Epilogue
The smell of gas.
He came running from somewhere far away, flying across incredible distances home. Wataru shot up from bed with the momentum of his arrival.
I’m in my room!
School notes and textbooks piled up on the desk. Mom’s hand-knit cushion on the seat of the chair. Dictionaries and an encyclopedia set on the bookshelf. Behind the encyclopedias: game strategy guides, a row of comic books, and a secret piggybank with money to buy Eldritch Stone Saga III.
My room. My home. But why does it smell like gas?
The air conditioner was turned off. An unpleasant, dangerous stench hung in the air.
Wataru threw off the covers and jumped out of bed. “Mom!” He shouted, running out into the living room. The door to his mother’s bedroom was open. A strong smell of gas came drifting from the kitchen.
She left the door open so the gas could fill her room.
Holding his breath, Wataru dashed into the kitchen and almost turned on the light, his hand stopping just before the switch.
Stop, stupid! If the switch lets off a spark this whole place will blow.
Wataru withdrew his hand, then, groping behind the oven, found the main gas valve and turned it off.
Returning to the living room, he opened all of the windows. Nervously, he tiptoed into his mother’s room. She was lying there on her side, her face as pale as the moon. Her head was on her pillow and she was facing the ceiling. The summer coverlet on her bed was thin, but even so Wataru could barely see her form beneath it—that’s how much weight she lost in the short time since Dad left.
But you don’t have to die. Please don’t die.
The curtains in the bedroom were heavy and thick, and easily slid out of Wataru’s hands. He jumped up and grabbed them, but ended up in a heap on the floor when the whole curtain rod detached from the wall. Still, he let his heart give a cheer of victory. Wataru scrambled to his feet and opened the window.
I made it in time! Mom’s going to be okay. I’ll save her! I can save her!
He had returned from Vision to the real world at the same point he had left—when Mitsuru had come through the Corridor of Light to save him.
The gas smell was thinning. Still, Wataru ran through the darkened rooms, down the hall, running into walls and furniture, until he was out the front door. He hoped the neighbors would wake up in time.
“Can I borrow your phone?! Hello? This is Wataru Mitani, I live next door! I need to call an ambulance!”
It was a dark night in the real world, with no moon. Only the gently flickering fluorescent lights in the apartment hallway watched over Wataru’s frantic struggle for help.
Uncle Lou came right away, driving straight in from Chiba. The two sat side by side in the hallway outside the emergency room at the hospital. It was three in the morning.
“You were lucky to have found her so quickly,” the doctor told Wataru. “We have to keep a close watch on her until she regains consciousness. But I have every reason to believe she’ll pull through just fine. You did well, son.”
The doctor was young himself. He had come out to greet the ambulance with a sleepy look on his face when they arrived through the emergency entrance. But when the stretcher came out, he was all business. There was work to be done. Doctors are a bit like Highlanders in that way, Wataru thought.
They checked out Wataru too. Spots in your eyes? No. Does it hurt to breathe? Not at all. Does your head hurt? I’m fine.
I’m fine. Is it all right if I stay until Mom wakes up?
So he had sat with his uncle waiting, just the two of them. The bench in the hallway was made for adults, and Wataru’s legs swung in the air when he sat up. He kicked them back and forth. I’m a full-fledged Highlander. Why am I sitting here like a little kid?
Then he remembered. I’m not a Highlander, not anymore. I don’t have my Brave’s Sword. Or the power of the gemstones.
I’m just Wataru Mitani.
“Municipal gas won’t kill you, you know,” Uncle Lou muttered. His shoulders were sagging, and his large hands hung limp between his knees.
Wataru had heard something like that before. That’s right, Mitsuru. Municipal gas isn’t poisonous enough to be fatal. But if a spark catches it on fire…
And Mitsuru’s gone. Or wait, maybe he’s not! What if he’s back here in the real world?
“Aren’t you sleepy, Wataru?” Uncle Lou asked. He hadn’t shaved in a while, and his face was scratchy with stubble. His big eyes blinked sorrowfully.
He looked just like Kee Keema when the big waterkin was in a sour mood. The same giant frame, the same gentle heart.
“I’m fine, really.”
“Well, if you get sleepy, my shoulder’s all yours.”
“Thanks.”
He wasn’t tired, but suddenly an uncontrollable wave of emotion rose up inside him, and Wataru clung to his uncle’s arm. Uncle Lou put his arm around Wataru’s shoulders.
For a minute, nobody said anything.
“I’m sorry,” Uncle Lou said at last. “You’ve been put through all this, and it’s not your fault at all. It’s really not fair. Not fair at all.”
His voice trembled and broke slightly, like the unshed tears he was holding inside.
“Uncle Lou?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you remember us meeting?”
His uncle turned and looked Wataru from head to toe. “What are you talking about?” His tired face had a look of honest confusion.
Then Wataru remembered: it had been after he got the second gemstone and passed through the Corridor of Light that he had met his uncle. His mother was already in the hospital then, and Uncle Lou had come in just as Wataru was getting ready to leave. But she just got to the hospital now. That hasn’t happened yet.
Then Wataru thought, I’m already here, back in the real world. Maybe it will never happen at all.
Somehow, the time he’d spent in Vision hadn’t registered here in the real world. Finally, the full impact of it hit him. That’s what it meant to come back to an apartment filled with gas—the same apartment at the same time he had left it. While he had been running around Vision, here, back in the real world, nothing had happened.
That raised a lot of questions. Where was Mitsuru Ashikawa? What about Kaori Daimatsu? And Kenji Ishioka, for that matter?