Beneath the clear May sky, I lay in a grassy field, drowning.
Plankton-like shapes were jumping around across the backdrop of the blue sky. It was what it looked like when you could see the white blood cells in your eyes—or so I had read somewhere.
The wind caressing my upturned face carried the stench of raw fish. I had no idea if it really was fish or not. Since coming to the Otherside, I hadn’t seen a single fish, after all.
I had fallen flat on my back in the middle of grass taller than me. The roots of the grass were submerged in water, so my back was soaked, too. It was what you might call a half-bath.
No, that’s wrong. Completely wrong. You wouldn’t call it that.
If anything, it was like one of the lie-down baths at the super bathhouse. Although, the water was a bit over 20 centimeters deep, so if I didn’t make an effort to keep my face above the water, it would pour in through my nose and mouth. There was no lie-down bath like that, and if there was it’d be torture. The lie-down bath of death.
In fact, I was getting closer to death by the second. My Uniqlo fleece and my camo pants were heavy with water. It had been... how many minutes since I ended up like this? There wasn’t a clock in sight, so I didn’t know how long it had been, but I wasn’t going to be able to keep my face above water for much longer. My neck was cramped and hurt, and my abs had refused to stop quivering for a while now. I just didn’t have the strength. You know when you try to run in a dream, and your legs flop around, not moving at all like you want them to? That’s exactly what it was like. My limbs were practically paralyzed. They had been ever since I saw that thing.
I never saw this coming—I was naive. I’d found this world, got excited, headed in to explore, then ultimately ran into something dangerous and ended up close to drowning.
What would happen if I died here? In the surface world, were they going to talk about the mysterious disappearance of a twenty-year-old female university student? Eagh, they were bound to write all sorts of things about me that weren’t true.
That’d suck. I’m sorry, Mom.
...No. If I was being honest, even if I up and vanished, no one was really going to care much. I had no friends, so the only ones I’d be troubling were the people in the university office who would notice I hadn’t paid my school fees, and the people at the student support organization who noticed I was behind on my student loan repayment.
Thinking about that only made it hurt more.
Even if I did make it to graduation, it was basically guaranteed I would be inundated by student loan debt. With my future looking as dark as it was, maybe dying here in the Otherside wasn’t so bad after all...?
...Still, I don’t want it to be painful or excruciating.Just how much were you supposed to suffer when drowning, again? I started to think, then I heard something nearby.
The sound of grass parting. Footsteps in the water... approaching. An animal? From the sound of the footsteps, whatever it was was reasonably large.
What could it be? It wasn’t just fish... I hadn’t seen any animal fit to be called one here in the Otherside. Not being able to see what it was through the grass was only making me feel more uneasy.
I considered laying low, but it was no use. They must have heard me gasping as I tried to come up for air, because a voice came from the other side of the grass.
“Is someone there?”
They’re human!
Caught by surprise, I couldn’t speak.
It was a young woman’s voice with an out-of-place sound of cheer in her tone, like she was going on a stroll through the park on a fine day. Meanwhile, here I was, inching ever closer to death.
“...Could it be, Satsuki?” the voice asked. Who was that? Not me, that was for sure.
While I was confused, the voice became worried, and spoke up again. “Hey, should I come help? Or are you dead already?”
“Ah! Ah! I’m not de—”
I opened my mouth, despite not having meant to, and water rushed in. The liquid that filled my mouth had no taste. None at all. Bwah. I hurriedly spat it out, and tried again.
“I’m alive! Help!”
While I was screaming shamelessly, I remembered... The reason I’d ended up like this in the first place was still around here somewhere.
“W-Watch out. There’s a dangerous one nearby,” I stammered.
“Dangerous? What’s it like?”
“W-White, and wiggling...”
When I tried to explain it, the image of that thing came back into my mind. Instantly, I was engulfed by an intensely sickening feeling, and I groaned.
I shut my eyes tight, trying to endure, but the white image in my brain grew more and more vivid, my mind being pulled towards it even as I knew that was a bad idea, and my head felt like it was being twisted around.
“Urgh...”
“What’s wrong?”
“When you see it, it messes with your head... You can’t look...” That was all I managed to say, and then my willpower and stamina both gave out.
My mind fell into an eddy of unceasing dizziness. My face sank into the tasteless water. Bubbles poured out of my mouth.
The sky I was looking up to swayed in the water. The bubbles rose to the sky, and the clouds burst.
Then...
Into that empty sky, devoid of birds, divided into nothing but white and blue, a bright golden color descended.
I felt a hand behind my neck, my body being lifted. It was almost too easy, the way I was saved from the water.
While I was soaked and blinking, the owner of the voice smiled at me.
“I thought you were Ophelia,” she said.
“Huh?” I replied.
No, I got it. I knew who Ophelia was, at least. There’s that famous painting of her, like she’s in the lie-down bath of death, drowning. I saw it on Wikipedia.
That wasn’t it. When I looked up at her, I was taken aback.
She was ridiculously beautiful.