TOTO

We wanted to take a moment to thank everyone that participated and followed Echo Express and Endless Expanse. Without all of you, none of this would have evolved into what the series has become today and we are so grateful. The friendships formed, the stories we were able to tell, and the fun we have all had is really something we hold dear and hope you all do as well. This truly couldn’t have happened without each and every one of you. We love you guys.

So, to all of the EE/X family, we would like to say again…

“Well, what can I say? I attract danger, dar–”

Lumi hopped back reflexively as Toto leaned his arms on the edges of the doorway. Toto had a good heart, but she couldn’t help but feel that at times he could be a bit… intimidating. Perhaps it was his overwhelming positivity. He was possibly even more luminescent than her. Dangerous.

“…The answer is obvious, isn’t it?” Lumi brushed her hair over her ear as she looked away from Toto’s eyes. She was beginning to understand the way she felt for those that had come this far, but that doesn’t mean she had to be comfortable about it. “I care about you and the others, and when I saw something suspicious, well… I had to chase it down.”

“Don’t get me wrong, my own selfish curiosity was at work as always, but my initial thought for acting was more along the lines of, ‘Perhaps the truth could help the others.’ I suppose I threw myself into danger because you all have become more important to me.”

Gross. It was all still too touchy feely. She placed her hand on Toto’s head and ruffled his hair, shaking away the awkward energy with it.

“I’ll be more careful next time, so we can all keep having fun together, okay~?”

Lumi spoke, and Toto’s face of dismay softened with every word—his grip on the doorway loosened, and his mouth slowly closed. When she looked away, Toto tilted his head and leaned closer, trying to catch her eyes again.  ‘You all have become important to me’—so that was it, thought Toto as relief washed over him. Maybe not everything was so simple; maybe sometimes, people did bad things for good reasons. His smile broke into a grin as Lumi ruffled his hair. 

“Ahahaha! ‘Kay!” 

Toto let his arms fall to his sides and he stepped away, finally allowing Lumi passage out of her room. Before she could start down the hallway, Toto spoke up again.

“Lumi . . . you lied to me before. But . . . you did it so Daisy could stay with us longer, right? So . . .” He stood up straight, whipped a three-fingered sign into the air and resolutely blurted out, “I forgive you!”

It felt good to say those words, like that unpleasant festering thing inside him was being wiped clean—but that was not all that had been weighing on Toto as of their last Macabre Theatre. 

The conversation felt like it was working its way in circles. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting, really, when he was already fully aware of how devoted Toto was to his ideology. But he was the same, he supposed. He fell quiet as the young man rambled on about beauty and healing and purpose as though it were the most natural thing in the world. Despite his contempt for all of it, he couldn’t help but find himself wishing that all that faith wasn’t for nothing. 

Judge bowed his head in frustration, running both his hands through his hair as he let out weary breath. A long moment passed before he finally spoke again.

“Fine. Fine. I’ll play along.” 

Toto wasn’t the type to just let people go that easily - he might as well try to have a productive conversation instead of butting heads the entire time. He leaned back in his seat and turned his head towards the ceiling as he sorted his thoughts, trying to remember what it was like to make idle conversation like they used when they had first boarded the ship.

“What makes me happy…that is…my job? No, not exactly. Some of the people I’ve worked with have been through terrible things - it’s hard to say I’m happy to see it.” He frowned, displeased with the fact that it was obviously a struggle for him to think through this. He stared hard down at the table for a moment before speaking again, much quieter this time. “At times, people might thank me for my work. Perhaps it’s out of politeness, but if there’s a chance I could have helped them in some way, then I suppose…”

He trailed off and glanced back over to Toto. 

“…is this some sort of trick question? What are you trying to get at here?” 

He had to imagine it was a possibility. Having to bumble his way through an answer certainly made it feel like he was being tricked, at least. 

Toto weathered the man’s long pauses without interrupting them. If his fidgeting hands were any indication—feverishly unwrapping a stick of gum—matching the silence took a sizeable amount of restraint on Toto’s part, but his desire to hear an answer overrode his desire to speak. He stared forward and listened, his eyes wide and alight. The question Judge posed at the end felt strange and sudden—was that some kind of doubt in his voice? No, Toto told himself, it couldn’t be.

