Chapter 4: The Door to Eina (1) |
I don’t really remember what happened after that. When I came to, I was still in Eina’s town.
I was walking around places that were photographed on her posts.
Searching for a trace of her.
I kept up my futile search, wondering if she might still be alive.
The cherry tree was obviously not in bloom. The gym at her elementary school had also been repainted.
The town had gradually changed over the last five years.
Eina’s posts had suddenly stopped five years ago. If the writer died, of course the posts would stop.
And then I arrived.
To the location of the landslide.
It was a place that hadn’t changed since five years ago.
If you were caught up in this, you wouldn’t come back alive.
“Eina…” I called. She was under the ground here, because she hadn’t gone home.
“Eina!”
It must have hurt and ached. How must it have felt? Or did it happen suddenly, without her knowing anything?
I clutched my phone.
The strap she had given me was attached to it.
The phone that was connected to Eina.
Why couldn’t I save her?
Why…?
Why!?
“Eina!!”
The silence returned to the hill after my cry, my voice echoing fruitlessly, and then…
Vzzzt, vzzzt.
My phone vibrated in my hand.
The vibration was loud enough that I could hear it.
Even as I asked myself who would call me at a time like this, I followed my habit and looked at the screen.
It was an unknown number.
A sense of unease settled in my chest.
Or maybe it was hope.
Even as I was terrified of the betrayal, even though I didn’t want to be hurt anymore, I couldn’t stop my hand from answering it.
The call connected.
《Shuu-san!?》
It was her lovely, beautiful soprano.
“Eina!?”
I couldn’t have misheard it, but I had to ask.
《No way! It worked!!》
She didn’t answer my question, but it was definitely Eina.
The pouring of the rain came through the speakers, she was in the rain.
I remembered her cousin saying how she had gone up the hills behind their house in the storm and a chill ran down my back.
“Eina, are you outside!? If you are, hurry back home!”
《Shuu-san? That’s you, right? I’m sorry, I can’t hear you.》
Beep.
The call cut off.
“Fuck, of all times.”
Gripping my phone, I looked down.
I called again.
“Connect, please…” but it showed no signs of doing so, “Eina! Please be safe, Eina!”
I couldn’t help but call her name.
And then, I noticed the strap on my phone shining faintly.
It was a mascot version of the demon I had played. I frowned and looked at it.
The light was getting brighter and brighter, until it was so strong I had trouble keeping my eyes open.
A flash engulfed me and in the next instant, the world went black.
＊
There was a figure in front of me.
It was a small figure, like that of a girl.
She didn’t even come up to my chest.
She was soaked, and water clung to her long hair.
She was clutching a phone in front of her chest.
“Shuu-san!”
The girl… shouted.
“Eina… is that you?”
“Yes! I’m Eina!”
As she spoke, the girl ran towards me and hugged me, clinging to me.
I enveloped her in my arms.
We held each other for a while amidst the beating rain and howling winds.
“Shuu-san, you’re warm…”
“Thank goodness, you’re alive.”
“Right, but how are you here?” She asked.
“I don’t know either, I shouted for you at the place the disaster happened, and I ended up here somehow. The disaster!” I separated from her slightly and looked into her eyes, “Eina, it’s not safe here, if you stay here, you’ll get caught in a landslide and die.”
“Eh…?”
“I went to meet you five years from now. Sorry, I broke my promise. But I couldn’t bear not meeting you. Then your cousin told me you’d died. That you’d gone missing in this typhoon.”
Eina paled and I gripped her hand.
“It’s okay,” I told her, as gently as I could, “I made it, I’ll save you.”
At that, Eina’s stiff expression relaxed slightly.
In my relief, I swore to myself that I would save her.
“Right. Let’s hurry up and-”
A rumble sounded, drowning out my voice. Reflexively, I pulled her behind me by her hand. Immediately afterwards, the ground gave way in front of me. A shudder ran down my spine.
“…That was close.” Eina’s voice trembled.
“Anyway, let’s go home… Eina, which way did you come?”
Shakily, she pointed at the area that had just been covered in mud.
“We can’t walk on that, it’s too dangerous.”
I went to call 119 to get help, but my phone was out of service.
Of course it was, it was from five years in the future.
“Eina, sorry but can you phone 119? Ask for help.”
“Onee-chan broke my phone,” she said apologetically as she showed it to me. It had massive cracks running through the screen and body, “It doesn’t turn on anymore, it was like a miracle that I could phone you earlier.”
That was what she had meant with things not going well between them, and I understood that because her phone had been broken, we couldn’t talk anymore.
“Okay, let’s climb down then.”
We began to walk through the rain. I was holding Eina’s left hand with my right. The rain made it cold and I would probably be in the same state sooner or later, I could feel my body temperature dropping. The sky was already dark, and the driving rain made visibility awful.
I hoped to find somewhere we could shelter from the rain and wait for help, but I couldn’t see anything that helpful.
Step by step, we carefully progressed.
To be honest, I was scared. Eina must have been too. Her small hand was gripping mine tightly, shaking, and not just from the cold.
However…
Over and over, I looked at her.
Over and over, she looked at me.
Each time we met each other’s gaze, we smiled slightly.
…The situation might be desperate.
But we weren’t alone, we had met the person we each wanted to. That alone gave us courage.
And then…
“Eina! Look! Light!”
We came down onto a cliff-side road.
“We did it!”
We jumped into each other’s arms without thinking. Now we just needed to follow the road down to the town.
Then, I noticed something approaching rapidly.
Bright white lights filled my vision for a moment. It was a truck. The noise of the rain made me not notice it until now. It was coming from around a curve too, so I hadn’t seen the light.
When I noticed it, it was already really close. The driver hadn’t noticed us at all, which was only natural with how bad the visibility was.
There was no time to think.
I held Eina and leapt backwards.
Somehow, I landed.
The truck passed right through the space we had just been.
“That was close… Thank you, Shuu-san.”
“Yes, I’m glad you’re sa-”
It was at that moment I lost my balance and took a step back.
However, there was nothing beneath my foot.
My world span, and the last thing I saw was Eina, with wide eyes, watching me fall.
I rolled down the cliff, hitting my body countless times, I couldn’t even grit my teeth at the pain as I spun.
“Shuu-san!!”
I heard Eina’s grief-filled cry from far away, and then I blacked out.
