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The purple-haired boy observed the scorched ground and the blazing sky through the window, breathing in fresh air and drinking from a plastic water bottle. Scattered skeletons littered the cracked, dry dirt. Waves of heat scratched at the glass, begging to enter like a vampire to be invited in.
Rui yawned, finishing the bottle and crushing it unceremoniously. He tossed it into an overflowing trash bag and entered his office—a cement-walled room lined with decaying books and a beaten desk. A stale stench from the air purifier mingled with the rotten smell of moldy pages.
A rusted tape recorder sat in the center. Cassettes of recorded days were piled haphazardly, dates written on the plastic cases in Sharpie.
39 Days Since the World Ended, he wrote on an unused, cracked cassette before loading it into the recorder. He coughed into a closed fist before pressing record.
“Ahem. It has been over a month since the Black Star appeared. The heat has escalated to incredible levels to the point that it is beginning to breach my insulation.”
He clicked his tongue, running a finger on the tally marks etched into the wood. “It won’t be long until it consumes me. I’m not sure how much longer I can keep living like this—my supplies are starting to dwindle, my resilience is starting to wear thin, and I… It’s been lonely.”
“Everything outside of my base has completely shriveled up. The bodies are only white bones. The water has evaporated. Any sign of nature has been claimed by the fires.”
Behind his eyelids, he remembered it all. The Black Star, the beginning of the heatwave, until it escalated into a sweeping of flames, and the curdle of screams outside as the bloody sounds coalesced into silence. Now, nothing but a sharp crackling and the howling wind could be heard if Rui were to press his ear against the window. Visions and sounds so vivid they were seared into his memory.
“If… If there is anybody who is listening—another survivor, or another lifeform, I ask of you—”
Rui’s breath hitched. A weight pulled at his stomach and sank into the depths. Impossible, he thought. But he heard it, unless he began hallucinating. There was a hollow knock on the door, echoing throughout the quiet house.
♫彡*:･ﾟ✧
Rui couldn’t see the potential visitor from any angle of the window. The knocks had ceased, but the presence of something behind the insulated door didn’t leave. Rui squeezed the windowsill. If he opened the door, what would await him?
Another survivor? An alien? Death itself? Or had Rui imagined the knocking—else it could be metal scrap carried by the intense wind that rattled against the door.
He went to the door, hand hovering over the knob. He retracted. “Hello?” The word escaped him, too late to swallow back in.
“Kamishiro Rui,” answered a robotic voice. One he thought he’d never hear again—a monotone cadence of the delicate songstress he lost that day. “I’ve found you.”
“N-Nene-Robo?” But that couldn’t be… right? It should have melted with the death of the rest of the world. It could handle overheating from overuse, sure, but Rui hadn’t designed it to survive an apocalypse.
“It is me.”
Rui swung the door open, bright, orange light streaming in and temporarily blinding him. His vision returned with a blink. It was her—a near, metallic copy of her. She appeared almost human if you squinted, blurring the welded lines and glossy, reddish sheen. This wasn’t how he built her.
“Hurry, before the heat comes in.” He ushered Nene-Robo inside, careful not to touch it unless he wanted to suffer third-degree burns for fun. “G-Go into the bathroom. I’ll need to douse you in water to cool you down.” He pointed to a door.
It obliged, heading inside as Rui started to collect his thoughts. Nene-Robo didn’t look like a robotic clone of his muse. He created it in her image, yes, but in a cartoonized version. Was this the same robot he left her? Was it… her?
That couldn’t be, he thought, I saw—I saw her. I saw—
A pang shot through his stomach as he recalled everything. He shook his head, erasing the memory, and entered the supply room. Wrapped bundles of bottled water stocked the wire shelves, down to less than a hundred. Beside them were stacks of canned food. Rui, with a heavy heart, grabbed three bottles and returned to the bathroom.
Nene-Robo stood in the center of the shower, its unblinking, purple gaze piercing into his soul, awaiting command.
“I’m going to begin,” he said as he unscrewed a bottle cap. He set the other two bottles on the sink and poured water over Nene-Robo’s body. As the water streamed down its surface, there was a gentle hiss accompanied by light smoke. Once he emptied a bottle, he grabbed another one, then the last, until it cooled down enough to touch.
“I must ask… When did you”—he gestured at its figure—“remodify yourself?”
It visibly processed his question. “I needed to update.”
“But why?”
“Because it would make you happy, she said.”
Rui stopped, unconsciously taking a step back. The room darkened until the dim buzz of the lightbulb droned in his ears. “What?”
“She told me it would make you happy. If you had something to remind you of her once she was gone,” it said plainly.
How would this make me happy?
“And… and how did you acquire the necessary parts?”
“I scavenged. I would have arrived here sooner had the search not been so difficult.” Something whirred in it before Nene-Robo announced, “Low battery, switching to sleep mode.” Its head went slack as its arms fell limp to its side.
