I can't move. It's like I'm stuck to the floor by the soles of my shoes and even if I try, I can't pull myself away. Ichiro's hand on my shoulder is like a weight made of lead. I can't even bear to look at his eyes--they're so blue, so deeply fixed on my own, it makes me feel ashamed...

Crap. Why me?

"What happened, Aya?" Ichiro repeats. "I didn't hurt you, did I?"

"N-no." Why does he have to care so much? Nobody else would bother asking. "I tripped," I say.

"Hey, you're crying. What's wrong?"

It's so stupid. I can't stop the tears. I wish he would just go away. "Nothing," I say, wiping my eyes with the back of my hand.

"Aya." Suddenly Ichiro has my hand in his, and I glance up at him in fear. There's nothing frightening in his eyes, nothing bad about what he's doing, so why do I feel so afraid?

"It's okay," Ichiro says, smiling softly. "You can tell me what happened."

No... No, I can't tell him. But his hand is so warm, and I feel so much safer, and the laughter of the boys is still ringing in my ears, and the tears just keep streaming out of my eyes. I don't want to look at him. Ichiro is so nice to me, just like Mizuki, and for some reason that hurts. Having someone care about me, after all that happened out on the lawn--I don't know how to deal with it. I don't know what to do.

And before I know it, I'm crying so heavily that even the sobs are coming up from my lungs, and Ichiro is holding me tight.

"It's okay," I hear his voice deep inside his chest. "It's okay, now." He rubs my shoulders gently while I shake with the sobs, unable to control them.

I can't do this anymore. I can't feel this way. Ichiro is so kind, though, and he's so cute...I shouldn't think things like that. Ichiro is Mizuki's boyfriend.

"I--I'm s-sorry, I-chiro," I try to say through the tears, shaking my head emphatically. "I'm r-really--all--right." I push myself away from him, wiping my face on my sleeve. Ichiro looks confused; his blue eyes are sad. He doesn't understand. How can he? But I can't stay here.

"I have to g-go to class," I stammer, and before Ichiro can say anything else I'm running off down the hall.

7:52 AM, Wakayama High School

I trace a line underneath my name at the top of the page in my notebook. Rain Shaddai. It's such a weird name, especially here. Nobody in Japan has a name like that. My parents moved to Tokyo before I was born. From where? I don't know. They don't talk about it. From the west, I guess. There's nothing east of Japan.

"This will be a pop quiz," the teacher announces. "Anything from your study material is fair game."

Great. This is why I'm in Class D. All the "trouble" kids are in Class D, but I'm not really trouble. My grades just suck.

I draw a few more lines connected to the first, shading the area behind them. A little box, trapping my name inside. It makes perfect sense.

"Please put all your materials away--"

I glance up from underneath the dark brown hair that nearly covers my eyes. The teacher has stopped talking, and everyone is looking up at the television screen in the corner of the room.

"Police and firefighters have arrived at the scene and are currently searching for survivors. Some forty-five civilians are unaccounted for, thirty-two have been reported dead."

It's a train wreck. A collision that forced an engine and several passenger cars off a bridge and into the street. Why are they showing this in the middle of class?

Some kids start whispering at the front of the room. The teacher calls for attention, but nobody is really listening. I turn back to my drawing and start filling in the margins with sketches of telephone poles. At this rate, there won't be a pop quiz. Everyone's enthralled by the news report, even the teacher.

But...

It's strange. Usually I don't care about stuff like this. I mean, the news is depressing enough already, without showing disasters in classrooms. But I feel like something is grabbing hold of my heart and not letting go. It gets tighter and tighter until I finally move my head to look up at the screen again.

"Witnesses say that the accident occurred at approximately 7:25 AM..."

The scene shown on the report is being taken from a helicopter or something, because it's up pretty high. The line of one long train merges with the line of another, where the first breaks off and spans out over the cars and trees where it plummeted in the wreck. Plumes of smoke are rising up from between the intersecting lines, like a gray flower blooming out of a crack in the sidewalk.

