EDGE (58 page)

Saeko stood up awkwardly and started to walk away, dragging her feet heavily. When she reached the hallway, she turned around.

“Goodbye, Daddy.”

She’d barely finished saying this as she sprinted to the threshold and exited the house. Almost all signs of starlight had vanished from the sky, and it was noticeably blacker than before.

Saeko searched for her car under the looming darkness. The utter silence froze the air and rubbed the cold into her skin. Worse than the chill, the quietude was suffocating.

She fumbled for the car keys in her bag and pushed the unlock button. The orange lights of the car’s indicators flashed once, twice, beckoning from just thirty feet ahead.

Just when she took a final look back up at the Fujimuras’ the lights in the living room went off, and the whole edifice was swallowed into the surrounding darkness. Saeko stepped into the car and turned the key in the ignition.

She leant back in the seat and took in a deep breath. Then, shaking off all hesitation, she started down the hill.

10
In thirty minutes it would be midnight. The Akiha Road saw hardly any traffic even during the middle of the day, and she hadn’t seen a single car since she left. The driving time to the pass was only ten minutes.

The Bungui Pass was located in the middle of deeply forested mountains, directly west of Senjogatake, the center of Japan’s Southern Alps. Tall mountainsides loomed on either side of the road, blending with the night sky, but it wasn’t pitch dark. Even without the headlamps the parking area was bathed in light and visible up ahead. Wherever they came from, five bands of light rose from behind the mountain like halos. Rather than thin and piercing, they were soft and comforting.

Saeko flicked off the headlights and cut the engine. She looked ahead and waited for her eyes to grow accustomed to the ethereal twilight.

A sign propped up towards the side of the clearing indicated a narrow footpath leading towards the zero magnetic field, just twenty meters onwards. The physical properties of the location were widely believed to have healing powers, and on fine days there would be lines of people with untreatable afflictions. They would stand for hour after hour, hoping somehow to reap the benefits of the unique properties of the zero magnetic field.

Saeko was here with a more defined purpose. Whatever happened now, she had to cross into a new world. Tasks no doubt awaited her in the land, and she would do the best she had in her to do. Having survived at such a high cost, it was a mission, and the only way to do good by her father.

Saeko stepped out of the rental car and began to tread through the undergrowth towards her destination. A small area opened up on the hillside a short way down the path. Of course, at this time of night there were no other people to be seen. The space contained a few simple plankwood benches. Saeko sat on one and found her eyes naturally following the lines of the deep valley that stretched out below.

At the bottom of a landscape topped by ridges, Saeko could make out the lights of Takato. Today was Christmas, and lots of people would still be up. But this year, Christmas would be the last thing on their minds. Instead they would be glued to their television sets, following every development regarding the news of the strange occurrences. They understood that stars were disappearing and the Earth was tearing in an unprecedented manner but not that the world had only a few hours left.

Saeko waited alone in the silent clearing, buffeted by the frozen mountain air around her. Trees were sparse in the zero magnetic field area, so Saeko could look up to count the stars—literally, since their numbers had diminished.

She had learned to cope with being alone after losing her father at seventeen, but somehow the empty space in the mountains brought a new depth to her loneliness. She wouldn’t be able to cope for more than an hour.

Just then, the ring of her cellphone broke through the silence. She looked at the display to check the name—Hashiba. She took the call with a certain desperation.

The voice was Hashiba’s all right, but his voice sounded different,
almost clingy. Every now and again he let out a sob, making it impossible to make out what he was saying. She managed to pick up a few words: Machu Picchu, devil.

“Where are you? What’s going on?”

He sounded so beaten down that she forgot her own situation and felt she had to save him from whatever it was that had affected him so. She remembered how grateful she was for his visit when she was in the hospital at Ina, how much courage it had given her.

