Ever since her youth, one girl thought the mountain glow visible from the desert was rather mysterious. According to what adults had told her, it was the light from a city known as Itaaki, and people totally different from them lived there.
Ani was a child who asked many questions.
"Just how different are we from them? Do they have lizard faces like the zumeu?"
"No, no, that's not it. Those highlands folks' faces aren't that different from our own. But their god's different."
"Their god?"
"You know how long, long ago the scary True Demon King showed up, right? Back then, all the people in the highlands city died. But our people managed to survive. The Particle Storm protected us."
"The Particle Storm is a god? Not part of the weather?"
"It's both. The god's power appears in our world in the form of the weather phenomenon known as the Particle Storm. A god solely for us people of the desert. The Particle Storm's come through the Yamaga Barrens many times over the ages, but it's always spared our village, right? See, that's because he's protecting us."
Outside of Ani's village, apparently everyone worshipped a god called the Word-Maker. But, since that god didn't protect anything from the True Demon King, the Particle Storm must have been the stronger of the two.
One day, when she went to draw the afternoon water, she saw the Particle Storm pass through the gap between the village and the oasis.
The desert sky was completely covered, and despite being noon, it was as though the whole world had been plunged into darkness.
A thunderous sound, the likes of which she had never heard before, rang in her ears and rattled around her head until it finally passed through. The
sound had absolutely terrified the young Ani.
Chena had accompanied her to the oasis, but since she had finished drawing her water sooner, she had been completely erased on the road back to the village, without even a single finger of hers left behind.
Just as its name suggested, the Particle Storm shredded anything and everything it engulfed into tiny particles. The tremendous amount of sand swirled together into a tempest, and like a file chiseling away at a stone, scraped away at the bodies of any living thing until there was nothing left behind.
Even in the Yamaga Barrens there were a great many living creatures. Cats, mice, and lizards could be seen scampering around, and woodpeckers nested in cactus holes. The amusing movements of the white spiders were a particular favorite of hers.
Nevertheless, with the Particle Storm's passing, it all disappeared entirely.
"…Mom. Aren't you scared of the Particle Storm getting you?"
"Not at all, silly. My older brother, our neighbor Litta, they all went to the land beyond the storm."
"The land beyond the storm?"
"Everything disappears after the Particle Storm passes through, right? Yamaga is too arid and dry to comfortably sustain life…so he made a country to save us all. Everyone embraced by the storm is living together in peace there."
"Then, we should all just let the Particle Storm bring us over there." "We can't do that."
"Why not? If things aren't scary or painful over there, then we should all just go."
"The Particle Storm gets very angry when children try to go over to the other side. Instead of sending them to the land beyond, it brings them to a bad and scary place in hell. Everyone has to wait for the day when he comes to welcome you."
"...Mom? He never welcomed you?" "..."
"Did Chena go to hell?"
The villagers always needed to make sure the Particle Storm was never
angered.
No matter how hard things got, the rule was to endure it together, and continue to perform their daily duties.
This was also why Ani crossed the desert to draw water. Whenever she encountered a sandstorm, she grew hopelessly scared that it was the angered Particle Storm instead. She heard that the Particle Storm's anger grew even more intense during the years someone left the village.
Thus, everyone worked the same way, day in and day out. Ani never once complained.
There were many other adults who did jobs far more difficult than hers.
Coughing violently from the sand, she carried her bucket filled with water.
She made the round-trip repeatedly. Even if her shoes got worn down by the hot sand, there were times when no one would fix them for her.
The corpses of children, dead from disease, were wrapped in furs and carried to the barrow where the Particle Storm was enshrined.
Now and again, Ani would look at the lights of Itaaki on the mountaintop. The adults pitied the people there who lived without the protection of the
Particle Storm.
She watched the small and large moons travel over and over again across the beautiful night sky of the Yamaga Barrens.
Just how long had she repeated her routine, day in, and day out? Ani was now twelve years old.
That day, the oasis was different from normal. A carriage was stopped there.
"Who's that?"
"Oh, well, well, well!"
A zumeu woman saw Ani and smiled. Both her dress and her carriage were of higher quality than anything Ani had seen before.
"This is perfect timing! Are you from the Yamaga village?" "Yeah. I'm Ani."
"Eh-heh-heh! Why hello there, Miss Ani."
The zumeu were a minian race with the faces and scaly skin of lizards, and they primarily lived in dry and arid regions, such as deserts. They were
not a race to be feared. The merchants who came selling salt to the village were all zumeu as well. So if anything, Ani was more accustomed to seeing them than other minia from outside the village.
