“And this is the one I brought.”

I sit down where I am, bring the urn close to my face, and shine the light on it. The porcelain was shiny before, but now it’s thickly covered with moss. It must have been a very long time. I put a thought that’s been inside me all this time into words.

“…Then I was swapping with the Mitsuha from three years ago?”

I untie the braided cord sealing the lid. Underneath, there’s a cork stopper.

“Were we three years out of sync? Did the swapping stop because she died three years ago when the meteorite fell?”

I pull out the cork. The faint scent of alcohol rises. I pour the sake into the lid.

“Half of her…”

I bring the light closer to it. The sake is clear, with several tiny particles floating in it. They reflect the light, glittering in the liquid.

“Musubi. Twisting and tangling, sometimes coming undone, then reuniting…”

I raise the lidful of sake to my lips.

“If time really can ‘come undone,’ then… Just one more time…”

Take me to her! I wish and down it in one gulp. When I swallow, the sound is so conspicuous it startles me. A lump of heat travels through my body. As it hits the bottom of my stomach, it bursts, scattering through me.

“……”

But nothing happens.

For a little while, I sit very still.

I’m not used to alcohol, and I feel a little warm. My head feels slightly vague and dizzy… But that’s all.

It’s no good. It didn’t work.

I put one knee up, then stand. Abruptly, my feet tangle. My vision spins. I’m falling, I think.

…That’s weird.

I’ve fallen over backward, but no matter how much time passes, my back doesn’t hit the ground. My field of view rotates, slowly, up to the roof of the cave. My phone is still in my left hand. The light illuminates the ceiling.

“The comet…!”

Involuntarily, I say it out loud.

There’s a drawing of an enormous comet up there.

It’s a very old picture, carved into the rock: a giant traveling star, trailing its long tail across the heavens. The red and blue pigments catch the light and shimmer. Gradually, the picture begins rising away from the ceiling of the cave.

I stare.

The image, the illustrated comet, is falling toward me.

Slowly, it bears down until it’s nearly on top of me. It blazes with the heat of its friction against the atmosphere, and the lump of rock fuses into glass, shining like a jewel. Even those details are clear to me.

I fall back, and my head hits the rock at the exact moment the comet strikes my body.

Falling forever.

Or maybe rising.

In the midst of this indistinct floating sensation, the comet shines in the night sky.

Without warning, it splits, and half of it comes plummeting down.

The meteorite strikes a village in the mountains. Many people die. A lake forms, and the village is destroyed.