An Administrative Error

It was a warm autumn afternoon. The sun was slowly setting behind Italian mountains, and I checked my phone to make sure I was on time. The screen told me I still had 20 minutes to go, which left me more than enough time to set up my camera.

I stomped on some of the grass, flattening it to create a clear field of view, then set up my tripod. I checked the angle of the camera several times, readjusting it so as to get the nicest shot of the cargo train that was scheduled to pass here in… I checked my phone again; 14 minutes.

With a satisfied smile on my lips, I took a sip from my water bottle. It bore the logo of the company I was set to start working for in 6 days, as well as several stickers from my family. They were sweet, and they even threw a big party after my graduation, before my trip to Europe. They'd gotten me this water bottle and stickers to remind me of home.

“Something useful for your journey,” my auntie had said.

I put the bottle away. It made me think of the life I was scheduled to start in Saitama, away from the familiar coast and five streets of Hiroo. I'd said goodbye to my friends and family before this trip, knowing full well I wouldn't see them in years. But my job was going to be high-paying, especially for an entry position, and my rental apartment was only a twelve-minute train ride from the National Railway Museum.

Yes, let's think positive thoughts.

I heard a rattling noise in the distance, and I felt vibrations echoing from the railway to my right into the ground.

I checked the camera one last time before taking a few more steps back, into the grass.

As much as I admired the heavy industrial, exclusively utilitarian, design of trains, getting run over by one was not on my to-do list.

The locomotive crawled by at a mere 70 km/h. It gave me ample time to observe the front of the train, painted red some 10 years ago and never restored or even washed since. The sun set behind the first of the cylindrical tanks it pulled. Red sun rays reflected off triangular, bright yellow warning labels over a dozen times. By the time the empty carriages drove past me, the sun had fully set, and my camera had captured all of its splendour.

I brushed back a short lock of black hair as I stepped forward to check the footage, when suddenly my legs gave in. The air around me suddenly felt cold and heavy, and it got darker than it should have been this soon after sunset.

I tried to push myself up, but I couldn't move my arms either. Panic rose, as I yelled for help, but I wasn’t sure if anyone had heard me over the not-so-distant rumbling of the train. The ground smelled of an overwhelming mixture of chemicals and fresh grass, and when I blinked, the scenery around me had changed.

Gone were the fields, distant parking lot, and empty railway. Gone was the outline of the Alps in the distance. Gone was the sunset and the sky. Even the ground was gone.

I tried to force myself to take deep, even breaths in. I knew I couldn’t afford to panic, but I wasn’t really succeeding in avoiding it. I clenched my water bottle tightly, as if it held some key to get me out of where I now was.

I was floating in a void, among ocean waves frozen in time, and old wooden pillars rising from them. Some pillars were painted red, others black, and small white flags ran between them. The sky had been replaced with paper lanterns, all glowing dimly, and all facing downwards. I squinted to try and see past them, and saw what resembled the facade of an office building, far, far above me.

What is this? This isn't what a heatstroke feels like. Maybe the food I ate-

“Miss Chiyo Hara, I apologise profusely,” a male voice interrupted my thoughts.

I turned in its direction. I was surprised to see that a wooden floor just like the one in my granddad's house had appeared right under my feet. And on it, a man was kneeling down, his forehead pressed into the planks.

“Due to an administrative oversight, your soul was considered deceased and claimed by my underlings. I am afraid there is no way to reverse this,” he continued, still not looking up.

“Wait, what are you saying?” I blinked. “Your underlings - who are you? What is - am I dead? But … but …” I couldn't wrap my head around it. There was no way I could have died while filming that video; I was so far away from the tracks! Yet, there was no other explanation for this strange place I was in, and I doubted this man, whoever he was, had any reason to lie.

I squeezed and let go of the hem of my jacket over and over, trying to find an outlet for these thoughts.

“I once again apologise,” the man repeated, before raising his head.

I could have sworn that I caught a glimpse of three pairs of golden eyes under his long black fringe, but I was in shock, so I might have as well imagined it. He remained kneeling, with his hands on his knees. He has shoulder-length black hair and a sharp chin. It was hard to make any other details of his face under his long fringe. He was wearing a plain cream-coloured kimono, with intricate red trimmings on the sleeves and obi.

“Yes,” he continued, “you are correct, one of my underlings made a mistake, but their mistake is mine, and I will bear full responsibility.”

“Responsibility for what?” I was pretty sure I already got the picture, but I needed to hear him say it.

“For your soul being marked as deceased,” the man's lips moved into a sad smile.

For some reason, he seemed more upset by this than I was.

“Are you a god? The god?” I asked.

“Well, those words have varying definitions,” he avoided the question. “The workings of the immortal realm are a bit complicated. For now, you can see me as a god, with almost unlimited power and knowledge. I can explain it to you in more detail if you wish, Miss Hara.”

