Chapter Text
It happened as you were walking home, having hopped off the bus from your school. You had felt an uneasy feeling all day, your stomach doing somersaults as if there was no tomorrow. You weren’t even two steps away from the door to your home when a heavy weight fell on you, as if gravity tripled. Had you fallen or tripped? The sudden feeling forced you to close your eyes, as it came out of no-where, and you promptly collided with cold pavement beneath you.
At once, you could hear noises from all around you- like an explosion of fire. It made you recoil into yourself, clamping your hands over your ears as if to block it all out- it didn’t. Just as fast as it came, you were left with silence.
Carefully, you opened your eyes, eyeing the pavement beneath you warily. It was a shout of surprise that brought your head up, an unfamiliar face peering over you with worry.
“Are you alright? Did you hit your head?”
You shook your head, your body feeling sore in all sorts of places. The voice began again, the soft lilting of syllables catching you off guard. From the corner of your eye, you could see a figure move forward towards you. They kneeled down to your spot on the pavement.
“Hey, let’s get you off of the street. Wouldn’t want a car to hit you, right?” The soft voice urged you to get up, though your pace was slow. You took a tentative look up, rising slowly. You didn’t want to lose your balance, as your head continued to spin. “Oh dear, your knees are bleeding too! You must have taken a tumble.”
You followed the stranger with a frown. Where were you? Your surroundings were different, and you couldn’t see your house anywhere. In your haze, you weren’t paying any attention to the figure in front of you. She had stopped to unlock the front and you bumped into her without noticing.
Noticing your confused face as she turned, she smiled innocently.
“If you want, you can wait here. Or you can come in, but please take off your shoes. I’m just going to get the first aid kit real quick.” She opened the door quickly, leaving it open for you, though you weren’t sure if it was safe to step inside, you barely knew the woman at all. It took a few minutes of contemplating for you to decide to go in (and promptly take off your worn down shoes).
While you waited, you slipped out your phone. It was an old touch phone that your father had passed on to you, but it worked as good as the new phones that your friends had gotten for the holidays. The bar at the top right showed that your phone wasn’t receiving any signal, and a sigh had escaped your lips before you could catch it. It was probably your phone malfunctioning again, since you swear you had set up a fully working network for your phone the day before. As you slipped your phone back into your pocket, you couldn’t help but shake your head and make a note to yourself to check your phone later.
“Here it is!” You heard the woman exclaim from wherever she was, her voice becoming closer as she returned to where you were standing. “Sorry for the mess.” She signaled with her hands to follow her, your eyes roaming the front hall. You hadn’t noticed the boxes that were stacked up against the walls as you came in, and resigned in your mind that they probably had moved into town recently. It would explain why you didn’t see them earlier during the week…but wouldn’t you have seen moving trucks come in and out of your neighborhood? You continued to walk as you thought, stopping as the women walked into a small, but cozy, living room. She sat down onto an armchair while pulling another close as she did so.
You immediately sat down, mumbling a thanks before she patched up your knees, after cleaning them of course. Her face turned into one of surprise, mouth forming an ‘o’, and in rapid succession, she introduced herself.
“Oh! I forgot to introduce myself! I’ve just moved into the town with my family. I have a daughter around your age, and a son. You can call me Suzy.” She grinned, her energetic personality making her seem younger than she truly was.
You, in turn, introduced yourself in hope to not seem rude. She nodded and patted your shoulder before standing, the medical in one hand while the other hand pointed towards her kitchen. “Would you like some tea? Ah- no, you should get home!” Nodding in agreement, you stood up and thanked her, before something caught you off guard and stunned you for a moment.
A dainty calendar was propped up on a wall, the year clearly reading 1988. You walked over to it, turning towards Suzy with a smile.
“Isn’t this a little old, now? Where’d you get this?” You pointed towards the calendar, and Suzy gave you a quizzical look, her head tilting to the side.
“What do you mean? I bought this a few days ago. It’s cute, isn’t it? A little tacky, but the store didn’t have any animal ones.” She hummed, moving beside you to flip through the pages. Earlier months had scribbled in notes or reminders, and when she flipped back to the current month, she spoke, deep in thought. “Ahh…I’ve got to write in some more dates for this month. I wonder if I’ll be able to complete all the tasks I have to do on time.” She mused, a smile on her face before she looked towards you, noticing the look of confusion on your face.
“What day is it, Suzy?” You asked, eyebrows raising. Suzy’s mouth formed a thin line, and you knew she was confused by your lack of knowledge on current dates.
“ It’s xx/xx/1988. Is there something wrong? Oh dear, it’s getting dark out-“
“May I use your phone?” You interrupted, hands somewhat sweaty in nervousness. She nodded and pointed towards a bulky home-phone, and you promptly rushed towards it before picking it up and punching in your home phone number. Immediately, you were sent to an automatic voice that said something along the lines of “We’re sorry, but the number you have dialed is not in use or is incorrect. Please hang up and try your call again.”
You tried a second time, and a third, switching to your friend’s phone numbers halfway through when your home phone yielded no results. It took you five more minutes of calling and re-calling to wear you down into giving up.
You blinked, once, twice, before striding back towards the calendar again, just to check. It was only then, as you squinted to read the names and dates on the flowery page, that you couldn’t read them at all.
They were in a different language completely. “Where are we, Suzy?” You tried your best to act calm, aware of how your questions sounded- totally not sane whatsoever.
You held in a breath, looking over to a concerned Suzy.
1988. Many things happen during this year, from the release of the movie “Who framed Roger Rabbit”, to David Bowie’s Glass spider tour. Akira is given a film debut- and two Studio Ghibli films are released simultaneously.
These are common things that anyone can search through the internet for, or read from a history book. And that was it. That was all you knew- you weren’t alive during that time, having been born years later. But you could not mistake what you were seeing, and most importantly, where you were.
“Why, we’re in Japan!”