Chapter 3: Outlander

Shiori led Tsubame past the school gates and down the road before she dared look back at the imposter Otonashi. She stumbled in surprise when he wasn’t there.

“If you don’t like the transfer student, I can get you another guy,” Tsubame said apologetically. “There’s at least two that are your type.”

Shiori looked around but saw no sign of Otonashi-senpai. “My type?” she scoffed, “I don’t even know my type.”

“Listeners,” Tsubame said, simple and confident. “You pay more attention to words than people. You couldn’t dedicate yourself to someone who didn’t take what you say seriously. It’s how you decide if someone cares for you. Listening.”

Shiori looked down at her and almost disagreed. “I don’t have time for this,” she said, stalking towards their homes.

“Is that the book you’ve been looking for?” Tsubame asked as she fell in step next to Shiori, talking five or six for each four steps from Shiori.

Shiori considered the book in her hand and nodded.

“How did you find it?” Tsubame asked. “You’ve looked for nearly a year. You planned that trip last summer to a half dozen old bookstores that turned up empty.”

“You remember all of that?” Shiori asked with a laugh.

Tsubame’s smile faded. She pointed at Shiori’s nose. “Listeners. You like listeners. Words matter to you. So I listen. Is the book everything you hoped it would be?”

“I haven’t read the whole first page.”

Tsubame stopped walking, making Shiori stop and turn.

The shorter girl’s face was wreathed in concern.

“What’s wrong?” Shiori asked.

“That’s my line. Last time you found a book in that series, you missed school to read it,” Tsubame said, looking into Shiori’s eyes as if seeking an answer to a puzzle. “Tell me what is wrong.”

This was inevitable. Tsubame could read Shiori like a book. Shiori had been excited about Motohara’s gift, but today’s strange events distracted her. No, that wasn’t it. Shiori feared the book. That fear eclipsed her interest. The book had described the moment she lost Motohara-senpai. She reopened the book and ran her eyes over first paragraph.

Tsubame leaned in close. “What’s this?” she asked, grabbing the black bookmark delicately. It was far heavier than it looked and Tsubame almost dropped it.

The first paragraph was still there: “Shiori tried to grab Motohara’s hand, but he refused. She would get pulled into the portal with him. Helpless, she watched him vanish.”

The book went on to describe Shiori’s day in detail from the perspective of an unseen observer. A chill went up Shiori’s spine as the book described her conversation with Tsubame. She looked around but didn’t see anyone watching her.

“Did this bookmark come with the book?” Tsubame asked, examining the hard, gleaming surface like polished metal or glass. In her other hand was the small note that said, 'From Masahiro Motohara'.

“Yeah, I think so,” Shiori said, distracted by the story as she turned the page.

The book continued, following Shiori and Tsubame into the school’s courtyard: “The outlander had worked through the crowd. All pretense of conviviality vanished from his demeanor as he came. Gone was the friendly, charming smile - in its place, a predatory grace and focus that sent a chill down Shiori’s spine. He moved with the controlled, stalking gait of a large, dangerous animal, his dark eyes fixed on her as he neared.”

An ‘outlander’? Did that mean someone from somewhere else? It described Otonashi, the imposter that replaced Motohara.

“Ah, Shiori, how does the bookmark do this?” Tsubame held the bookmark up such that they could both see its surface. It was no longer black. It showed a clear sky with moving clouds.

It resembled a cell phone screen, but the image was too perfect. Shiori felt disoriented, like she might fall into the narrow rectangle in Tsubame’s hand. Then Motohara’s face appeared on the bookmark. No, behind the bookmark.

Tsubame froze. “Who is that?” she asked slowly, her voice quiet and confused. She considered the small note in her other hand. "Is that Masahiro Motohara?"

Motohara-senpai. It was like a handheld window into another world. Motohara was looking elsewhere, his hair falling forward, and face half covered in shadow, with a blue sky behind him.