“No,” I shook my head, “what I want to know is: what happened? Can I go back? What's happening now?”

He pressed his lips into that apologetic smile again.

“I can't send you back to your world, I'm sorry,” he repeated. “As to what happened, your soul was claimed before its time due to an-”

“Administrative error, yes,” I cut him off before he could give that same excuse for the third time. I left him a second to reply to my third question.

“As to what happens now, it's all up to you, Miss Hara. I can't send you back, but I can send you anywhere you want!” He snapped his fingers to try to better sell this illusion of a worthy consolation prize. “I heard people from your realm love dinosaurs, so how about I send you to a world with those?”

That sounded like a terrible idea.

“Or Martians! I never understood what they were, but I know of a world populated entirely by tiny grey men.” He got up and gestured for me to follow. There was something deeply wrong about how he hovered over the ground, with his kimono rippling with movement as if he didn’t have just two, but dozens of legs all moving within the same space at the same time. This contrasted sharply with his perfectly normal speech.

“Hmm, what else do you mortals like…” he rubbed his chin as he walked ahead of me. The wooden flooring appeared before his feet and disappeared behind mine. That movement of the wood also seemed so out of place with the rest of this frozen scenery.

I wanted to ask where we were, but I felt like this wasn't the moment. I was still focusing on calming down my heartbeat. Moving away from my family to the city was one thing, but dying and never seeing them again was another …

I can’t accept this. But what choice do I have?

I ran my finger over the stickers on my water bottle. One of them was from my cousin’s favourite pop band that I’d promised to take her to see. Another was my dad’s plumbing company logo, which he’d always wanted me to be a part of. Had I not decided to move out, had I not gone on that trip, would I still -

“Tennis players!” The god smacked his palm with his fist in a ‘eureka’ moment, forcibly snapping me out of my thoughts. “You like tennis players, right?” He turned around, a wide, expectant grin on his face.

I quickly rubbed my eyes, not wanting to let him see me cry.

“I like trains,” I quietly replied.

“Trains…” He rubbed his chin again. “I don't think I know of any realms with trains… Well, no realms with as many trains as dinosaurs or those tiny grey creatures. Hmmm…”

“Is there really no way for me to go back home?” I shyly asked and involuntarily sniffled.

He shook his head before bowing and apologising again.

“I can give you a train, though,” he snapped his fingers at me again when he raised his head. “A train and what else?”

It seemed I really wasn't going back. It was very hard to try and focus on this situation while grieving my own death, but I tried my hardest anyway.

If I don’t get it together now, who knows what he’ll do...

“If you send me somewhere, can it not have giant lizards or tiny grey men?” I asked. “And … will I keep my body? How does this work?”

“I can make an exact replica of your body,” the god gave me a double thumbs up, a toothy smile on his face. “What else would you like? Name anything under the sun. Actually, how many suns would you like? And moons. What about oceans?”

We spent some time discussing the geographic conditions of the place he was sending me to. Although I was still very upset about everything, with a lot of deep breaths and pauses to think, I managed to negotiate a good deal.

Trains seemed to be unique to my world, so he had to send me to a world where mana existed so I could create one. He also gave me the power to speak any human language and promised, in between apologies, that this kind of mistake would never happen to me or anyone from my realm ever again. That was perhaps the closest he could come to expressing compassion after watching me struggle to hold a conversation without crying.

With a flick of his hand, he made a glass and metal door that looked exactly like that of my high school appear out of thin air.

“Can I have my water bottle?” I stupidly asked, as I realised he was about to send me away.

“I'll put it in your train,” he gave me another thumbs up. “I will also do everything in my power to make sure you stay alive until your natural lifespan is up. But I cannot break the rules of that realm. For that too, I apologise.”

“I'll figure it out,” I gave him the same reply I gave my cousin when he asked me how I was going to get around in the city without a car. At this point, exhaustion and acceptance were starting to take over.

“You are a very brave young miss,” the god nodded. “Many in your shoes would have thrown a fit.”

My expression suddenly dropped.

“You promised you wouldn't let this happen to anyone else!” I exclaimed.

My tone was angry, perhaps with the buildup of all the emotion I'd kept contained up until now.

“I won't, I won't,” he raised his hands, shaking them. “I swear I won't.”

There was a short pause, and I felt a warm breeze come through from under those high-school doors.

“I,” I turned towards them, not sure if there was anything else for me to say or do. “Goodbye?” I said, laying my hand on the door handle.

“Goodbye, Miss Chiyo Hara,” the god bowed once again.

I didn't feel the door open. Instead, I collapsed to the floor once again.

It was neither tall grass, wooden boards, nor the smooth interior of a passenger train cabin that greeted me.

It was sand.

I rose and spun around. The sun was rising, and the white shadows of two moons were dissipating into a cloudless sky. There was nothing but sand as far as my eyes could see.