It will start right at the North Pole.

Predictions from the distant past failed to calculate the exact point of impact, but modern technology has made things so, so easy… we can pinpoint the precise spot where the first lightning bolt will fall, even if we can’t do anything to stop it.

The sensors will go awry, the entire world will take notice for a moment. A lightning bolt? On a perfectly starry night? Where did it come from? Questions that will stall the minds of the brightest minds in the world, while disaster spreads through the ice fields, crawling so close to the floor, devouring everything on its way.

The Loathsome Mist will return, and with it, the shadows of the beings we stole this world from, so long ago that no one remembers anymore.

The Second Sacrifice will begin, and this time there’s no unlikely hero, no charitable soul to stop it as its core.

As time draws near to the end of the world, and all my attempts to stall it crumble to dust, I am faced with a choice.

I can either brave this alone, and pray to the stars that I find a solution like I did almost six hundred years ago… or I can submit, and seek his aid.

I’d rather die and take the whole world with me than having to talk with that pusillanimous buffoon again.

So I guess I am on my own.

Diary of Mustafá, the Witch. Entry Number 882.

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My heart is beating so hard, it feels like it could just jump straight out of my throat in any second now. My lungs are on fire, my neck and my arms hurt as I get up. I can feel my own blood flowing from my arm and falling on the floor, mixing with the magic flowing in the air. Green, purple, golden, red, I can’t distinguish them as they swirl and dance… and I can’t really stop and marvel at it. Not with this sense of impending doom on my back.

I try to get my bearings, after all I hit my head real hard on my fall down the stairs. The stairs! I am standing on the stairway of the apartment complex where I’ve lived for the last three years. It’s dark, pitch black in fact, and yet I can perfectly see my blood dripping and my favorite hoodie being ruined by it.

It’s a very small space, barely having any room for an extinguisher on every floor. Ah, that’s right, and I’ve seen several extinguishers already, so I must have gone down a few floors. I started on floor eight, and I am on floor…

With some of the blood on my fingers I paint the wall, illuminating some of it with the bright color of pure magic.

3rd Floor.

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I fell five floors straight!? No way, I must have run a little at least… run… run from…

The sound of steps interrupts me. They are slow, calm, she’s getting closer. She knows I don’t have the physique to run nor the knowledge to somehow disappear myself. And yet I push myself to start trotting down the stairs again, no point in trying to hide from her!

As I go, I furiously tap on my phone, sending messages to the Fellowship. It’s not like any of them can help me now but, at least they can make sure to save whatever we can from the work before she takes it from my cold, dead hands.

xXxCallMeBigCookiexXx: SHE’S CHASING ME, 82 IS CHASING ME.

ケンジー・イズ・マイ・ワイフ!!!: WHAT. OMG RUN, RUN!!!! O.o

jeepers creepers man: what do you mean “chasing you”???

xXxCallMeBigCookiexXx: SHE’S CHASING ME, SHE APPEARED IN MY HOUSE AND IS NOW CHASING ME.

ケンジー・イズ・マイ・ワイフ!!!: TAVY-CHAN RUUUUN!!!

jeepers creepers man: ok ok, calm down, calm down.

jeepers creepers man: i assume you tried to talk to her and it went poorly

xXxCallMeBigCookiexXx: CAN’T TALK RUNNING

jeepers creepers man: ok ok, fuck, hmmm…

ケンジー・イズ・マイ・ワイフ!!!: I’M GONNA WAKE UP CANNY-KUN HE’LL KNOW WHAT TO DO

GalaxyTaco to your rescue!: shit shit SHIT I knew this was going to happen man

GalaxyTaco to your rescue!: she’s gonna come for us next guys you better get ready.

I don’t have time for this.

With a loud sigh I jam the phone in my pocket and stop running, panting, gasping for air and fighting for my life as I reach the door of the bottom floor. I didn’t even notice how her steps were no longer echoing in the stairway, I was just desperate to push that door and look for an exit.

Only to find her standing right there, a bored look on her face and her hand raised in my direction. The Alchemist was a head smaller than me, at least! But her tiny frame commanded a strange, powerful presence. Her skin was dark, darker than mine at least! But what really caught my attention from the very start were her eyes: unnaturally golden, wide awake and yet so dull, dead.

“End of the line, Tav.” Her cold, emotionless voice makes me shiver. “Give me the book or I’ll take it from you.”

“C-Can’t we discuss this?”

“You don’t want a part in this game, kid. If this is the only way to make you understand, so be it.”

Green, purple and golden, the octarine light of magic, flowed through the Alchemist’s veins and straight to her hand. I have no idea what she has in mind but I do not want to just wait and figure that out. I raise my own hand, throwing it down as I jump back into the stairway. I may not be powerful enough to cast a proper fire, but I know how to make smoke.

“SMOKE BOMB!!”

I don’t know why I yelled, it just felt appropriate. There’s a very small yet loud explosion, as if something had broken on the floor between us, and then a thick cloud of smoke expanded and covered the whole door. As I fall back, I can feel something brush past me, mere inches from my head. A ball of green light that breaks into pieces of glass on the wall behind me, surely aimed at my face before my little gambit.

This woman wants to kill me.

“Don’t make this harder than it needs to be.”

Oh I’d make it as hard as I could. As I ran back up the stairs without really thinking where I will hide from this crazed Alchemist, I can’t help but look back and wonder how I ended up here. To think that a few months ago I would have simply kneeled and submitted my life at the first chance to end it all…

And now here I am, running for my life, clinging to my backpack with all the strength I can muster and pushing my body far beyond its pathetic limits just so I can continue pushing my nose where it doesn’t belong.

Truly, the life of a translator is non-stop excitement.