"Are you a traveling merchant?"
"No, not at all! It pains me to say, the only things I could possibly put up for sale are laughter and flattery! I am but a humble zumeu harlequin. Do you enjoy string craft?"
"…Harlequin?"
"Unfamiliar with harlequins, are we? Well now, let's see here. I know I have a picture somewhere around here that should clear things up."
The zumeu woman searched the inside of her overcoat—her protection from the harsh sunlight—and made an exaggerated display of bewilderment when her search came up empty.
"Did you lose it?"
"Oh, no, perish the thought, I found it just now… Ta-dah!"
Finally, the zumeu woman took out a single sheet of hemp paper, but it was soon caught by the wind and slipped cleanly out from her hands.
"Oopsie."
Staggering along, she followed the paper as it danced in the air. Just as she was about to grab it, at the very last minute the paper would again escape her grip.
Greatly surprised, the zumeu continued to comically chase the airborne scrap of paper around and around. Without any spoken Word Arts, the piece of paper began flapping up and down like a bird's wings.
"Oh, knock it off now! Stop, right this instant! A-aaaah?!"
The paper seemed to be teasing the harlequin as it tossed her about, and she grew dizzy following it around, eventually collapsing onto the sand.
The double-folded bird became a simple piece of paper once more, and gently fluttered down over her reptilian face.
It was the first time in Ani's life she had ever seen such a strange and amusing spectacle.
"Pfft, hee-hee-hee."
"Did you enjoy my performance?"
Folding up the paper into a small square and putting it back in her overcoat, the zumeu took an extravagant bow.
"Is that paper alive or something?"
"That is the question, isn't it? I need to open it up and check again for myself… Oh my! It's good as new!"
The paper was hopping in the palm of her hand like a bug, but when she handed it over, Ani could tell it was nothing more than a simple piece of hemp paper. There was an illustration of a flower drawn on it, the kind little children enjoyed.
"Ah-hyah-hyah! Well it seems it's taken quite a liking to you, Miss Ani.
Well then, it's yours!"
"Are you sure I can have it?"
"Why, of course. In exchange, would you be so kind to point me toward your village? I could search for it with my own two feet, but I'm so very worried I'll get myself lost. I fear I'll end up walking myself in circles, you see."
"You can follow this road. Where the ground color's different. The kids on water-drawing duty stamped the sand down… What do you want with our village? Is this carriage for your harlequin job?"
"Oh, heavens no! I must accompany this exalted individual. This responsibility is far, far more important than my harlequin trade."
"..."
Ani looked at the lovely white carriage, parked in the shade of a tree. In complete contrast to the cheerful and sociable zumeu in front of her, the carriage was quiet. At a glance, there didn't seem to be anyone inside.
Ani cut in front of the carriage and went to draw the water. "Even with your foot injured, you came out here to draw water?" "Huh?"
Her legs instinctively stopped when she heard the clear and gentle voice speak to her.
The zumeu came running over.
"Oh, my humblest apologies! How could I fail to notice your injuries, Miss Ani? Did you cut a tendon in your foot? It happened about four days ago, yes?"
She made an exaggerated display of worrying over Ani, but it seemed more like the zumeu was responding to the person inside the carriage. This zumeu probably noticed Ani's foot injury from the very beginning.
"I'm fine."
Ani answered the zumeu. The cut was causing her constant pain, but to
her, there was no longer any point in worrying about it.
"The Particle Storm is coming for me tomorrow. We don't have any Life Arts users who can heal my foot. I waited for the day he would come, rather than seeking him out myself."
"Ah-hyah-hyah! Is that how the Particle Storm is spoken of in your village, Ani? Well, well, that's quite—"
"Let us dress her wound for her. Some things are best kept secret." "Why, yes, most certainly."
The harlequin seemed as if she was about to make some kind of comedic remark, but the voice from inside the carriage cut her off. The zumeu swiftly produced thread and bandages, and wrapped Ani's wound to try and ease her pain.
"Now then! That should make things a bit easier." "Why…?"
Ani was a child with a lot of questions. "Why are you being so nice to me?"
"Well, I wonder. Maybe because in the world beyond the desert, such a thing is normal. Why, I could very well be a nefarious scumbag, you know."
People from beyond the desert weren't as hardworking as the desert residents, and they weren't protected by the Particle Storm at all.
Ani had been told they she shouldn't get involved with them, as they were foolish and driven by greed.
"…Nuh-uh. I'm glad I met you both before I left." She headed toward the oasis, dragging her foot along.
