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It was a very nice day, even considering the fact that it was the last one Coco would ever live.
She planted one foot in front of the other, heel to toe, heel to toe, never looking down as she walked along the garden wall.
Step,
Step,
Step.
Her arms were stretched wide for balance, elbows loose, fingers splayed. If she tilted too far in either direction, she would easily fall.
She did not intend to fall, of course. Not yet.
The umbrella was clutched in her right hand, its crooked shadow sliding along the wall beside her, stretching and shrinking as the sun shifted overhead. It wobbled when she walked, ribs rattling softly with each step.
The city stretched out on either side of her, distant and flattened, like a picture pasted onto the horizon. Cars crawled along the streets below. People moved in clusters and pairs, small and irrelevant.
Coco was higher than them. That felt right.
The world below did not exist for her anymore. It was a separate thing - unfinished, unimportant, already ending.
She twirled the umbrella once, carefully. The broken ribs clattered, metal clicking against metal. The fabric sagged, pocked with large holes that let the bright sunlight through in scattered freckles. When she'd found it in the dumpster behind the asylum's kitchen, it was already dying, forgotten and left as trash. Much like her, she supposed.
Step,
Step,
Step.
The crow feathers around her neck were soft against her skin, softer than any hand had ever been. She hummed - although it wasn't any song, just sound, just noise to fill the space where thoughts might go.
A woman on the street below stared up at her. Coco didn't look down. The woman didn't matter. Nothing down there mattered. The ground was for people who didn't know any better, people who thought the world would keep turning, who thought there was a tomorrow.
Coco knew better.
She twirled the umbrella again. The broken canopy spun and blurred, and for a moment—just a moment - it looked almost whole. Almost like it could do what it was supposed to do.
An umbrella had one purpose.
Miss Nakamura back in preschool used to say that. Although not about umbrellas. About teachers. A teacher has one purpose, girls, she would say, clapping her hands together softly. To nurture young minds. To protect you as you grow.
Miss Nakamura had soft hands. Softer than the other teachers. Her voice was gentle, her smile warm. During naptime, she would stroke Coco’s hair, fingers combing through the black strands, lingering too long at the nape of her neck.
You are such a special girl, Coco, she would whisper. Such a smart girl. Our little secret, yes?
Coco wasn't stupid, even then.
But Miss Nakamura was a teacher. And all Coco had been taught was that teachers protected children.
That's what they were for.
The torn fabric of the umbrella flapped uselessly in the breeze. Coco spun it again anyway, wrist aching slightly with the effort.
Kiki hadn’t believed her. Kiki never believed her.
Kiki said Coco was making things up, that Coco was the fake one, that Coco was always lying, always pretending, always wrong. Even though they had the same face, Kiki looked at her like she was ugly and broken. Like there was something inside Coco that was bent the wrong way, wired incorrectly, like she was not quite human.
Well.
Coco had showed her, hadn't she?
Kiki was the fake. Kiki was the imitation. Kiki was the one who had needed to disappear.
The crows understood. The crows knew. When Coco had wrapped her fingers around Kiki's throat, the crows outside the window had sat silently, watching, waiting. They approved. They witnessed. And when it was done, they sang for her.
A murder of them had witnessed Coco in that moment.
Mother cried, of course. Father had called the doctors. The doctors brought needles and white rooms and Nurse Tanaka.
Nurse Tanaka who said, I'll take care of you, Coco. I'll make you better.
Nurse Tanaka who came to her room at night.
Nurse Tanaka who said healing required touch, required trust, required Coco to stay very still and very, very quiet.
A nurse had one purpose. To heal the sick.
Nurse Tanaka's hands weren't healing hands.
But Coco pretended. She pretended it was medicine. She pretended it would make her better. She pretended the umbrella worked, even as the sun warmed her skin beneath its broken canopy.
Step,
Step,
Step.
A fence now, chain-link and rusted. Coco's feet found the top rail with practiced ease.
She grinned.
She was born for this. Born for existing in the space between ground and sky, for the thin line that separated the world that was from the world that should never have been.
Walking the path over a world soon to not be at all.
She clutched the umbrella tighter.
The world had failed more than just her.
Tsumuji carried his murder in his eyes. Coco saw the ghost, hovering behind Tsumuji's shoulder, whispering things that made him flinch. They all carried broken things. Broken promises. Broken protections.
But it didn't matter now, because the end was coming.
The thought settled in her chest like something warm, something comforting.
God was coming.