Rui knew this was a risk—though it didn’t require food and water like him, he didn’t know if inviting her was putting him at risk. If he had to waste resources on maintenance. No, stop, Rui. You know you would’ve opened that door; there exists no alternate universe where you wouldn’t have.
There was no use. He had already invited the vampire in. All that was left was to see if it would drain him dry.
♫彡*:･ﾟ✧
When Rui awoke at night, he’d find its charging form—same, expressionless, unblinking face, only the eye-lights were off—in the corner. He hated how eerily it looked like her. Barely similar, bordering on the uncanny valley, yet noticeably a poor imitation. But in the dark of the drawn blinds (his recreation of the darkness of midnight in a forever sunlit world), he would wake up and see her face. He would reach out to her and realize in the split second before he could hold her, that it wasn’t—could never be—her.
♫彡*:･ﾟ✧
“Day forty—I had a visitor yesterday. Well, not a visitor anymore. An occupant, to put it in other words.” Rui picked up a pen and twirled it in his fingers. “I don’t know how to feel about her—it. It.” He dropped the pen at his mistake and sighed, rubbing his temple.
“It looks so much… like her. It doesn’t talk like her, doesn’t even act human. But it’s my first proper creation. And yet, it was hers. I was merely the creator.
“I guess it’s better than being completely alone. Even if it isn’t human. Though I designed it to be used as a proxy, it can serve as a companion at times. I just wish—” His gaze drifted to the cracked wood of the desk, tracing the deep lines. “No, never mind. Maybe all of this is a non-issue. We’ll see as the days pass.”
He stopped the recording and buried his face in his hands. He hated himself for thinking the worst of this. He hated how his heart still beat in dry colors for a girl long gone, in a world no longer. He wanted to hate it, but when her face came into mind, any sense of resolve quickly faded.
The door creaked open, the glint of metal catching his eye before its all-too familiar face came into view. “I have finished charging.”
“Oh. Uh.” Rui straightened in his seat. “Good morning, Nene-Robo.”
“You may refer to me as Nene if you please.”
Rui blinked. A pang in his heart. “Nene-Robo is fine.”
“Understood.”
♫彡*:･ﾟ✧
As the nights grew colder and infinitely longer, Rui’s thoughts spiralled further. He was aware that the brain was more relaxed at night and naturally became more emotional once his distractions—from counting supplies, surveying defenses for damage, and recording his observations—had been finished for the day. He knew that overthinking at night spelled only disaster, but he couldn’t help it. Not when her fading face and fleeting voice plagued his mind like vengeful spirits.
The truth—the undeniable fact—was that he left her. When scientists discovered the Black Star entering the solar system, Rui prepared for the worst. When it inched towards Earth’s atmosphere, that was when his fears proved true. He wasn’t crazy.
In planning for the impending apocalypse of the Black Star, he forgot to count for the time of when it would reach. The day he finished stocking the necessary supplies, the Black Star had finally arrived, and what began as a simple rise in temperature became a rupture. He had no time to drive to his dearest childhood friend’s house to bring her to his shelter, so he locked the door and covered his ears to block everything out. But nothing could drown out the agonizing screams of the people who knew none the wiser, and how he imagined his loved one at home, awaiting him. Her voice, which used to sing gently to her favorite showtimes from outside his bedroom window—and which he would listen and fall asleep to—would have been just another scream among the dying world.
He glanced to the corner. Her face, turned downcast—a faulty imitation, but still her face. He would go to sleep and wake up to the ever-present reminder and remember how he ultimately failed her in the end. Just too little, too late.
♫彡*:･ﾟ✧
He woke up, the white popcorn ceiling greeting him.
Rui rubbed his eyes. Another day ahead. It’s already been five days since Nene-Robo appeared—five days full of guilt eating away at him, of taking care of Nene-Robo while wanting to rip its face out, of lying awake at night.
“Rui?” her voice called. By the days, it almost looked and sounded like. Almost was her. Rui would blink and believe for a fraction of a second she was there, looking at him.
The word registered after the thoughts subsided. “Sorry, um, yes?”
“Do you plan to live like this for long?”
The question shook him like an earthquake. He’d been evading it for so long, it was as if the ground had disappeared beneath him. Did he want to keep living like this forever? Surely, there was a point where he’d stop—step into the blazing world and join his love in ashes.
“I’m… I’m not sure. Probably not.” This wasn’t a way to live, that was sure. Rui had no goal but survival, nothing to look forward to, and nobody to talk to except a robot.
He had nothing left but his sorrow.
“Why do you ask?”
Nene-Robo answered, “I’ve noticed your living conditions are deplorable.”
“Well, I—” he sat up. “It wasn’t meant to be this bad…”
“Whatever do you mean?” Genuine curiosity lit her eyes. She was learning—slowly becoming human, mimicking some of his behaviors and mannerisms.
“I… I didn’t have enough time to finish my preparations. That’s all.”