“Trick question? What’s that mean? I wanted to know what makes you happy!”  He slid the unwrapped stick of gum across the table without a word.

Bandit gave both a nod and a smile. It only now occurred to him that he hadn’t yet told Toto about this news. Part of him had expected news of him being a father would spread fast between the passengers, so this was definitely a pleasant surprise.

“I don’t know if there’s a clear path to follow since I feel like I’m just winging this. Thanks for the confidence, though!”

He now listens to Toto’s own dream, which seemed to be a lot and what he expected. Toto’s predictable in that he’s unpredictable and makes everything much bigger than it really is. Still, Bandit enjoyed hearing what he had to say until he killed the conversation’s mood by reminding him of Dot’s circumstances.

“Yeah, I heard it too,” he says as he moves over to place a hand on Toto’s shoulder. “I can’t tell you when exactly, but I sure hope it’s soon.” Bandit takes his hand back and taps on the glass himself. “Maybe we should end it ourselves.”

“End it ourselves?” Toto echoed, jaw dropped. “Ourselves?” 

He stared out at the ocean beyond the barricade. Was such a thing really possible? Toto had never considered it, but the look in Bandit’s eyes told him the suggestion was no joke.  

“A game’s not over until everyone says so, right? But people keep playing.” His voice was uncharacteristically resigned, his eyes just a little less bright. He turned to Bandit, hands splayed in the air. 

“So as long as people keep playing, it’s like … . the game’s still alive, you know? And Dot, Dot’s really strong! Everything that happened with Fantasma was …” Toto trailed off, searching for words and finding none. The sound of gunfire rang distantly in his ears. “This barrier—even I can’t break it!” The self-doubt was only allowed to linger for a moment. “No, I could!” he decided. “I could, but then … can you swim?” Toto pressed his palms against the glass and looked out at the water again—not a sliver of land in sight. “How long would everyone have to swim for?”

The last note of optimism faded from his voice. Surely, he had thought of everything. Surely, Bandit had thought through them too, the roadblocks that walled them in. The glass screeched in protest as Toto slid down into a low crouch, then fell flat onto his back—the deck was not as warm as it looked. He stared up at the clouds.

Before she could even react, Toto’s already pulling her to his whims, towards the volleyball court. 

Daisy had no recollection of what transpired here, but based on what Kaguya had told her… she doesn’t want to be here. Would Toto even listen, though? As quick as he is, he’s now already asking about her body. She catches the volleyball with her left hand, and holds it to her side.

What’s there to tell, though? She had three metal prosthetic limbs, a clockwork heart, and lacking in voice.

Daisy visibly sighs, and types her message listing those factors. She shows it to Toto. Once she’s sure Toto’s read it, she adds: You should ask Kaguya. She knows more about it. It’s her body, after all, isn’t it?

She even knows what happened… how she ‘lost’ them. The limbs and her heart. The voice, however, it seemed not even Kaguya could find a theory for it. Daisy takes the ball into both her hands, and she frowns at it.

It’s unfair. It’s unfair how she has to deal with Kaguya’s fate.

Taking out a marker, she starts writing on the volleyball. Afterwards, she tosses it high towards Toto. tell me about your pentury group, it asks.

Three prosthetic limbs, a clockwork heart, no voice. Toto gave three emphatic nods as he read the list over. “I seeee,” he said, leaning in close. The fascination was clear in his eyes, but when he looked up from the screen he saw that Daisy did not seem so happy. His smile faltered, and then fell altogether at the mention of Kaguya.

“But then, she’d take your place, right? You’d go away again.” Toto didn’t understand. “I don’t want that. I want you to stay.”

The volleyball was quick to steal his attention, and he caught it in both hands. When he read what Daisy had written there, he perked up an inch taller; in an instant, his mood was lifted.

“Aah, the Pentury Migration Circle? Haha! OK! Mmm, what should I tell you?” Toto spun on his heel with the ball held tight to his chest and his eyes on the sky. His mind raced as it filtered through dozens of starting points. “It’s a place for people who know about the true life cycle,” he told her, as though the matter were simple—as though she should already know—but a second look at Daisy’s face made him doubt that those few words were enough. He took a step closer, letting the ball roll from his grip and onto the sand.

