"What is even going on anymore?"

That sinking feeling in my chest, it felt like a billion gazillion thoughts just thundered down my head like heavy raindrops in a blistering storm. Never realized how quickly something could spiral from a zero to a hundred real quick.

Barely ten minutes ago I was taking my last sip, sitting quietly, keeping to myself wondering eternally in the back of my mind if everything would turn out okay after this.

Things were definitely not okay.

Not for England. Not for Russia. Not for Japan. And certainly not for America.

Blightfall just went global.

I looked into the faces and eyes of my dearest companions closest to me, and both mirrored back that same ghastly look, that same sense of deep unsettlement I felt coursing through me.

Even Adalia wasn't spared a little look of concern. Barely there, but the shock in her misty faraway gaze wasn't something you could mistake for anything else.

"This… shouldn't be… happening…" I heard her mutter, the confusion in her voice louder than her words. "This isn't… normal…"

"What isn't normal?"

Irene had her eyebrows raised, staring at us from where she sat with a rather suspicious gaze, mostly leering towards Amanda, who admittedly was leaning a little closer to me than friends really ought to be.

"It's the red stuff," Amanda said out loud, subtly shifting herself a bit further away. "Didn't you mention that it was a one-time thing?"

Irene nodded "It is a one-time thing. All my years in Kronocia, I've only seen - "

"It's… pouring… still…" Adalia interrupted her.

Don't think Irene was expecting to hear that judging by how she immediately narrowed her eyes in bemusement. "Where?"

"Every… where…"

"Can't be. It's never happened before."

"Well. It's happening now," I said, getting up to my feet, not having the faintest idea what to do with myself apart from pacing about wanting to just explode in a panic. Took all I had to keep myself level-headed, to have my voice remaining calm and steady. "So what does this mean now, multiple Blightfalls? Does it - is there any reason for it?"

Amanda couldn't answer, Irene was thinking… Adalia stood up after me.

"Blightfall is a… natural occurrence… just as rain…is... just as… snow..." She said, standing still, her footing unsteady. "There's no reason… for it… it just... happens."

"Yeah, In your world, maybe," I said, scouring my head for any possible causes. "Not on Earth, though. Not here. Rain's just water vapor. Snow's just frozen moisture. We don't have this. This isn't even supposed to be happening. So why is this happening?"

I was done thinking of things being the way they were because they just were. Natural occurrence, my ass - none of this was natural to begin with. I kept pacing, kept thinking… and finally found something.

"Maybe this isn't the typical Blight you're thinking of," I said, turning to them, and finding that all eyes were on me. "You're thinking Kronocian, but what if this Blight was from Asteria? Ash recognized it too so maybe… maybe Asterian Blight just works differently? Maybe it gets more frequent in her world."

So that was my guess, and I threw it out in the air for them to have a brief moment of time with. Could see all three of them rummaging around with the idea in private… for all I knew, I could be reaching here, grasping at straws that weren't there, wouldn't surprise me if I actually was but apparently, my idea wasn't as far-reaching as I originally thought.

Irene had a smile on that looked very encouraging, wasn't sure if that was just her loving bias on display… screw it, I'll take what I can get.

"It's a solid enough theory," She said musingly, angling her head sideways. "Doesn't explain everything, but… it's a start. A minus to you."

Adalia was undecided, preferring instead to keep in silence - same old, same old… while Amanda on the other hand was hunkered down on the complete opposite side of the fence.

"It's a false start, unfortunately," Amanda said, frowning with a shake of the head. "I played and beaten the game more times than I can count. There was never any mention of Blightfall anywhere in the game… nor was there any instances of it ever occurring for me in any of my playthroughs."

She sounded quite confident about it. Now, I haven't gotten around to beating the game myself, so doubting the only person here that actually has… not the wisest move.

Still, there has to be an explanation for it, otherwise, how else could Ash have known about the Blight and its effects? Speakers, Listeners… how else could she have known it all?

"Ash knows about it," I said, pointing it out. "Maybe… maybe it's just one of those things. Like Neplims, a rare event, a rare chance for it to happen. Maybe Blightfall is just even rarer."