♫彡*:･ﾟ✧
50 Days Since the World Ended, Rui wrote on a new cassette before popping it into the recorder. Clearing his voice, Rui pressed the record button. “She’s starting to become more human by the day. I didn’t… program these functions into her, but now she requires both food and water. My supplies have been running out faster, and I’m at a loss for what to do.”
He stared at the grey wall, the cracks running along in the cement. Should he start minimizing his intake? But how would a machine that didn’t require sustenance before suddenly start needing it now? Could he stop feeding her? Would that kill her?
Hundreds of possibilities circled his head—all of them concluding in either sacrificing himself, her, or both of them. His head slumped. He laid out his arm on the crooked table and rested his forehead on his elbow. “Besides that, I’m sure my time is going to come soon. I can already feel it; the heat is taunting me. It’s calling my name outside, and I don’t know when I will cave into that temptation.”
“I can’t keep living like this. She’s right.”
A knock came to the door, and he stopped the recording with an impatient hand. “Come in,” he said.
Nene-Robo entered, eyes sparkling as if they could show genuine emotion—Rui could no longer tell if it was a trick of the light. “It’s lunchtime.”
“I’m aware.” A bite in his tone. “I’ll prepare it in a moment. Let me finish up here.”
Nene-Robo nodded, then looked to the recorder. “Are you logging your observations?”
“You can say that, I guess. That’s what I used it for initially, though it’s become more of… never mind. Come on, I’ll open a can.”
Rui led her out to the couch in the living room. Nene-Robo picked at a frayed patch of fabric as he entered the storage room.
The cool darkness overtook him, and he collapsed to his knees after the door clicked shut. He hung his head in his hands. Tears flowed, dripping through his palms and tapping on the floor.
He wanted to grab the shelves and knock them down. He wanted to rip his heart out, to feel nothing left inside. He wanted to set everything ablaze. He wanted—her—to leave.
There was nothing left to tether his sanity to the Earth’s parched ground. Nothing left to hold onto, nothing and no one left. Nothing except Nene-Robo. His own creation, driving him madder as she took the shape of the girl he knew was no longer.
It was only a matter of time until he reached the end of his rope.
He grabbed two cans of tomato soup—briefly considering putting one back—and then two water bottles. Back in the living room, Nene-Robo wasn’t anywhere to be seen. “Nene-Robo?” Rui called out but received no response.
Maybe she was recharging? She’s started to charge herself without Rui’s help, so Rui figured it was that.
Nothing in the bedroom.
He checked the bathroom, thinking she needed to cool down—again, empty.
The office.
He opened the door, heart rabbit-hopping, and entered the office. Nene-Robo sat at the desk, replaying his just-recorded cassette. She looked up at him. Unreadable.
“Do you not want me to be like you?” she asked. The question felt like a trap.
Rui bit on his bottom lip before he said, “I—Well, that’s… No. I don’t.”
“But, I’m only following orders.”
Something cracked inside Rui. “Orders? When did I ever tell you that I wanted you to be… this?”
“It was Nene—”
Rui cut her off. “Don’t say her name.”
“She told me that—”
“—What? That it would make me happy? That seeing you start to act—pretend to be her would make me happy? How? Tell me. How would that possibly make me happy?” He stepped closer, looming over her. The cans and bottles were already discarded on the floor.
“That’s… that’s what she told me. I’m just following commands.” Her answer was so simple. Pathetic. Rui could almost sympathize, if not for the coursing anguish and rage.
He grabbed her by the arm, but retracted as if he touched a hot stovetop. He couldn’t let himself go like this, so he left.
As he picked the cans and water bottles up, deciding to put them back into storage, he erased the memory of Nene-Robo wincing, fear lighting in her eyes, when he grabbed her.
♫彡*:･ﾟ✧
It was day fifty-eight.
He inserted another cassette into the recorder like clockwork. He pressed record and began. “Today is my last day, I have decided.”
“Supplies are running out. The days are starting to get hotter. I can’t continue like this.”
Nene woke up in the other room. Rui smiled, staring at the wall dividing the office and bedroom, then returned to the recorder. “But at the very least, I’ll be able to see her again.”
“If I am the remaining vestige of humanity, I’m sorry for having failed everyone. I hope in the future that there exist traces of the best of us for new life to remember us by. But before then, I shall take my leave.”
He left the office and stood before the door, the sounds of the swirling wind and deathly silence on the other side. Without hesitation, he opened the door, and the orange world invited him in with a warm hug. In the rush of air, he could hear her voice greeting him as if it were waiting for him. As if welcoming him back home.
♫彡*:･ﾟ✧
Nene-Robo found a sprawled-out, blackened skeleton halfway through the open doorway when it left the bedroom. It lightly moved the body out in order to close the door.
It then entered the office and spent the day listening to every recording. Taking an unused cassette, it wrote in precise writing: 58 DAYS SINCE THE WORLD ENDED.
It slotted the cassette into the recorder and began.