I looked at my phone: it was 1 p.m. on July 16th. We’d entered the tunnel on the night of the 12th, which meant we’d been in there for more than three and a half days. Yet even after sacrificing that much time, we still had no idea how far the tunnel went. All we’d gleaned from that entire experience was that it had to be longer than three hundred meters.
Or, well, I suppose we did find one other thing. I looked at the stack of papers in my hand. Then I blinked, and in the next moment, they were gone.
“Wha…”
Anzu had snatched them away at the speed of light. Whatever these papers were, she clearly didn’t want me to see them, and as a result, I caught only the most fleeting glimpse of their contents.
“Hey, uh… Hanashiro?” I asked as she turned her back to me. “What exactly are those?”
“…nothing…”
“Sorry? I can’t hear you. Turn around and speak up a little, why don’t you?”
Anzu didn’t budge.
“Hellooo…?” I said. Still, no response. Getting impatient, I grabbed her by the shoulders and spun her around myself. However, when I saw her face, I froze.
Anzu’s eyes were watering. She was crying. As I stood there at a loss for words, she rubbed her eyes dry with her wrist and swiftly regained her composure.
“It’s nothing important. Don’t worry about it.”
“C’mon, now… You can’t expect me to believe that.”
Surely if the papers weren’t that important, she wouldn’t have been crawling on the ground trying to collect them like a rabid animal. From what I could tell, the papers themselves didn’t seem to be torn up or deteriorated in any way, so there was no way some random person had thrown them out inside the tunnel years and years ago—especially considering the inexplicable way they’d come fluttering from the ceiling. My guess was that they were another of the tunnel’s “impossible” finds, like Karen’s sandal and our old pet parakeet had been for me. But why a bunch of sheets of paper? And why was Anzu crying over them?
“Is that what you were wishing for?” I asked.
“No,” she replied.
“Then what is it? Just tell me straight, I promise I won’t judge.”
“There’s no point in explaining it.”
“You don’t know that. For all we know, it could give us a major clue toward solving the tunnel’s mysteries.”
“…I promise you it won’t.”
Anzu’s voice shook ever so slightly. Clearly there was some reason she didn’t want to tell me, not under any circumstances. I wondered if she would crack if I said her unwillingness to be upfront could present a major obstacle to the investigation…but I decided to let it go. Sure, maybe me knowing would give us a new lead to pursue, but if it would only come at the cost of driving a wedge between us, it wouldn’t be worth it. That kind of distrust might obstruct the investigation too, after all. However, there was one question I still wanted to ask.
“Then what is it you are after? What wish do you want the tunnel to grant?”
“I…” Anzu began but then stopped short—almost like the words caught in the back of her throat. A good ten seconds passed before she finally managed to stutter out the rest. “…I’m not sure yet, actually. I guess I figured I’d find out somewhere along the way.”
“Wait, seriously…? You’re risking years of your life without even a concrete goal in mind?”
“Oh, I have a goal in mind,” she fired back. “I want to be someone. Someone extraordinary.”
“Uh… Okay? In what way?”
“I mean, think about it—a mysterious space where the flow of time itself turns fragile, but with the promise of granting any wish? What more extraordinary experience could there possibly be than venturing into a place that bends the laws of the universe?”
“I’m not sure having extraordinary experiences makes you an extraordinary person, though.”
“That’s where you’d be wrong. It is precisely what makes people extraordinary.”
Now my head was starting to hurt.
“But why are you so obsessed with being ‘extraordinary’?” I demanded, rising to my feet as my patience grew thin.
Suddenly, Anzu looked lost and confused, like a child who’d become separated from her mother at the supermarket. In fact, I’d never seen her look so vulnerable before. Then, after a few moments of hesitation, she answered calmly:
“When I was thirteen years old, my grandfather passed away.”
A warm breeze blew by. The leaves rustled overhead. A twinge of regret shot through me like a rush of adrenaline, and I bit down softly on the inside of my cheek. “…Sorry.”
“No need to apologize.”
“I take it the two of you were pretty close…?”
“Not really… Barely knew the guy. Can’t even remember what he looked like now.”
“Oh, uh… I see…”
“It still terrified me,” she explained. “The way he died, yet nothing changed. Like, shockingly little was different. Sure, a few people shed tears for him at his funeral, but I can guarantee none of those people were still crying about it a week later. Death comes for us all in the end, and we kind of just have to accept that in order to cope through life until we ultimately kick the bucket ourselves. Not like denying the human condition will keep the reaper at bay, after all. Then once you’re gone, any traces of you ever having been alive will slowly fade away and be swallowed by the sands of time. With very, very few exceptions, every single person alive today will be long forgotten even just two hundred years from now. That’s what my grandfather’s death made me realize.”
Her tone gradually grew more and more imperative.
“It’s pretty distressing, don’t you think? The thought of dying and leaving nothing behind. The world not changing one iota from your having been in it. Makes you wonder what the point of living in the first place is, you know? Like, why are we even here? Why bother putting in all the effort to live if only to suffer and die and be forgotten? That’s what makes the thought of being ordinary so terrifying to me. That’s why I’m so determined to be someone. Someone who’ll be remembered. Who’ll actually leave an unforgettable mark on this world. Someone extraordinary.”
I was stunned. Speechless. Anzu had gone from zero to full-on existential crisis in no time flat. This wasn’t the sort of thing I could respond to with a noncommittal “Yeah, I hear ya,” or “Couldn’t have said it better myself.” I had to respect the sincerity with which she’d chosen her words and respond in kind.