Chapter 14: The Frantic Cycle

The third jump: I wake to the blistering, suffocating heat of a desert. I am surrounded by endless dunes of fine, reddish sand. The sun is a relentless, white-hot hammer in a sky of bleached blue. I am wearing my pajamas. I am going to die. I spend hours, which feel like an eternity, crawling over the searing sand, my throat cracking, my skin burning, before I finally collapse. I do not fall asleep. I pass out. The pull is the same. I wake up in my own bed, my throat so raw I can barely swallow, my skin an angry red.

The fourth jump: A crowded, chaotic market in what I later learn is Mumbai, India. The wall of sound-the shouting, the music, the horns-is a physical assault. The air is thick with a billion smells: curry, incense, jasmine, sewage. I am swept along in a tide of people, a pale, terrified ghost in a world of vibrant color. I hide in the ruins of an old building until the exhaustion claims me. I wake up in my apartment, the scent of phantom spices still clinging to my clothes.

Paris. Brazil. The Gobi Desert. A rice paddy in Vietnam. A snow-covered forest in Finland where I almost freeze to death before I can fall asleep. A beach in Australia.

My life is no longer my own. It is a nightly, global game of Russian Roulette. Where will I land next? Will I wake up somewhere safe, or somewhere I cannot survive?

My Tokyo life disintegrates. I stop even pretending. I email the university and apply for a medical leave of absence, citing "severe, debilitating anxiety and insomnia." It is not even a lie.

My apartment, once my prison, becomes my only sanctuary. It is the one constant in my chaotic universe. It is the 'home base' I always return to. I begin to prepare it. I go on a frantic, paranoid shopping trip. I buy trail mix, protein bars, bottles of water, a thermal blanket, a first-aid kit, a multi-tool, and a solar-powered charger.

I pack a "go-bag."

Every night, before I am about to lose the battle with consciousness, I dress in my most durable clothes-cargo pants, hiking boots, a waterproof jacket. I fill my pockets with protein bars. I slip my passport and all my cash into a waterproof pouch I wear around my neck. I lie in my bed, fully dressed, my go-bag clutched to my chest, and I wait for the pull.

I am no longer just a victim. I am a survivor. But the cost of this survival is my sanity.

My phone, my only connection to my old life, becomes a source of pure agony. It is a constant stream of messages from the one person I am desperate to talk to, and the one person I can never tell.

Aiko_Ace: Juiro? Seriously, where are_you? You dropped your classes? I went to your apartment, but you did not answer.

My heart stops. She came to my apartment. What if I had been in Finland?

Juiro_M: I am sorry. I am sick. Family emergency. I have to go away for a while.

The lie is weak, pathetic.

Aiko_Ace: Family emergency? What is wrong? Are your grandparents okay? Talk to me, Juiro! You are scaring me!

Juiro_M: I cannot. I am sorry.

Aiko_Ace: That is not good enough! You sound like you are in trouble. I am your friend! Let me help you!

How can I make her understand? How can I explain that I am not in a trouble, I am in impossible trouble?

Juiro_M: Aiko, please. You cannot help me. Just... be safe.

Aiko_Ace: No! I am not giving up on you! Whatever this is, you do not have to go through it alone. I am coming over. I am at the station. I will be at your apartment in twenty minutes.

My blood runs cold. She is coming. Now.

I look at the clock. 7:00 PM. I have been awake for thirty-six hours, fighting sleep, but the exhaustion is a physical weight. My eyelids are sandpaper. The edges of my vision are blurring.

She cannot see me like this. She cannot be involved. If she is here when I am pulled... what happens? Does she get pulled with me? The thought is so horrifying it makes me sick.

I have to leave. I cannot be here when she arrives.

But I cannot go outside. What if I fall asleep on a park bench? I will teleport from a public place.

I am trapped. There is no way out.

"Aiko, no, stay away!" I type, my fingers fumbling.

The message fails to send. I look at the top of my screen. No signal.

"What?" I whisper. I am in my apartment, in the middle of Tokyo. I always have signal.

A strange, low-frequency hum begins to fill the air. It is the same sound I heard in my apartment that first night. The static.

"No," I whimper, scrambling to my feet. "Not now. Please, not now."

The lights in my apartment flicker. They do not go out, they just... stutter. The droning television news report distorts, the anchor's face dissolving into a mess of pixels.

The world is fraying again.

My phone, dead just a second ago, lights up. It is not a call. It is not a message. The screen is pure, white static. And from the speaker, a voice.

It is not Aiko.

It is a girl's voice, calm, steady, and utterly alien.

"Juiro Minasaki. Your spatial tether is degrading. This is an uncontrolled resonance. You are a danger to yourself and the integrity of the local timeline."

My blood turns to ice. I drop the phone as if it is on fire. It clatters to the floor, the static-filled voice still speaking from the tiny speaker.

"We have a lock. We are attempting to stabilize your anchor. Do not sleep. Do not move."

There is a loud, banging knock on my apartment door.

"Juiro!" It is Aiko's voice, frantic and real. "Juiro, open the door! I know you are in there! I can hear your TV!"

The static from the phone on the floor gets louder, rising in pitch. The lights in my apartment are flickering in a frantic, terrifying rhythm. The walls are breathing.

"Juiro!" Aiko yells again, her voice full of panic.

"Aiko, stay back! Get away from the door!" I scream.

The world does not gently fade. It shatters.

The pull is not a pull. It is an explosion. It is not just me. My whole apartment-my bed, my desk, my television-is ripped from its foundation. I feel a moment of agonizing pressure, of a million-ton weight, and then...

Darkness.