Amaya's Journey

*Content Warning: blood, death/suicide, war

Tokyo

Tokyo. Once the creative capital of the world, set apart by its willingness to embrace diversity and its respect for the unique. It was a thriving enterprise of free expression. Was.

About half a century ago, Tokyo was bombarded by the cultural pressures of Europe and Asia in an effort to dislodge the city from its creative pedestal. With the US nothing more than a blackened stump in the water, the remaining world super powers took it upon themselves to recreate the world in the guise of "sameness". Obviously, there was some secret conspiracy behind it all but, really, who was going to challenge it?

So Tokyo became a burned out hub of steel gray monotony. The crime rate sky-rocketed over night as activists for the Unifying took measures to disrupt and exterminate any opposition. A day didn't go by that some building or other wasn't blasted to rubble by the Unifiers, and armed street fights made it impossible to go anywhere.

My name is Amaya and this devastated city is what I call home. My parents and I live in a 25th floor apartment of a 30 story high-rise located in a relatively safe part of the city called the Neutral District. I guess the Unifiers decided that being neutral was okay.

My mother is a housewife who spends her days cooking, cleaning, and gossiping with the other moms on our floor. She's a complete paranoid which results in me being so entirely unable to leave the building that I can't even go to school. Lucky for me, two floors down lives a teacher who is happy and willing to homeschool all the students in the building. Yes that was sarcasm you heard dripping over those words.

My father is a businessman working in an office near the edge of the District. Unfortunately for Mom, Dad is immune to her excessive paranoia and able to convince her that he must leave the building for work.

"I just don't see why you have to go out there!"

"We need to eat, dear."

"But all our groceries are delivered and --"

"And we still need to pay for them."

"No we don't! We can set up a credit or tab or whatever they call it..."

"That's fine, but then how do we pay our rent and water?" He gives mom a knowing look which she returns with one of desperate insistence. "I have to go to work, but I promise you everything will be fine. It's the Neutral District after all," and with a kiss on her forehead, he heads out the door. I stick around just long enough to gather my school books, then I too rush out the door before Mom can turn her frustration on me.

Leaving Home

I was three floors down having tea with the landlady and her cats when my mother got the call. Some Unifiers had set off a series of bombs in the west edge of the District decimating an entire block. My father's office was right in the middle of it. When the police called to inform her of my father's death, my mother threw herself from our balcony. She didn't even bother to hang up the phone. As the landlady and I stood looking down at my mother's shattered body, she said offhandedly, "It appears neutrality is no longer acceptable." I just stood there, blank faced, and watched the rain wash the blood into the street.

I spent three days in police custody before they packed up my few belongings and shipped me to the train station. The police escorted me onto the train, saw me to my seat, handed me my ticket, and were gone. The train set off with an unceremonious lurch and just like that I was leaving my home. I didn't look back as I moved steadily away from my beloved Tokyo, knowing that it would be lost to me anyway due to the sudden downpour that pounded with growing intensity against the cabin roof.

The hours dragged by and the train made several stops, all for people getting off, never anyone getting on. After a few hours, I was the only one left. It never occurred to me to be worried that they had forgotten about me all alone on this train. Curiosity did eventually win out, however, and I glanced at the ticket still in my hand to figure out where they were taking me.

"Chiyoko Village," I said aloud. "Doesn't that mean 'child of a thousand generations'? What a random name for a village."

I shook my head at the train ticket and dropped my hands into my lap. Before long, I felt the train start to slow. As it pulled into the station, I raised my eyes to look out the window. The police had mentioned something about a distant relative meeting me when I arrived; I couldn't even begin to imagine who could possibly know me in this middle of nowhere village.

Face palm and groan. It was Hitoshi.

Hitoshi is the tall, dark, and handsome perfection that is my older brother. When I was really little, Hitoshi fell in love, got married, and moved on as the story goes. A few years into his perfect marriage, his wife got caught in a Unifier battle. To put it simply, she died. Immediately after that, Hitoshi packed up his stuff and disappeared with his infant daughter into thin air. We never knew where he went.

Here, apparently.

Chiyoko Village

"Amaya!" Hitoshi was practically bouncing as he rushed across the platform. I had barely stepped off the train before he was spinning me around in a crushing hug.