“Aaah … What should I do? I just …”

His weakened voice finally began to clear slightly. Saeko could make out sounds of a crowd in the background. He was probably shielding the phone with his hand but was unable to block out the noise completely. She heard female voices and what sounded like children. Immediately, Saeko realized what must be going on: Hashiba and the crew were at the herb gardens, and they had called their family and loved ones to join them. They had chosen whom to take with them, and Hashiba must have done the same; he had probably stolen away from the side of his wife and child to call her.

“Okay, try to calm down,” she said. “Can you tell me again what’s going on? I’m not sure the phone will work for too long here.” The signal was already being affected by the strange magnetic properties of the area. They had to use their time well.

In a steadier manner, Hashiba explained about the old grave at Machu Picchu and the numbers of the dead tallying exactly to the number of people in the park. He feared they were walking into a massacre. By the time he finished, he had regained himself enough to care about someone other than himself. “And you, are you okay?” he asked.

Saeko wasn’t confident she should even try to explain the circumstances under which she had been reunited with her father. Besides, she wouldn’t be able to go over everything in the time they had. She simply informed him that she was at the zero magnetic point at Bungui Pass, where a wormhole was supposed to open.

“You’re sure that’s the right place?” Hashiba pressed.

“Certain.”

“Where will it take you?”

“That, only God knows. You’re the one we’ve got to worry about here.”

“What do you think I should do?”

“You should go through.”

“Even if a harsh fate awaits?”

“If you die, it’s all over. You won’t even have the chance to grapple with a harsh fate.”

“But it’ll be less painful.”

“Whether you suffer or not isn’t the point. If there’s a path open to you, you have to go down it. It’s the law of life.”

“You could say so, but …”

“Isn’t that all life has done since the first organisms were formed? What do you think it was like for the creatures that first crawled out from the seas onto land? Those that first took to the skies? They all had to fight for survival in a harsh, unforgiving environment. It’s the same for us. We’ve scaled the highest mountains and lived on the Arctic. Anywhere there’s space, we’ve spread there. We can’t get stuck or languish. We’re destined to step forth.”

The words were meant for Hashiba, but Saeko increasingly got the feeling that they were for her own benefit. Even now she knew that it was thanks to her father’s upbringing that she could muster the courage to talk like this. He had taught her, and now she was passing on his teachings. The thought helped to build up her own courage.

“Life’s mission is all well and good, but—”

There was no time to waste on Hashiba’s moping, and she cut him off mid-sentence. “Listen. We’re not stuck in a single history. You may think so, but you’re wrong. There could be countless distinct universes just a millimeter away. In this world it may be that 173 people were killed at Machu Picchu 500 years ago. It may be that their limbs were severed from their bodies. But where you’re going, you have the power to change your future. Because you’ll be there, it will branch into a different world. Think about it. You know what’s going to happen, so you have the advantage. You’ll be able to prepare and find a way out. Come up with one, now that you know the grisly fact. Work together, find the gap and wedge it open with all your strength, and the world will change. If you’re just afraid and cringe, it won’t. So go, and be brave.”

Her words were followed by silence. She could hear Hashiba trying to control his breathing on the other side of the line. Eventually, he answered, his voice pained. “You’re right. I’ll do it, I’ll go. I have to. Can I ask one thing? Just where do you get your strength from, Saeko? What’s the secret?”

I’m not strong, I’m scared too
, she thought,
but I just want to know how things work and my curiosity keeps me going
.

As she opened her mouth to speak, the call burst into a fuzz of static. Saeko tried to call back, but it was no use.

They hadn’t even had the chance to say goodbye. Saeko felt that terrible sense of isolation return even stronger than before. It colluded with the cold air, numbing her senses to the outside world. Gradually she stopped feeling the cold. Her sense of hunger faded too, and she began to feel oddly light.

Her skin began to prickle, and she scratched at her arms, suddenly itchy. The wind mimicked her movements, blowing waves across the grass. She felt as though innumerable eyes were trained on her hidden among the dense surroundings of the clearing. When enough of the beasts groaned, it became a tremor to sunder the ground, and in the cracked earth, she could see the writhing of serpentine forms.