Ani had been told that since the Particle Storm was coming to take her away anyway, there was no need to tend to the wound on her foot.
Even she herself had thought it all meaningless, and yet… "Miss Harlequin."
"Ah-hyah! What is it?"
"Can you show that fun stuff to everyone in the village too someday?" The voice from inside the carriage answered.
"Yes. I promise."
"Ah-hyah-hyah! But of course!"
The zumeu twirled the bandages she had used for Ani's foot in a large swirling vortex, until finally, it changed into a multicolored cloud of confetti. To Ani, who had lived her whole life in the drab desert, the winds were filled
with color, like nothing she had ever seen. "Take care now, Miss Ani!"
Perhaps this event was what spurred her on.
Before the Particle Storm could come to take her away, Ani decided she would go and see the barrow in the night.
It was always the adult's job to carry the children to the barrow, but its distance from the village and its whereabouts were things the village children inadvertently learned themselves.
In the morning it'll come for me.
The sand at her feet grew damper as she got closer, and the terrain gave way to a rock surface covered in soil.
She was heading there by herself, illuminated only by the light of the two moons, unable to properly use one of her legs. Nevertheless, she felt like she had to make sure of something. Having always lived her life in accordance with what adults told her, it was the first time Ani had decided to do something herself.
There was a world outside the Yamaga Barrens. One unknown to Ani, just like the harlequin and her companion had been.
The Particle Storm protected the village from the terrors beyond the desert.
It extinguished living creatures with its fearsome rage. Which story was true? Were they both, in a way?
…That's the barrow.
The moons were hidden behind the clouds, and the landscape was pitch- black, but there was no doubting that this colossal boulder in the center of the windless hollow was the barrow the adults had said enshrined the Particle Storm.
"Particle Storm…"
She was frightened. Even if she died here at this barrow, waiting for her on the other side was the land beyond the desert.
There was a brittle noise.
It was the dry sound of something snapping underfoot.
Her shoes had been tailored for her big day the next morning.
The moons came out from the clouds and shined their light on her barrow destination.
"What?"
She was covered in a viscous black substance.
Even beneath the purple moonlight, she noticed that the color was one she had seen before.
"No, no…"
Blood. Congealed from accumulating layer after layer.
The things Ani had stepped on were almost like pebbles, yet curiously, they were all gathered around the bloody surface.
Thin, white, yet oddly rounded fragments. "No… it can't be."
Then, she looked out at the scenery stretching out behind the barrow. There before her was the land beyond the storm.
The mummified, crumbling corpses of children—decayed down to the bone—had been simply cast aside and piled on top of one another. There were no indicators that the bodies had been scavenged by wild animals. Their deaths served no purpose at all.
"Aaaaah!"
The dead children had been carried here by the adults and offered to the Particle Storm, as were the still-living children who made it here.
But… But if the child to be offered was still alive…what would the adults do in that case?
There were traces of blood in the barrow. Bone splinters. For years… So many people… Splattered across the ground… Over and over again…
There was another snapping sound at her feet. "N-no."
She had stepped on a skull fragment. In Ani's village, most children born didn't make it to adulthood. This was their fate.
I'm not scared, silly. My older brother, our neighbor Litta, they all went to the country beyond the storm.
At that moment, what truly terrified Ani wasn't the knowledge that she
was going to die.
It was the fact the adults had known the truth the entire time—the mean adults, the nice adults, the village chief, the elders, and even her own family. For generations they had lied to the children without so much as a twitch in their placid expressions.
The one thing she believed in, and diligently worked to protect, had been a lie.
A lonely breeze blew by. "Help…"
The tears on her cheeks immediately dried up in the wind. Within the Particle Storm's barrow, where even bone splinters remained undisturbed in their final resting place among the still air…a breeze blew.
"I-I…I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"
Despite being mistaken about everything, despite everything she had been told being pure insanity, this raging wind alone was unmistakable.
The fine sand, the bone splinters, traveled on the wind and coiled around Ani.
The particles scraped the inside of her lungs and windpipe. Even the blood spilling from her mouth dissipated in a fine mist against the thunderous squall.
Ani was the one at fault.
She had sprained her leg and couldn't carry out her duties.
She had listened to the words of the harlequin and her companion. She had stumbled too close to the truth.
She had questioned the Particle Storm. "…Hngaugh, f-for…forgive…"
It was a pain worse than death.
Her blood, her tears, her screams, and her regret had all vanished without a trace.
The wind died down, and another fragile life had been snuffed out in its entirety.
Not a single trace had been left behind.