Chapter 2 – Something is coming!! Don’t trample over me!?
Something was lightly brushing against his cheek, tickling.
“Mm…mm…”
Whatever it was, it had been doing it for a while, and so Taketo grabbed it with his hand and opened his eyes.
He was holding what looked like the husk of some kind of grass. A weed that looked like it was in the Gramineae family, but he wasn’t sure.
Taketo was lying on his back in a field that was filled with such grass.
(…Ah. Huh…? Why am I here again…?)
The chilly breeze rushed through the grass and over his body.
Up above, he could see a sky that was thick with gray clouds. It looked like it would rain at any moment.
(The sky is so high… But, where is this place… Huh? My memory…)
He tried to think back on what had happened.
(…That’s right. I was inside of a plane. And the moment it entered some dark clouds, it started to shake violently… And then the walls of the plane suddenly…)
He recalled then that he had fallen from the plane. And Taketo sat up hurriedly.
He scanned his surroundings. But every way he looked, it was just a vast field. The grass grew up to his knees, and they moved like waves of the sea under the wind. Such was the field that Taketo found himself alone in.
(Where is this. …A prairie?)
It really did feel like a sea of grass. And while he could see a mountain range in the far distance, there was unfortunately not a single man-made structure that he could find. There weren’t even any roads.
Just in case, he checked his body as well. However, he had no broken bones, and it seemed like he could move without difficulty. There wasn’t any pain either, and his clothes were not ripped.
(But I fell… How is it that I’m okay?)
The last thing he remembered was sliding through the walls and falling from the plane. He had been thrown out into the darkness. With nothing under his feet, he remembered the sensation of his intestines tightening. Yes, he had fallen. But when he came to, he was in a field of grass.
(So I…survived?)
Taketo didn’t understand what had happened to him. But he did understand that he was here. And in spite of the drop having been from a great height, he was uninjured.
It was then that he let out a great sigh of relief. While he didn’t understand it, he was still alive. But just thinking that made a wave of fatigue assault him. Perhaps it was a reaction of being released from extreme stress. His body felt heavy like a rock. And Taketo fell on his back in the grass once again.
(Anyway… I guess I should search for a place with people. I wonder what happened to the plane? I hope they’ve noticed that I’m gone…)
The wind continued to create waves in the field. It was a little cold, and it smelled of moist, fresh grass.
He had started watching a fantasy film as soon as the plane took off. And it was just when it finished that they were affected by turbulence. Judging by the time he had been aboard, he must be in Taiwan or somewhere in the south of China. However, he was not confident in his knowledge of geography.
In any case, he had to find a house and ask the residents for instructions to reach the embassy. It was as he was thinking this, that he felt as if his body was shaking. Suspicious, Taketo raised his hand into the air.
“Huh? Something is shaking…?”
It wasn’t him. It was the ground. But it didn’t feel like an earthquake. They came in small intervals. He felt them through his body, and they were slowly getting bigger.
Eventually, they were accompanied by sounds. He didn’t know where it was coming from, but the thudding was low and heavy. Taketo sat up in order to find out what it was. To the left corner of his vision, he saw what vaguely looked like a pillar of smoke rising up.
By now, it sounded like a thunder storm had erupted around him.
(Something is running wild while kicking up a sand storm…?)
Thanks for the chap!