J'adoube, Pt. II (Solo)

Warm sunlight spreads itself gradually across Katsumi's pale face through a nearby window. She groans and winces, her eyes slowly registering that a change in brightness was occurring. A hand lifts itself up to shield them from the piercing rays, and in doing so, Katsumi quickly realized that she had been on a train, and tried her best to quickly recollect herself, until a wave of dizziness kept her from sitting up completely.

"Attention passengers," rang out a male voice from a nearby intercom speaker, barely audible through the static noise that accompanied it, "this is your conductor speaking. You have now arrived at your destination." Katsumi blinked, hoping for some kind of explanation, but receiving nothing of the sort. "Please depart the cabin at your earliest convenience." The doors slide open without fail, totally oblivious to the reality that a person had just lost consciousness inside the train.

Only silence and a cool breeze followed afterward. Confusion took over Katsumi's immediate thoughts, as there should have been a massive crush of people trying to swarm their way in and out of the train all at once. For better or worse, she was truly alone here.

Looking around from her spot on the floor, Katsumi could observe a sprawling sapphire sky thorugh the windows, caked with fluffy white clouds that stretched out overhead; it was a definite far cry from the milky white void she had witnessed moments ago, but thinking about this specific detail only made Katsumi wonder just how long she had been out cold.

A glance here and there would let her find the phone-shaped gadget, pull it close to her, and turn its screen on to check the time.

The answer she received stunned her. "Three hours!?" Katsumi cried out, casting frantic eyes around the train in anticipation of derision and mockery that would never come. She had been on the floor of a train for three whole hours? There was no way that she could explain this to Mom and Dad! They were going to completely skin her alive for messing this up!

Panic begins to set in with regards to where she was at now, causing Katsumi to rapidly climb her way back to her feet until she could get a better look at her surroundings.

Beautiful vistas of rolling green fields and verdant trees among hills and valleys greeted Katsumi with a visual orchestra of colors and sights that seemed eerily familiar, yet markedly foreign, splashed together with the gleaming blue sky and fluffy white clouds she had seen earlier to form a painting that could only be considered idyllic by most standards.

Rather than feeling a sense of amazement or wonder, Katsumi hesitantly gathered her belongings as she tried to make sense of this turn of events. Had the train taken her all the way out to the countryside? Such an idea had to have been impossible; it only traveled a certain length of distance and stopped at specifically chosen stations. Something was clearly wrong with this entire situation, she gathered, and it now fell on her shoulders to rectify what she considered to be the grandest of all her life's mistakes so far.

Step by step, the teenage schoolgirl moved her way closer toward the thresholds separating her from the outside world, whatever this world was, as she took several deep breaths to keep herself calm and collected throughout this ostensibly jarring experience.

One more step carried Katsumi over onto a simple wooden platform reminiscent of the ones found in Japan's countryside, albeit without any sort of awnings or similar structures to offer protection from the elements. No matter where she looked, no buildings or points of interest seemed to define themselves amidst all the grass and trees that seemed to stretch on forever.

For all intents and purposes, this place appeared to be the middle of nowhere.

"Where am I?" Katsumi asked, fully intending the question to be rhetorical, as she was entirely alone and hadn't thought to try contacting anyone through the phone-shaped device in her grasp.

"At the risk of sounding rude, you're in the way."

Katsumi gasped aloud, flinching at the sound of the conductor's voice emanating from outside of the train, perhaps through another speaker system located somewhere on the vehicle. "I-I-I'm so sorry!" she stammered, taking several steps away from the train before turning to bow, as if the vehicle somehow had feelings that needed considered. "Please, forgive me, I didn't mean to be inconsiderate!"

Just as she had caught herself in the act of apologizing to a train, the speakers rang out again. "It's no bother, really. Happens to first arrivals all the time."

Katsumi felt her throat seize. She looked up, but saw no one. Straightening her posture out, she took a gulp to clear away the swelling anxiety and took cursory glances around the terminal, again seeing nobody. It then crossed her mind to ask another question, unsure if she would come to regret it later on, "Um, e-excuse me? Are we outside of Tokyo?"

A soft hiss erupts from below the train's wheels, as if the vehicle were scoffing. "I would hope so! It's hard to go anywhere by just standing in one spot."

"I...see your point, but, exactly where is this place? I was supposed to arrive in Shinjuku three hours ago to pick up a present."

"Well, miss, I'm afraid you're a bit of a long stretch away from Shinjuku if you were supposed to be there three hours ago. This here's a one-way line."

Katsumi's heart shriveled in terror. She had boarded a one-way line headed outbound, and she had no idea where she was at or how she had got there. Panic instinctively sets in, and the girl draws up the phone-like gadget so that she could summon her list of contacts, select her mother's name, and begin the process of calling her.

The girl's eyes grow wide as an error message plays out: "Alert: no broadband signal detected." She had almost thrown the device out of anger, but composed herself before the worst of her impulses could take over. Just her luck; she was stranded in the middle of nowhere, and had no means of contacting her parents.

She could only stand in place, paralyzed with indecision as the train's hydraulics let out one last hiss before the cabin doors closed and the vehicle began moving forward again, as if symbolically reminding her that her opportunity to go home had just been revoked, if she even had such a chance to begin with. Slowly, but surely, the engine and its cars would shrink into the distance until they were imperceptible to the naked eye.

Only a single question rested on Katsumi's mind: now what?

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