“Imagine that we’re caterpillars! You and me, and everyone else here.” His arms stretched wide to indicate the boat, the sea, the world beyond it. He wiggled his index fingers. “Right now, we’re all living like caterpillars. But some day . . . we go away—like Blythe and Fantasma did—and then we’re like cocoons. Our souls go to this other place. It’s dark and quiet. A lot of people call it ‘The Great Interim’. I was there once, you know! A long time ago. But I came back, so the whole world could learn the truth! It’s like teaching all the other caterpillars how to become a butterfly, you know? So, in that place—the cocoon place—there’s a ladder that only comes down every 500 years. Only strong souls can climb it to the top. And at the top . . . that’s the fully bloomed world. The final stage!” His eyes gleamed as he gestured left and right, beaming wildly.

“So the Pentury Migration Circle is all about letting the world know, and celebrating! We have big migration parties where everyone dances together before they go—I dance on a big stage,” he added with particular delight. Satisfied, he stepped back, plucked the volleyball from the sand and gave it a spin.

Judge flinched at the mention of being his ‘friend’. It seemed unfair, at times, to speak harshly towards him. He had no doubt that Toto wholeheartedly believed in his preaching, and that his followers likely felt the same way, but it was impossible to justify. It would take nothing less than for him to personally find himself on that shining final stage for him to reconsider.

He tilted his head towards the ceiling, searching for a way to word his thoughts, but before he could -

“Judge … do you think you’ll be able to be happy?”

The question visibly caught him off guard. He glanced back down at Toto, waiting in hopes that he would have something, anything else to say. But the stretch of silence that followed afterwards demanded an answer out of him.

“…I - “

No one had ever asked before. Why would anyone ask? The thought had rarely crossed his own mind, after all. He thought back to the sleepless nights spent reading and studying, getting his degree, passing the bar exam. Then it was his coworkers and the other man, bending over backwards to please them, doing everything he could to keep them off his back.

Was that happy? Likely not. But with this question came many more.

“Why? Do you think I’ll be happy if I believe everything you say? If I die here today, do you think I could just throw everything away and be happy?” He voice was low at first, but it steadily began to pick up in speed and volume. “What about all the people who died before they can do everything they wanted to do while they were alive? Or the people who had to suffer while they lived? Do you think it’s easy for them to forget all that? Easy for them to just pretend like none of it ever mattered?”

Judge matched Toto’s gaze from across the table, unwavering.

“If your final stage can make everyone happy just like that, then why shouldn’t all of us drop dead right now?”

“’Why. . .?’” And there it was again, that unpleasant ache in the pit of his stomach. His relentless stare was finally broken as he searched himself for things to say. ‘Drop dead’—no, that wasn’t right, he wanted to tell him, there was no death, not if your soul was strong—but then he would just be repeating what Judge already understood. One look at the man’s eyes told Toto that idle corrections would not be welcomed now; what mattered was the answer to his question. Toto had answers, he always did. Hands clutching at each other under the table, Toto swallowed and let go of a long breath. 

“People do. They do all the time, that’s what the parties are for. Everyone dances, and then . . .” He trailed off, refocussed. “But that’s because they decided to do it. They had nothing left to do in this world, they were ready. Everyone migrates at their own pace, you know! And no matter what, no matter how much they were hurt, all the people who make it there find happiness. All the things they couldn’t do, the next world will give it to them. You understand, don’t you?” Toto inched closer to the table, laid his palms on its surface. “In France, we say, ‘le temps guérit toutes les blessures.’ It means that time . . . time heals every injury. And that’s what’s waiting for them! Everyone living in the fully-bloomed world will have a . . .” The corners of his mouth twitched. 

“So not cute…”

Lumi stared into the mirror, examining the wound Dot had inflicted on her. It certainly looked a lot worse than it actually was, but it shouldn’t have even happened in the first place. She acted rashly, and should have been more aware of her surroundings. As if she could even attempt to go against Dot though… She’s lucky she wasn’t dead.

She washed the blood from her forehead and placed a small bandage over the wound. The last time she had been hurt wouldn’t even come to mind, no matter how hard she thought. She would need to make sure it could never happen again. She came far too close to ruining her perfect face, and she couldn’t have that.

