I start running, water flying everywhere.

  I’m getting closer to him. As I run, I thrust out both hands and crash into the door full force.

  “You again?!” the man shouts, looking at me in surprise. “Why?!”

  “We have to close this, right?!” I scream, standing next to him and pushing. An exceptionally sinister sensation reaches me through the thin planks. I concentrate my strength, trying to crush the horrible thing. I can sense through my palms that the man is pushing harder, too. The door begins to creak closed.

  Is that a song? Suddenly, I notice that the man is singing under his breath as he strains. I look up at him. His eyes are closed, and he’s intently singing a series of strange words with an odd intonation, like the ritual prayers you’d hear at a shrine, or a song from a long, long time ago. Eventually, something layers onto his voice.

  “Wait…what?!”

  I hear more voices—the excited laughter of children, the hum of conversation between adults. “Daddy, hurry! It’s been forever since we went to a hot spring!” I can hear the happy chatter of a family like it’s being directly injected into my brain.

  “I’ll go get Granddad!”

  “Mom, let’s go in the bath again!”

  “What, you’re having another beer?”

  “Let’s come back next year for our family vacation.”

  The distant voices play like a faded movie. I can hear the hustle and bustle. The crowds of excited young people. This place, in an era when everyone believed unquestioningly in a bright future, before I was born—

  Bang! The door finally shuts.

  “It’s closed!” I yell. Without missing a beat, the man raises what looks like a key and inserts it into the door. For a second, I think I see a keyhole appear on what should have been its blank surface.

  “We respectfully return them to you!” the man shouts as he turns the key.

  With a sound like a giant bubble popping, the current dissipates. A dizzying sensation washes over me, like morning has cleared away the night in an instant. Colorful rain begins to fall, beating down on the pool in the courtyard. But soon, the wind has swept it away, too.

  The distant voices are gone.

  The sky is clear blue again, and the earth has stopped quaking. The door stands silently, like everything that just happened was a mirage.

  This is the first door I will shut.

  Because I was pushing so hard, removing my hands from the door is more akin to peeling them away. My legs are weak. The shallow pool is as still as glass. Birdsong fills the air. The man is standing a few paces away from me, staring at the closed door.

  “Um… What just happened?” I ask.

  “The Keystone should have been in place.”

  “Huh?”

  He finally turns away from the door and looks me in the eye.

  “…Why did you come here? Why could you see the worm? Where did the Keystone go?”

  “Uh, um…” His tone is insistent, but my answer is confused. “Worm? Keystone…? You mean like a rock? What are you talking about?”

  He glares at me. Wait, is he blaming me for something? Why?

  “What is going on?!” I snap, suddenly angry. He blinks in surprise, then sighs, carelessly pushing a long strand of hair out of his eye. The small miracle of elegance in that gesture makes me even madder. He ignores me and looks back at the door.

  “…This place turned into a Gate. That’s where the worm comes through,” he mutters cryptically and starts to walk away. “Thank you for helping me. Now please forget everything you saw here and go home.”

  As he strides off, I notice that the dark bloodstain on his left arm is spreading. It’s the wound he got protecting me.

  “Wait!” I shout.

  At this time of afternoon, Tamaki wouldn’t be home. With that in mind, I unlock the front door.

  “Please go upstairs. I’ll get the first aid kit and be up in a minute,” I say to the man, who’s standing in the entryway. I head toward the living room.

  “I appreciate the sentiment, but I—”

  “If you hate hospitals that much, at least let me give you first aid,” I say firmly. He’s been stubbornly resisting treatment since we left the ruined hotel. He hates doctors? What is he, a five-year-old? My house’s familiar entryway looks ridiculously small with him standing in it. Behind me, I hear him reluctantly climbing the stairs.

  A news helicopter is flying overhead, which is unusual. That’s how big the earthquake was. On my way home from the ruins, I saw crumbled stone walls and fallen roof tiles. My neighborhood, which is usually deathly quiet, was as crowded as a festival, with everyone cleaning up and congratulating one another on surviving.

