Chapter 4:
A Dragon’s Kick And An Encounter
Echoes Of The Valley Mist: Life After The End
Shouma walks a dirt path with the town stretching down below on his left. The sunset casts deep shadows among the trees, making him feel as if he is walking through a different place, an entirely different world.
The straight way ahead somehow looks distorted. Mournful whistles and squealing screeches can be heard; even the birds sound completely different at dusk. Õmagatoki, huh? Shouma thinks such an otherworldly scene and atmosphere do make you wonder about the chance of being spirited away into the unknown.
He never likes the light of dusk. Everything feels completely overblown by the color; it is both disorienting and depressing. He reflects upon it. He dislikes it, yet here he is out in the open instead of finding some respite inside a building.
He grows lightheaded from the blinding light, moving as if guided, until he reaches an opening: a glade of tall pampas grass swaying under the breeze. The way their feathery-white tops move feels hypnotizing, pulling you into their ghostly dance.
But are we not still in spring? Shouma ponders. The scene before him feels entirely surreal.
Crossing the field, their gentle touch on his skin and the fabric of his uniform feel exactly like a bristle wave. His eyes are fixed on a maple tree atop a mound not far in the distance, which he is now slowly heading toward.
Sitting under the crimson shades of its leaves, and whilst gazing upon the landscape, he thinks it is a good place. He pulls a clipboard with some papers and a pencil from the bag. He lays it on his left thigh as support, and the sight and the sound of strokes of the pencil fill the white blank and his ear. When drawing, he often gets drawn in and loses track of time. It is a good thing.
He hears nothing else before a soft rustle, and then a person—a little girl sits right beside him. The suddenness and the silence jerk him completely out of focus. His unexpected company never announces herself. Not even a single footstep.
She is barefoot. Her plain white kimono and fox half-mask, with a rather mournful expression, push Shouma to question the realness of his surroundings again. He is pretty sure there aren’t any festivals around this time of year.
“Are you alone? What are you doing here? It will be dark soon.” Shouma hesitates, but thinks it is better to ask first. Kids do love their costumes and masks.
The girl looks at him, and then stares directly at his drawing. He waits, but she does not offer an answer.
Shouma then shows his work, and the girl shifts toward him a little.
“I like drawing. Landscape especially,” he glances at the glade before turning again to the girl with a soft smile. “This place is… appealing. Quite picturesque.”
She looks at him again; her lips stay perfectly still. She then points to the field of grass, then back to his drawing. Shouma looks toward the grass before looking back down at the paper.
“Is there something…”
When he turns to his side, the girl rises, walks cleanly into the maple tree, and disappears completely out of sight behind it. Shouma waits, but he can’t see her either coming out from the other side nor anywhere else within his peripheral vision.
“You know, you should be going home right now,” he mutters aloud.
He shakes his head, thinking he probably shouldn’t mind the little girl too much. He takes up his pencil and is about to return to his drawing when his eyes catch something moving.
He strains his eyes to focus on a fuzzy form stirring the feathery grass-tops—the little girl in white is moving smoothly across the pale field. Before he can completely grasp the sight, the top of her head vanishes behind a heavy wave of the dancing plumes.
I—I thought… she was just…
Shouma feels something drop heavily in his stomach. His heart stops and races almost at the exact same time. In a rush, he puts everything back into the bag and scrambles onto his feet. He crosses the field now with both hands raised high, actively avoiding the pale tall grass.
Only when he reaches the safety of the dirt path and puts some distance between himself and the glade can he finally catch his breath. Thin mist begins to gather rapidly around him. An eerie realization falls upon him: it usually never happens within the valley walls.
The last of the shining daylight sinks and fades; the shadows stretch long and deep. Only the transient soft light of the blue hour remains. He can still see for some distance through the mild blurs of the mist and knows the way home. Nevertheless, he pulls out the flashlight from the bag for basic safety.
While walking and mulling over the peculiar, exhausting day, he spots a figure crouching to the side, seemingly holding and picking something hidden behind the shrubbery. It’s the little girl from before. He is about to call out when she suddenly gets up and runs deep into the thicket.
“Hey…! Where are you going!?”
His mind is now rushing. The day is getting darker, and chasing a mysterious little girl into the woods at night is the absolute definition of walking straight into a devil’s trap by modern fiction standards. But that old world has ended.
Perhaps in the expanse of a big city you could simply call the police, or people would ignore it without difficulty. But this is a tight community, isolated and, as far as anyone knows, entirely alone in the world—she could still be a real missing child…
Shit.