“Aha, much better. What was I thinking? Dot couldn’t ruin these perfect looks if she tried.”

Lumi giggled as she turned away from the mirror and threw on her lab coat. She exited her room and stopped dead in her tracks at the sight of another guest waiting outside for her. Well… she should have known this was coming. She was sure they had all seen her with that damn blood ruining her face.

“Ah- . . . Lumi!” At a time like this, the sensible thing to do would be to move back and make room for Lumi to leave—perhaps walk her to the restaurant for a chat—but Toto was not in a sensible mood. He took a step closer, and then another, the toes of his boots skirting the line between the hallway and Lumi’s suite. And then the words spilled out.

“It happened again! Lumi . . . Someone attacked you again, right? I saw you in the—” His eyes wandered up to her forehead. “Ah-! It’s better now.” With his immediate concerns averted, Toto was suddenly at a loss for words. If anyone were to look at Lumi now—smiling, spotless, standing on her own two feet—no one would ever know what had happened, how terrible it could have been. But Toto did.

Daisy wakes to the pounding at her door. What follows is a pounding in her head. There were the words “upstairs,” and “hurry,” from a voice she assumed to be Toto’s. The annoyed thought that Kaguya might have chosen to sleep late is pushed back, replaced by a panic and anxiety.

Almost tripping in her hurry, Daisy dashes outside then upstairs in pursuit of the flashy boy, worrying about what might have happened.

He’s just there, though. Claiming something was there.

Eh? Daisy catches her breath, placing a hand over her chest to calm down her frantically-beating heart. Eventually, she faces Toto and tilts her head curiously. She points at him, and then points a thumb upwards, her face questioning and worried. Are you okay? she asks.

The grandeur of the whales cresting the ocean surface was still so clear in his mind that Toto had barely noticed who it was standing in front of him. The hair, the mannerisms—could it be? He wiped the tears from his eyes.

“Daisy!” 

Toto rushed across the deck and pulled the girl into a tight hug, then spun her around for good measure. “You came back! Haha!” He set her down with care, as though she might break, and his tone dropped into something very matter-of-fact when he added, “I would have cried if you were gone forever.”

When he stepped back to meet her eyes again, he remembered her question—one he had yet to answer. 

“I’m OK,” he said, “now that you’re OK. Come, come with me!” Without a second thought or a word of warning, Toto took Daisy by the hand and ran. He had forgotten about the whales.

Once they had arrived at the volleyball court, Toto finally slowed his pace, releasing his tight hold on Daisy’s hand only when he needed his own to pick up a stray ball in the sand. He gave it a spin between his palms, bounced it off the ground, then turned on his heel to look at Daisy. His eyes were alight.

“A lot happened at the Theatre—aah, well, I guess you weren’t there, right?—but I’ve been thinking a lot. About you.” 

Toto tossed the ball to Daisy.

Judge felt his hands clench as he watched Toto circle around to join him at the table. It was hard to feel at ease around him lately - given all that he knew, that giddy smile of his seemed almost malicious. But its absence only unnerved Judge more and he took to staring into the surface of his coffee, his fingers finding their way into a death grip around the cup’s rim and handle.

“Toto…go back to bed.”

The murmured words were far too quiet to stop him. It was the same thing he had told him before - souls and fully-bloomed worlds and this and that - but coming off the heels of his nightmare, it seemed to be mocking him even more than the first time. 

“That’s it?” He inhaled through clenched teeth. “You’re wandering around at this hour just so you can tell me this nonsense again?” 

As if to stop his voice from rising any more than it already had, Judge brought his cup up to his lips and forced a mouthful of coffee down. Sickly sweet. The feeling of it churning in his stomach was unpleasant enough to distract him from the conversation for a second, and after a moment his eyes drifted back over to meet Toto’s.

“…are you done? Why are you telling me this?” 

‘That’s it?’ Toto’s smile fell at the words, slowly at first and then dropping altogether when the word nonsense left Judge’s lips. And then he asked him why—he actually asked him why! The fiery sting of anger lanced through Toto’s chest. This was not what he wanted. Both hands clenched into fists on the table’s surface but somehow, by some miracle, the rage did not spill over. 

