Land of The Dying Sun 1: The Beginning of Summer

Ryota awoke just as he had the day before, and the day before that: at the light of dawn. Any stray moment of sunlight was not to be wasted, for Ryota had become acutely aware that he could only be afforded so many more.

He slipped out of bed and onto his feet. As he rose to his full height, he realized how much he had grown in just the past two months. It felt so strange to be growing when the world seemed frozen in time. This growth spurt was to be expected though, Ryota was 15, and still hadn’t reached the heights that he might in future years.

He walked over to the brightly colored children’s calendar he had pilfered during his last trip into the city. Marking one more day on the calendar, he considered that someday he would run out of calendars and lose any notion of date.

That time had yet to come though, so Ryota knew that today was May 10th. Summer had just begun in Japan. It had also been 10 days since he had last been in the city. That meant that he would be expected at Sensoji Temple in Tokyo.

Pulling on his shoes, grabbing a lunch from his pantry, and snatching up his pre-prepped pack, Ryota headed out the door. Outside, Ryota was confronted with a beautiful view of the sun as it crested the forested hills that enclosed his small village.

When the choice to live anywhere he pleased presented itself to Ryota, he discovered that the relative solitude of the town of Hinohara was what he wanted. Hinohara was the only settlement surrounding Tokyo that was still technically a village. He had always wondered what the uneventful living of such a suburb would be like, having always kept to cities.

All places on Earth were far more quiet than any suburb now though. At most the small buildings and quaint appearance of the village made the ghostly quiet slightly less disconcerting.

Ryota pondered whether or not he should stop and enjoy the sunrise before going about his business. He thought to himself, “My seconds are numbered. I should spend a few watching the sunrise.”

Ryota crouched down on the porch of the house, mulling over the words he had conceived. He thought that they were much more meaningful than they actually were.

He stayed until the sun had almost fully risen, listening to the droning song of the cicadas. Then he continued on his way.

It was the beginning of summer, and it was reasonably warm. Ryota was just wearing a black striped t-shirt that was a bit too small and his favorite pair of faded jeans. He was quickly outgrowing his small wardrobe and needed to grab some new clothes. Remembering this, he stopped and pulled a small notepad and pen out of his pocket. In messy shorthand, he jotted down a reminder to grab some new threads.

When he reached the street his bike was already there waiting for him, right in the middle of the road, propped up on it’s leg. There was no reason to not leave it there, it wasn’t exactly going to be stolen, and there was nobody to run it over.

Ryota mounted his red bike and began pedalling. He mentally steeled himself for the long ride into the city. The trip could take as little as 4 hours if he pushed himself and as long as 5 if he wasn’t in a rush. Usually he would stop to rest halfway through at a house next to a hospital. Today though, he was feeling energized enough that he thought he might do it all in one go.

He glided down roads that gently descended out of the wooded mountains and into the city. Birds sang, but their songs were almost lost in the ever-present cicada drone that always followed summer in Japan. His surroundings gradually became more and more urban until he found himself in the city proper.

Ryota had grown up in LA, so the distinct look of Japanese cities always stood out to him. Blocky buildings of all different designs and colors crammed together and connected by stretches of drab gray concrete. All the buildings seemed skinnier and taller than they were in LA too.

As he sped through the streets, he kept an eye out for cats and dogs. He had been told that the solar flare, though it wouldn’t be as deadly to animals as it was to humans, would still likely decimate the populations of most animals with more complex brains. Dogs had probably been brought to the edge of extinction, but Ryota was still optimistic enough to think that cats might have been stupid enough to survive. He had yet to see any, but he was still looking.

“Maybe I should just get a turtle and name it cat,” he said to himself. He chuckled at his lame joke and wondered where he could pick up a turtle and how the hell he would haul a tank up to Hinohara.

Two hours after he had departed from his house in Hinohara, Ryota glided past Showa hospital, which was right next to his usual resting spot, feeling invigorated by the warm summer day. His crotch ached from the time he had already spent on the bike, but he was determined to finish his journey that day. He hated being in the city, and wanted to expedite his journey as much as possible.

After he passed the hospital, he was more than halfway done with the trip. The excitement of warm sunlight left him and he slowed down. The sound of cicadas filled the ghost town as he travelled through it. He became increasingly aware of the grim silence around him as he pumped his way along the highway. This city was a cemetery; a frozen, lifeless snapshot.

