Hideki, Suu, and Fumi stood shoulder to shoulder in front of the bank of faded pink plastic payphones.  Suu took a deep breath, and a shaky exhale.

“Are you okay?” Fumi whispered.

“Yeah,” Suu replied quickly, throwing on a cheerful smile, but after a moment, it faded, and she whispered, “The last time I stood in front of these… I… I don’t know what would’ve happened to me if I had stayed in there, but I don’t think I’d have survived, at least, not as the person I am now.”

“Takahashi-kun has been in there a lot longer than you have,” said Fumi, “It’s very possible that we’ll find him in much worse condition than you were.”

Suu looked up at the analog clock over the payphones as it ticked from 11:58pm to 11:59, and said softly, “When I was there, I didn’t want to be… but I also didn’t feel like I could leave.  Everything just felt so… hopeless.”

“Well, if he’s there, we’re not leaving without him,” said Hideki, “Even if we have to do a lot of convincing, even if we have to fight off his demons… We’ll do it.”

Fumi nodded to the both of them, before turning to watch the clock.

The hands slowly turned, before meeting in the vertical position.   Midnight.   All three of them lifted the pink plastic receivers and held them to their ears, before they turned the rotary dial to zero.  The earpieces of the phones began to hum, slowly growing higher and higher pitched until the deafening sound felt like it was vibrating through their skulls.  If they had any second thoughts, it was too late to turn back, their bodies frozen as the ringing completely overcame them.  Suu let out a tiny whimper, but besides that, they were all silent, as their vision blurred and the world slipped away from them.

The three felt the sensation of falling for a brief moment before they were snapped back into their bodies.  Fumi stumbled slightly, while Suu slipped and fell on her round bottom, in the middle of the road.

“Oww…” Suu whimpered as she sat on the ground.  She lifted a hand to rub her spinning head, but she realized that her hand fell on a pair of ornate headphones.

“Are you okay?” Hideki asked, offering her a hand.

Suu reddened faintly as she looked at his hand, before grasping it, and accepting his help to pull her up to her feet.  She was surprised by his strength, and the momentum of him hauling her upwards, and yet out a small yelp as she nearly tumbled forward into him.  As she looked up at him, she realized that a pair of black headphones spiked with thorns rest atop his head, the very ones that materialized the last time he called the ‘operators’ from this world.

“It looks like the same place we arrived last time,” said Fumi as she looked around.

Suu looked around, her brow furrowed a bit as she said, “It isn’t where I was when I first arrived… I was closer to the river.”

Hideki nodded, as he looked around.  Like before, they were on a street lined with dilapidated houses, many of which appeared abandoned and clearly water-damaged, though details were difficult to discern from any sort of distance; while the sky appeared to be a hazy, light blue-gray, the ‘light’ of the sunless and moonless sky did not shine on the buildings, leaving them wreathed in darkness. The surrounding fog unsettled Hideki, as he remembered the sight of demons coming out of them.

“We wandered for at least an hour before we found Suu-chan,” said Fumi, “How do we go about trying to find Takahashi-kun?”

Hideki pulled his cellphone from his pocket, and asked, “Do you think maybe I should try to call the operators again?”

“What exactly… are they?” Suu asked, “How did you even know to call them before?”

Hideki was quiet for a moment.   He’d avoided telling Suu much to this point, but he took a deep breath, and said, “The first day I went to school, on my way home, I heard screaming and I found Mitsuyama Eri and Sanada Ryuma in the middle of the street.  He was badly hurt, maybe even dead, but she was calling for help.”

“Mitsuyama and Sanada?” Suu asked, eyes wide, “The two students who died?”

“Except Mitsuyama was alive when I saw her,” said Hideki, “My cellphone wasn’t working at the time, and I panicked, and tried to use a payphone.  I dialed 119 and I wound up in… some other place. It was nothing like this, there were women there who looked like old-fashioned switchboard operators. There was also this strange woman in a red suit… Anyway, I called them again before they, I don’t know… ‘connected’ me with Legion.”

“I wonder if they could do something like that for Fumi?” Suu asked, looking toward their friend, “Connect her with some sort of power.”

“No, thank you,” said Fumi, “While it seemed like a far more peaceful experience for you, Suu-chan, Hideki-kun seemed to be tortured by it.  I’d rather leave well enough alone.”