“I’m telling you,” he started, his tone kindling a kind of forced-calm despite being several notches louder than before, “because you were sad. You were worried that she’d be all alone. Remember?”

Only then did Toto realize he had been half-standing out of his seat. He sat back down, breathed tightly, wrestled down the urge to break things.  “I had to tell you the rest so you’d know. Because it’s the truth. And if you never knew, you’d go on being sad.” Toto flung a casual hand through the air, speaking as though the matter were obvious. His eyes wandered down to the stain on the tablecloth, and for a brief moment, he was quiet. When he looked back up at Judge, his expression had softened. 

“You’re . . . my friend.” He punctuated the word with a firm nod, carrying the air of a new decree rather than a warm reminder but earnest all the same. “I want to stop you from drowning. You’re like this!” He put his palms at either side of his eyes, like blinders on a horse. “But I want you to be . . . like this!” Slowly, grandly, he pulled his hands away until they were outstretched at his sides. “Set free. Finding happiness. That’s why.” 

Toto returned his hands to the table as he pinned the other passenger under a long, measured stare.

The confusion on Bandit’s face was hard to miss when Toto said he really ‘got it’. What does that even mean? Still, his confusion was immediately wiped away as he nodded along to the other man’s dramatic gestures and gave exaggerated expressions of surprise or wonder. Luckily for both of them, Bandit’s act and Toto’s enthusiasm had actually made him smile and look almost as interested as he had claimed to be.

“No! Nope! Nadda! 200 years, really?!” A gasp as he leaned in behind Toto while he was pressed up against the edge. “How do you know they aren’t seniors for years instead of babies? Or maybe adults! Adults in heat! Think of all the female whales the males can entertain!” Bandit chuckles at his own remarks and steps back a little to give them both some breathing room.

He waits a little while, having changed positions so that he was leaning against the railing. It looked as if he were getting ready to leave when Toto had suddenly starting speaking again. The quiet and (much more) serious tone had caught him by surprise, but the content of what he said even more so.

‘If no one chooses you.’

That phrase hung at the forefront of his mind before he could even process the rest of the question. Was this something to do with Toto’s religious views? Bandit restrains himself from asking about it in favour of talking about something better.

“I want to see my daughter. Hug her, kiss her, let her know how much I love her. I want to be good father.” Bandit rubs the back of his neck, blushing slightly for a moment. “W-What about you, Toto? What do you want most if you get off the Endless Expanse? Anyone you wanna see? Anything you wanna do?”

“Your daughter?” Toto stared at Bandit with his mouth agape, struck by the stunning notion that there was still so much he had yet to learn about his fellow passengers. ‘I want to be a good father.’ The words made something stir in the pit of his stomach, barbed and heavy, but somehow he was smiling too. 

“Haha! A good father, huh … ” Toto cupped his hands behind his ears. “Yeah! I can hear the love. That’s something I can do, you know—and I can tell it’ll be OK. ☆ If you stay on your path,” he said, making a show of tiptoeing along the deck and then whirling back to Bandit with his arms in the air and his coat billowing, “your dream will definitely come true!”  “And my dream …” Toto’s eyes wandered up to the sky, pensive for all of two seconds before his head snapped down and a toothy grin lit up his face—it was an easy answer after all.

 “When the game ends, I’m gonna spend time with all my friends. Travelling! Exploring!” He punctuated both words with a grand sweep of his arms. “Everything. I’ll share everything I have with them, and they’ll be so happy!” His voice swelled with pride, his hands clenched into fists at his chest. “And we’ll celebrate—it’ll be perfect! Aaah, but that can’t happen yet.” Toto’s shoulders went slack. He wandered back to the barrier and stared out at the horizon—pink and blue. The sun was higher now, but Toto’s mood had dimmed. 

The suddenness of banging against his door startled him. He swears he heard Toto yell something about… wells? No… whales? Whales… What does that mean? That there are whales or is this some codeword Toto has come up with? Here on the Endless Expanse, banging on someone’s door to get their attention is generally a cue that someone had discovered something that everyone should be aware of– like a corpse.