He was looking down at his end of the portal. He sorted through things: a bedroll, a knife, an arrow. Then he noticed Shiori and Tsubame.

Motohara yelled something. Shiori thought it was her name, but she couldn’t be sure. Sound didn’t come through the tiny window. Motohara picked up his end of the portal. It was like a video chat through smartphones, except on mute. There was a forest behind him.

There was… good heavens there was a dwarf. Or something like a dwarf. Shiori had never seen one, but that was mainly because dwarves aren’t real.

The dwarf wasn’t the stocky, barrel-chested, bearded creature Shiori expected. She wasn’t sure that dwarf was the right word. Its mottled, leathery grey skin gave it a reptilian appearance. Its mouth was a thin, lipless slit filled with needle-like teeth. Most unsettling were the dwarf’s large glassy black eyes.

“What is he trying to say?” Tsubame asked.

Shiori had missed that Motohara-senpai was talking again. He spoke in slow, exaggerated movements, but neither girl could read lips. They tried responding with the same slow speech, but Motohara shook his head in frustration.

“Where. Are. You?” Tsubame said, one syllable at a time as if talking to a particularly dim-witted child. “Who. Are. You?”

Motohara sighed in frustration. The view through the bookmark was jostled wildly as he gestured something to the dwarf.

“That’s Motohara-senpai,” Shiori said irritably, struggling to think of how to communicate meaningfully.

“Motohara-senpai?” Tsubame asked, “the one you thought went to our school? The one who wrote this little note?” Tsubame winced as if the afternoon light was too bright in her eyes.

The bookmark started vibrating again, almost audibly. It shook from Tsubame’s hand.

Time slowed as the bookmark fell. Shiori reached for it too late. She noticed both sides of the polished bookmark showed another world. It tumbled, alternately showing Motohara and the dwarf creature on one side or the other.

Before landing, it returned to being completely black. The polished surface looked deep, like a mirror’s glass depth over the reflective surface.

Shiori braced for it to shatter like glass against the road. But it didn’t. It bounced silently. Shiori picked it up in a panic, but found no scrape or scuff.

Its vibrations slowed and stopped.

“You were supposed to meet Motohara-senpai for lunch today.” Tsubame said before she collapsed. Shiori had been so bothered by the bookmark that she hadn’t noticed her friend.

“Tsubame? Hey, Tsu-chan?” Shiori said, grabbing her tiny friend’s shoulder and reminding herself not to shake too hard.

Tsubame was breathing. That was good.

The bookmark was still black. It would be no help. Shiori looked up and down the narrow, lightly used road. There was no one to help.

Should Shiori call someone? Who? She could yell to see who came.

In a heart-stopping moment, she wondered if Otonashi had been following them. The imposter. The ‘outlander’. What if he heard her and came?

Tsubame wasn’t moving, except for deep, low breaths that didn’t seem natural. And she was glowing. She wasn’t waking up.

Wait, Tsubame was glowing?

What was happening?! Shiori looked to the book, desperate for any help. She read quickly until the story caught up to the present moment.

The book continued: “Shiori’s friend lay and began to emit a glow. It was at first faint, then unmistakable, then a painfully bright flash.”

Even as Shiori read the words the flash came, leaving bright spots in her vision.

Shiori paused before she could read again: “That was when the shadows congealed around Shiori and her collapsed friend. They formed, hungry and hunting. They came for her.”

Shiori searched as her light-dazzled eyes adjusted. A jet black hand, withered and atrophied but sporting sharp claws, came out of the ground scarcely more than a meter from where Tsubame lay. The hand reached out from the shadow, placing its sinuous and inhuman hand on the ground outside the shadow.

It gripped the sunlit ground like the edge of a cliff. And then the shadow pulled itself up. A head, also black as midnight, came out of the hole as the creature climbed from the shadow like from a pit. Red eyes looked at Shiori above a smile filled with sharp, animal teeth.