Beneath the Sulfur Sky

The air shimmered with sickly heat, even though the sun hid behind curtains of yellow haze. Once-verdant rice paddies had become brackish lakes, and the mountains that ringed the valley glowed faintly at night with an unnatural blue. When Noboru pressed his palm to the ground, it buzzed, faint and wrong, as if the soil itself grieved.

He paused at the foot of a charred torii gate. Beyond lay what remained of his village: splintered beams, stone lanterns sunk in mud, and not a soul but him and his little sister. Aya pressed closer to his side, her mask askew. "Do you think anyone else survived?"

He shook his head. "Just us. We have to keep moving."

Their mother used to tell stories about gods who punished hubris. Now, it was not gods but machines—terraforming drones gone mad, summoned by faraway scholars who promised new rice yields and longer summers. Instead came poison rain and shifting earth; then silence.

They moved through the ruins, stepping over bones they pretended not to see. In their pack, beneath boiled rice cakes and an old photo wrapped in oilcloth, nestled their most precious artifact: a smooth white gaming device, its black screen flawless amidst the rubble. The Nintendo Switch OLED Model—one remnant from Before.

Aya’s hands trembled when she pulled it out. “Can we play?”

Noboru hesitated. “Only for a while. We have to save power.” But he could not refuse her; he craved distraction too.

Perched atop a broken shrine wall, Aya propped up the stand with practiced care. The console’s screen came alive with brilliant color that seemed almost blasphemous against so much gray ruin—a world within worlds where grass still shivered in wind and koi leapt in pure water.

They played quietly together, their fingers moving in synchrony over white controllers—Joy-Cons their only source of joy now—while above them sulfur clouds rolled on. The enhanced audio drew them into each pixelated footfall and whispered stream; for a moment, they were safe again.

---

At dusk they moved on, hunting edible weeds by memory—yarai leaves mostly—and avoiding pools that steamed with caustic vapor. When night fell cold and sudden, Noboru huddled under their tarp while Aya curled beside him. Hunger gnawed at him more than fear did.

“Tell me a story,” she pleaded.

He obliged—stories of samurai ancestors and fox spirits who outwitted cruel lords—but his voice faltered when he reached tales of family dinners or festival nights beneath lanterns. He remembered how they’d played games after supper back then: four hands on white Joy-Cons competing for high scores while wind sang through bamboo slats.

Sleep would not come easily tonight. Instead Noboru turned on the console again—not for games this time but for its light and sound. He opened saved videos: old footage of their mother’s laughter as she lost yet another round; father’s voice teasing Aya when she missed a jump; two children’s faces flushed with giddy excitement over nothing more than victory in pixels.

Aya smiled weakly through tears as they watched—the OLED display casting their faces in gentle color where all else was black.

---

Days blurred together: endless walking toward rumors of safety upriver where the terraforming had not reached; nights spent beneath shattered eaves or in abandoned shrines that stank of mold. More than once they met other survivors—some desperate enough to trade anything for food or warmth or a fragment of hope.

One evening as rain pattered harsh against tarred paper tiles, they found shelter with two older boys who eyed their meager pack hungrily. As tension rose between them—a silent threat drifting on every word—Aya whispered an idea: “We can play together.”

Suspicion softened into curiosity as Noboru set up the wide stand on cracked tatami mats, offering one Joy-Con to each stranger. They played local multiplayer—racing down neon tracks and laughing between mouthfuls of cold rice balls shared equally at last.

For those hours no one was hungry or afraid; there was only game music echoing off ruined walls and four children remembering what it felt like to be human.

When morning came, they parted as friends rather than foes—each group continuing its journey into uncertainty but lighter for the kindness exchanged over a glowing screen.

---

But tragedy persisted—a slow erosion rather than sudden catastrophe now. By midwinter Aya’s cough worsened; there were no more medicine caches to raid or shrines left unscavenged for clean water.

On her final night, she insisted on watching one last sunset inside their favorite digital world—a simulation where sakura petals drifted endlessly along clear riversides unmarred by disaster.

Noboru held her hand as she slipped away under that impossible sky: pink blossoms falling without end across a seven-inch horizon only they could see.

He buried her with the console beside her heart—their last link to Before—and walked on alone beneath the sulfur sky.