Welcome to Exit 8
"This stop is Mujin Station. Mujin Station. The doors will open—"
At the familiar announcement, the doors slid open and I hurried out with quick little steps.
Mujin Station, my first time here, was astonishingly empty. No one got off. No one got on.
Well, yeah. There are plenty of unpopular stations with nothing around them.
Still, no convenience store or café anywhere in the underground concourse is a little weird. And the place is spotless even though there's not a soul in sight.
I'd seen stations planted right in the middle of apartment complexes before, so it wasn't that strange on its own — but by the time I was passing the deserted information booth, an uneasy chill crept over me, and I called Yeji.
"Hello? Yeji? I just got to Mujin Station!"
"Hurry up! I'm waiting at Exit 8!"
"Be right there~"
This is the first time I'm seeing Yeji since we graduated high school — almost two years. We were so close back then, but this is our first meetup as adults, isn't it?
Where did she say she went to college again? I wonder how much she's changed. I can barely picture her face anymore.
Knock, knock, knock.
I was climbing the endless stairs one by one, lost in a flood of idle thoughts, when a cold sensation brushed the right temple where I wasn't wearing an earphone — and the sound of someone tapping on glass came from right beside my head.
Knock, knock, knock.
What had started as a tiny sound, as if it might vanish at any moment, grew steadily louder, until it felt as though something were knocking directly against my skull, each tap more distinct than the last.
Crrrack—
And then, the moment I heard something fracture, shattered fragments of memory surged into my mind like a breaking wave.
Worn-out floor tiles. A station interior crumbling to pieces. Restricted-area signs ringing the elevator in a circle. Someone who vanished without a trace inside that cramped elevator car. Police officers shaking their heads beyond a blurry field of vision.
That's right. She… she disappeared out of nowhere during the summer break of our second year. How could I have forgotten that? And then, and then…
"Ah."
Wait. Then who am I talking to on the phone right now?
A freezing sensation raced down my spine, and I dropped my phone.
"You're sharper than I expected?"
From the earphone, a strange voice of indeterminate gender was still pouring out — the voice of some nameless someone, playing the part of a high-school classmate whose name I could no longer even remember.
"Who… who are you? Ugh…"
"Don't worry. The pain will only last a moment."
Crash—
Along with the phantom sound of something shattering, a pain like my skull being split clean in two slammed through me. I crumpled onto the cold stone floor, gasping, clutching my head.
Vertigo. Nausea. The urge to vomit. A splitting headache.
My vision spun, and the stone floor rose up and struck me. The world whirled around me as its center. Inside that spiral I rolled across the ground, still holding my head.
Is this what it would feel like if the world — if every object in existence — were trying to tear me in half?
It hurts.
It hurts so much.
"Ahh…"
Everything's sparkling in front of my eyes…
At last the glaringly blurred field of vision returned, and I — who had been sprawled face-down on the floor in the most undignified way — wiped my tears and got up. Ugh. My makeup's probably ruined.
I brushed off my skirt, stood, and pushed my wrecked hair back from my face.
What was I doing again? What station is this? I definitely came here to meet someone, and then I just collapsed… but I can't remember who. Not the voice, not the name — I can't even remember the gender.
There's no way I'd come meet someone like that! Whoa. Creepy. Did I almost get caught up in something terrifying just now?
I hurriedly unlocked my phone to check transit routes home — but the call with that person was still connected.
On the call screen, where someone's name had been displayed only moments before, a single word now floated alone.
"Welcome to Exit 8!"
Acting on the gut certainty that something was terribly wrong, I jerked my head up — and found myself already standing dumbstruck in the middle of an entirely different world, a station filled with corridors of pure white.