The sky didn’t roar. It simply opened.

“Identify,” he whispered. Then, louder: “Identify!”

No answer came from the thing wading ashore.

A child on a rooftop—a little girl named Eri who had sneaked up to watch the storm—was the only one close enough to see. She did not run. She had no running left in her; her mother had died in the last quake, and the world had already ended once for her. So she sat cross-legged on the wet concrete, her red raincoat pooling around her, and she watched the monster stand still as a mountain.

Not angry. Not hungry. Lost.

He looked confused.

And for one breath, one impossible pause between one wave and the next, the creature’s jaw unhinged just a fraction. Not a roar. A sound like a whale singing through granite, a low thrum that vibrated in Eri’s ribs and made her teeth ache. It was not a weapon. It was a question.