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"And God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light. God saw that the light was good..."

"Well, it's still there" said Mika, to nobody in particular. She was looking out of the southern-most window of her family's apartment near the top of a twelve-story building. In the clear blue afternoon sky overhead there was a sort of fissure, roughly twice as long as the Sun from Mika's perspective, from which was pouring out a continual, brilliant radiance. Hardly anything was known about it, except that it had been there since approximately 11:38 AM, according to general consensus by her brother's Myspace friends.

"Hush," said Father. He was the only one not at least flustered in the small living room. While all the others were gazing up from the window or speaking rapidly with friends or acquaintances on their phones, he was starring intently at the screen, eager to obtain the latest information concerning the anomaly that had suddenly appeared in the sky that morning.

"Oh, maybe you shouldn't stare directly at it, sis?..."

"Come on. Get your butt over here, Ike. You can see it a lot better up here than at the park..."

"I got a call from Mrs. Kato. Apparently there's been some sort of incident..."

"Hush," repeated Father. "I can't hear the news reports over all your talking." He increased the volume on the set.

"...If your just joining us, surveillance satellites from several nations have corroborated that the luminescent object or entity in the sky is definitely not the light from a supernova or another faraway event. We can confirm that it exists approximately 17 kilometers from the surface of the Earth, and seems to be maintaining a geostationary orbit above a point just west of Kume Island in the East China Sea..."

Father sighed and faced Grandfather. "So that damn thing's gonna interfere with our ability to get some sleep for a while, eh?"

"It's just our luck," Grandfather said with a wry smile.

"...They haven't gotten a call from their sister, and they're very worried."

Koemi glanced in the direction of Father and Grandfather and shaked her head to express disapproval, just forcefully enough that Mika could not help but notice.

"It's just like those two to always find something negative in a situation, you know that? At the very least they could not complain all the time."

Mika was trying very hard to ignore her sister, partly because she was in awe of the anomaly and partly because Koemi didn't have anything to say half the time.

Feeling that her previous attempt at her sister's attention was unsuccessful, Koemi upped her game. "They never think, 'Gee, maybe something good could come out of all this'."

Mika was now beyond annoyed. "'Good'? Whatever makes you think that this could possibly be a good thing?"

"Well," Koemi said, hesitating for a second, "We don't exactly know that this is a bad thing yet, do we?"

Mika furrowed her brow, but continued to look up at the sky. "Conversely, Koemi, we don't have any proof that this is good, either."

"...Still no response..." Mother was on the verge of tears concerning the sister of her good friend Setsu.

Taro tried to comfort her. "Mom, I'm sure she's fine... Maybe that thing up there is messing with the phone signal or something."

Mother took her son in her arms and hugged him tightly. Taro was mildly bewildered by this because such a display of affection was not exactly common in his parents' household.

"Yes... Let's hope that that's it..."

"Quiet, everybody. There's been a breaking report."

Everybody ceased talking and turned their attention towards the television set. A professor at the University of Edo, wearing a rather shabby-looking brown jacket, was standing at a podium behind a barricade of cameras and microphones. He looked uneasy but wore a polite-looking smile, as best as he could muster in this situation.

"...Thank you for coming here on such short notice," he began. "We want the people of Nippon and the world to know that a myriad of scientific and government groups are working together to determine what exactly has appeared in our sky. We will broadcast the facts in television, on the Internet, and by radio as they become available to us."go

"...Dammit," muttered Father. "'Breaking report' my ass. That's all they have to say?"

The reporters at the press conference began asking a flurry of questions. Of course it was difficult to distinguish one question from another, but then a loud and clear voice became discernible over the den.

"Professor, are the rumors that the anomaly is increasing in luminosity true?"

The frantic chattering in the room gradually abided as the question was asked, and the man at the podium frowned for perhaps half a second before recomposing himself. "There are many things that we do not know yet. Be assured that we will let the public know what has been found when we find it." Immediately the reporters began once again to compete among themselves for volume.