Shouma turns on the flashlight, and the nebulous beam shines a sharp trailing path. He moves the light and catches a fleeting glimpse of the little girl scaling a hillock, then she disappears out of view again.
“Hey! Wait!”
He rushes and scrambles up the slope. When he reaches the top, he makes a hasty sweep with his flashlight for signs of the girl. There’s nothing, but the trail continues further. He decides to follow, hoping the kid will at least stay on the path.
He moves deeper until he hears the sound of water flowing. He stands on an overhang jutting toward the small creek below. He looks around and finds the little girl—in the middle of climbing the perimeter fence.
“Hey! What are you doing? Get back here!”
Shouma searches for a way down. In reckless haste, he treads the slanting rocks and uneven ground before noticing an abrupt increase in the mist's density. He can feel a heavy pressure now tightening and pressing around him—before a sudden tug breaks his balance and his footing starts to slide.
He acts quickly and jumps to the side, reaching out for a secure grip. He grips a rock, but it begins to slide away. He is falling down, then suddenly feels a massive force to his side. The sudden blow slams him hard to the ground. But he doesn’t fall in a straight line into it.
“What the…”
“OI… WHAT THE FUCK ARE YA DOIN’?!”
“Wha… what the… did you just kick me?” Shouma stammers, trying to comprehend what just happened.
“You were tryin’ to climb da damn fence!”
“No, I—I was trying to get… there’s some kid trying to climb and I… I…”
“What kid? Yer da only dumbass I saw who’s tryna climb.”
Shouma tries to steady his breathing and gather his scattered senses. He can now focus more on his surroundings and see there are neither signs of the little girl nor even any trace of the eerie mist.
What he can see is that he is now sitting right beside the fence where the little girl was supposed to be, and a person stands right in front of him—a girl who he identifies as the one who must have high-kicked him and sent him flying into the dirt.
She’s holding both her knees, trying to catch her breath. He notices she wears dark grey coveralls, the top half tied loosely around her waist to show a plain white T-shirt. A heavy tool belt is visible on her waist.
Her penetrating glare fixes directly on him, and her sharp tongue tells him she doesn’t have much patience and is about to deliver another blow if he doesn’t explain himself and give some valid reason for her trouble.
“Are you okay?” Shouma asks, trying to ease the heavy tension in the air.
“I should be askin’ ya that.”
“I saw a little girl run into the woods, and I tried to chase her. Then I found and looked at her from over there,” Shouma points toward the rocky overhang. “The next thing I knew, I slipped and was about to fall down when… well… I fell here. Got kicked for trying to climb the fence.”
“Bro, you high or somethin’?”
“Okay,” Shouma tries to slow down the frantic pace. “Did you… see the mist?”
“What? You mean them? Somethin’ wrong with ’em?” She gestures casually toward the heavy fog banking beyond the perimeter fence.
Shouma pauses before answering. “No, no. I mean here. Around here.”
“Ya mean on our side of the fence? Y’sure you’re good?” She lets out a rough snicker.
“Okay, I’m being serious, all right.”
“Ya told me you saw a girl. I didn’t. And then a mist, here. I only ever saw ya.”
Shouma exhales his frustration and excited nerves heavily before continuing. “I know how it sounds. I… you know what, forget it.”
“Sure, dude. Just don’t pull that shit in front'f me again.”
She offers a hand to help him get up. Standing near her, he can see her profile more clearly now. Her hair is cut short, with long eyelashes framing a pair of fierce eyes, and a noticeable ear piercing.
His eyeline is barely on her eyebrows, but her rigid posture makes her seem much taller. Her physique suggests someone no stranger to hard physical labor—the force behind her high kick would certainly attest to it.
Her looks, attitude, and way of speaking give a typical image of a juvenile delinquent, but her facial features and sharp figure contrast with it with unmistakable beauty. Shouma can’t take his eyes off her until something clicks in his mind.
“Araya-san?”
“Ah, yer… uh, Fukunaga, right?”
“Yes. I didn’t see you in class today. I remember we’re classmates for this year.”
“I see. Uh, well, y’know, I kinda had to ditch class fer work today.” She scratches her hair, looking a bit annoyed. “C’mon, les git outta ‘ere. Dis place’s givin’ me the creeps.”
She starts to walk away well ahead of Shouma. He picks up his flashlight, which curiously seems to fall right along with him, and scans the area once more to make sure there really is nothing there.
“Ooi… git movin’, will ya?”