Bandit takes off the hoodie he had been wearing and then peers out into the hallway. Toto’s gone and no one else was stirring about. Maybe he was starting to lose it and just imagined this. There’s also the possibility that the others weren’t in their rooms. This is a big ship after all with so many floors now open to them. Nonetheless, he forced himself to ride up the elevator and see for himself what the truth was.

After spotting Toto standing against the edge of the bow, he slowly closes in on him. It looks like he’s peering over the boat and into the water. Toto’s turning to him with tears forming in his eyes made him imagine the worst–

“They were?” Bandit looks over the side of the boat as. He chuckles a little bit. “I thought you said whales! But it could have been that you found somebody’s body hanging off the edge of the ship!”

He playfully elbows Toto slightly. He laughs a little more at his own joke, but it quickly dissipates as the content really wasn’t a laughing matter.

“I’m sorry. Bad joke. I believe you. If you said there were whales, then there were whales. Maybe they’ll pop up again soon? If not, how about you just tell me what you remember about them?”

Bandit places his hand on Toto’s shoulder and squeezes firmly. He nods to ensure that he’s very much interested in hearing about the whales. (He isn’t.)

Toto blinked at Bandit’s joke—it wasn’t that he found the subject particularly distasteful. In fact, it may well have been a viable method for any aspiring killers still aboard. ‘Killers?’ Toto’s thoughts snagged on the word. No, that was game language. Those who had taken a weapon to another passenger were only catalysts for their migration—nothing more and nothing less. Toto realized he must have been in his head too long when he heard Bandit apologizing. He rubbed his tears away with the heels of his palms.

‘If you said there were whales, then there were whales.’

“Haha! You really get it!” 

Toto brightened at the hand on his shoulder. Bandit’s eyes said it all; his day would be ruined if he did not hear more about the whales this instant. Toto was a generous man, and so he obliged.  

“Well, they were big—really big! And water came out of one’s back! Kshh!” A dramatic gesture accompanied the sound effect. “All the way up to the sky! And the little one—mmm, the less big one—was following it, so maybe … it was a baby?” He turned to stare out at the ocean, pressed his forehead to the barrier and let out a long hum.

“Whales live for 200 years—did you know that?” Toto’s hands came up beside him to touch the glass, and he was struck by a sudden awareness that there was no wind—he was glad for that. “That’s a long time to be here. They’d be babies for years! Haha!” 

Toto fell silent, watched the waves move. “Bandit,” he finally said, quieter than before. “Dot’s game is still going, right? So … if no one chooses you, and you end up staying here longer …” Toto spun around to face him.

A nightmare - the first in a while. Judge watched the ceiling for what felt like hours in hopes he would fall back asleep, but it had unnerved him enough that he was wide awake. With a sigh, he slipped out of bed and found his glasses, deciding that it might do him some good to get out of his room for a while. He had been planning on exploring the new floor anyways - a few extra hours earlier would just give him some time to make an actual breakfast and finish investigating before the others were awake. 

That had been the plan, at least. But over an hour had passed by since he found his spot in the restaurant and he had yet to even take a sip from the cup of coffee he had made. The quiet hours of early morning made him pensive, it seemed. 

Judge stared down at his mug, absentmindedly rotating in between his hands as he recalled the past few days. Daisy being spared from the removal had been a sigh of relief, but that small window of peace had been enough time for the weight of their situation to come crashing down all at once. Sure, one person had been saved this time, but did it matter if Dot was still around? She didn’t seem too intent on stopping the game, and there was no guarantee that any of them would come out alive at the end of it, anyways. Judge felt something in his stomach churn. In that case, what difference did it make if they died now or later? 

The thoughts were so overwhelming that, by the time someone else entered the room, they had managed to make it all the way to behind his seat before he finally realized they were there. Judge jumped at the sudden lingering presence, lurching forward and slamming his knee into the underside of the table. His coffee - already dangerously full from the amount of creamers he had poured into it - splashed over the rim of the cup and seeped into the tablecloth. 

“Mm–?!” 

Toto lurched back when the table clattered, eyes darting from the growing coffee stain to Judge’s face—empty of any real joy, just as Toto had last seen it. The questions that came firing from the man’s mouth sounded dangerously like accusations, but Toto knew he must have been imagining it, and he smiled as he peeled the remnants of a once expertly-crafted bubble from his face.

