Monday, July 5, 2027.
Summer struck Japan with the weight of a hammer: not with heat, but with storm. Rumbling clouds burst with sheets of rain, drowning the coast of the Kochi prefecture. Late summer blooms bent beneath the weight of water, sewer drains flooded and overflowed. Coastal winds whipped against windows and umbrellas, and even seagulls took shelter beneath eaves. It was a day that begged for truancy.
But the bus still arrived at the stop you’ve always waited at, and so, you entered.
It was July 5 and the bus was as crowded as it could be in a town so small as this, filled with scattered cliques of faces you recognized. All a part of Saga Junior High School. In a week, final exams for the third-year students would begin. A week after that, the only reason for caring about grades at all in junior high would manifest.
From a graduating class of 50 students, 12 of them would be selected to homestay abroad to New Zealand.
In a town like Kuroshio, this would be your only way to get out. To see the world beyond the setting sun, and then, perhaps from there, to use it as part of your applications to study at a high school that wasn’t in the middle of nowhere. Tokyo called for your soul. Bustling metropolises with enough people to intoxicate on atmosphere alone. International schools with international repute, enough to catapult you to the world further beyond! That's the only reason why you, and so many others, were crammed together in this old-ass bus, after all. There were teachers to get into the good graces of. Materials to study. Quizzes to do. Effort to be shown! Indeed, in the week before exams, every second mattered.
So you flipped through your damp notes. Plugged in your earbuds. Checked docs on your smartphone. Traded trivia with friends and rivals alike. Leaned against a window to catch a quick nap. The bus's engine rumbled on, through winding mountain paths, and you swayed to-
...
..
.
The headache hit you like a hammer, but the heat hit harder.
It was the heat of mid-August, a dry heat that you had never experienced on the coasts of your hometown. You try to pick yourself up, only to find that your body was entangled with another's. No, looking around you now, you see that everyone had toppled over, one way or the other. The front of the bus had smashed against the trunk of a tree, window turned opaque by the myriad of fractures. It was an accident. But it was more than an accident.
Because beyond the bus, the wilderness you witnessed was not what you could ever recognize as the prefecture you had spent your entire life in.
Because within your mind, in an instance of clarity, you understood exactly what had happened.
This was another world.
This was a Dungeon.
Summer struck Japan with the weight of a hammer: not with heat, but with storm. Rumbling clouds burst with sheets of rain, drowning the coast of the Kochi prefecture. Late summer blooms bent beneath the weight of water, sewer drains flooded and overflowed. Coastal winds whipped against windows and umbrellas, and even seagulls took shelter beneath eaves. It was a day that begged for truancy.
But the bus still arrived at the stop you’ve always waited at, and so, you entered.
It was July 5 and the bus was as crowded as it could be in a town so small as this, filled with scattered cliques of faces you recognized. All a part of Saga Junior High School. In a week, final exams for the third-year students would begin. A week after that, the only reason for caring about grades at all in junior high would manifest.
From a graduating class of 50 students, 12 of them would be selected to homestay abroad to New Zealand.
In a town like Kuroshio, this would be your only way to get out. To see the world beyond the setting sun, and then, perhaps from there, to use it as part of your applications to study at a high school that wasn’t in the middle of nowhere. Tokyo called for your soul. Bustling metropolises with enough people to intoxicate on atmosphere alone. International schools with international repute, enough to catapult you to the world further beyond! That's the only reason why you, and so many others, were crammed together in this old-ass bus, after all. There were teachers to get into the good graces of. Materials to study. Quizzes to do. Effort to be shown! Indeed, in the week before exams, every second mattered.
So you flipped through your damp notes. Plugged in your earbuds. Checked docs on your smartphone. Traded trivia with friends and rivals alike. Leaned against a window to catch a quick nap. The bus's engine rumbled on, through winding mountain paths, and you swayed to-
...
..
.
The headache hit you like a hammer, but the heat hit harder.
It was the heat of mid-August, a dry heat that you had never experienced on the coasts of your hometown. You try to pick yourself up, only to find that your body was entangled with another's. No, looking around you now, you see that everyone had toppled over, one way or the other. The front of the bus had smashed against the trunk of a tree, window turned opaque by the myriad of fractures. It was an accident. But it was more than an accident.
Because beyond the bus, the wilderness you witnessed was not what you could ever recognize as the prefecture you had spent your entire life in.
Because within your mind, in an instance of clarity, you understood exactly what had happened.
This was another world.
This was a Dungeon.
