Whack!
The table top flew into the air. It smashed into the wall closest to me, breaking into many small pieces. My eyes were wide open, so I witnessed the whole thing. But I didn’t at all understand what had happened. All I knew for sure was that my head was still properly attached to my body.
“Mgyaa,” Mugi cried from somewhere. He was close. I got it, it was you. It took a minute for my brain to process in this condition. Mugi had saved me. Wow! Nice work! Incredible!
Trying to get a look at Mugi and thinking about the inevitable death I just escaped, I focused all my energy on lifting my head. The pain was massive, and it felt like my neck was about to snap. Using pure will power, I did all I could to ignore the pain.
I was able to get my head up. But no one was there. All I could see was the screen broadcasting the whiteout. Where did everyone go? Don’t make me turn my head any more.
The next moment.
I saw the unimaginable.
The dining room tore in half. It all happened in under a second. The back of the dining room. Where the screen was. Suddenly, it was gone. The sound of boards being snapped, the sound of plastic being crushed, the sound of metal being torn. These noises were all mixed together and filled my ears. And then the far end of the room was just gone.
A bright light filled the room, and I could see the blue sky outside. The bright sun hung in the sky. I squinted my eyes. Where there once was a wall, was now a bare opening, and I could see the view outside perfectly.
Damn. What could I compare it to? Got it. A crocodile. It looked like a crocodile had bitten off one side of a wood crate. The dining room being the wood crate. And the croc’s jaws were see-through. As in they were invisible. The point of separation was torn roughly. The room and everything in it was still at an angle.
I felt another shock come. It felt like it was coming from below, and I put my head down.
Hyaa!
I screamed. It was breaking. The ship. It was being destroyed.
It was biting down. The invisible jaws onto the dining room. No, the whole ship, from the side. The supports began to grate and creak loudly. The entire room began to vibrate. The strain was getting worse. The floor was now at such an angle that I slid down to the corner between the wall and floor.
My hand felt something. I couldn’t turn my head, so I wasn’t able to see what it was. I grabbed onto it. It was soft. It was Yuri’s hand. I was sure of it. Yuri, it’s me! It’s Kei!
My body felt hot. I saw a bright light inside my head. This, this sensation was… But why now?!
The bright light exploded. White. Everything white. Aah, this was ecstasy. I was carried away. Spreading out. My body was floating. What’s that? What’s that I see above the light?
Another explosion. Dim. Darkness came. I became numb. My consciousness. Being sucked away. Spinning. Falling.
Then.
I didn’t know anything.
“…”
I figured it out first.
I awoke to a sharp pain.
Someone was stroking my face. Was their hand wet? No, it was too soft to be a hand. Stop it. It tickles. I’m awake. Stop!
My eyes opened.
But it was completely dark. No, that’s not right. It wasn’t dark. It was black.
“Mgyaa!”
The black mass in front of my eyes spoke. When it opened its mouth I could see its red tongue and white fangs. That’s Mugi! That was Mugi’s red tongue that was stroking my face. He was licking me. Hey! No wonder it tickled.
I put out my hand and grabbed one of the feelers that sprouted from Mugi’s shoulders to pull myself up.
Doing so, everything went dark. I thought I had vertigo, so I stopped moving, but that wasn’t it. I tried to find one point with my eyes, but my entire body started shaking. It wasn’t that I was dizzy, but that I had fallen asleep in an unstable and unsteady location.
But where the hell was I?
I turned over to see where I was.
Hoo boy.
I was amazed.
I can’t express my bewilderment in words.
It was a giant plank.
And that was all. It was a piece of scrap about five meters long. It wasn’t a perfect square, but, well, pretty close. It must have been a piece of the El Santo ceiling or deck. The plank was made of plastic. It was thick, and seemed sturdy.
I had been asleep on the plastic plank. It wasn’t only me. Both Yuri and the mayor were there, too. And, Mugi, of course. There was no doubt Mugi’d gathered us together and carried us onto the plank. We gotta get away from this disaster. That’s probably what Mugi was thinking when he rescued us.