Suddenly something grabs hold of me again, but this time I know what to do with it. I seize my pencil from where it was lying on my desk, and I begin furiously sketching the lines of the trains in my notebook, then the smoke blossoming out of them. I am drawing the wreck. I am recording history.

I'll have to be quick.

7:21 AM

Watching the world move past me, the city all around me constantly bending and shifting and disappearing, is like shooting forward in time. The train rattles with its noisy pulse over the tracks, moving forward and back, forward and back in a comforting way. I am standing just inside the glass door, watching the streets and sidewalks speed by me at a rapid pace, my eyes blurring in and out of focus on the racing objects outside. We should be getting to my stop soon. It's usually about a twenty-five minute ride on the train, and then a five minute walk to the high school. I like to get there a little early so I have time to talk with my friends before homeroom.

The intercom buzzes over my head, and a voice crackles through the speakers. "Attention, please. The train route to the 77th Street stop is closed for emergency construction today. We will be taking a detour to West 76th instead. Once again, we will not be stopping at 77th Street."

A man sitting near me swears under his breath, pounding the plastic seat with his fist. I sigh quietly, wondering how long the detour will be. I hope it doesn't take too long to walk from West 76th. Aya will probably be waiting for me at the lobby entrance so we can walk to class together. I don't want to make her wait forever.

The funny thing about Aya is, she would actually do that. She would wait around all day if she thought I was coming to walk to homeroom with her, just because that's the kind of person she is. I think a lot of people miss that about her. They don't see the girl beneath the quiet, shy exterior, and so they miss out on knowing a really great friend.

Outside the glass door I can see the street signs getting smaller as the train rises up toward the railroad bridge that crosses over the highway. I haven't been down these tracks before, but I've seen the bridge. It's tall and narrow, wide enough for only one train to cross at a time.

I glance up at the digital clock above the windows. The red numbers blink from 7:21 to 7:22, and I wonder what the view will look like from the top of the bridge.

Then the train car jolts forward, nearly sending me to the floor. I grab hold of the metal pole at my left side and hang on tight. What is going on--?

The other people in the car are starting to mumble nervously to each other, and some have stood up to look out of the windows. I grip the pole with both hands as the floor of the car rumbles and throws us back and forth. It feels like the train is stopping, but outside the door the world is still flying past us. I can't see very far ahead, though, because now everyone on the train is crowding in front of the windows, and the noise has escalated to a roar--or maybe it only sounds like a roar, but now it's whistling in my ears, a screeching sound, high-pitched and growing louder...

I squeeze my eyes shut. Ichi...

And the next thing I know, the tracks have disappeared from underneath me, and I am flying.

8:51 AM, Wakayama High School

All morning through first period I have been trying to tell myself that everything is okay. I can't help it, though; I feel jarred. I am not the type of person who can just sit and watch disasters happen. Even bad stuff on the news makes my skin crawl sometimes. And that train wreck, so close to the school, and Mizuki being gone--it's kind of creepy.

"Ch-Chieko?"

I look up from my desk, and there's Aya standing over me, her books hugged close in her arms. Her cheeks turn pink and she looks down at the floor, her short brown hair partially hiding her face. "I'm sorry I ran into you earlier," she whispers.

She came all the way over here just to tell me that? I shrug my shoulders passively. "It's cool," I say.

"Um..." Aya studies me for a moment, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. "Are you okay?" she asks.

I glance up at her, and I realize that I must look kind of put off about something, because my face feels like I've been frowning without knowing it.

"Yeah," I say, forcing a smile. "I'm fine."

"Oh."

I'm about to go back to my work, but she just keeps standing there. "Do you want something?" I ask, bothered.

Aya blushes heavily and pushes her hair back with her fingers, looking like she's about to cry. "Uh...the group project. The teacher said to work with our partners for the rest of class. But we don't have to if you don't want..."

"Oh, no, sure." I must have missed the teacher saying that. I guess my mind has been wandering again. "What've you got?"