  Our living room is strewn with stuff. The books from the shelf are all over the floor, an etching has fallen off the wall, and our Japanese ash has tipped over in its pot, spilling dirt across the floor. In the corner where Tamaki hangs her nostalgic photos, some of the frames have fallen off the wall. Glancing at a picture of myself about to cry on my first day of kindergarten (and Tamaki, ten years younger, smiling beside me), I open a cabinet and search for the first aid box.

  I climb the stairs, thinking my room must be a mess, but I’m surprised to find it fairly neat. The man must have tidied up while I was downstairs. He’s sitting in the middle of the clean room, asleep. He must have been exhausted. He’s pulled the kiddie chair out from the corner and is sitting on it. It’s a small wooden chair, old and painted yellow. From the tidied room to the children’s chair, I have the awkward feeling he’s seen some private, embarrassing side of me.

  “All righty, let’s get that wound washed,” I say loudly, walking him up.

  “At one twenty this afternoon, an earthquake occurred with a lower six seismic intensity rating, originating in southern Miyazaki Prefecture. There is no risk of an associated tsunami. As of the present time, no injuries have been reported…”

  The man listens to that much of the report, then taps the screen of his phone to turn off the news. The laceration doesn’t seem to be as bad as the blood made it look. But just to be sure, I wash it carefully with water and place an antiseptic patch over it. Kneeling next to him, I take his left arm and begin wrapping a bandage around it. His muscles are pretty thick. The strange key he used to close the door hangs against his chest over a long overshirt. It’s made of metal the color of dead grass, inscribed with intricate designs. A gentle breeze blows in through the open window, ringing a chime hanging there.

  “You’re good at that,” he says, watching me wrap the bandage.

  “My mom was a nurse. Anyway, I have a lot of questions for you!”

  “I bet you do,” he says, his perfect lips smiling slightly.

  “Um… You said there was a worm, right? What did you mean?”

  “The worm is a powerful force beneath the Japanese archipelago. When distortions accumulate, it erupts without intention or goal, thrashing around mindlessly and causing earthquakes.”

  “Huh…?” I find this information hard to process. “But we got him, right?” I ask, since that’s the important point.

  “We only confined it temporarily. If we don’t seal it in with the Keystone, it will come back out from somewhere else.”

  “…You mean there’ll be another earthquake? You mentioned a Keystone earlier, didn’t you? Is that—?”

  “It’s all right,” he says, gently putting an end to the conversation. “Preventing that is my job.”

  “Your job?”

  I’m done wrapping the bandage. I fix it in place with a piece of surgical tape. Now I have more questions than ever.

  “Tell me,” I say, hardening my voice. “Who exactly are—?”

  “Thank you for doing that,” he says softly before sitting up straight. He looks me in the eye and bows his head. “My name is Souta. Souta Munakata.”

  “Oh! Um! Uh, my name is Suzume Iwato,” I sputter, surprised by his sudden self-introduction. He repeats my name, rolling it around in his mouth, then smiles softly.

  “Meow!”

  “Eek!”

  I look up and see a small form on the windowsill. A kitten is perched on the railing of the bay window.

  “What? Who’s this? You’re so skinny!”

  Its little body, small enough to fit in my palm, is bony and gaunt. Only its yellow eyes are big. It’s all white, except for a ring of black fur around its left eye like someone punched it, leaving a bruise. Its ears are pressed back. It’s hard not to pity a face like that.

  “Wait a second!” I say to Souta and the cat before running to the kitchen, dumping some dried sardines onto a dish, and bringing it up to my room with a bowl of water to set on the windowsill. The kitten sniffs the fish, cautiously licks it, then begins eating with gusto.

  “You must have been starving…,” I murmur, gazing at its bony ribs. I haven’t seen it around here before. “Did you run away during the earthquake? Are you okay? Was it scary?”

