The lunch bell is ringing. I smile vaguely as people stop me in the hall on my way to class—“Iwato, you just got here?” “Suzume, you look sick!”
“…So you finally decided to join us,” Aya says, exasperated. She’s in her seat by the window, picking at her lunch.
“Fashionably late,” says Mami with a half smile. She’s sitting next to Aya, eating an egg roll.
I force myself to smile as well and sit down facing them. The noise of the classroom at lunchtime and the calls of the gulls outside reach my ears like I’ve just remembered them. Practically on autopilot, I pull out my lunch box and open it.
“Here it comes, the auntie special!” Aya and Mami tease.
My rice ball is decorated with nori and fish flakes to look like a cartoon sparrow, matching my name. It has a big hairdo of egg shreds, a pea for a nose, and sausage cheeks. The egg roll, mini hot dog, and fried shrimp have faces, too. Packed with love, as usual. When they ask how long it took my aunt to make it, I laugh weakly, then look up at them. I can’t manage much of a smile.
“Hey, you know those ruins over in Kaminoura? The old hot-spring resort?” I ask them.
“There’s an old resort there? Did you know that, Aya?” Mami asks.
“Yeah, I’ve heard about it. They built it in the bubble era. Back in the hills over there,” Aya says. We all turn our gaze in the direction she’s pointing. Beyond the faded curtain swaying in the wind, the port town looks peaceful in the afternoon sun. A cape with some hills on it reaches around the little bay. That’s where I just was.
“So what about it?”
“There was a door…,” I start to say, before realizing my ardent desire to turn it all into a joke has withered. It wasn’t a dream. But it’s not something I can tell my friends. It’s too personal…
“Never mind,” I say.
“Hey, no fair! You have to tell us!” they reply at the exact same time. It’s so funny I finally smile for real. At the same time, I notice something. On the hill beyond their faces, a thin trail of smoke is rising.
“Is that a fire?”
“What, where?”
“Look, on that hill.”
“Where?”
“Right there! Where the smoke is!”
“I can’t see it.”
“…You can’t?”
My outstretched finger goes limp.
“Do you see it?” Aya asks Mami.
“Nope. I bet someone’s burning a field or something,” Mami answers, frowning.
I look at the hill again. Wavering, dark-red smoke is rising from halfway up the hill. I can see it crystal clear against the blue sky.
“Ah!” I gasp as my phone buzzes in my skirt pocket. The same buzzing is coming from everywhere. A stress-inducing, dissonant sound blares again and again—an earthquake warning. People are beginning to shout in the classroom.
“An earthquake?”
“No way, I just felt a shake!”
Panicking, I look at my phone. The emergency notification screen says to “cover your head and take other safety precautions.” I look around. The fluorescent lights hanging from the ceiling are starting to sway. A piece of chalk rolls off the teacher’s desk.
“There it goes!”
“I can feel it!”
“Think it’s a big one?”
Everyone is frozen, holding their breath, trying to figure out how bad it will be. The lights are swinging in wider arcs now, and the window frames are starting to creak. The floor is moving slightly. But the shaking seems to be subsiding. The warning buzzer fades, and everyone’s phones go quiet.
“…Is it over?”
“Yeah, it’s over. That wasn’t anything.”
“I was freaking out.”
“There’s been a lot of earthquakes lately.”
“I’m used to it by now.”
“You shouldn’t let your guard down.”
“Those warnings are so overdramatic.”
The relieved murmurs and receding tension in the classroom feel far away. My back is still drenched with sweat.
“Hey,” I say hoarsely.
“What?” Aya asks, looking at me. I know it’s going to be the same as before, but I can’t help asking anyway.
“Look over there.”
What looks like an enormous tail has grown from the hill on the cape. Before, I would’ve guessed it was smoke, but now it’s fatter and taller. It looks like a huge, translucent serpent, or a bundle of twisted rags, or a red current of water sucked into a tornado. It swirls lackadaisically toward the sky. My body is shivering, screaming out that this is something bad, something really bad.
“Suzume, you haven’t been making sense since you got here.”
“Are you feeling okay today? You’re not sick, are you?”
“…You can’t see it?” I whisper.
They’re both peering at me with concern. They can’t see it. Only I can. Big beads of sweat slide unpleasantly down my cheek.
“Suzume, wait!”
Without answering, I run out of the classroom, stumble down the stairs, fly across the schoolyard to my bike, and put in the key. I pedal as hard as I can. I ride up the slope next to the ocean, into the hills. I can see the reddish-black tail rising clearly out ahead of me. Flocks of crows and other birds are squawking as they circle the fat line rising toward the sky. But the people driving past me in their cars and the ones out fishing on the embankment aren’t looking at it. The town and its people are spending a leisurely summer afternoon just like always.
“Why doesn’t anyone—?! What is that thing?!”
I have to find out. I mean, what if it’s…? I jump off my bike and run up the same narrow path I took earlier. As I run, I look at the sky. The tail is like a broad river, muddy and viscous, running across the heavens while several streams are branching off of it. A red light that reminds me of lava flickers through its length. A steady, low rumble pounds beneath my feet, like something is being dragged out of the ground.
“It can’t be—,” I say as I run toward the abandoned resort. My lungs are burning, but my legs keep speeding up, like something is pulling them forward. I cross the stone bridge and run through the abandoned hotel lobby and down the hallway to the courtyard.
“It can’t, it can’t, it can’t—”
Suddenly, I notice a strange smell. It’s weirdly sweet and a bit singed and a little salty like the sea, reminding me of something I smelled a long time ago. I’m approaching a window. I can see through it into the courtyard.
“Aaah!”
It’s just as I feared—though I don’t understand how I knew. It’s the door. It’s coming from the door I opened. The muddy, reddish-black current is writhing violently from the door, like it’s enraged at the inadequate size of the opening.
I run down the hallway and finally reach the courtyard. Fifty meters ahead stands the white door spewing the muddy river.