“Argh… my head hurts. Where am I? What happened?”
A low groan slipped from his lips as he forced his eyes open.
He noticed the cabin was in disarray.
The seats were intact, but the aisle was filled with scattered luggage and personal belongings, as if everything had been thrown around violently.
People lay slumped in awkward positions.
Some remained motionless while others stirred weakly in their seats.
A few groaned as they slowly began to regain consciousness.
He tried to understand what had happened, but before he could think further, a sharp pain struck his head.
The pain was strong enough to blur his vision, as if something were striking him from the inside.
He clenched his teeth and tried to resist it, but quickly realized it was useless.
He felt something else beginning to surface.
Fragments of memory, both familiar and unfamiliar yet disturbingly vivid, pushed forward without warning.
His name was Kouichi Yarai.
He was a final-year college student studying paleontology.
He had been on a flight from Hokkaido to Tokyo before everything went black.
Those memories felt natural, as though they were his own.
Another set of memories surfaced, clearer than the first.
He went through them carefully, focusing on details instead of impressions.
Faces, voices, and fragments from a different stage of life surfaced in his mind without replacing the first memories.
The same name and the same face appeared again, except this version of himself was younger.
He was a high school student at Meikyou High School, returning home from a school trip…
…and then everything went black.
He frowned.
No… that’s not right.
The contradiction was obvious.
Yet the world itself had not changed.
Countries, cities, and history were all the same.
Places like Tokyo, New York, and Guam still existed as they should.
Wars had been fought and discoveries had been made, but the people behind them were different.
The names were the same, yet the faces did not match.
Even the people he should have recognized felt unfamiliar.
A university student and a high school student did not belong to the same point in his life, yet neither memory faded, and both felt equally real.
The pain grew worse as more fragments surfaced and overlapped in ways that made it impossible to tell where one ended and another began.
Lecture halls blended into classrooms, while the same name appeared in moments that should never have existed together.
His thoughts became increasingly muddled.
He knew he was a university student.
No… he was a high school student.
The two lives clashed inside his mind, each insisting it was the real one.
For a brief moment, he no longer knew who he was.
Had one of those lives been nothing more than a dream?
If those memories were real, then one life belonged to 2026, while the other belonged to 2008.
An eighteen-year gap was not something he could ignore.
So what was this?
A mistake?
A hallucination?
No. It was too clear and complete to dismiss so easily.
He let out a slow breath and stopped resisting, choosing instead to let the memories settle on their own.
Gradually, the memories stopped clashing and settled side by side inside his mind.
Even the pain began to fade.
As it did, the older memories slipped away with it.
Faces became unclear, while conversations slowly lost their meaning.
The details of that other life grew distant and vague, disappearing before he could fully focus on them.
By the time the pain eased completely, those memories had already faded, leaving behind only scattered knowledge that now felt completely natural to him.
His thoughts felt clearer, calmer, and more organized than they should have been.
Certain ideas surfaced instinctively even though he could not remember ever learning them.
He was Kouichi Yarai, a high school student at Meikyou High School.
Yarai clicked his tongue softly, forced the thoughts aside, and looked around.
There were more immediate things he needed to confirm.
His gaze moved across the cabin again.
There was no structural damage, no torn metal, no signs of impact.
The only thing left was disorder.
If anything, it looked like the aftermath of severe turbulence rather than a crash.
Then how had they landed?
He pushed himself up slowly, wincing as a dull pain ran along his side, and steadied himself before stepping into the aisle.
The nearest familiar face was Kurusu Makoto.
She was his homeroom teacher, a kind and cheerful woman who could be a little clumsy at times.
He crouched beside her and checked her pulse.
It was steady, and she was only unconscious.
After confirming that, he adjusted her position slightly to make her more comfortable before standing again.
He moved forward, observing the other passengers.
Some were starting to wake up, while others groaned in pain.
A few looked toward him as he passed, their reactions varied.
Some wary, some scared, some confused.
He recognized a few from his memories, while the rest were strangers, but he ignored them and didn’t stop.
When he reached the cockpit door, he found it closed.
The handle didn’t move when he tried it, and even after knocking firmly, there was no response.
Only then did he notice a flight attendant lying nearby.
He went to her immediately and shook her lightly until she stirred, her eyes opening slowly as confusion appeared her face.
“…What… happened…?”
“I don’t know. The plane is on the ground, and most of the passengers are still unconscious. I’m not sure what happened. Can you check on the pilots?”
Towa Suzuki expression changed then she nodded and pushed herself up.
She stepped toward the door and knocked firmly.
“Captain Tsuchiya… can you hear me?”
Only after receiving no response did she move to the keypad.
Her fingers paused briefly before entered the code.
She exhaled quietly and pulled the cockpit door open.
Inside, both the pilot and co-pilot were slumped over the controls.
She froze for a moment before stepping forward quickly and shaking him lightly.
“Captain Tsuchiya, can you hear me?”
There was still no reaction.
His brow tightened, and a low groan escaped him as he slowly lifted his head.
“…What… happened…?”
“I don’t know. I remember some turbulence, but after that… nothing.”
Tsuchiya frowned, trying to make sense of the situation.
“…I remember the turbulence too. But after that, I don’t remember anything. Not even the landing.”
He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to recall what had happened, but nothing came to him.
“…And you are?”
“A passenger,” Yarai replied.
Tsuchiya gave a brief nod before turning toward the co-pilot.
“Eiji… wake up.”
Sawamura Eiji stirred and slowly lifted his head.
His eyes moved across the cockpit before settling on Tsuchiya.
“…Captain? What’s going on?”
Tsuchiya looked around the cockpit with a grim expression.