The plank was floating somewhere in the middle of the lake. I don’t know that it was actually the middle, but looking around, I couldn’t see the shore in any direction. So it might as well have been smack in the middle. Even if we’d had a way to paddle, I wouldn’t have had the foggiest idea which way to go.
“Un, uun.”
I heard a groan. It was Yuri.
As I was thinking, Mugi had proceeded to lick Yuri’s face. That brought Yuri back to consciousness.
“Wake up, sleepyhead! Chop chop!”
I helped Mugi wake her up. I slapped her lightly on the cheeks. “That hurts!”
Yuri opened her eyes and awoke angry.
“We’re drifting in the water.”
I calmly told her what was going on, allowing her to take it in as she woke up fully.
“What?!”
Shocked, she jumped up.
There was water all around us. As far as the eye could see. There was no sign of land anywhere.
“Where’s the ship?” she asked, looking at me distressed. Yuri was a little slow at grasping the situation.
“I am not sure if it sank or if it broke into pieces, but I am sure we are on top of the last of the remains.”
I pointed down. Her eyes followed my finger.
“Isn’t this a piece of the ship?”
“Like I told you, we’re floating adrift on the water.”
“Do we have a motor”
“What do you think?!”
“Aah! What’s going on?!”
Again, a shout of surprise rose through the air. This time it was the mayor’s voice. Mugi hadn’t licked his face, so it seemed he’d woken up on his own. That’s a fine man. We explained to the mayor how it seemed some invisible jaws had torn open the ship and how Mugi must have rescued us and that now we were stuck on a plastic plank floating in the middle of the lake.
“Are you sure about the invisible fangs?” the mayor asked, leaning forward.
“If you asked me for proof, I couldn’t help you, but that’s how it looked to me,” I replied. “And look here.”
I pointed to the edge of the plastic plank.
“Wouldn’t you say that looks like some kind of bite mark?”
“What could this…” said the mayor, stretching his neck.
“Yuri, this reminds me of the wound in the old man’s neck. Just at a bigger scale—
“Here!” Yuri snapped her fingers. “It’s about ten times the scale, but there’s no mistaking. This is exactly the same mark as the invisible fangs.”
“Are you saying this one was full-grown?”
The mayor was still stretching his neck out.
“The bite marks on Landis also looked like the bite marks on the old man. The scale was about twice as big in that case, but they looked exactly the same. You could easily tell. I’d never seen anything like it in the entire galaxy.”
“If the mayor is targeting the owner, maybe then the owner has a hand in these attacks,” said Yuri.
“That would be unthinkable,” said the mayor, shaking his head. “If that were true, I would have heard about it through my intelligence network. In regards to the owner, I can safely say that my information network is flawless.”
“Then who is behind these fangs…”
“Mgyaa” Mugi called out. Wondering what he was doing, I turned only to see him looking up into the sky, his feelers wriggling. No, it wasn’t only his feelers. The fine hair where his ears should be were vibrating. This Mugi was up to something.
Then it became obvious.
“Look!” screamed Yuri, pointing at the sky.
The sun was behind us. Mugi was also staring the same way.
“Something’s flying this way. It looks like an airship!”
“Really?!”
The mayor tried to stand up. The plank started rocking from his movements. Numbskull! Take a look around! Be more careful!
“It’s a chopper! A helicopter!” Yuri verified looking through her binoculars. At that point I could still only see a black dot. If it was a helicopter, Mugi could have broadcast our location to it. That’s what he’d been doing when he was vibrating the fine hairs.
“Aa!” Yuri yelped in surprise. She shook the binoculars excitedly. What is it that you saw? Is there something else flying towards us?
“It’s Jeff! Jeff is the pilot!” Yuri shouted. Coming this way, you said?! Jeff, you said?!
I snatched the binoculars from Yuri’s hand. I searched for the helicopter, desperately trying to line up the sights.
Yes, yes, it appeared that Jeff was riding in the helicopter.
“I wonder why Jeff is the one to—” Yuri mumbled.
Please! Of course it’s Jeff coming out here.
We left him behind, remember?