The family sat in silence for about five seconds before Father shut off the television using the remote control. He then walked casually to the window and glanced outside up at the light, shielding his eyes with his outstretched palm from the brunt of its brilliant intensity.

"Well, no shit," he muttered, softly and to himself. He then walked back to the couch, turned the television back on, and resumed his usual expression of mild irritation and smug indifference. The press conference was already over by then, and lacking anything significant to add about the anomaly, the reporter continued on to other major news stories of the day, if only for a little while. A bank robbery downtown. Another government official accused of corruption and vice. The usual stuff.

Mother resumed crying, silently this time. Taro noticed and put his arm around her shoulder.

Mika continued to gaze at the television. The comfort of looking at the dull and familiar glow of the old Sony was beginning to outweigh her curiosity of the alien and awe-inspiring radiance in the heavens above. In fact, Maki didn't want to think about the radiance at all. She thought that she'd try to slip into her and Koemi's room, shut the blinds, and just listen to some CDs with her headphones on. Or, you know, whatever.

"Hey, if you're not gonna look outside, do you mind if I take your spot?" Koemi asked. Mika was slightly caught off guard by this question. For one, she was focusing so intensely on the television and not the anomaly. And for another, the window was wide enough for both to comfortably stand next to it and stare out it.

"Hmm? Oh, yeah, sure I guess."

Mika slowly plodded to her room. Nobody except her sister noticed that she was gone. As she shut the door, Mika heard her brother say "It's Seiji. Another bright light has appeared. It's over America..."

---

Evening. Over the course of the day, Taro's friends on MySpace reported that at least three more anomalies had spontaneously appeared. Nunavut, Canada: 1:31PM NST. Katanga, Democratic Republic of the Congo: 3:12PM NST. Limousin, France: 3:47PM NST. Then at 3:49PM NST, something caused Myspace to stop working. After spending a considerable amount of time trying to access Myspace, Taro gave up and logged onto his Facebook account instead. Taro learned nothing of interest before something caused Facebook to stop working as well. Completely perplexed by this point, Taro tried to communicate with his friends using his school e-mail account. But by the time he got there, something had already caused it to stop working.

Now it was 7 or 8 at night. Mika didn't know exactly. She was never the best at keeping track of time. And the damned anomaly was still up there, shining just as bright as ever. She found that, with the door shut and the blinds drawn down, it was dark enough to just rest and listen to her music in a still, dreamy, half-asleep state. Dream. This was going to be nice. Just was she was getting comfortable, Koemi burst in, failed to shut the door behind her, and plopped down unceremoniously on her own bed, letting out a deep sigh. She stood still for a second before turning her head towards her sister.

"You missed dinner you know. Mom went out and cooked what has to be the best meal of her life."

Mika didn't turn to face her sister, but she was considerate enough to take out the ear bud from her right ear. "Is that right?"

"Yeah. There was a whole fried fish and sukiyaki. A nice chocolate cake for desert. Dad even broke out a bottle of sake."

That last bit didn't happen on just any occasion, Mika thought to herself.

"We made sure to save some for you, but, you know, it's just not as good as it is fresh."

"Yeah. Well, thanks anyways, Ko," said Mika, leaning to face her sister.

The two just remained in that room for a while, with Koemi laying down in her bed and Mika sitting on her's. It was silent, with the only noise being the faint sounds of Dream streaming from Mika's headphones.

"So, you really think that something good can come from whatever is in the sky?"

"Well, I'll admit that I don't know that, but I don't know if anything bad will happen either."

"Yeah, I guess that's all we know for sure right now."

Dream went through another verse or so.

"To tell you the truth, I do enjoy the look of the light. It's so white, so... pure, I guess. Like the white of an angel..."

Mika rolled her eyes, taking care that Koemi didn't see her do that. Koemi had had a mild obsession with angels since she had seen some illustrated in a children's book when she was three years old. Ever since, she had had angel hair clips, angel bed sheets, angel stationary, angel calendars, angel everything. And while she had outgrown most of these things years ago, she still collected and displayed angel figurines, some shipped in from other countries, on a wooden shelf on her half of the bedroom. Her current collection numbered nineteen unique figurines, including the first plush angel doll she had received as a young child.

