Chương 4: Chapter 1: The Last Ordinary Day(Part 3)

The first witness was waiting near the eastern pillar. According to him, he'd arrived earlier that morning to prepare for scheduled construction work. At the time, the road had been completely normal. No pillars. No strange structures. Nothing. Then, at some point, these things had simply... appeared. The witness insisted that the pillars hadn't originally extended this far into the roadway. They had continued growing afterward. More importantly, he was now extremely concerned about project deadlines.

I couldn't blame him. As far as I could tell, the only confirmed facts were: Nobody knew what the pillars were. Nobody knew why they were here. And nobody knew who was responsible. Fantastic. I was already developing a headache. While listening to the witness, I glanced toward the western side of the road. Sasaki was busy taking photographs from every possible angle for the investigation report. Good. At least one of us was being productive. Wait. Had that ring been there before? I blinked. No. Definitely not.

A circular structure now connected the two pillars. A massive stone ring hung between them, suspended above the roadway. It hadn't been there earlier. I was certain of it.

"Oh, come on..." My stomach wasn't built for this much unreality before lunch.

"Hey, Kuroe-san!" Sasaki waved from the northern side of the structure. Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

"What do we do about this thing?" Good question. I had absolutely no idea. Still, photographs were required. No matter how ridiculous the situation became, paperwork remained eternal. As I studied the structure, something about it felt familiar. A giant ring. Ancient-looking stone. A gateway shape. Then it clicked.

"That's it."

"What?"

"Stargate."

"Huh?"

"The movie." Sasaki looked completely lost.

"You know. Giant ring. Other world. Lots of shooting."

"... Never watched it." Kids these days. I borrowed the camera and checked the photos he'd already taken. Overall shots. Close-ups of the pillars. More shots after the ring appeared. Everything looked fine. Almost everything.

"We don't have any pictures from inside the ring." Sasaki shrugged.

"Do we need them?"

"Probably not." I paused.

"Which is exactly why someone will ask for them later." That was how reports worked. The one photograph you didn't take was always the one management wanted.

"I'll get them."

"I can do it."

"It's fine." I handed back the camera.

"It's just a few pictures." Famous last words. Walking beneath the ring, I snapped photos from several angles. The structure looked even stranger up close. Whatever material it was made from, it certainly wasn't ordinary stone. The entire thing felt wrong somehow. Like it didn't belong here. Still, a strange object was just a strange object. Eventually some contractor would show up, remove it, and ruin my day with paperwork. That was probably the most likely explanation.

I was in the middle of taking another photograph when something flashed. Just for an instant. A streak of light raced across the interior of the ring. I frowned.

"... Did I imagine that?" As it turned out, I hadn't. Later, I would learn that identical rings had appeared all over the world at almost the exact same moment. People would eventually call them Dungeon Gates. The flash of light had been witnessed everywhere. And immediately afterward, the interiors of the rings became impossible to pass through, as though an invisible shutter had dropped into place. The reason I learned all of this later was simple. The moment the light appeared— I wasn't outside anymore.

"... Huh?" One second I had been standing beneath the ring. The next, I was somewhere else. Stone walls surrounded me. Or maybe brick. The material was difficult to identify. A ceiling stretched overhead. A corridor extended into darkness. No road. No sky. No Sasaki. No pillars. Just an unfamiliar underground passage. For several seconds I simply stared. Then I pinched the bridge of my nose.

"Okay. Think." I had been standing beneath the ring. Taking photographs. Facing north. If I turned around— Wall. Solid wall. No exit. No gate. Nothing.

"... Great." I grabbed my handheld radio.

"Chief, come in." Silence. No response. I tried again. Still nothing. My phone showed no signal. Of course it did. The corridor was dimly lit, though not completely dark. I could see well enough to walk. Not well enough to feel comfortable. The passage behind me was blocked. The way forward remained open. Which left exactly one option. I lit a cigarette. Priorities. The smoke rose straight upward. No breeze. No obvious airflow. Not ideal. Still, I wasn't immediately suffocating. That counted as good news. Probably.

After finishing the cigarette, I started walking. No rescue. No communications. No clues. The corridor stretched endlessly ahead. Stone flooring. Stone walls. Stone ceiling. Everything looked the same. After roughly thirty minutes of walking, I finally found something different. A fork in the path. One route continued straight. The other turned left. I licked a finger and held it up. No airflow. No helpful signs. No magical guidance from the universe.

"Guess we're doing this the old-fashioned way." I placed my cigarette butt in the center of the intersection as a marker. The filter pointed toward the route I'd chosen. Then I turned left. If I got lost, at least I'd have something to follow back. Hopefully.