カレイド

From a house surrounded by dense forest, the only passable-looking road is the one connecting to the public road (though you could go off the beaten path if you had the nerve).

About two thirds the way in, not quite standing out, is the entrance to a side road.

Standing near the height of my knees, nearly buried by the tall grasses, is a stone marker.

Even if I squat close and part the grasses to look, the surface is abraded and unreadable.

However, the fact that there's a marker here means a proper path is continuing on past it.

Even if, at worst, the path cuts off inside, I should be able to find the traces of an old road.

The other option, if I exit onto the public road, is a long, casual country road with nothing but farmlands every which way.

......Now then.

There are two possible roads, as far as I'm concerned, so which one should I take?

Except, when I look up, the light shining in is soft and green. This is made possible by the thickly grown canopy shielding it out.

In other words, if I leave the forest, this means I'll be eye-to-eye with the violently assertive mid-summer sun.

............

......I get the feeling Tsudzura-chan and Obana-chan would choose the side road. It's not like there's anything to see the other way but fields, anyway.

And that is why, in my search for Tsudzura-chan, I choose to press into the side road.

Mountain hiking is only fun until your stamina gives out.

The temperature is steadily getting hotter, anyway, and unable to find Tsudzura-chan or her fox, I find a complaint or two bubbling to the surface.

I swivel in a half-turn and begin to descend the path I came.

Coming up, there was one road, and I thought there was no way to get lost, so why...

Somehow I've found myself in an unfamiliar place.

What comes next is not whining, but words of slight complaint and relief.

The stiff, tall weeds are the same as always, but in this slightly open-feeling area, a hole is gaping wide in the ground.

A number of large stones are laid about as if to circle it, and if I had stumbled or tottered around any of them, it would be an awful mess.

What's more, those high weeds are plain evil. If I wasn't hanging my head in despair, I probably wouldn't have noticed it. Talk about a lucky break.

I shrink back one step, lean over, and peek inside.

In the past, I suppose these fallen stones were piled up, and stood in a proper cylinder.

And the walls... wow, it makes me think how magnificent it must have been in the past. A fine mortar construction, just like the kind in those clichéd summer horror flicks the Okiku-san comes out of. (TN: Okiku - Think "Ringu." The kanji means "chrysanthemum", and it's the general name for ghosts of women who were pushed into a well and sealed there. Generally, they would attack whoever pushes the lid off.)

However, now it's just a mildewed, decrepit well.

It's not so deep that I can't see the bottom. As best I can tell from peeking in, it's much like climbing the school stairs to the third floor and looking down somewhere near the top.

But even if I can see the bottom, it's still more than deep enough.

When I think about it, I just saved myself from an incredible death.

I'm sure I'd be injured, too, but in a four, maybe five meter-high hole like this, it's impossible to climb out by my own strength.

There are grooves and such, so to any person who does free climbing, it would probably be a cinch, but for me, there's just no way.

So basically, I couldn't escape here without someone else's help, and to think a person would conveniently happen by a place like this...

I take out my cell phone and give it some power.

Whether to call the police, fire rescue or even check the weather report, it's in no condition to do any such thing.

Yet again, I shudder.

If I fall, it's over, straight down the road to starvation. They say starving to death is awful, and come to think of it, I'm hungry, so that was really, incredibly dangerous just now.

If she didn't hear from me for a few days, Youko-chan would probably contact the police, but would that really amount to anything?

If not, then Tsudzura-chan would be my safety net.

Although, she was saying not to call the police, courthouse, health care center, or anything of the sort, so......

At any rate, even if it seems like no one would come, why is such a dangerous hole being left in a dangerous state like this?

If only it was covered with a manhole or something, any worries of falling would be gone.

If such an accident happened, I wonder if the owner of this hole would be punished for neglect or something, leaving it this way until something happened...

............

......Neglect?

This is where I'm taken by a very bad premonition.

Seeing as it's close to the mansion, there's a chance my family was the one monitoring the well......

Well, it isn't "close" in the least, but the closest place would have to be that mansion, so......

I look around every which way, wondering if I can find a board or anything likely enough to serve as a cover.

Of course, such a convenient item is nowhere to be found.