"It makes me so happy that something so pure can exist in our world... Something so pure that people can look up to and aspire to..."

"Ugh, well right now I aspire to a little bit of shut-eye and that damn thing is making it pretty difficult."

"Well, uh, yes, I suppose so."

Dream wrapped up their song and began the next one.

"But still, isn't it wonderful that we have witnessed the creation of something new? I mean, this light didn't exist in our world until today. Isn't that just so powerful when you stop to think about it?"

"I don't really think so. I'm gonna miss that part of the sky the light took out. It was a particularly lovely shade of blue," Mika replied with complete sincerity.

Mika was reclining back down on her bed. It was then that she noticed the sweat running down her sister's brow and leeching into her clothing. A split-second later she felt cold sweat pressed between her back and her shirt. Shit, was the air conditioning turned on? It had been an usually balmy April...

God / the gods / whatever is / are just beginning to create the existence that we exist in now. In order to do so, he's / she's / it's / they're necessarily destroying what came before. That is the central theme in this story: In order to create something, something must be destroyed. For example, if you take a clean carpet and dump macaroni shells, you've destroyed the cleanliness of that carpet while simultaneously creating a mess. Even in the Biblical account, in which literally existance begins as dark and formless, God still destroyed that darkness and lack of form during creation. The same logic applies to what's going on here. Mika was originally going to say something like this to make it really obvious what's going on, but that honestly sounds a bit too philosophical for her, and I felt like it would be more poignant if she referenced something specific that she would miss.

The lights / fissures in the sky are going to increase in number, size and luminosity and will destroy the Earth, everybody on it, and everything else in the universe, leaving behind a perfectly white blank slate from which creation of our current existence can begin.

I tried to drop hints that this world is not the one we currently inhabit. Although the time period is ostensibly modern (what with cell phones and social media), for some reason Edo's name was never changed to Tokyo. And Myspace is hinted to be the social media of choice for most people, before they are forced to resort to Facebook. I honestly could have done more to make this apparent, but I kinda like the way it is now. If I ever go make and insert more differences, my goal is to not make them very numerous or glaring.

"...And God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light. God saw that the light was good..."

"Well, it's still there" said Mika, to nobody in particular. She was looking out of the southern-most window of her family's apartment near the top of a twelve-story building. In the clear blue afternoon sky overhead there was a sort of fissure, roughly twice as long as the Sun from Mika's perspective, from which was pouring out a continual, brilliant white radiance. Hardly anything was known about it, except that it had been there since approximately 11:38 AM, according to general consensus by her brother's Myspace friends.

"Hush," said Father. He was the only one not at least flustered in the small living room. While all the others were gazing up from the window or speaking rapidly with friends or acquaintances on their phones, he was starring intently at the screen, eager to obtain the latest information concerning the anomaly that had suddenly appeared in the sky that morning.

"Oh, maybe you shouldn't stare directly at it, sis?..."

"Come on. Get your butt over here, Ike. You can see it a lot better up here than at the park..."

"I got a call from Mrs. Kato. Apparently there's been some sort of incident..."

"Hush," repeated Father. "I can't hear the news reports over all your talking." He increased the volume on the set.

"...If your just joining us, surveillance satellites from several nations have corroborated that the luminescent object or entity in the sky is definitely not the light from a supernova or another faraway event. We can confirm that it exists approximately 17 kilometers from the surface of the Earth, and seems to be maintaining a geostationary orbit above a point just west of Kume Island in the East China Sea..."

Father sighed and faced Grandfather. "So that damn thing's gonna interfere with our ability to get some sleep for a while, eh?"

"It's just our luck," Grandfather said with a wry smile.

"...They haven't gotten a call from their sister, and they're very worried."

Koemi glanced in the direction of Father and Grandfather and shaked her head to express disapproval, just forcefully enough that Mika could not help but notice.