"Mmm… two years since the game's release you'd think somebody would have come across it," Amanda frown continued to linger. "No… it just really isn't there."

"Then how could Ash have - ? "

"Hey, your guess is as good as mine," She said, cutting across from me. "I'm wandering around in the dark here too, haven't got a clue about anything."

Now we're just flinging out our "I don't know's" to one another, which wasn't really proving much help in unraveling this enigma. It was getting harder to keep pointless questions from slipping past me - I'd rather voice them all out hoping there'd be someone, somewhere, to answer them all in a clear and concise fashion.

"Where is the Blighfall coming from? Is it Kronocian? Asterian? And why so many? Why all at once? More importantly, why now?"

I stopped pacing, started staring, and continued asking.

"Just what exactly is causing the Blightfall anyway?"

Amanda helplessly shrugged her shoulders. Adalia had no more words to offer to my own. And Irene was…

She was smiling.

"Or… maybe you're simply asking the wrong questions there," She mused again. "I'm thinking it's more of a 'who' than a 'what'."

"You're saying someone might be summoning the Blightfall from out of nowhere?" Amanda asked, cocking her head back in disbelief.

"It's unheard of, true…" Irene said, nodding once. "But not impossible though. All it would take is someone with extraordinary magical ability… one that surpasses most, one wielding a great amount of power, and it might just be doable. Only a small theory though. Got nothing on me that supports it."

"No, just hold on a second there, yes you do," I said, her words jogging up a conversation in my head from a few days back. "Amelia… she paid you a visit, didn't she? She mentioned to you something about a - uh… mysterious presence she's been feeling? A presence that feels just like my mother's."

It was coming full circle now. Unknown presence, the origin of the Blight. That's probably what Amelia came to Irene for.

"Now that you mention it…" Irene muttered, squinting her eyes into smaller slits. "I remember telling her… that this certain someone she's sensing and the recent thunderstorms we've been having could be related to each other."

"Yeah, she told me that too. Was this during your, uh… rehabilitation period?"

"Hmm… I think - day one? I don't really remember much back then, it's all a little fuzzy… mmm."

Okay, now some of the puzzle pieces were starting to fit here, things were making a little bit of sense, we were finally starting to get somewhere here… but where is that somewhere?"

"It's not… turning black…"

Out of the blue, Adalia started to make herself known again, her drawling voice spinning all eyes her way, looking absolutely comfy sitting on my beanbag. Even bluer and outer than that, was Amanda's phone suddenly lying steady in her sharp clutches.

Amanda frantically scoured her hands back and front. "How the heck did you get my - ?"

"The Blight… in these other cities…" Adalia continued, swiping a sluggish finger upwards at the display. "It's… remaining red."

"What does that mean?" I asked.

"I'll save you the wonder, dear darling," Irene said with a twinkle in her eye. "Means you're right. This isn't your typical Blight. Someone's been taking charge of it. And the closer that someone is, the more potent the Blight. And since ours went black instead of staying red, it means that certain someone…"

"Is still in the city," I finished, meeting her beaming gaze back with a twinkle in my own. "So we just need to find that someone then."

"Find?" Amanda said, walking back my way from a now phone-less glum-looking Adalia. "Find that someone and do what?"

"If they have the power to summon the Blightfall, then there's a high chance they also have the power to de-summon it," I explained, feeling more and more reinvigorated as the seconds pass. "if we managed to find them - we won't need me, we won't need to find any Listeners either. If we can use our remaining days left to find our guy, then we can just - "

Interruptions. More and more, they seem to just keep happening. I wouldn't mind it, wouldn't it at all if it was just a natural interjection, someone from among us with a question or maybe some objections.

But it wasn't a someone, nobody interrupted me…

Something interrupted me.

It was a familiar something, a dreaded something. Something I could go my whole life without and be grateful to never hear it again.

Didn't see it, heard it.

The boom of thunder rumbling the skies above.

Now I dearly hope to God that was just a normal sign of rain approaching, but something in my gut was clearly telling me that it wasn't.

Call it a hunch.