Outside of the mock parliament building was the usual amusement park.
What a strange sight— although, from what I saw when I passed by here before, some of the details are different, like the lined up buildings and attractions are subtly changing. I don’t remember clearly, so it might just be my imagination, though.
Distancing ourselves from the building, I chased after Utena, who was running fairly desperately, enough to seem like she would fall any second. And then I turned around.
My sight was blocked by the tall Torii, who was behind us, so I stepped over to the side. Once again, I looked back at the building we were just in— and was struck dumb by what I saw there. The building was burning rather bizarrely, as if it was made out of paper. There were flames wrapped around the whole thing and, like paper, it crumpled while it burned before collapsing. Sparks flew all around, and some sound rang out that hurt my ears. Soon the building will burn down entirely, at this rate.
I understand that the building caught fire because of the falling TVs, but this fire is too strong. If we kept loitering around in that building we would have definitely been consumed by the flames and been sent to meet our maker.
“Woah.” Dumbfounded, I stared at the giant fire. For some reason the surrounding buildings gave no hint of catching fire, but from how violently the building was burning, we should be as far away as we can get.
Let’s put a little more distance between us and the fire... Belatedly, I realized that I was just exposed to a very real threat on my life, and my legs started to shake. It seems Utena was the same, as she kept opening and closing her mouth with no words coming out.
I wonder if the concept of time exists in this strange space? Our surroundings have definitely begun to darken in the sunset. It’ll probably progress into night, eventually— but just like a real amusement park, lights started coming on here and there.
If this place isn’t open during the night, too, it should eventually become closing time. Somehow, the number of visitors whose faces I couldn’t perceive well seem to have dwindled. It was a vaguely sad sight.
The heat from the fire felt like it was sticking to me. Hating this sensation, I gave Utena a push on the back and aimlessly started to distance ourselves even more. I just noticed, but my hand was dirty with soot, and I left a black handprint on the back of Utena’s uniform. She’ll probably be mad if she notices. All of our faces and clothes are probably already dirty with soot, though. Kicked out and with nowhere to go, we continued wandering around the park.
“Wow, what a fire,” Torii, who followed us quietly, muttered to herself. “Even from far away, you can tell that it’s a fire. Kurashima-san should have noticed.”
“It really is weird, isn’t it,” I agreed with her. “I wonder where he is?”
It seems Torii meant to say that to herself, because when I replied to her she seemed surprised, and suddenly went quiet. What a weird person.
“Yeah, I’m worried about him,” Utena sullenly interjected. “He told us to wait there, but the entire building’s burnt down, hasn’t it... What should we do? Ahhhhhh I want to take a bath. This is the worst. The worst. The worst!” Half crying, Utena repeatedly hit her hands against her skirt. She was probably planning to pat off the dust, but it had the opposite effect, covering her skirt in soot.
“Hey—” Looking up, Utena’s eyes were opened wide like a circle.
“Huh? What?” Prompted by her words, I followed her line of sight. On top of the building we were just in stood something black, backlit by the sunset and the fire— I saw a huge arm. Like a shadow puppet, it was black and flat looking, in the shape of an abnormally gigantic arm.
That hand was gripping something that looked like chopsticks...no...a set of tongs. Occasionally reaching towards the ground, it used those tongs to pick something up.
It picked up things like the trash cans placed around the park, or colorful and cutely decorated long and narrow buildings— which were probably something like a warehouse or storage space for tools.
It picked them up and carried them off somewhere. The hand was pretty sloppy about it, and sometimes the trash cans would turn upside down, spilling their contents.
The TVs that rained down on the building we had been in were, apparently, byproducts of this. There was a long and narrow building, that had previously been packed full with TVs, which was spilling its contents. Punching buildings full of holes like meteorites, the TVs were causing major damage.
What the heck is that... It seems like something that cleans the park and retrieves all the trash. But it’s way too big, and even more suspicious.
Or rather...
“Oohh,” I realized, “So that was it.” The reason I was falling from so high up when I wandered in here was because I was inside whatever that weird janitor(?) with the tongs had been picking up. And I had fallen out of that and onto the earth.
Although how I’m fine after falling from that height is still a mystery. Somehow, some part of me feels like it’s not worth worrying about... I felt refreshed after finally getting an answer. If asked “So what” I’d have a hard time answering, but I suppose this information confirmed that this strange space has a concept of causality— that it follows, at least, some sort of logic or rules. I’m somewhat relieved.
This means that as long as you follow the right steps, it’s possible to escape from this amusement-park-shaped alternate dimension. My life is getting put in danger pretty frequently here, so I’d like to quit this place as soon as possible. Still, what should I do? At this moment, we still haven’t found a clue about how to leave.
Next to me, busy groaning in tortured thought, Utena looked lonely as she caressed her own cheek. “I wonder where Yuudai-kun went. We should meet up— it really is inconvenient not to have a smartphone in these situations. I’m a bit tired, so I’ll take a rest.” Stating this so one-sidedly, Utena sat down on a nearby bench, and whether it was because she’d just started to get tired, or because she was relieved to have evaded the danger, started nodding off. Resting because she’s tired, I thought, she’s a child that will only do what she wants.
Torii came up behind Utena, who was sitting on the bench, and— for some reason— chose to stand there. It didn’t really feel right for me to sit down and rest next to Utena while Torii, who was older than me, remained standing, so I just stood still, instead.