Unknowingly, Yu was heading east. Until at noon when the sun was so hot it stung every life on Earth, Yu saw a piece of debris sticking out in the middle of the sea of sand.
The boy approached the rubble intending to take shelter and rest for a while there.
How surprised Yu was, which at the same time grew so great fear in him when he saw that five thugs were already there first. And what frightened the eight-year-old boy was that three of the thugs were raping a little girl.
Yu was stunned and seemed unable to move. What he saw again reminded him of what had happened to his mother.
"Hey…!" Yu suddenly shouted as if he had the power to stop something in front of him.
However, when the hoodlums' gazes fell on him, Yu trembled even more. And Yu immediately ran back and forth when one of the hoodlums tried to approach him.
"Don't run, you damn brat…!"
Yu ran to save himself. Because the hoodlum was chasing him with a grinning face. That means the man intends to make Yu one of his fun toys, just like the poor little girl.
Not only one, even now two men are chasing the boy.
Even though Yu had run as fast as he could, he was caught by a hoodlum.
"Where are you going, huh?" the hoodlum chuckles while grabbing Yu's hand.
"Let me go…!" Yu shouted. On reflex, Yu bit the hoodlum's hand before his partner approached.
The thug screamed, his hand bleeding from being bitten by Yu. His grip slipped. Yu immediately took the opportunity to run.
"You, piece of shit!" the hoodlum cursed and went back after Yu.
"Dumbass!" said his partner as he preceded after the boy.
"God, save me!" Yu muttered in the middle of his run.
Yu was running frantically, and suddenly he fell, then rolled down a patch of the hollow sand surface.
However, the land was too soft to be used as a foothold. When he got up, Yu was sucked in by the sand. Meanwhile, the two thugs stopped their run.
"Quicksand!" said one of the two.
"Damn it!" cursed the hoodlum whose hands were bleeding.
"That's it. Just forget him!" said his friend. "Or do you also want to die from being sucked in by that sand?"
"Hell no!"
The two then left the area where Yu was struggling to save himself from death by quicksand.
"P—Please…!" Yu was screaming, flailing. Only there was no one to help him, there wasn't a single thing he could hold on to. "Help me!"
Yu sank further, and in an instant, he disappeared beneath the surface of the sand.
Alina gasped at what Yu had told her just now. She swallowed several times. The food that was left on her plate was no longer as interesting as the story of the life of the man in front of her now.
"W—Quicksand?" repeated the young doctor.
Yu nodded. "You don't have to be so surprised, Alina. What can you expect from the condition of the area covered in sand, hmm?"
Well, that's true, Alina thought. However, she did not expect such a thing to exist in the man's experience.
"Under the vast surface of the sand are the remains of civilizations," said Yu. "And when the sand has covered the whole things, there must be one or two empty spots under the surface of the sand. Imagine if someone stepped on it?"
"And it will become quicksand."
Yu nodded. "That's what I meant."
"Then, how did you survive that quicksand?" Alina is quite curious about this. After all, from what Yu had told her earlier, no one was there to help him. "I mean, you are now in front of me. That means you can survive the incident. Or maybe, you're lying to me, didn't you?"
Yu laughed softly as he shook his head. "Even if I lie to you, then, what's in it for me?"
"Well," Alina shrugged her shoulders. "Maybe you're still trying to get my attention."
Yu laughed even louder. "Believe me, I do want that. It's just, I've never lied in my life."
"I can't believe it!" said Alina. "There is no human who has never lied."
"Maybe," said Yu, leaning his back, folding his arms across his chest. "But that's me. Whether you want to believe this or not, I can't force you."
"All right. And, then?"
"Well, I was quite lucky."
"Just simple as that?"
"Simple, how?" said Yu. "My mouth is full of sand, Alina. My eyes twinkled, my noses, my ears… believe me, it hurts."
"Yeah, that seems to be the case."
"Have some pity on me."
"I'm trying. Trust me!"
"Is that true?" Yu smiled widely.
"Oh, my," Alina shook her head. "Just like that, your face was already red. Oh my God, Yu… you look just like a teenage girl."
"What can I say?" Yu said. "After all, I've never been pitied let alone loved."
Alina couldn't help but laugh. "Come on, Yu! Are you going to tell me or not?"
"Alright, alright," Yu nodded. "Just when I thought I was going to die from that quicksand, I sank deeper, and suddenly I felt like I was falling from a height."
"Huh?!"
Yu nodded again. "As I said before. Turns out, under the surface of the sand there is a large room."
"A large room?" Alina is getting more and more curious to find out what kind of room that's Yu said. "What room?"
"It's just…," said Yu. "I don't know for sure."
"Hey, come on now!" Alina laughed softly as she shook her head. "Weren't you the one who fell into that room? And you can't tell me about the room? Seriously!"
When little Yu fell into the room, he was slammed against a worn wooden table and caused the table to shatter. He rolled over and fell unconscious.
Yu wakes up after his lungs struggle with the reduced oxygen demand in his chest cavity.
The boy coughed, tried to roll over, then got up. But Yu frowned violently because he felt his back hurt so much. He tried to raise the bottom of his shirt. He couldn't see the back of it, but he had red bruises on it.
With stumbling steps, Yu tried to identify the large room. But he had a hard time because his eyes were twinkled with sand.
"W—Where am I?"
The conditions in the large room were not very bright, the only lighting came from the sunlight that entered through the gaps in the sand surface on the roof of the room.
Yu coughed again, then he threw up. Vomit mixed with sand. Before examining the room, he first cleaned his face of sand, as well as his body.
The room looks like a long corridor. In one part it was covered in piles of rubble from that part of the wall itself. Yu stepped towards the other end.
The eight-year-old boy was slightly amazed by some of the furniture he saw still intact along the hallway. He had never seen such unique furniture before. Well, Yu did not know because the room and the furniture were ancient items, items that existed long before the time Yu was born.
When he was about to reach the end of the hallway he was headed for, Yu gasped because he found the skeletons of several people. The stench in the room forced Yu to throw up again, and again.
While covering his nose, Yu looked at the skeletons. That looks like the skeleton of the owner of this place, he thought. And there were three people, at least, Yu could think of that because he saw that three skulls were lying among the skeletons.
Maybe they are a family. A mother who embraces her child, and a father who tries to protect his family. There was a machete between the skeletons and a gun. The machete had rusted, but the gun still looked good.
Yu continued on his way. He found no other door along the corridor. There was only one big door at the end of the corridor he was going through. Before trying to open the large double doors, Yu pressed his ear to the door so he could hear something that might be behind the door.