"It's just like those two to always find something negative in a situation, you know that? At the very least they could not complain all the time."

Mika was trying very hard to ignore her sister, partly because she was in awe of the anomaly and partly because Koemi didn't have anything to say half the time.

Feeling that her previous attempt at her sister's attention was unsuccessful, Koemi upped her game. "They never think, 'Gee, maybe something good could come out of all this'."

Mika was now beyond annoyed. "'Good'? Whatever makes you think that this could possibly be a good thing?"

"Well," Koemi said, hesitating for a second, "We don't exactly know that this is a bad thing yet, do we?"

Mika furrowed her brow, but continued to look up at the sky. "Conversely, Koemi, we don't have any proof that this is good, either."

"...Still no response..." Mother was on the verge of tears concerning the sister of her good friend Setsu.

Taro tried to comfort her. "Mom, I'm sure she's fine... Maybe that thing up there is messing with the phone signal or something."

Mother took her son in her arms and hugged him tightly. Taro was mildly bewildered by this because such a display of affection was not exactly common in his parents' household.

"Yes... Let's hope that that's it..."

"Quiet, everybody. Here's a breaking report."

Everybody ceased talking and turned their attention towards the television set. A professor at the University of Edo, wearing a rather shabby-looking brown jacket, was standing at a podium behind a barricade of cameras and microphones. He looked uneasy but wore a polite-looking smile, as best as he could muster in this situation.

"...Thank you for coming here on such short notice," he began. "We want the people of Nippon and the world to know that a myriad of scientific and government groups are working together to determine what exactly has appeared in our sky. We will broadcast the facts in television, on the Internet, and by radio as they become available to us."

"...Dammit," muttered Father. "'Breaking report' my ass. That's all they have to say?"

The reporters at the press conference began asking a flurry of questions. Of course it was difficult to distinguish one question from another, but then a loud and clear voice became discernible over the den.

"Professor, are the rumors that the anomaly is increasing in luminosity true?"

The frantic chattering in the room gradually abided as the question was asked, and the man at the podium frowned for perhaps half a second before recomposing himself. "There are many things that we do not know yet. Be assured that we will let the public know what has been found when we find it." Immediately the reporters began once again to compete among themselves for volume.

The family sat in silence for about five seconds before Father shut off the television using the remote control. He then walked casually to the window and glanced outside up at the light, shielding his eyes with his outstretched palm from the brunt of its brilliant intensity.

"Well, no shit," he muttered, softly and to himself. He then walked back to the couch, turned the television back on, and resumed his usual expression of mild irritation and smug indifference. The press conference was already over by then, and lacking anything significant to add about the anomaly, the reporter continued on to other major news stories of the day, if only for a little while. A bank robbery downtown. Another government official accused of corruption and vice. The usual stuff.

Mother resumed crying, silently this time. Taro noticed and put his arm around her shoulder.

Mika continued to gaze at the television. The comfort of looking at the dull and familiar glow of the old Sony was beginning to outweigh her curiosity of the alien and awe-inspiring radiance in the heavens above. In fact, Maki didn't want to think about the radiance at all. She thought that she'd try to slip into her and Koemi's room, shut the blinds, and just listen to some CDs with her headphones on. Or, you know, whatever.

"Hey, if you're not gonna look outside, do you mind if I take your spot?" Koemi asked. Mika was slightly caught off guard by this question. For one, she was focusing so intensely on the television and not the anomaly. And for another, the window was wide enough for both to comfortably stand next to it and stare out it.

"Hmm? Oh, yeah, sure I guess."

Mika slowly plodded to her room. Nobody except her sister noticed that she was gone. As she shut the door, Mika heard her brother say "It's Seiji. Another bright light has appeared. It's over America..."

