"That thing's size..." He pointed up at the sky. "When it hits, the tsunami it raises will be thousands of meters high. Do you think a ship can get thousands of meters away?"
The first mate let go.
He slowly sank to his knees on the deck.
At the docks, countless travelers and merchants crowded the piers. They had been shoving and crying out for a long time.
But now the shoving gradually weakened, and the cries faded. More and more people stopped and looked up at the inescapable blackness.
Among the crowd, a young woman clutching a swaddled baby stumbled out of the residential district on the southern shore of Island Three.
Broken stones had cut her foot. Blood ran down her ankle, but she did not notice.
All she knew was to run with her child—to the harbor, toward any possible escape.
As she ran, her steps began to slow.
There was no one beside her anymore.
The neighbors and companions who had been running with her ten minutes ago had all stopped.
Some knelt in the middle of the street. Others stood against walls or sat on the edges of shattered flower beds. Every one of them stared up at the sky, their eyes vacant.
The young woman looked up too.
She saw it. The black meteor blotted out the sky, dark purple light flowing through its cracks.
It filled the entire sky. It was so vast that, for an instant, it drained even her strength to feel afraid.
At last, her legs gave way.
Holding her baby, she slowly sank to the roadside.
She did not cry. She only looked down at the child in her arms, wrapped him a little tighter, and shielded him with her body.
"Don't be scared, baby... Mommy's here... Mommy's here..."