Coco didn't usually think about God. God never thought about her, after all. God let Miss Nakamura's hands wander. God let Kiki call her a liar. God let Nurse Tanaka come in the night. God had made the world and then looked away, bored, distracted, not caring what happened to the small things, the broken things, the creations he had given life to.
But the Bible said it would end.
The book said God would finally do his job. Would finally protect the ones who needed protecting. Would sweep it all away - the teachers, the nurses, the mothers who didn't believe, the fathers who sent their daughters away.
The umbrella twirled. The broken spokes caught the light.
Perhaps it was a good thing that the end of the world was coming.
Yes, Coco decided. Yes, it was.
It was a great thing that the end of the world was coming.
God hadn't done a good job so far. He'd forgotten his purpose, just like the teachers and the nurses and the parents and every adult who ever said trust me, I'll keep you safe. But he would fix it now. He would remember what he was for. He would take away all the broken things - the hands that hurt, the voices that lied, the world that pretended to be whole while rotting from the inside.
She couldn't wait.
Coco hummed louder. A child's song, something from a long time ago. Something from before. Before Kiki. Before Miss Nakamura.
The sky darkened, blue bleeding to grey, the clouds thick and swollen.
Step,
Step,
Step.
She was on a stone wall now, five feet above a garden with trees and benches. She could see a playground in the distance. There were children playing, their laughter filtering through the air to reach Coco's ears.
Such a shame, Coco thought. To die so young.
The first drop hit her cheek.
Then another.
Then the sky opened.
It poured.
The rain was cold, immediate, total. It drenched her black dress in seconds, plastered the fabric to her skin. The crow feathers around her neck grew heavy, waterlogged. Her hair stuck to her face in dark ribbons.
Coco raised the umbrella above her head.
The rain pounded through the torn canopy. Through the holes. Through the spaces where the fabric had given up. The broken spokes did nothing. The handle in her hand did nothing. She stood beneath her umbrella and felt the rain pouring down upon her - as if the umbrella wasn't there at all.
She didn't lower it.
She stood very still, water streaming down her face, and held the umbrella stick straight up, holding it over herself like it mattered, like it worked, like if she just closed her eyes and pretended hard enough the pretending would become real.
The rain sounded different on the torn fabric. A sad, hollow drumming. A mockery of protection. A reminder of what should be but wasn't.
The last rain, she thought. Her hands were shaking. From cold. From something else. The last rain I'll ever feel.
The umbrella trembled above her. Water ran down the stick, over her knuckles, cold and relentless. She couldn't pretend. Not anymore. Not with the rain in her eyes, on her tongue, soaking through to her skin. She couldn't pretend the umbrella worked. Couldn't pretend Miss Nakamura was kind. Couldn't pretend Nurse Tanaka was healing her. Couldn't pretend any of it was ever okay, was ever right, was ever anything but broken from the start.
The umbrella was broken.
The teachers were broken.
The nurses were broken.
She was broken.
Coco lowered the umbrella slowly. Looked up at the sky through the rain. The clouds were dark purple, almost black, roiling and angry. Thunder growled somewhere distant.
The world is crying, Coco thought. The world is finally crying for what it has done to me.
She supposed it was okay that she was getting wet. That her umbrella wasn't working. It had never worked anyway. None of them ever worked. But she didn't have to pretend anymore. The world was ending. Soon there wouldn't be any more rain, any more tears, any more little girls who needed protection that never came.
The rain pounded harder.
Coco started walking again. Slow steps along the wall, careful despite everything. The umbrella dragged at her side now, its point scraping the concrete. She didn't twirl it anymore.
Step,
Step,
Step.
The rain continued its assault as she walked. Her dress clung to her legs. The feathers around her neck were black ropes now, heavy and strange. She could see the street from here - cars passing, people with working umbrellas, people running for cover, people who still believed there was shelter to be found.
They didn't know that there was no point to seeking comfort.
They would all be gone soon.
Soon, she thought. Soon it would all be over.
Coco reached into her pocket. Her fingers found metal. Cold. Real.
The gun.
She didn't pull it out. Just brushed it with the gentlest of touch. Felt its shape. Its weight. Its purpose.
A gun had one purpose too.
But unlike umbrellas, unlike teachers, unlike nurses, unlike gods who looked away-
A gun kept its promises.
But the world would end on its own. God would remember his job. The Bible said so.
But if he forgot again...
Coco's fingers tightened around the metal, her pointer finger brushing the trigger. Around the promise. Around the only thing that would work when everything else had failed.
She stood on the concrete wall in the pouring rain, broken umbrella at her side, and looked up at the crying sky.
The world would end, Coco thought. One way or another.