“My dreams woke me up. Dreams have a way of speaking to you, did you know that? Tonight, my dream was telling me . . .” His eyes went wide, and his smile dropped. “Get rid of the gun.” 

The expression was short-lived, and yet it seemed to linger too long, too grim for Toto’s face, but when he smiled again it was as if it had never been there at all.

“So I will! Haha!”

There had been no invitation, but Toto joined Judge nonetheless, cementing his stay by dropping into the empty seat across from him and leaning bodily over the table. At his side, the wad of gum squished into the napkin holder from his fingers—an afterthought. 

“Judge,” he said, head tipped sideways as he held the man’s eyes. “I wanted you to know something. That person you’re apart from now . . . she isn’t alone. The place she went to is a place for strong souls.” He leaned closer. “In the world beyond the world, there’s no war, or crime, or pain . . . there’s just people. Good people. The most worthy of all humankind.” His delivery was stilted, the kind one might expect from an ill-prepared student presenting to the class, but it was not without sincerity.  “You understand, right? They surround her now! Shining souls everywhere she looks! In the fully-bloomed world . . . there won’t be anything she can’t do. And she has the time to do it all—forever, if she wants.” A wild gesture, a hand at his heart. “It’s too wonderful, right?! Forever!”

Congratulations. Congratulations, he said.  

The tinny, mechanical applause of the robot seemed to mock him from afar. 

“Ha…ha ha…is that so…?”

The laughter that shook through his shoulders spilled out at a humorless monotone. It seemed hopeless, impossible. The way that Toto smiled at him so brightly, he was sure there was no way to convince him of anything else. And still…

“How do you know? How can you be so sure? There’s no way to reach the dead - no way to ask them whether your ‘final stage’ is actually there or not, so how do you know?” His fingers laced their way into the edges of Toto’s coat, slowly, but firmly bringing the young man closer. “If your afterlife doesn’t exist, what will you do? All those people - millions, millions - could be gone forever.”

Judge carefully searched Toto’s expression, as if there was some way to bring about understanding if he simply begged enough.

“Listen, Toto, I looked already. I’ve looked for so long. But there’s nothing…there’s no one waiting…” The restrained anger in his voice cracked, lapsing into something closer to desperation.  “I spoke to so many people. They were all convinced that there was something greater waiting for them - something better than here. But not a single one of them was willing to die on the spot if given the option. You know why that is, don’t you?” 

A twitch at his brows betrayed some kind of discomfort—brief, like he had been pricked by a thorn—but still Toto smiled and listened as the other man asked how, not once but three times over. He looked down at the hands on his coat, alien and unexpected, and when he looked back up at Judge’s face he found himself several inches closer. Toto stared and stared, upright and unblinking until that final question settled in his ears. His smile withered.

“Why . . .?” Toto repeated the word as if worried he might break it. He shifted his weight but took back no distance, willing his heartbeat to quiet down as he searched himself for words, the kind he had heard a thousand times before. ‘There’s nothing’, Judge had said. ‘There’s no one waiting.’ Toto laid his hands on Judge’s wrists, uncharacteristically gentle. 

“There is. There is something. I saw it,” he said. “And the man from Iceland saw it too. His soul had left his body behind, just like mine. When he woke up I was still asleep—but we both saw it the same. It’s not a story, Judge—it’s just reality. It’s the truth of this world, the true life cycle. The Great Interim is real, like a cocoon, it shelters your soul in a dark place–! The path is open—the ladder’s there!”

Toto stood on his toes, eyes alight, his grip on the man’s wrists tighter than he realized. He searched Judge, saw the darkness that still lingered in his expression. When he spoke again his voice was several notes gentler.

“Me? Perfect? Well, of course, darling~ I was hoping you would start by telling me something I don’t know.”

She had the feeling Toto was being sincere. He was as true a believer as they come considering his position within the cult, but regardless… It was hopeful garbage that was only meant to draw her in. Make her believe in something so terribly untrue. She didn’t come for his blessing, rather she wanted to solve a mystery.

