Another Night

For most, the day passed rather uneventfully. Soon, they had gathered at the community center again. Another week had passed since Shingo told his story and the group was meeting again. Winter was fast approaching and, despite the usual mild winters in Tokyo, the foreboding cold was already beginning to set in on the city. They usually only held meetings once a week, but Shingo and Asuka had messaged the group with some information they needed to share.

Each of the members had arrived as usual. Ichiro sat, deep in thought while his shirt was soaked with sweat. Yuki was organizing the snacks. Takamasa and Konomi sat together, laughing about a joke. Inori was seated beside Ichiro throwing him random glances as if she was trying to figure him out. Shingo and Asuka were the last two to meander into the building. Shingo was toting a rather heavy backpack this time. Idle chatter filled the room as he walked in while being led by Asuka.

As Asuka walked over to set up her phone, Shingo said "Sorry I was unreachable at work the other day. The police had us working on something and they took our phones."

"Why would they take your phones?" Inori asked.

"Well, they didn't want us to do exactly what I did which was take pictures." Shingo chuckled a bit.

"So..." Inori said gesturing slightly toward Asuka.

"Oh, her phone is also a projector so she's setting up to show everyone my pictures as well as the other info we found out about." Shingo continued.

"I don't mean to butt in and change the topic." Takamasa interjected and his face shifted to an almost fearful expression. "I was wondering how you all would feel hearing the world I was in tonight as well?"

There was a pause as everyone tried to consider everything that was happening. The group had long thought that Takamasa and Yuki had the easiest worlds based on what the two had talked about with them. As they saw the grave look on Takamasa's face, they started to wonder if there was more to his story that they didn't know.

"I'd like to hear it." Ichiro said, looking up at Takamasa.

Ichiro, who had been long quiet at the group meeting, broke his silence.

Before anyone else could respond, Takamasa continued, "Then I'll definitely tell my story."

"Well, not to minimize the story, I think we should start with what Shingo and Asuka want to show us." Inori said.

"Of course" Takamasa slightly stuttered, "I didn't mean to intrude on the situation at hand."

"Don't apologize Takamasa" Yuki chimed in as she walked over and placed her had on his shoulder. "We definitely do want to hear your story as long as you want to tell us and don't feel pressured into it."

"YEA!" Konomi cheered. "Let's get this party under way!" Her overly emphatic response completely missed the mood of the meeting, but worked as a good transition to seeing what Asuka and Shingo had found.

Shingo, wearing his standard black hoodie, walked up to the front and after pulling his hood down, began explaining everything he had to go through and what Asuka found on the way.

"So, I was at work the other day." Shingo started. "And I think you noticed I was unreachable for most of it. When I got to work, a group of us were pulled into a separate room with some police where they took our phones. They didn't want us taking pictures or something, but I still had my watch that Asuka got for me." Shingo gestured to Asuka. "So I could still take pictures."

The projection from Asuka's phone showed a heavily damaged train as if a bomb had gone off inside of it.

Shingo continued, "The police were there because they said it was an ongoing case they were trying to work, but they wanted the workers to start disassembling the parts of it that they needed." The picture changed to another image of the train showing the wall blown out of it.

"That's why I was unreachable, but that's not all in regards to what happened." Shingo pressed on. "While Asuka was trying to find me and once my watch made it back in cell service, all the pictures were sent automatically to my phone and hers. From there, she started finding out what happened to the train."

The image shifted to the on train security camera footage showing a group of people casually and calmly riding the train. The video didn't seem very remarkable. Five people on a train, mostly sitting with two of them standing. An older man sat while reading a newspaper. A younger college age kid listened to music and played on his phone. A middle aged woman was looking around. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary and then suddenly the camera feed cut.

"So, we saw some random people on a train?" Yuki questioned.

"I didn't figure you noticed..." Shingo started before he was cut off.

"I saw it. It was the woman." Ichiro blurted out.

Surprised that anyone noticed because of the quality of the video Asuka said "You have good eyes."

"Yes, after Asuka had found a better angle in the cab and cleared up the video a bit" Shingo said as he clicked another button.

The video changed to show a much closer view where the woman was barely visible on the left side. After looking around, the woman looked up and, showing only half her face, it was clear that her eyes were solid black.

"She was taken to an isekai and didn't make it out." Shingo let out followed by a big sigh.

After a short pause, Konomi chimed in with "So, then what happened to the train?"

"We don't know." Asuka answered. "This is the last bit of footage that we found from anywhere close to there. No audio of it exploding, no visuals of what happened to the people."

Yuki stuttered in with "What do you mean 'what happened to the people.'"

"Part of what the police wanted help with was finding out what happened to the people on the train." Shingo answered. "Everyone on that train is considered missing."

"From the video cameras in the surrounding area, they never left the train." Asuka said. "I did a very comprehensive search."

"We don't know if there was a link to the statue or what, but Asuka thinks we should keep an eye on the situation." Shingo said, nodding at Asuka.

"Definitely!" Inori exclaimed. "If something is linked to the statue then we need to know because that could have been any one of us." Looking to Asuka, she continued, "If you can get me names or addresses, I'll see what I can track down by chatting to neighbors and such."

Asuka nodded back before typing on her phone. Inori's phone buzzed.

"This might sound insensitive, but there weren't any body parts or blood or anything left over from the explosion?" Yuki asked the pair making the presentation.

"That's why the police are so interested in the situation." Shingo responded. "There's no scorch marks or burns on the inside of the train either. I don't think they've noticed that someone went statue on the train right before, but they'll figure it out sooner or later and that'll just direct more negative sentiment toward us and other survivors."

"Why would that make people look down on us?" Ichiro asked.

The room went silent for a moment before Yuki stepped up to answer the young man's question, "Well, even Shingo said that before he went to his world that he didn't quite believe our stories or what we say happened to us. Most of the populace call us liars. Not to mention that the statues, you know the people with black eyes? Most of us feel like they too were taken to another world, but they didn't survive to be able to come back. Since they just die without a viable cause, the public is scared."

"So, anything even the slightest bit bad that relates to us or the statues gets blown out of proportion." Konomi added.

The group started chatting with each other, but all of what they were saying became too muffled to understand for Takamasa. The look on his face let the others know he was deep in thought, and those thoughts were terrible.

"Are you okay Takamasa?" Yuki asked, snapping him back to the world,

With a few blinks of his eyes, he looked back at the group and said, "Yea, sorry. I was in my own world there for a minute."

The group, understood what that meant. Each of them having some PTSD from their own isekai, sometimes they too would get lost in memories. Takamasa's situation was slightly different because he was about to recount his story to the group in full. Weighing heavy on his soul was the idea that he wouldn't be accepted by the group after his story.