Stranded - Chapter 1

This diary is the private, utmost precious property of Satoh Tanaka. If anyone ever gain access to this, then that means its owner is dead.

—-

Diary Entry#1:

Day and Month: unknown.

I haven’t been able to write for days. Perhaps weeks, or months. Luckily I got this piece of coal to make do with.

I have just barely managed to take out this notebook before it got confiscated with my other belongings.

I am so hungry, but I can’t eat what my captors are feeding me. What if they drug the food?

I am just barely surviving by drinking a little bit of the water. Even drinking it gave me some mild stomachache. The cage I am in reeks of my feces.

Where am I now? The people here have silver hair, red eyes and dark skin tone, no matter how old they are. How do they managed to stay hidden from the world?

Diary Entry#2:

Day and Month: unknown.

I am so hungry.

I feel like eating the paper in this notebook.

The people here speak in a weird language. They sometimes come and check on me. Otherwise I am left inside the cage alone, in a dimly lit room.

Am I even writing correctly anymore? The lighting from one single torch is so bad.

Diary Entry#3:

Day and Month: unknown.

Apparently they fed me something when I blacked out a few days ago. Now I feel much better.

My “caretaker” is a small woman. The only thing I can make out from her features is a flower brooch on her hair. The dim light from the torch only allowed me to see her brooch, and the hair and the eyes of her people.

I got a fierce stomachache the other day as well. Probably from eating their food. But today I didn’t have any. My body must have probably adapted to the food and water.

The food tasted bland. At least it usually had the crunchy, chewy texture of cooked meat or vegetable.

I think I am slowly picking up their strange language too, from the woman’s interaction with the guards outside of the door.

Or perhaps I am just fooling myself.

Diary Entry#4:

They allowed me outside of the cell today. All of my belongings were burned to a crisp, all of the hiking gears, backpack, smartphone, etc.

All that is left of me are the clothes, the shoes and this diary. I shouldn’t have gone hiking on that stormy day.

The place that I am in is modelled after a rural Japanese village. This is just absurd. Even the people are wearing jinbeis. From what I have seen, all of them, no matter how old or young, whether a man or a woman, all of them bear the black skin, white hair and red eyes.

The place is peaceful. The kids gave me something resembling candy. Looks yellowy and gooey, on a stick. Turns out it is honey with something strange added on. They kept calling me something while laughing loudly after handling me the candy. A-rush-ka?

The caretaker lady led me to a small hut. Apparently, I am to live there, and from what I can see, there is another inhabitant living in it.

Diary Entry#5:

My suspicion was correct. There are ashes in the-

—-

The piece of coal cracked and crumbled between my fingers. I shouldn’t have exerted so much force, but the piece of coal was running out anyways. In front of me was the only fireplace inside the hut, the ashes have already settled in it and the shiny pot hoisted above gave back a funny, distorted reflection of my face. I stumbled to stand up, and as I was about to peek inside the pot, a large shadow was casted onto the pot’s surface. Before I was able to turn around, I was lifted off the ground, the sudden motion knocked the wind out of me and made me choke.