She was hallucinating. It was that knowledge that allowed Saeko to remain calm.

One of the trees next to the bench had split open, the bark peeling down and exposing a surface that looked like a Buddhist stupa. The whitewood tomb, with a smattering of wild flowers at the base, began to resemble a decomposing human face as she looked on.

Her father’s voice echoed in her mind. It came from the face in the tree. A transparent sheet of glass floated between her and the face in the trunk. In it, Saeko could make out her own reflection.

Perhaps her father’s voice, which she’d been able to recall at any time to gain courage, reflected nothing more than her own thinking.

She couldn’t tell if the source of the voice was inside or outside of her. The frame of reference shifted rapidly, and one moment the voice originated within her, the next, from without.

The wind streaming up from the valley began to take on a pleasant warmth that spread through her body and the bench she sat on. The chill flowed away, down from her waist through her legs, finally to be absorbed into the ground. With it went the overwhelming sense of isolation and loneliness.

Saeko bathed in a sense of wellbeing. A sweet, citrus smell impregnated the air. She felt an expansive calm, a ticklish warmth and completeness, that she had not felt since her father had vanished.

The lights she had seen at the bottom of the valley began to shift, describing a circular trajectory until they stopped directly below from Saeko. The five bands of light that hung in the sky behind her became a vast searchlight; they, too, traced a line through the sky until they came to
a stop before her and focused on a single point.

Saeko felt no suspicion as she observed the impossible movement of the lights below and in the sky. It was easy to just accept the experience.

These were no fireflies. The particles of light that cascaded from behind were stars. Dislodging from the horizon, they traced arcs above and around her to convene at a point ahead. It was a surprise that so many were still out there. She’d thought they were gone, but now they welled forth and sped past her to form a dense band of light.

Guided by a buoyance, she rose from the bench and took a small step forward. The band began to absorb all light from its surroundings until nothing but total darkness existed outside of it. Saeko felt an odd sensation below her waist, and when she reached down she noticed that the bench was no longer there. It hadn’t just gotten dark. Everything around her had ceased to be.

She floated alone, an isolated body in empty space. She glanced at her wristwatch and confirmed that the dials had stopped moving though it had been functioning until a moment ago. Her mind confirmed what she already suspected; somehow, without even realizing it, she had entered the mouth of the wormhole.

The congregated light was now a circle about the size of a coin. Saeko watched as it began to transform into a slender cylinder that stretched towards her, closer and closer. As it approached, its diameter expanded, flexing and relaxing in warped space. Connecting her to the luminosity, an arch of strings released particles of light. Saeko could only stare at the beautiful sight. The glowing cylindrical band was lined with blue and purple twinkles amidst a misty shower of tinier particles. It was a rainbow of light spanning the darkness, but its sacred glow didn’t seem to light up the surroundings. The rainbow continued towards her, and Saeko wasn’t sure if she was moving at the speed of light or if the rainbow was heading towards her at that speed. Its tip opened like the mouth of an enormous snake and slowly swallowed her. A sure feeling of repose of a connection to something greater than herself flooded her.

Everything went black. Saeko found herself inside a thin skin as the border of the world around her began to take on a curved appearance. The inside was dark, but there was a hint of light coming from the outside. She realized that she was in a sphere of some sort.

Something sharp cut into the skin and sliced a fissure nearly as long as herself. A subterranean creature might witness a similar sight if it peered through a crack in the ground. Through this edge she glimpsed a world
alien to the one she’d known.

She tried to take a step into the new world but was unable to move. She hugged her knees to her chest, curved like a grub. She tried to call out in joy but no sound formed on her lips. Her face was covered with a thick and sticky mucus.

11
The sundering of symmetry that popped out of the timeless, spaceless struggle between nothingness and being 14 billion years ago immediately expanded and gave birth to the universe.