---

Evening. Over the course of the day, Taro's friends on MySpace reported that at least three more anomalies had spontaneously appeared. The Northwest Territories, Canada: 1:31PM NST. Katanga, Zaire: 3:12PM NST. Limousin, France: 3:47PM NST. Then at 3:49PM NST, something caused Myspace to stop working. After spending a considerable amount of time trying to access Myspace, Taro gave up and logged onto his Facebook account instead. Taro learned nothing of interest before something caused Facebook to stop working as well. Completely perplexed by this point, Taro tried to communicate with his friends using his school e-mail account. But by the time he got there, something had already caused it to stop working. That is the last thing Mika remembered, before...

Darkness. Precious, precious darkness.

But, no, not just dark. Warmth also. An invasive, oppressive warmth. Steamy... So steamy... It's getting... harder to breath... Moisture covers everything. It sticks to the clothes. It sticks to the skin. Am I... Am I drowning? I hear the whirling of blades far, far away above the water. The blades... They can do no good against the warmth, whose overwhelming presence permeates everything now! Ha ha! It won't go away... Please... Somebody... Save us! It won't... go... aw...

Now it was 7 or 8 at night. Mika didn't know exactly when she woke up. She was never the best at keeping track of time. And the damned anomaly was still up there, judging from the light radiating through the crack under the door, shining just as bright as ever. It was just dark and cool enough to rest comfortably and listen to her music in a still, blissful, half-asleep trance. Dream. This was going to be nice. Mika wiped the sweat from her brow.

Just was she was getting comfortable, Koemi burst in, collapsed on her bed at the other side of the room, and let out a deep sign. For once, Mika noted, she remembered to close that goddamn door. Koemi stood still for a second before turning her head towards her sister.

"You missed dinner you know. Mom went out and cooked what had to be the best meal of her life."

Mika didn't turn to face her sister, but she was considerate enough to take out the ear bud from her right ear. "Is that right?"

"Yeah. There was a whole fried fish and some steamed cauliflower, carrots, and broccoli. Oh, and a nice chocolate cake from the store for desert! Dad even broke out a bottle of sake."

That last bit didn't happen on just any occasion, Mika thought to herself.

"We made sure to save some for you, but, you know, it's just not as good as it is fresh."

"Yeah. Well, thanks anyways, Ko," said Mika, leaning to face her sister.

The two just remained in that room for a while, with Koemi laying down in her bed and Mika sitting on her's. It was silent, with the only noise being the faint sounds of Dream streaming from Mika's headphones.

"So, you really think that something good can come from whatever is in the sky?"

"Well, I'll admit that I don't know that, but I don't know if anything bad will happen either."

"Yeah, I guess that's all we know for sure right now."

Dream went through another verse or so.

"To tell you the truth, I do enjoy the look of the light. It's so white, so... pure, I guess. Like the white of an angel..."

Mika rolled her eyes, taking care that Koemi didn't see her do that. Koemi had had a mild obsession with angels since she had seen some illustrated in a children's book when she was three years old. Ever since, she had had angel hair clips, angel bed sheets, angel stationary, angel calendars, angel everything. And while she had outgrown most of these things years ago, she still collected and displayed angel figurines, some shipped in from other countries, on a wooden shelf in her half of the bedroom. Her current collection numbered eighteen unique figurines, as well as the first plush angel doll she had received as a young child.

"It makes me so happy that something so pure can exist in our world... Something so pure that people can look up to and aspire to..."

"Ugh, well right now I aspire to a little bit of shut-eye and that damn thing is making it pretty difficult."

"Well, uh, yes, I suppose so."

Dream wrapped up their song and began the next one.

"But still, isn't it wonderful that we have witnessed the creation of something new? I mean, the light didn't exist in our world until today. Isn't that just so powerful when you stop to think about it?"

"I don't really think so. I'm gonna miss that part of the sky the light took out. It was a particularly lovely shade of blue," Mika replied with complete sincerity.

The sisters said nothing to one another for some time. Eventually, Mika slid back down into her bed and stared lazily at the rotating ceiling fan in the room, fruitlessly straining to somehow cool the muggy May air. Something in the mechanism softly click-click-clicked each half second. Usually, the noise bugged Mika to no end. Now, she appreciated its consistency. The world was never going to be quite the same again.