“We’re on the ground, but there were no crash alarms or emergency alerts.”
Eiji’s eyes widened.
He leaned toward the control panel and quickly checked the instruments.
“That’s not possible. We should’ve at least…”
He stopped and looked through the windshield.
Tall trees surrounded the aircraft, blocking most of the view.
“We don’t remember landing,” Tsuchiya said quietly.
Eiji looked back at him.
“Then how did we get here?”
Yarai studied the darkened section of the control panel without saying anything.
The damage was small, but it stood out against the intact cockpit.
He made a mental note of it before turning his attention back to Tsuchiya.
Tsuchiya drew a deep breath and straightened.
“We’ll deal with that later. First, we need to check the passengers and crew.”
He and Eiji stepped out of the cockpit.
Towa and Yarai followed a few steps behind.
Towa’s movements were stable now, though the tension in her face hadn’t completely faded.
She suddenly stopped a few steps away, and her voice tightened.
“…Kanako-chan… Asami-san…”
Tsuchiya looked at her.
“Where were they assigned?”
“Kanako-chan was in economy. She should’ve been with the passengers. Asami-san was near the rear galley.”
“If you mean the brown-haired flight attendant, I saw her there before the turbulence,” Yarai said.
“Then Kanako-chan should still be in there somewhere,” Towa said.
They continued down the aisle, checking the passengers as they went.
Towa kept looking between the rows, searching for familiar faces.
As they reached the rear galley, she suddenly stopped.
“Asami-san?”
Watanabe Asami was lying unconscious beside one of the service carts.
Towa hurried over and crouched beside her.
“Asami-san, can you hear me?”
Asami let out a faint groan but did not open her eyes.
Towa checked her breathing and looked for any visible injuries before gently shaking her shoulder.
“Asami-san. Wake up.”
Asami stirred but remained unconscious.
Towa looked at Tsuchiya, and they carefully helped Asami into a sitting position, leaning her against the side of the galley.
She seemed stable enough to leave for the moment.
Towa glanced at her once more before getting back to her feet.
“Let’s continue,” Tsuchiya said.
They continued through the cabin, checking each row.
Those who were awake were asked if they were injured, while anyone who remained unconscious was checked for breathing and visible injuries.
Yarai watched the crew work with practiced efficiency.
Although the situation was urgent, none of them showed any sign of panic.
Yarai moved toward the front exit and looked through the small window.
He could see little beyond the thick wall of green, but it was enough to tell that the aircraft had landed somewhere in the jungle.
By the time the crew finished checking the passengers, most had regained consciousness.
Those who were injured had cuts and bruises, but none appeared to be in critical condition.
They regrouped near the front of the cabin, but Yarai noticed the worry on their faces.
“Tsuchiya-san, Oomori-san seems to be missing,” Eiji said.
Towa lowered her eyes.
“I checked all the rows, but there was no sign of her.”
Towa looked toward Yarai.
“Are you certain you saw her?”
“I did. She accidentally spilled water on one of the teachers and was cleaning it up.”
A faint, helpless smile crossed Towa’s face.
“Yeah… that sounds like Kanako-chan.”
Tsuchiya fell silent for a moment before looking toward Eiji.
“Was any of the exits opened?”
“No. The exits are still armed,” Eiji replied.
“Then she should still be somewhere inside the aircraft,” Tsuchiya said.
“But where? I checked everywhere. She’s not here,” Towa asked, unable to hide the growing anxiety in her voice.
“Calm down, Towa. We’ll find her. But before we search again, we need to make sure it’s safe to leave the aircraft.”
Eiji looked toward the exits.
“You want to check the area around the aircraft?”
“Yes. We need to know where we landed and, by chance, which seems most unlikely, whether anyone was thrown out.”
Eiji reached for the door handle and glanced at the mechanism.
He disarmed the slide, then pulled the handle firmly and opened the door.
Humid air rushed into the cabin, carrying the constant drone of insects and unfamiliar sounds from somewhere deeper in the jungle.
Several passengers stirred at the sudden change and turned toward the front, but no one spoke.
Tsuchiya leaned out and scanned the surroundings.
After a few seconds, he stepped back into the cabin.
“The vegetation is too dense. We can hardly verify our position. How did we even land here?” he muttered.
Yarai waited for him to move aside before looking through the open doorway.
He had seen only blurred fragments of green through the aircraft windows.
The open exit gave him a clearer view of the surroundings
For a moment, he simply stood there, looking at the unfamiliar surroundings.
A dense jungle stretched outward.
The towering trees rose high above, their canopies blocking most of the sky and the ground was thick with ferns and broad leaves, packed tightly together.
It wasn’t a wide, open view.
The vegetation was too dense for that, but one thing was clear, this wasn’t any place they should have landed.
Yarai lowered his gaze and noticed that the front section of the aircraft rested at an angle above a steep slope.
The ground dropped sharply beneath the open doorway.
That path doesn’t look safe.
“Can we use the slide to climb down?” he asked.
Tsuchiya shook his head.
“We can deploy it, but it won’t reach the ground. There’s at least a three- to four-meter drop at the end, and the terrain isn’t stable.”
Yarai stepped back.
“Then this probably isn’t usable.”
Eiji moved closer, his expression hardening as he looked down.
“If someone slips, they could end up with more than a few broken bones.”
Yarai kept his eyes on the jungle for another moment.
Something about the place continued to bother him, though he could not yet explain why.
“We should check the overwing exit. It seems to open into dense jungle,” Tsuchiya said.
Without wasting time, they turned and moved back through the cabin toward the middle rows, heading for the side where the wing pressed into the dense jungle.