The Door Opens Above the Choking River

In January 2026, I was twenty-eight years old. When we parked the car at the Lake Shikotsu Observatory, the sunset reflected from the ice stung our eyes. Spread out on the passenger seat was an old photo album dug out from the warehouse of a hot spring hotel - published in 1947. The paper was as brittle as frozen seaweed. Turning to page twenty-five, my breath caught in my throat. The black-and-white photo shows a giant tree that was split in half by lightning. The Ainu elders called it the "Pillar of God's Crossing." In the middle of the charred tree, she sat wearing an old-style women's high school uniform. Birds visit the Jade Palace. My first love when I was fifteen years old was the woman buried under this lake ten years ago. The photo was taken in 1947. She wasn't even supposed to be born then. Suddenly the roar of ice cracking came from the lake. I looked up and saw the ice rising in the distance—— It's not a rupture, but something huge is growing upwards from the bottom of the lake. Like a tree. The phone vibrated at this moment, and a text message came from an unknown number: "Run. Come find me under the tree. The sender shows: TAMAMIYA The sound of cracking ice approached, and cobweb patterns appeared on the glass windows of the observation station. I grabbed my photo album and rushed to the lake shore, snow up to my ankles. The moment I stepped onto the ice, I saw her - two of her. A girl in uniform under a tree in 1947. The last look back at the 17-year-old girl before the car accident in 2016. They spoke at the same time, and their voices overlapped into the whimpering of the lake breeze: "The door is opening. This time, Are you ready to become the rift itself? " The watch hands on the wrist, Is slowly reversing. Thunder was coming from the center of the lake.