  The white kitten looks me straight in the eye.

  “Meow,” it answers.

  “You’re so cute!”

  What a brave little kitty!

  Beside me, Souta is smiling, too.

  “Want to become my cat?” I ask without thinking.

  “Yes.”

  “Huh?”

  It answered me. Its marble-like yellow eyes stare into mine. A moment ago, it was skin and bones, but now it is as plump as a little rice cake. Its ears are standing up straight. The wind chime tinkles, as if it had forgotten to until just now. The kitten’s furry little mouth opens.

  “Suzume nice. I like her.”

  Its voice falters like that of a young child, but the cat just talked. A humanlike will saturates its yellow eyes. They shift to Souta and narrow.

  “You. In my way.”

  “!”

  I hear a clatter. Glancing around reflexively, I see that the chair Souta was sitting on has toppled over. Just the chair.

  “Wait, what?”

  He’s gone. Souta was here just a second ago. The white cat is sitting perfectly still on the windowsill. It looks like it’s smiling, and I feel goose bumps crawl over my skin, and then— Clatter. Something is moving around at my feet. The chair’s on its back. Something is not right. Clatter.

  “…?”

  The front left leg of the wooden chair is broken off, so it only has three legs. One of the remaining legs appears to be waving. The movement is enough to flip the chair from its back onto its side. Two legs kick the floor, and it rights itself.

  “Huh…?”

  Struggling to retain its balance, it stares at me with its two eyes. Right—the chair has always had a pair of eyes carved into the backrest. It bends its face down as if to check the condition of its body.

  “What the hell is…?” the chair says in a low, soft voice.

  “No way!!” I shout despite myself. “S-Souta…?”

  “Suzume…what happened to me…?”

  Just then, the chair loses its balance and topples forward. But it catches itself by kicking out its front leg. It spins around from the force of the kick, thrashing its three legs frantically. It sounds like someone is tap-dancing in my room. Finally, it stops moving and takes in the cat on the windowsill.

  “Did you do this?!” the chair—I mean Souta—shouts, growing angry. The kitten leaps nimbly out the window.

  “No!” I shout as the chair runs to the window. It scrambles up, using a bookshelf for a ladder, and leaps out after the cat.

  “Wait, wait!” I yell. We’re on the second floor! I can hear Souta scream. I lean out the window in a panic. The chair is sliding down the roof. It tumbles onto some laundry hanging in the garden to dry, then disappears. A second later, it bursts out from under a sheet. The cat is already running across the road, and chasing it, the chair leaps into the narrow street. A passing car honks in surprise.

  “No way!”

  I have to go after it, I think, then wonder if I’m crazy a second later. All the fear, confusion, and chills I felt earlier surge back. A worm that causes earthquakes? A talking cat and a running chair? This stuff has nothing to do with me. Obviously, it would be better not to get involved. I’m not a part of that world, I think, not knowing exactly what I mean. I think of Tamaki and Aya and Mami.

  But we were the only ones who could see it.

  I grab Souta’s key from the floor where it fell and bolt out of my room. I probably hesitated for only a second. By the time I’m running down the stairs, I’ve forgotten I hesitated at all.

  “Suzume!”

  “Tamaki!”

  I run into Tamaki in the entryway.

  “Sorry, I have to go!” I say, shooting past her.

  “Go where?” she asks, grabbing my arm. “I came back because I was worried about you!”

  “You did?”

  “The earthquake! You wouldn’t answer your phone, so—”

  “Oh, sorry. I didn’t notice you called! I’m fine!”

  At this rate, I’ll lose them. Brushing off Tamaki’s hand, I fly into the road. Her shouts fade behind me.

  I run down the hill after Souta and the cat, and I eventually catch sight of them. Souta is half falling down the hill, his legs a tangle. Beyond him, a girl and boy in junior high uniforms are climbing the hill. The chair tumbles forward and slides noisily down the slope, then skids to a stop in front of them.