"Well, I wrote down some notes on the story we're supposed to be presenting..." Aya sits down at the desk in front of me, spreading out her books and papers. She starts to talk about the project, but I am only half listening. Seeing her again is making me think about the scene I witnessed out in the hallway. Just what is going on with her and Ichiro, anyway?

Then I remember how she came in late to class because of it, and I spring the question on her before I can stop myself.

"Aya. Did you see the news report?"

9:05 AM, Wakayama High School

I open my textbook and try to focus on the paragraph I'm reading about Bernoulli's Principle, but the characters are swimming before my eyes and in my head I keep hearing Aya's sobs from earlier today. I can't help feeling like it was my fault, somehow, that she was crying. Like maybe I bumped into her too hard or something. I don't know. You can never tell with girls; they're so complex.

Sighing, I let my chin sink into the palm of my hand and stare down at my book, puzzled. I know I shouldn't be losing any sleep over something like this, but...geez. What was I supposed to do?

I'm such an idiot. I pound my forehead with my fist, one, two, three times, until the teacher gives me a quizzical look and raises his voice from across the classroom.

"Ichiro-kun. The answers will not come out, no matter how hard you hit it."

I smile weakly and bow my head. "Yes, Sakutaro-sensei. I'm sorry."

Mr. Sakutaro smiles back before returning to his own book. This is study time, and I should be refreshing my memory about chemistry before the test. But I can't concentrate very well.

I open the top of my desk quietly and take my glasses out of their case, brushing my light hair out of the way to slide them on. I don't really need glasses except for reading the blackboard or seeing far away, but having them on helps me study more diligently. I guess they make me feel more intelligent, or something.

Even though it's study period, some kids behind me are whispering, and I can hear them talking about the accident. It seems like everyone has been talking about some sort of big collision that happened this morning. I must have missed it. Apparently there was a news report on the television during homeroom, but since I came in late after talking to Aya, I didn't see any of it.

Oh, well. Focus, Ichiro. I can ask Mizuki about it at lunch. I'm in Class A, while Mizuki and her friends are in Class B, so lunch is one of the only times we get to see each other. At first I was mad about getting stuck in different classes, because Mizuki is really smart and gets good grades. But she froze up on the entrance exam and didn't do so well, and that's how she ended up in Class B. Mizuki is happy to be with her friends, though, and she makes the highest grades in her class, so things have worked out okay. And as long as Mizuki is happy, I'm okay, too.

"All right, everyone. The test over chapter two will begin now. Please put away all your study materials and take out a pencil."

Crap! I knew I should have been focusing. All that time to study, and I haven't committed a single word to memory. This is why I try not to think about Mizuki during class time...

"Ichiro," Mr. Sakutaro says quietly as he passes my desk, handing out tests. "That means you, too."

I give him a lopsided smile as I take the test booklet and shove my books inside my desk. Well, here goes nothing.

7: 50 AM

The first thing I hear is a hissing noise, like the seams of the earth have opened up beneath me and the ground is taking in a huge breath. I blink my eyes once or twice, trying to bring the world back into focus. It feels like I have been asleep for hours.

Gradually the noise erupts into a blaring roar. Sirens are wailing, taxis are honking there horns, people are screaming, fire hoses are blasting jet streams of water through the hazy, gray air. I squint my eyes harder. Where am I?

Then I begin to remember--the train, the screeching noise right before we went flying off the bridge--and pain shoots through my head. I cringe, stretching my muscles cautiously. Strangely, I can't move at first. My body feels like it's made of lead. I look down and notice that something is lying across my chest. Groaning, I give it an upward shove with everything I've got left. The heavy metal beam groans back as it slowly moves away, and I crawl out from under it, breath heaving in my lungs.

I can't see the train anywhere--I'm outside, lying atop an enormous pile of rubble, in the shade of a towering city building. Somewhere, paramedics are making their way through the maze of smoking aftermath, searching for life among the ruins. The thoughts are jumbled in my head. I was riding in the train when it hit, but I'm lying far away from it now. I woke up pinned underneath a metal spar, but I'm not hurt.

They're searching for dead bodies, and yet...I'm alive?