The events of the previous day had reverberated across every corner of the planet.
But above all, there were those cries.
The cries of babies.
Cries that had been heard throughout the night in places where there should not have been a single newborn.
The following morning began with a sense of confusion that quickly turned into panic.
Hospitals in different countries began reporting an impossible phenomenon: multiple women had suddenly developed pregnancies over the course of a single night.
There was no medical explanation.
There had been no conception.
No previous medical history.
They were simply pregnant.
At first, the reports were treated as isolated cases.
Then they began to multiply.
And that was when the rumors started.
It was not only women who had been affected.
Men were showing the same symptoms.
Animals.
Pets.
Livestock.
Creatures whose anatomy did not even possess reproductive organs capable of sustaining a pregnancy.
The first photographs and videos began circulating across social media.
Within hours, the entire world was talking about it.
This was not a disease.
It was not an epidemic.
It was something that directly defied the laws of biology.
In the modern world, news could cross the planet before governments even had time to understand what was happening.
Social media became flooded with testimonies, photographs, theories, and videos recorded inside hospitals. Some spoke of an unknown disease. Others claimed it was a biological attack. Many immediately pointed toward the red moon that had covered the sky during the night.
And as the theories multiplied, so did the tragedies.
Some of those affected were unable to accept what was happening to them.
Several suffered episodes of delirium and self-destructive behavior while repeatedly uttering words that no one could understand.
The doctors had no answers either.
Exposure to that red moon appeared to be the only factor the cases had in common.
It did not matter where a person was.
They could have been walking down a street.
They could have been looking at the sky from the window of their home.
They could even have been inside a hospital, convinced they were safe.
If they had been exposed to that light...
they could be affected.
However, not everyone suffered the consequences.
Thousands of people had looked directly at the moon that night and remained completely normal.
Others had not been so fortunate.
Governments began raising their alert levels.
Military laboratories, research centers, and clandestine organizations were ordered to study every available case.
For the first time, authorities were confronted with a phenomenon for which there was no scientific precedent.
But the most horrifying events were yet to come.
Those women and creatures whose pregnancies had progressed far enough began to give birth.
And what emerged from them was not human.
Amorphous masses of flesh and blood emerged from their bodies, still pulsating, deformed into shapes that no doctor could identify as belonging to any known creature.
Hospitals descended into absolute chaos.
Some of the affected reacted with desperation upon seeing what had grown inside their bodies.
Others simply froze.
In less advanced cases, doctors managed to terminate the pregnancies through surgical procedures and experimental treatments. Those patients who survived were later subjected to physical and psychological evaluations.
What exactly had they expelled?
While governments attempted to suppress information and scientists searched for a rational explanation, the churches began offering their own.
Some proclaimed it a divine punishment.
They claimed that humanity had stopped appreciating the miracle of life, and now God had forced them to receive it in a different form.
Those words quickly found followers.
Small groups of fanatics began gathering beneath the image of the red moon.
Many were vulnerable people, desperate individuals, drug users, or simply those who had been deeply affected by the events of that night.
To them, the moon was not an astronomical phenomenon.
It was an entity.
A will.
A god that had descended upon Earth.
Sometimes ignorance truly is a blessing.
What am I supposed to do now, waiting for a world with no protection? Just an ordinary world with nothing special about it.
And while the images continued spreading across the Internet, while governments closed their borders, hospitals became overwhelmed, and laboratories began dissecting things they could not understand...
the world gave that night a new name.
It was not chosen by any government.
It did not appear in any official document.
It was born on social media, in forums, in headlines.
In the whispers of millions of terrified people.
The Red Fertility Night.
...
May 7, 2016
Hikigaya Hachiman spent the entire morning in his room.
Even when his sister came in to bring him breakfast, he merely nodded, ate, and thanked her.
He could not remember much about the previous night, except for a long list of specific ingredients for a potion.
He did not even remember how he had gotten home. All he knew was that he had gone out to buy something.
His sister told him that she had also fallen asleep in his room the previous night.
That morning, she informed him that their parents had called, extremely worried, asking whether they were both all right.
She explained the situation to them, and they calmed down. They had been keeping an eye on the news and were doing everything they could to return home so they could spend a few days together.
His sister spent the morning playing video games in the living room and talking with her friends.
She also kept worrying about him, bringing him breakfast and lunch.
Sorry, Komachi. This big brother has a lot to think about right now.
He sighed.
Looking out the window, I feel lost.
What does this mean?
I have this strange feeling of familiarity, as though I know what happened, but I cannot remember it.
And whenever I try to force myself to remember, an overwhelming terror spreads through my entire body, leaving me trembling uncontrollably.
Seer.
They want me to believe this is some kind of miraculous potion.
Who knows what consequences it could have?
I had a hypothesis, but I wasn't certain.
I don't understand.
What am I supposed to accomplish?
I'm just an ordinary high school student.
Is there some meaning behind all of this?
I'm not a reincarnated person.
I'm not a transmigrator either. I know about those things because of the novels I read.
But what is this?
Even the few news reports I saw on my phone had already left me shocked.
When I saw them, I wanted to run straight to Komachi to make sure she was okay.
Thankfully, nothing had happened to her.
But what if something had?
I sat on my bed with my knees pulled up, running my hands through my hair.
In the faint reflection on the window, I could see my pale face and lifeless eyes, even more lifeless than usual, yet strangely filled with a faint glimmer.
I turned my head to the side and saw my phone.
It still had some battery left.
I picked it up and opened the trending section.
