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I don't really know what I expected, but this wasn't it. Standing here, in the SOS Brigade room -I don't think any of us thought of it as the Literature Club room, not after a day with Haruhi- just Koizumi, and Nagato and myself. A month after it happened, and the world's still here, still moving, still running, if you can call it that. School is in session; life goes on. There was no apocalyptic collapse, no fiery ruin. If not for my memories, and even those seem ephemeral now, I wouldn't think anything was out of the order. But we, all three of us, know better. We're the last, the few, the chosen. The SOS Brigade, what's left of us. What's left of a dream, a fantasy, an imaginary world.
Koizumi told us what we already knew, even without asking. But he was always the talker, the philosopher, and we wait for him to finish his discourse, taking comfort in the familiarity of the old ritual, in his melodious voice, which belies the notion that all is not right in the world. So we listen to his report of the slow, horrifying collapse of his Agency, as people forget, repress, dismiss away their former calling as a bad dream, smother it under the sheen of mundane life, move on. We listen, appalled, yet unable to turn away, indeed, eager for him to continue on, because once he is done it will be my turn and then Nagato's. None of us want to put it into words, to say it out loud, to admit the truth and surrender to reality.
Too soon, it is my time to speak. I haven't much to say. My Time Plain Destroid Device is non-functional. My very memories of my past/future/other-time-space are fragmented; A name here, without a face, a reference there, without anything to refer to. There has been no contact, no word from my colleagues. I am alone, and losing even the memory of being anyone other than Asahina Mikuru, Highschool Student. If I had another name, it's lost to me. I make that last admission in tears, real ones, not the act I put on for Kyon. Koizumi awkwardly puts an arm around my shoulder. It's not really comforting, but I'm glad for the human contact regardless.
Nagato has even less to say than I had. She's lost her Link to the Integrated Data Thought Entity. Her ability to interface with local data has receded, and her processing speed is constrained. She estimates loss of all non-terrestrial function by the end of the week. There's a slight quaver in her voice, and I realize that she, too, is afraid.
The moment is a blur, but somehow we are all hugging, clinging to each other like shipwrecked sailors to driftwood. Then the instance is past and we are again standing apart, looking at each other, searching each other's faces for some speck of hope, some inspiration. But there's none of that left in this world. No dreams, no wishes, no magic. Suzumiya Haruhi took all that with her. Just like she took the one who we would have looked to before, in this situation. Kyon.
It's been a month, perhaps, since it happened; I'm not sure. The passage of time just doesn't seem to have any significance anymore. Ironic thought, for a time-traveler. But I've leant towards dark humors since that day. From Koizumi's too-lighthearted-to-really-be-calm musings, I'd expected Ragnarok, Armageddon, the sudden ending of it all. Instead, we found that the world around us staggered on, as we watched our piece of reality fade away. We'd expected the loss of the extraordinary. For all our sorrows, we knew that ESPers, Time Travelers and Aliens had no place in a world without Her. But I soon realized that our loss was much more than that.
It seemed, at first, so wrong to discover apocalyptic consequences over a pleasant cup of tea. But I've come to appreciate the little ironies; they're all that still add spice to this existence. I'm don't wish to boast, but I know that I make mean cup of tea. Yet that day, a week after it happened, I found that my tea was, for lack of any better word, plain. I could discern little flavor, meager texture, scant taste. That was the moment I noticed. The world wasn't dying in fire and brimstone, but it was dying. The very colors themselves seemed to be fading. The songs of the birds seemed to melt into monotonous tones. Everything exciting and vibrant was winding down. The very faces of the people around me seemed to meld into each other. I couldn't tell one day from the next, one face from the crown. Everything was decaying into entropy, fading into borderless gray.
I'm holding Haruhi's Brigade Chief armband, the last bit of color in this fading world. It's cheery red proclaims a distant, happier era like a slap in the face. But I hold on to it tightly nonetheless.
Koizumi seems to have found his philosophical voice again. "So," he sighs. He looks up and for a moment there's that old, enigmatic Koizumi half-smile. "This is the way the world ends."
Yuki blinks, and for a moment there seems to be that light behind her eyes I only saw when she was programming. "This is the way the world ends," She intones solemnly.
The reference finally occurs to me, and with a bittersweet tinge, I embrace this last defiant moment of sardonic surrender. "This is the way the world ends."
Not with a bang, but a whimper.