Ryota, sweating profusely, looked down to the ground in front of his wheels. He cleared his mind of trivialities and focussed on the sadness that filled the air; anything else would be disrespectful to the countless dead. Soon, he found himself lost in the silence, only aware of the whine of his wheels and his pants of effort as he rode down the highway.

Suddenly, he became aware of an object on the ground that he was about to crash into. He swerved, lost his balance, slammed into the ground, and rolled for several feet.

He laid on the ground and groaned for a few seconds, still reeling from the awful feeling of lost balance and the confusion of rolling. After that, he hoisted himself up on an elbow and looked over himself, poking to make sure he had not injured anything. He hadn’t. He looked back at the object he had missed and gagged.

It was the blackened, sun-dried, and crow-pecked body of a woman. The only reason Ryota could know that the body was female was because of the long, matted mess of hair fanned out on the pavement.

He stood up and backed away from the body, still horrified. This was not the first body he had found, but it never got any less shocking. He didn't understand how this body was here. He had already cleared his route of them. He looked around and realized that he was unfamiliar with this place. He must’ve accidentally taken a wrong turn while he was looking down.

He looked again at the body. It looked so alien and pitiful in the bright sunlight, it seemed like a cheap horror movie prop that had been thoughtlessly discarded in the middle of the road. He would have to do something with it, he couldn’t just leave it here.

He took gloves and a trowel out of his pack. He had included them for just this purpose, but he had hoped he was done using them. He found an overgrown lot with a greenhouse and two small shacks in it, and dug a grave.

He peeled the woman off the pavement (she was baked into the ground, like roadkill) and pulled her a ways down the road, trailing gore behind her. He was disgusted by having to do this, but if he didn't the guilt over his cowardice would prevent him from sleeping tonight.

He pulled her into the hole (being careful that she faced upwards) and covered her with dirt. Once he finished, he pulled his water bottle out of his pack and washed his gloves off as best he could. He’d wash them with soap later; he didn't want to catch any diseases.

He stood over the grave for a few minutes, trying to think of something to say or some god to pray to. He wasn’t religious, primarily because his no-nonsense radiologist father had practically forbid it. When he could think of nothing to say, he quietly walked away. He felt ashamed that he had nothing to say to this woman. Didn't he owe her at least that?

He might’ve stayed at the grave longer had it not reminded him so much of the one in his backyard in Hinohara. Instead, he mounted his bike and pedalled away, a sadness that he would not face welling up in his chest.

He made the rest of the trip without thinking. Before he knew it, he was at Senso-ji Temple.

The temple used to be a tourist trap. Now it was completely empty. All the stalls were still open and even a few bikes were in the bike rack, making it look like everyone had suddenly disappeared all at once. This was not the truth.

Ryota remembered asking his father about what would happen to people who were exposed to the flare. His father had given him a very serious look, clearly recognizing that “they will die” would not be a sufficient answer this time.

“If the experiments we’ve conducted on rats is telling, and they are, the rays emitted by the sun will initiate a shutdown procedure in the brain. People will grow tired and hyper-sensitive to light. They will begin to seek out a dark place to die. Since the flare will also knock the power out, they’ll likely just go indoors. My guess is that most of them will end up in the subway.”

Since the flare, Ryota had passed subway entrances several times. The unimaginable stench they gave off led Ryota to believe that his father’s guess had been right.

Despite the afflicted’s tendency to hide, there were a few stragglers who either died instantly, or were too dazed to find a hiding place. Their bodies were left in the streets for the animals. The woman had been one of these poor souls.

Even worse, sometimes people had hidden themselves in unexpected places, waiting for Ryota to find them. Once, when he was ransacking a home for supplies, the body of a man had fallen out of an elevated kitchen cabinet.

Ryota pedalled through the front gateway of the temple and down the row of stalls. His destination was just in front of the big red temple itself, installed right into the cement: The Machine. It was a yellowish-white cube, about 4 feet on each side, with a small LCD display mounted above a bottom-hinged door reminiscent of a dishwasher.

When he reached the The Machine, he got off his bike and knelt down to see the screen better. He pressed the power button to the right of the display and booted up the machine. After a brief series of flashing lights, it displayed text in curvy, red letters on a blue backdrop: “Submit 7 different species of fish caught within the borders of Tokyo.”

Ryota stood up, already thinking about where to get tackle, and where to fish. Following the orders that The Machine gave him every 10 days was natural, even comforting. Even though he had no idea why he needed to, he was happy to act out these commands. It was his purpose, his role in life, the last way he could do any good on a godless, lonely Earth.