Countless videos from TikTok appeared on the screen, a platform that had already spread globally thanks to how easy it was to create and share short videos.
I searched for something and clicked on a random video.
It showed two young people walking through a park in the middle of the night.
"We're recording a video exploring this park at night. They say it's haunted around here," one of them said as they walked deeper into the park.
"Whoa! Hey, come look at this! What the hell is that?" the other said, pointing toward a tree.
There was a large bulge protruding from its trunk.
It was pulsating.
"What the hell..."
The other person approached the tree.
They touched the bulge.
It sank beneath their fingers like jelly.
On a tree that should have been hard and solid.
"Hey, bring the knife. Let's see what the hell this is."
The other person pulled a knife from his pocket.
He grabbed it and drove the blade into the trunk.
But what happened next left both of them stunned.
Instead of the clear sap that normally came from a tree, blood began pouring from the wound.
"What the hell?!"
"Hey, put that down!"
The other person tried to pull the knife away.
"I'm trying, but it's stuck!"
"Pull, idiot!"
They both tugged at the knife and fell backward.
But then they noticed something strange.
The trunk was shaking violently.
"Shit. Let's go. I don't want us getting involved in anything."
Just as they stood up to run, the person holding the camera turned it back toward the tree.
The trunk suddenly exploded.
Blood splattered everywhere.
"AHHH! What the hell?!"
"Hey! What the hell is on my face?!"
"Run!"
The two of them started running as though their lives depended on it.
What the hell...
Something resembling human remains had come out of the tree.
A pool of blood and clumps of flesh had been scattered across the ground.
I'm going to throw up.
I put my phone down and hurried to the bathroom, where I vomited.
How the hell wasn't that censored?
It was incredibly graphic.
"Ugh... What happened there?"
I rinsed my mouth and returned to pick up my phone.
The video I had been watching now displayed a warning about inappropriate content. It could no longer be viewed.
The red moon.
I sighed.
I grabbed my notebook and began writing down everything I needed for what I was about to do.
I need evidence.
Before I forget everything again.
Seriously... what the hell?
Tsk.
There was no point in wasting any more time.
I think I should take a shower first.
At least then my body might feel alive again.
...
I yawned.
This is exhausting.
I stretched my limbs. My entire body felt stiff.
Crack.
"Ah... Seriously? My whole body is exhausted."
"How was it again...?"
"Ah. The Seer potion, right...?"
What was it supposed to do?
Would it be like something from a game, a temporary power that could only be used once?
Or would the power become permanent?
From what little I knew, I understood that it was composed of main ingredients and supplementary ingredients.
Seer Potion
Main Ingredients:
- 10 milliliters of Lavos squid blood.
- 50 grams of Star Crystal.
Supplementary Ingredients:
- 100 milliliters of purified water.
- 13 drops of Night Vanilla Liquids.
- 7 Golden Mint leaves.
- 3 drops of poisonous hemlock.
- 9 grams of Dragon Blood Grass powder.
Hmm...
Tap. Tap.
I picked up my phone and opened the search engine.
After several minutes, I finally found some results.
Several of these ingredients could be obtained.
Others were far more difficult.
I had never heard of Star Crystal, Night Vanilla Liquids, or Dragon Blood Grass.
Could they simply have different names?
At least the list was specific.
I had watched all the Harry Potter movies, so I knew more or less how this kind of thing worked.
The problem now was figuring out where to get everything.
I had two days off.
I supposed I'd be busy during them, unless Komachi wanted to go somewhere.
I didn't have any extra assignments.
Nor did I have any friends I needed to keep up with.
What if secret organizations really do exist?
No.
What a stupid thought.
That was the kind of thing that only existed in novels.
Although...
After what happened last night, I couldn't dismiss the possibility so easily anymore.
I sighed.
Am I really going to continue with this?
I don't even know why.
I don't want to accomplish something by getting involved in something that could end up affecting me in the future.
...
After researching on the Internet, I began looking for the unfamiliar ingredients under different names.
Several were easy to find.
Others were the complete opposite.
Some couldn't be found at all.
I spent the entire afternoon trying to find some clue online, but all I encountered were reports about newly discovered plants and rare animal species.
Tomorrow, I'll buy the ingredients that are easy to obtain.
Since I'll be passing by the pier, I could take Komachi there for a walk.
Our parents were still worried.
They were already on their way home.
They would probably arrive tomorrow night.
You know, I'm a huge fan of Bloodborne and Souls-like games.
I've imagined countless times what it must have been like to fight all those bosses.
That's why I always say I'm just like Zaimokuza, or any other otaku.
I have plenty of experience with those kinds of worlds.
But experiencing something like that in reality would be completely different.
A setting like this in the real world would be nothing short of a catastrophe.
And that's without even mentioning all those anime with similar plots.
Note: Even though the story is set in 2016, several things that exist today are already present during this period.
An appearance like this...
Seriously, it would be paradise for all those weird chuunibyou types.
Not for me, though.
My highest priority, besides my own safety, is Komachi.
After all, one of the things I want in the future is to have a beautiful, wealthy wife and live as a happy househusband.
I'm lazy, so I wouldn't want to work if all I had to do was take care of the house and wait for my wife to come home.
"Onii-chan! It's time for dinner! Come downstairs!"
"Coming!"
As I stood up, I looked at the bright stars in the night sky and lost myself in thought.
I hope everything turns out all right.
In the end, everything will be fine.
And if it's not fine...
then we simply haven't reached the end yet.