“Agreed,” Hideki said with a smirk, before tapping the rotary dial icon on his phone.

“You’re not going to call 119 again, are you?” Fumi asked.

Hideki raised an eyebrow at her and said, “Yeah, of course I am.  Why wouldn’t I?”

“That’s an emergency number, and you shouldn’t call it if it’s not a fire or medical emergency!” Suu said, earnestly.

Both Fumi and Hideki stared at her a moment, before Fumi looked at Hideki and said, “I think what Suu-chan is trying to say, in her own pure-as-snow way, is that every phone number has its own purpose.  You used 119 when you were in an emergency before, but you were lucky to have gotten the help you did.  We have to believe that all of our calls are still going to have to go through the operators.  Let’s try to call something a little more properly focused.”

“What do you recommend we call, then?” asked Hideki.

The three of them thought quietly for a moment, before Suu spoke up.

“104?” Suu asked quietly.

“Directory assistance?” Fumi asked, “I suppose it makes sense, trying to locate someone.”

“104 it is,” Hideki replied, swiping his phone along the rotary dial, to input 1-0-4, before holding the phone to his ear.  The phone began to ring, and on the third ring, he heard a click.

From the phone, a woman’s familiar voice asked, “How may I assist you?”

Hideki smirked and asked, “Cara, or Amica this time?”

“This is Mia,” the voice replied, “How may I assist you?”

Hideki’s eye twitched and his forehead creased, as he thought, ‘At least that’sall three of them, I hope,’ before he glanced at Fumi and Suu.  He gave the girls a nod and said, “I’m trying to locate someone.  His name is Takahashi Kazuo.”

“Please hold,” replied Mia.

Hideki stood there, awkwardly, as he waited in silence.

“I am forwarding the information to your phone,” Mia said, “Thank you for calling.”

A click ended the call, and when Hideki looked at his phone, it took a moment for the ‘call ended’ screen to vanish.  When it did, however, he noticed a new icon on his home screen.

“What’s that?” Suu asked as she leaned over to look.

“It looks like a compass rose,” said Hideki, tapping on the new icon with a small notification marker in the corner. What loaded on his screen looked like a hand-drawn map, but with a marker glowing some distance from them.

“Is that him?” Fumi asked.

“There’s only one way to find out,” replied Hideki.

Though the dark streets and thick fog were nothing short of unsettling, it was helpful to at least have some sense of where they should be going.  As the three of them walked down narrow, wet roads, traced with lines of sediment left by receded flood waters, they eventually saw their destination.

“This isn’t Takahashi-kun’s apartment building,” said Fumi, “but it’s close enough.”

The three stopped in front of a two-story apartment building made of stone block.  The first floor looked entirely decimated, with doors and windows missing, and piles of debris trapped in corners.  The stairs leading up to the second floor looked rickety to say the least, but with Hideki’s hands to help steady their balance, the girls ascended them first, and he followed soon after.

“Do we know which apartment it is?” Suu asked.

“I would assume the only one with an intact door and windows,” Fumi said as she walked along the second floor verandah, before pausing in front of the door.

Suu followed as well, and noticed an old-fashioned mailbox hanging on the wall next to the door, as opposed to a communal mailbox by the road.  The box was hanging half-open, overflowing with letters.  She picked up a few from the floor, and looked them over, before saying, “All of these are written to Kazuo-kun, but the ‘from’ address is smeared.”

“I guess that’s all we need,” said Hideki, reaching over Fumi to knock firmly on the door, much to her annoyance.

Silence.

“I just don’t get it,” said Fumi, “You’re so much better at knocking on a door than me, and yet…”

Hideki’s eye twitched again, an increasingly common sign of his stresses and aggravations, and he muttered, “Oh shut up.”

Another knock from Hideki’s fist, followed by Fumi knocking, and at last Suu reached over to add her own knock.  No response came.

“We know he’s in there,” Fumi said, growing increasingly annoyed.

“Stand back,” Hideki said, nudging the girls to the side gently as he backed up against the railing.  He eyed the half-rotted door, before stepping forward and slamming a kick into the wood right next to the doorknob.  The wood splintered, and the door nearly cracked off of its hinges as it swung open, before a cloud of stench overcame the three of them.

“What is that?!” Suu whined as she covered her nose and mouth.

Fumi pulled a handkerchief from her pocket to cover her own nose and mouth, and muttered, “It smells like something died in there…”