Welcome to the Playground.
This story concludes a trilogy chronically a village in the Japanese countryside. A prequel to Godless Mountain that took on a life of its own. I’m interested in expanding this into a full novel, because for the first time all parts of characters, plot and theme are already rich, with more mystery waiting below the surface.
Here is PART 1 .
Here is PART 2
DARK WATER
The flood entered Iwata like something alive. A ferocious burst from the forrest carried pieces of the mountain with it. When the waters hit the outermost houses, they were torn apart by the impact. I saw roof tiles explode into the air and rain down into a churning torrent. People froze where they stood, but it was already too late for us. Before we could react streets I knew my whole life were swallowed up one after another. All that water, that darkness, and malice roared towards me.
There was nothing I could do.
I still wonder why, as I was swept away a memory triggered in my mind. Maybe some meaning was repeating itself. A reflection of the open sunny sky that day. As I was struck at how beautiful the pond surface shimmered, a splash jerked me awake. One of my friends had slipped and lay submerged waist deep. We just fell about laughing, but when I looked at my him in the water, he wasn’t laughing. Instead, he struggled and gasped for air. He looked like he was drowning. “My legs, something’s got my legs. Help. I’m being pulled,” he cried. Of course we all raced to his aid, but he wouldn’t budge. The water seemed to be keeping him held, as if weeds were wrapped around him just below the surface.
Then, his body jerked down. All the laughter evaporated when he was forced from our hands further underwater. With one last frantic effort, we managed to free him, and I saw it. It was only for a second, but I know it was there for sure. It floated right behind my friend, a dirty mass, face down in the clouding pond water. My first reaction was intense sadness. Nearly crying, I turned away. The others saw must have saw it too, because their faces were white sheets with eyes wide. I was suppressing my desire to loose it with every ounce of strength, because my friend was still not on dry land. Hearts pounding, we all pulled as hard as we could, and this is where things become very hard to explain.
Even now, what happened next is burned into my memory. Afterward, my friend reassured us it wasn’t a bad dream. As we pulled him out of the water, a slender hand was clasped around his ankle, refusing to let go. We hauled him out and ran as fast as we could back to the village. No one asked “What wast that?” until we were off the mountain pass. I had no answer. The only explanation that fit was a woman under the water wanted to drag my friend down, too. I guess the mountain above keeps everyone it’s given, but doesn’t given them back.
I awoke to people screamed my name, screamed for their family, screamed for the gods that had abandoned us long ago. The flood swallowed their voices without mercy. In little under an hour our village had become a river, with roof beams, furniture, and sections of houses spun through the current. Something struck my shoulder and nearly threw me under. When I looked back at where I had been, I saw my father. We had been beside each other, him looking down at me, after someone said, “Where’s Saki?” The moment the flood stuck he had just asked me, “What have you done, boy?” It took only a few seconds for me to be swept along the side of the festival ground. Now, he stood waist-deep in the torrent, reaching toward. I saw fear when our eyes met. Something had seized him from below. I know how impossible it sounds but it wasn’t the water. My father lurched downward as if being knocked off his feet. Oh God, I screamed his name knowing I couldn’t help him. He disappeared so suddenly that his hands remained above the water for a heartbeat before they too vanished.
I never saw him again.
The current carried me toward the village storehouse, standing above the water longer than anything else. By the time I reached it, perhaps twenty people had already climbed onto the roof watching our world die. I was the last to be rescued Hours passed, or minutes, I couldn’t tell. Every now and then a villager would drift past us in the darkness. Some were alive, others not. Sometimes a desperate survivor would cling to a floating beam and scream for help. Then they would always suddenly stop, and jerked before being pulled under. Gone. Neither splashing, or struggle. Each time it happened, we all looked away. Nobody wanted to see our home die.
The smell coming from the floodwater was unbearable. It was the unmistakable stench of something older than rotting wood and earth. Something that should have remained buried beneath the mountain. I couldn’t tell anyone I recognized it from the lake, from the last place I was with Saki. As dawn approached, the rain finally stopped. The water did not. It churned around us as though possessing a will of their own. A crack echoed beneath us and the storehouse shifted. We all froze. The stone foundation was giving way. “No,” someone whispered.
The flood answered as the structure collapsed. I was thrown into the cold alongside everyone else, striking like a physical blow. For a moment, I disappeared as darkness swallowed me whole. Then I surfaced again, fighting to keep the water below my chest. Around me floated broken wood and shattered pieces of Iwata. The survivors screamed. Some attempted to swim. Others simply cried. But one after another, without fail, they vanished under. A woman beside me was dragged beneath the water so suddenly she didn’t even finish her scream. An old man disappeared next. Then a frightened child.
The flood took them all.
I stopped fighting. There was no point anymore. My family was gone. My village. And Saki... The image of her falling replayed endlessly in my mind. The push. The stumble. The darkness below. The flood had every right to take me. I floundered weakly as the water climbed higher. Waiting. Accepting.
From somewhere further up the water logged street, I noticed hands floating upon the surface. At first, I thought they were bodies, but they began moving. Bobbing silently in the black water towards me. A line stretching across what remained of the village. Each one stopped, floating motionless before reaching me. The dead were gathering.
For the first time since the disaster began, the village around me became strangely calm. I looked down and was shocked to see faces stared back. Dozens of them. Men. Women. Children. The whole village. Their pale features drifted beneath the surface like reflections trapped below glass. Some I recognized, others looked impossibly old, but all eyes remained fixed on me. Then the floating hands from the water reaching forward.
I knew they wanted me, I was the last.
I didn’t care anymore.
“Please.”
My voice broke as I closed my eyes, ready for death. “Everyone I know is gone. Please take me, too.” The words escaped before I could stop them. The water touched my chin. “I don’t want to be alone.” My throat tightened. The lifeless hands continued reaching for me. My tears mixed with the flood, but I felt at peace. This was the end. The punishment I deserved.
Then something broke the surface directly in front of me.
A face.
Not human.
Not dead.
Not alive.
Its skin hung in strips. Water poured endlessly from empty eye sockets. Hair drifted around it like roots spreading through the flood. The sight froze every muscle in my body. The thing stared at me, then spoke.
“Igarashi.”
My name rolled through the flood. Through the village and the mountain. Through the dead beneath the water. Through every memory I carried. The thing leaned closer, and spoke one final time.
“You’re not what’s mine.”