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She'd still been human then. When he first saw the girl in the white raincoat. She claimed she was human, like him, but that couldn't have been entirely true, right? Maybe she just used to be human, and the archaic language spoken down here didn't allow for that kind of nuance.
They didn't speak the same human language, as evidenced by their awkward first attempt at communicating, but when he tried the otherworld language, it turned out she spoke that too. At the time their goal was the same; get the hell out.
Saito had spent who knows how long down here. He's not sure he knows the way out, or if she'd still want to go back if the opportunity presented itself.
The world changed, at one point. Not the bizarre, path-changing earthquakes he'd grown accustomed to, but a shift in the atmosphere. The air was clearer, the silence less oppressive. The earthquakes still happened, that hadn't changed, but it was like there had been some sort of malice in the air, and now that it was gone, he noticed it had been there in the first place.
It was soon after this change that he saw her again. He noticed her change in demeanor immediately; before, she'd been awkward, choking on her words like this world's language hadn't started to fit in her mouth yet. Now she seemed just a smidge taller, more adjusted. More confident.
“Hello!” she said excitedly, waving at him from under her translucent white umbrella. “Happy you safe!”
“Hello,” he returned, nodding in greeting. “You look different.”
“Oh!” She giggled, an eerie sound in contrast to her generally imposing appearance. “World change me. Same, but not.”
What does that mean? “Not human?”
She shook her head. “Was human. Now more.”
“People here… they human, now more?”
“Some!” She nodded, grinning. “Some not human, never was human. They not look same.”
So if it looks and behaves like a human, chances are it used to be one. It wasn't quite the answer he'd expected, but it made sense. Spend long enough down here, and it changes you in ways you can't take back.
“World different,” he went on. She seemed to know a lot about this world, and if she was able to give him answers, he wanted them. “Feel different. Big feeling gone. You know why?”
She grinned again, a sharp thing that made him shiver. “Unsafe person here, they own world, they bad. Bring me here, me kill them, world change. Not know why, but like.”
She managed to kill one of these monsters? Saito still has so many questions, but that was when another earthquake came in. He expected the woman (ms raincoat, maybe?) to move along, but instead she ran at him and grabbed his arm, looking panicked.
“Go! Go! Not safe, ???? fall!”
Her urgency was enough to get him moving, even though he didn't recognize one of the words she used. Letting her drag him through a doorway, he was shocked to turn around and see the fucking ceiling collapse where they'd just been.
“This happen much?”
She nodded. “Place often break, but not stay that way.” She pointed at the room they'd come from. “Room change back soon, no worry.”
Speaking of breaking, Saito remembered something from when the two of them first met. When he'd seen her for the first time, she'd been carrying around an entire severed head. At first he thought it was just that, and she was some psycho carrying around a head from a victim of hers, but then the fucking thing blinked and acted for all the world like it still had a body attached.
“You have friend, head but no body. How they…” how does he say “alive”? “Why not dead?”
She shrugged. “Not know. World strange. Sometimes only need head.” She was pensive for a moment, like she was remembering something. “Sometimes people dead too… but not always stay dead. Sometimes we dead, then we different.”
“You dead before?”
She nodded. “Many times. Now me here. Not know why, not know how.” She paused. “Had friend help. They kill, many many many times. Now me different. Stronger.”
This place must really have different rules if this is what friends do to each other. But Saito couldn’t dwell on that. This woman might have accepted the monstrosity of this place with open arms, but he wasn’t like that. He wanted out, he’d already overstayed his welcome.
“Want enter other world. Not find doorway. You help?”
The way she reacted, you’d think he’d just presented her with the finest jewelry. “Yes! Yes! Me help you! Know way, follow, follow!” She took him by the elbow again and led him along, barely giving him time to think.
After lots of walking, punctuated only by their footsteps and her occasionally asking him various questions (hungry? tired? need rest?), they finally arrived at a stairwell of sorts.
“Know path! Me come here before!” Turning to face him, she looked at him very seriously. “Make sure you know path. Turn wrong, come back here.”
“Understand. Teach path?”
“Left, left, middle, left.”
“Thank you.” He turned to go, before noticing she wasn’t following him. “You not come with?”
She shook her head, smiling sadly. “Have friends here. Old world not need me. You still human, you able to leave. Go, before you can’t.”
He nodded, feeling slightly sad his new friend couldn’t come with him. “You good.”
She smiled wide, waving at him as he turned to go down the stairs. “Goodbye!”
Waving over his shoulder, Saito left the mysterious woman behind. Left, left, middle, left. It wasn't that hard to remember, and he eventually found himself at the elevator, a soft green light shining from the bulb above the door. When he approached the door, it opened without him having to call it, and he stepped inside, tapping the lit up arrow as he did.
The ride both took ages and was over in no time at all, and then he was blinking in the sunlight. His phone (he had no idea how it was still on him) worked again, thank gods, and he was relieved to look at himself in the camera app and see he still looked the same.
Saito’s memories of his visit to the otherworld would eventually blur and fade until he convinced himself it was a dream, but he always remembered the woman in the white raincoat who led him out of that nightmare and back into the real world.