  “Whoa!”

  “What is that?”

  “A chair?”

  Souta quickly rights himself, but he must be off-balance, because he’s tottering in circles. The junior high kids are shrieking in fear at the strange object circling them. Finally pointing himself in the right direction, Souta moves away and starts hurtling down the hill once more.

  “Sorry!” I shout as I blast past the students, who are snapping pictures of the chair with their phones. I can hear the storm of shutter clicks behind me. Damn, they’re getting me, too. This won’t be on social media, right? Ahead of Souta, I can make out the cat and, beyond that, the port.

  The flock of seagulls that hangs out at the port like a gang of kids in front of a convenience store takes flight. The white cat runs past the spot they’ve vacated, followed by the chair, and then by me a minute later.

  “Hey, Suzume!” a deep voice calls out.

  “Huh?!”

  On the next wharf over, across a strip of sea, Minoru is waving enthusiastically at me. He’s a coworker of Tamaki’s who has had an obvious, unrequited crush on her for years. He seems to be in the middle of lifting some cargo off a fishing boat. He’s a good guy, so I don’t dislike him, but…

  “What’s wrong?”

  There’s no way I can answer his question right now. The ferry boarding area at the port is a set of bare steel stairs, and some men who look like truck drivers are walking noisily up and down them. The cat weaves between their feet with Souta at its heels. Surprised, the truck drivers cry out. “What the—?”

  “You’re kidding me!” I mutter as I frantically scramble after them. “Excuse me! Sorry!”

  All I can do is apologize and push past the men as I run up the ramp onto the ferry.

  “We apologize for the wait,” the captain is saying over the intercom. “The earthquake earlier this afternoon delayed our departure, but we have completed our safety inspection and will be departing shortly.”

  The horn I always hear in the distance blows so loudly I can feel it in my eardrums. Then the ferry moves slowly away from the port like the slanting beams of the afternoon sun are pushing it along. The cat, the chair, and I are all on board.

  It’s Starting, the World Whispers

  Past the ferry entrance is a lobby full of vending machines. Long-distance truck drivers are sitting at a round table like they’re right at home, already cracking open their beers.

  “Did you see that?”

  “Did I ever! Whaddaya think it was?”

  “A cat, I’d say.”

  “I swear I saw a chair running up the ramp.”

  “A toy, you think?”

  “A drone, more like it. Good one, too.”

  Augh, we’re gossip now! I jog through the lobby, scanning the corners for Souta and the cat. I’m acutely aware of the middle-aged men eyeing me suspiciously as I pass in my sweat-soaked uniform. Their stares make me sweat even more. I race up the stairs, run through the lounge with its scattering of passengers, ascend another staircase, and step into the outer corridor facing the ocean.

  “Dammit, where are you?!” I’m mad. I feel like my pet has been bothering people, and it’s a pet I didn’t even ask for. At the end of the narrow corridor is the windy rear deck.

  “Aha!”

  That’s where they are. In the middle of the deck, buffeted by gusts of wind, the kitten and the kiddie chair are facing off about two meters apart. I’m suddenly dizzy, unable to decide if this is reality or some childish nightmare.

  “What are you running from?!” Souta bellows, bearing down on the kitten. The white cat backs away as he advances. “What did you do to my body?! What are you?!”

  The cat continues to silently retreat. But there’s a railing behind it, and below that, the sea.

  “Answer me!”

  The chair bends its legs deeply, then pounces at the cat. The cat dodges nimbly and scales the tall, thin radar mast at the back of the ferry.

  “Dammit,” I say with a sigh. It got away. I run over to Souta, and we look up at the mast together. The little white cat is perched fifteen meters above our heads, at the top of the pole.

  “Suuuzume.”

  It’s looking at me, its round yellow eyes glittering with excitement.

  “See you later,” it says pertly in its youthful voice before diving toward the sea. I gasp. But it drops into a patrol boat coming up on the ferry from behind.