"Oh I'm so so so so very happy to see you! Little sister, you have no idea, you just have no idea." Breathless, he finally put me down.

"Hi Hitoshi. How are you?" I asked. That was a mistake. Having caught his breath, Hitoshi's mouth took off running again.

"Oh Amaya I'm just great! Really! Utako is so excited to see you. She's six years old now and just so smart! Is this your stuff? Not very much is it. Oh well, I'll have Michiko take you shopping once you're all settled in." He picked up my bags and started walking toward the road leading away from the station.

"Since you only have a couple of weeks of school left I thought we might as well not bother and start summer vacation now! We can get you all set up next year for school later. In the meantime, you can help out at the restaurant. A great way to meet new people and get a little cash. Isn't this just wonderful?"

I couldn't believe it. I'd hardly been here five minutes and Hitoshi had already planned the rest of my life.

"You're just going to love it here, Amaya," he sighed, finally calming down.

"Oh really?" I said offhandedly. I refused to get sucked into happy family reunion time.

"Yes really. Chiyoko is beautiful and peaceful. There's no guns, no Unfying, no explosions. It's completely safe." He sounded like there was more he wanted to say, but I wasn't all that interested in hearing it, so I left it alone.

We walked down the tree lined road for about ten minutes when the village came into sight. Hitoshi was right, Chiyoko was beautiful. As we began to walk through the town, I could see that it was very peaceful and safe. It appeared especially safe from the passage of time. Everything in the village was incredibly old age, with the most modern technology being the payphone on the corner. As I was taking in the sights I could feel Hitoshi's eyes on me. I turned to look at him and had to back up a step. His face was inches from mine, his eyes wide and practically brimming with tears.

"So?" he asked, his voice rising in pitch.

"So...what?"

"So, what do you think of our little village?"

"It's...nice." I may not have had anywhere else to go, but I wasn't ready to commit just yet. It seemed, however, that nice was good enough for Hitoshi. He practically skipped down the road the rest of the way to his house.

So, This is Life

As we entered Hitoshi's house, a blurred bundle of cute launched itself into his arms.

"Daddy!"

"Utako!" Hitoshi spun the little girl around and she giggled with glee.

"Utako, sweetie," he said, gently setting her down. "This is your Auntie Amaya. She's going to be living with us now."

Utako looked up at me with her big dark eyes, clapped her hands together, and said in the most adorable voice, "Yippee!"

I melted. She was just way too precious.

Someone was pushing her way through the door behind us, distracting me from my niece and grumbling over an armload of groceries.

"Well really! Since when is the foyer a place to gather and chit chat? Surely, someone has enough decency to help a poor woman with all these heavy bags." I couldn't tell if she was being sarcastic or not, her voice was light and full of song. My brother was clearly unconcerned since he just stood there with that big stupid grin stretching his face.

"Michiko," he soothed, encircling her in his arms, shopping bags and all. "Beautiful, wonderful Michiko." She rolled her eyes. Hitoshi stepped back, looked her up and down, nodded, and then turned her toward me.

"Michiko, this is my precious little sister Amaya." It was my turn to roll my eyes.

Michiko stared at me over the bags of groceries, taking in my whole face with her overly large eyes. I stared back, not really sure what else to do. For a moment, I thought I saw a look of concern, then fear, and finally...hope?...pass over her face. But I blinked and she looked away.

"So I suppose you're just one more person who won't help me with the groceries?" Again, I couldn't tell if this was sarcasm or not.

"Oh um, no. I mean, yes. Well, I....here let me take some of those. Where do they go?" She gratefully handed over a few bags and headed down the hallway, motioning for me to follow. Hitoshi scooped up Utako and they danced along behind us.

The house was, in a word, quaint. Very old timey cottage, but huge. I walked into the kitchen and my jaw literally dropped. My entire apartment in Tokyo could have fit into this one room. It had all the trappings of a five-star chef's oasis, charmingly disguised as a humble cottage kitchen. I had no idea what Hitoshi had been up to all these years, but he was clearly doing very well for himself. At this point, I'll be honest, I was kind of looking forward to seeing my room. Maybe living here wouldn't be so bad after all.

"Hey, Amaya, is it? You wanna put those groceries on the counter? Today, maybe?"

Then again, if I can't figure out Michiko and her sarcasm, it might be worse than I thought.

To be continued...