The loud shout-out finally pushes Shouma to move on. Leaving the place, he reassures himself that this is but an unfortunate event, and surely the oddity surrounding it stops there and then. There is not much point dwelling upon the nonsensical and absurd.
The straight way ahead somehow looks distorted. Mournful whistles and squealing screeches can be heard; even the birds sound completely different at dusk. Õmagatoki, huh? Shouma thinks such an otherworldly scene and atmosphere do make you wonder about the chance of being spirited away into the unknown.
He never likes the light of dusk. Everything feels completely overblown by the color; it is both disorienting and depressing. He reflects upon it. He dislikes it, yet here he is out in the open instead of finding some respite inside a building.
He grows lightheaded from the blinding light, moving as if guided, until he reaches an opening: a glade of tall pampas grass swaying under the breeze. The way their feathery-white tops move feels hypnotizing, pulling you into their ghostly dance.
But are we not still in spring? Shouma ponders. The scene before him feels entirely surreal.
Crossing the field, their gentle touch on his skin and the fabric of his uniform feel exactly like a bristle wave. His eyes are fixed on a maple tree atop a mound not far in the distance, which he is now slowly heading toward.
Sitting under the crimson shades of its leaves, and whilst gazing upon the landscape, he thinks it is a good place. He pulls a clipboard with some papers and a pencil from the bag. He lays it on his left thigh as support, and the sight and the sound of strokes of the pencil fill the white blank and his ear. When drawing, he often gets drawn in and loses track of time. It is a good thing.
He hears nothing else before a soft rustle, and then a person—a little girl sits right beside him. The suddenness and the silence jerk him completely out of focus. His unexpected company never announces herself. Not even a single footstep.
She is barefoot. Her plain white kimono and fox half-mask, with a rather mournful expression, push Shouma to question the realness of his surroundings again. He is pretty sure there aren’t any festivals around this time of year.
“Are you alone? What are you doing here? It will be dark soon.” Shouma hesitates, but thinks it is better to ask first. Kids do love their costumes and masks.
The girl looks at him, and then stares directly at his drawing. He waits, but she does not offer an answer.
Shouma then shows his work, and the girl shifts toward him a little.
“I like drawing. Landscape especially,” he glances at the glade before turning again to the girl with a soft smile. “This place is… appealing. Quite picturesque.”
She looks at him again; her lips stay perfectly still. She then points to the field of grass, then back to his drawing. Shouma looks toward the grass before looking back down at the paper.
“Is there something…”
When he turns to his side, the girl rises, walks cleanly into the maple tree, and disappears completely out of sight behind it. Shouma waits, but he can’t see her either coming out from the other side nor anywhere else within his peripheral vision.
“You know, you should be going home right now,” he mutters aloud.
He shakes his head, thinking he probably shouldn’t mind the little girl too much. He takes up his pencil and is about to return to his drawing when his eyes catch something moving.
He strains his eyes to focus on a fuzzy form stirring the feathery grass-tops—the little girl in white is moving smoothly across the pale field. Before he can completely grasp the sight, the top of her head vanishes behind a heavy wave of the dancing plumes.
I—I thought… she was just…
Shouma feels something drop heavily in his stomach. His heart stops and races almost at the exact same time. In a rush, he puts everything back into the bag and scrambles onto his feet. He crosses the field now with both hands raised high, actively avoiding the pale tall grass.
Only when he reaches the safety of the dirt path and puts some distance between himself and the glade can he finally catch his breath. Thin mist begins to gather rapidly around him. An eerie realization falls upon him: it usually never happens within the valley walls.
The last of the shining daylight sinks and fades; the shadows stretch long and deep. Only the transient soft light of the blue hour remains. He can still see for some distance through the mild blurs of the mist and knows the way home. Nevertheless, he pulls out the flashlight from the bag for basic safety.
While walking and mulling over the peculiar, exhausting day, he spots a figure crouching to the side, seemingly holding and picking something hidden behind the shrubbery. It’s the little girl from before. He is about to call out when she suddenly gets up and runs deep into the thicket.
“Hey…! Where are you going!?”
His mind is now rushing. The day is getting darker, and chasing a mysterious little girl into the woods at night is the absolute definition of walking straight into a devil’s trap by modern fiction standards. But that old world has ended.
Perhaps in the expanse of a big city you could simply call the police, or people would ignore it without difficulty. But this is a tight community, isolated and, as far as anyone knows, entirely alone in the world—she could still be a real missing child…
Shit.
Shouma turns on the flashlight, and the nebulous beam shines a sharp trailing path. He moves the light and catches a fleeting glimpse of the little girl scaling a hillock, then she disappears out of view again.
