Prologue: Awakening

2019.

The green light exploding from what someone would later call "Medusa" engulfed the whole planet Earth, petrifying all humanity... sans the six astronauts resident on the International Space Station.

While the cause couldn't be localizable with precision, Ishigami Byakuya hypothized that the epicenter of the phenomenon could be near Central or South America, so the safest place to land and launch a rescue mission was Japan (which was also where his adopted son petrified form lied, but that wasn't actually important... No, really!).

Thus, no one (that we know of) was nearby when the shock of the petrification beam awakened something.

Deep, inside the lush Amazonian rainforest, cyan eyes blinked open after centuries of dormancy, while cat-like ears and tail flickered lazily to regain mobility after so much stillness. The creature placidly scanned its surroundings, finding no wildlife, so it stretched its back then dropped down from the stone shrine it had been nestled in.

A flicker of light shone and a parrot-like bird with an unusual crest resembling the flag of a musical note (i.e. a quaver) soared above the canopy of the trees, surveying the rainforest until reaching a camp belonging to a troupe of documentarist.

The note-parrot chirruped as it perched on a cameraman's shoulder, then it lightly pecked the petrified cheek, obviously not getting a response. It repeated the action with every statue with the same result.

Getting visibly distressed, it took off once more and searched for hours before finding a city. Once bustling with activity, now it was silent and ghost-like.

There was another shimmer of light and a swallow-like bird zoomed around the statues-filled streets.

The bipedal creatures that once had been its pets (and sometimes companions), now had become stone like the shapeshifter had been for perhaps millennia.

How had it been possible? How had the shapeshifter awaken if the humans had become rock? How had the shapeshifter itself turned into stone in the first place?

The last question made the being pause and shimmer one last time, going back to its original form, which hovered above a fountain. It sat down on the marble edge, pink tail swishing behind it in distress.

It had forgot.

Much like the humans now, it had become a prisoner too.

And neither occasions had explanation...

...but maybe its nakàma had some ideas, either if they had been awaken the whole time or they just had.

Some were smarter than it, so they would certainly figure out.

With a new purpose in mind, the being with thousand names zoomed off, in search of food and old nakàma.

A/N. So... the plot-bunny assaulted my writer block and prompted me to write this. The typing was a painful experience though, since I'm using the Doc Manager of FFnet that doesn't have the English auto-corrector (or at least point out what I'm doing wrong), so I had to check thrice and I'm still not sure.

[This is also why I'm having a hard time to complete PMD: M(S)M and Haunted Drabbles. TTOTT

To celebrate the newly found will to write, I've joined Ao3 too! So check over there at the same username JadeNoRyuu!]

Anyway, this was a simple teasing, the chapter where things actually start moving is the next. I've already written it on paper, so I'll try to trasfer it on screen as soon as I can.

What will happen next? You'll discover it later! Type ya soon!