“You know, darling, I’ve actually been to my fair share of parties thrown by the Circle. Quite lovely, all of them. I learned quite a bit! Like how easy it is to make your people believe I’m one of them. That’s not the point. The point is, I never found what I came to each of them searching for… I’m talking about you, of course. You’re very elusive you know~”

It felt like ages ago by now, but in reality it had only been a couple weeks since she had heard Toto’s story of his run in with the Police. He told her he was involved in a particular case… If she was right about this, then she was about to be a very happy woman.

“You disappeared sometime ago. After a very interesting event.” Lumi squeezed one hand closed in an attempt to control her growing excitement. Even after all of this, some things could never change about her.

“The leader of the Pentury Migration Circle died, and you moved into a position of leadership, didn’t you? So, tell me… Your leader was murdered, weren’t they~?”

Toto’s mouth fell open when he heard it—not only was Lumi familiar with the Circle, but she had even attended its parties. Her casual mention of fooling the attendees stalled Toto’s thoughts a moment, like wheels running into a ditch, but what she said next wiped everything else away.

“Me?” Toto’s eyes caught the light and he stood taller, awaiting the rest—but then the rest finally came, and his excitement dimmed with every word. When was the last time he had visited this scene in his mind? In his dreams? Standing there in front of Lumi, Toto realized how many years had passed since then, how many faces had lost their detail.

“Ah–! No, no, he . . .” Toto pushed energy into his voice, ignored the pulsing in his chest. There was an answer for this—an easy answer—and what a wonderful answer it was.

“He migrated!” Toto’s hands opened at his sides. “He left this world behind with the strongest soul of all. The whole world knew our name—and you know too, don’t you Lumi? The Pentury Migration Circle is everywhere!” He clapped his hands together with a loud smack. “So . . .” A hitch in his voice went unnoticed. “He was given the ultimate gift. And everyone celebrated! Millions!” His palms pressed together tightly, trembling. “Because they knew he was shining in the fully-bloomed world—he was making everyone shine—and even now! Haha! Even now, he’s there, surrounded by a million good souls— . . .”

Toto stilled. “Hah . . .” He caught a tear on the back of his hand, stared down at it and watched it roll. When he looked back up at Lumi it was if she had just walked in; he smiled, big and bright.

The migration.

Toto had mentioned it briefly before, and Judge could faintly recall hearing of something similar. He was sure his coworkers had chatted about it often in the office, mindlessly throwing about theories in one breath while ordering him to pick up yet another case for them in the next. He had caught bits and pieces of the conversations behind his back, but it all sounded so exaggerated, so sensationalized. Until now.

Even the overbearing sound of Toto’s voice blaring through the speakers could not move Judge from his spot in the doorway. He could only stare ahead, breath shallow, fists clenched so tight that he could feel his nails digging bruises into his palm. Despite the blindingly innocent smile plastered across the young man’s face, it was becoming increasingly apparent that he was one of the most dangerous passengers aboard the ship. 

“You. Do you have any idea what you’re saying?” Judge drew closer, his steps marked by an odd rhythm. “How many people have you told this to? How many people are dead because of what you’re saying right now?” 

“Hurry up and say you were joking, Toto. That wasn’t really all you, was it?” 

The microphone was still in Toto’s hands when he noticed the person standing in the doorway. 

“Ah–! Judge!” Toto’s coat billowed behind him as he spun to face the man, arms opened wide as if to welcome him to the splendour of the room, or to invite a hug, or perhaps both. He did not notice the tight fists at Judge’s side or the darkness in his eyes—only that he was there, the heartening presence of a friend. 

“How many . . . ?” Toto repeated the words as if they were new and stared, unblinking, into Judge’s eyes. “It’s not a joke. There are millions who know.” It was matter-of-fact but not without warmth, the way one child might correct another. “The whole world knows our name! So . . . everyone can prepare, and strengthen their soul!” 

The more Toto looked at Judge, the harder it became to understand his expression. Nothing made sense; not his face, not his voice, not the things he was saying, but Toto’s composure never wavered. He knew that when nothing lined up, everything lined up.

“Are you confused? If no one ever explained it, you wouldn’t know, right? Haha!” He rested his hands on the table behind him. “There’s no death. Not for anyone who’s strong, like you and me! Right now, they’re all just somewhere else, somewhere we can’t see. The final stage.” The last words of the ballad rolled faded silently from the screen, and the little robot applauded from the corner of the room.