“Hey! Wait!”
He rushes and scrambles up the slope. When he reaches the top, he makes a hasty sweep with his flashlight for signs of the girl. There’s nothing, but the trail continues further. He decides to follow, hoping the kid will at least stay on the path.
He moves deeper until he hears the sound of water flowing. He stands on an overhang jutting toward the small creek below. He looks around and finds the little girl—in the middle of climbing the perimeter fence.
“Hey! What are you doing? Get back here!”
Shouma searches for a way down. In reckless haste, he treads the slanting rocks and uneven ground before noticing an abrupt increase in the mist's density. He can feel a heavy pressure now tightening and pressing around him—before a sudden tug breaks his balance and his footing starts to slide.
He acts quickly and jumps to the side, reaching out for a secure grip. He grips a rock, but it begins to slide away. He is falling down, then suddenly feels a massive force to his side. The sudden blow slams him hard to the ground. But he doesn’t fall in a straight line into it.
“What the…”
“OI… WHAT THE FUCK ARE YA DOIN’?!”
“Wha… what the… did you just kick me?” Shouma stammers, trying to comprehend what just happened.
“You were tryin’ to climb da damn fence!”
“No, I—I was trying to get… there’s some kid trying to climb and I… I…”
“What kid? Yer da only dumbass I saw who’s tryna climb.”
Shouma tries to steady his breathing and gather his scattered senses. He can now focus more on his surroundings and see there are neither signs of the little girl nor even any trace of the eerie mist.
What he can see is that he is now sitting right beside the fence where the little girl was supposed to be, and a person stands right in front of him—a girl who he identifies as the one who must have high-kicked him and sent him flying into the dirt.
She’s holding both her knees, trying to catch her breath. He notices she wears dark grey coveralls, the top half tied loosely around her waist to show a plain white T-shirt. A heavy tool belt is visible on her waist.
Her penetrating glare fixes directly on him, and her sharp tongue tells him she doesn’t have much patience and is about to deliver another blow if he doesn’t explain himself and give some valid reason for her trouble.
“Are you okay?” Shouma asks, trying to ease the heavy tension in the air.
“I should be askin’ ya that.”
“I saw a little girl run into the woods, and I tried to chase her. Then I found and looked at her from over there,” Shouma points toward the rocky overhang. “The next thing I knew, I slipped and was about to fall down when… well… I fell here. Got kicked for trying to climb the fence.”
“Bro, you high or somethin’?”
“Okay,” Shouma tries to slow down the frantic pace. “Did you… see the mist?”
“What? You mean them? Somethin’ wrong with ’em?” She gestures casually toward the heavy fog banking beyond the perimeter fence.
Shouma pauses before answering. “No, no. I mean here. Around here.”
“Ya mean on our side of the fence? Y’sure you’re good?” She lets out a rough snicker.
“Okay, I’m being serious, all right.”
“Ya told me you saw a girl. I didn’t. And then a mist, here. I only ever saw ya.”
Shouma exhales his frustration and excited nerves heavily before continuing. “I know how it sounds. I… you know what, forget it.”
“Sure, dude. Just don’t pull that shit in front'f me again.”
She offers a hand to help him get up. Standing near her, he can see her profile more clearly now. Her hair is cut short, with long eyelashes framing a pair of fierce eyes, and a noticeable ear piercing.
His eyeline is barely on her eyebrows, but her rigid posture makes her seem much taller. Her physique suggests someone no stranger to hard physical labor—the force behind her high kick would certainly attest to it.
Her looks, attitude, and way of speaking give a typical image of a juvenile delinquent, but her facial features and sharp figure contrast with it with unmistakable beauty. Shouma can’t take his eyes off her until something clicks in his mind.
“Araya-san?”
“Ah, yer… uh, Fukunaga, right?”
“Yes. I didn’t see you in class today. I remember we’re classmates for this year.”
“I see. Uh, well, y’know, I kinda had to ditch class fer work today.” She scratches her hair, looking a bit annoyed. “C’mon, les git outta ‘ere. Dis place’s givin’ me the creeps.”
She starts to walk away well ahead of Shouma. He picks up his flashlight, which curiously seems to fall right along with him, and scans the area once more to make sure there really is nothing there.
“Ooi… git movin’, will ya?”
The loud shout-out finally pushes Shouma to move on. Leaving the place, he reassures himself that this is but an unfortunate event, and surely the oddity surrounding it stops there and then. There is not much point dwelling upon the nonsensical and absurd.
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