still running.

What is displayed there is,

YOU DEAD

That ominous character.

Oh no, no, no. What an inauspicious start to the day.

For now, I turn off the game console.

With a grumpy expression plastered on my sleepy face, I cross the 1LDK apartment to welcome whoever keeps coming in, again and again, without tiring.

Probably a delivery person or something.

Throwing modesty aside, I groggily tug at the door handle.

Then,

'——Oooohhh......OooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO...'

A person dressed as a zombie stood right in front of me.

'...Oh my.'

I gently close the door.

I wonder if I'm mistaken, so I check outside through the peephole (that little hole you always find on apartment doors. Official name unknown. Look it up on Google yourself).

'OooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!'

There stood a "zombie" with just a bit more energy than before.

Could today actually be Halloween, I wonder?

Could there really be a neighbor who'd go to such extremes with their costume, I wonder?

I ponder this vaguely.

...Hmm.

It's definitely possible with my neighbor, Tanaka.

Just to be safe, I keep the door's chain locked and, yawning, return to the living room, declining to join the early-morning costume party.

The knocking at the door grew even louder, but sorry, I'm already all set for both tricks and treats.

Goodbye, whoever you are. Please go bother someone else.

And once more, I burrow back into my beloved kotatsu, trying to get cozy...

—Please take up a weapon.

Again, a hallucination.

Oh come on, oh no.

What's wrong with my head?

But then again, maybe hallucinations aren't so bad, depending on how you look at it.

Even if I'm alone in life, it might be fun if someone just happened to talk to me.

"Then I'm going back to sleep♪"

I said it casually, though no one was around to hear.

——Please pick up your weapon.

Well, that's persistent.

I ignore it and crawl deeper into the kotatsu.

Then, a sense of unease.

How come the kotatsu's power has turned off already?

Even with my feet inside, I only feel a cold, hollow emptiness.

I don't find this kotatsu endearing. Not even a little bit.

Upon checking, it seems the breaker has just tripped.

Still, I didn't panic.

It's a common occurrence in old apartments like ours.

I went about resetting the breaker with practiced ease... but then,

"Wait a minute?"

I flicked the switch up and down, but nothing changed.

"Why on earth?"

Even my unfamiliar Kansai dialect slipped out in frustration.

It seems the power outage isn't limited to just this room.

Restoration will likely take some time.

……

Hmm.

If that's the case…

What should I do?

—Please pick up a weapon.

No no.

I don't need to hear hallucinations anymore.

I mentally scolded myself as I thought,

Well then, while I'm waiting around, I'll quickly do some laundry—after several days, I pulled back the blackout curtains and stepped out onto the balcony.

"Goodness me."

I couldn't believe my eyes.

No wonder.

It seemed that, while I was leisurely enjoying my extended holiday,

the world had come to an end.