Dendera (34 page)

The adonis flowers had begun to sprout.

Startled, Kayu Saitoh broadened her view. New buds dotted the ground where the adonis had broken through the thinning snow. The yellowish buds spread out atop their leafy stems, pushing aside the snow to poke their heads out of the ground. They were little things, but they made a grand statement. Kayu Saitoh saw the many buds that would soon be blooming in abundance, and she knew that spring was coming. Spring began with the adonis flowers; spring was coming. She felt strength flooding through her. She was, of course, not completely healed, but she would at least be able to run at her fastest for a little while longer. She ran through the adonis, their buds beneath her feet. Those round buds came up everywhere, and beneath them, their thick roots must have extended far.

Kayu Saitoh, and the bear, ran through this landscape. She could count the fir trees, and only a thin layer of snow—and the adonis buds—covered the ground. The Mountain was behind them now. Kayu Saitoh, and the bear, were running almost on top of each other. Kayu Saitoh, and the bear, ran as if it were only natural. Kayu Saitoh looked up from the adonis flowers, and there, not that far away, she saw the Village.

END

Yuya Sato, born 1980, is a writer of “strange fiction,” which features fantastic or horrific concepts treated in a refined literary style. Some of his short work has appeared in English in the mixed manga/prose anthology series
Faust
. His novel
1000 Novels and Backbeard
won the Yukio Mishima Prize.

The secret history of the most famous secret agent in the world. A bunny costume that reveals the truth in our souls. The unsettling notion that Japan itself may be a dream. The tastiest meal you’ll never have, a fedora-wearing neckbeard’s deadly date with a yokai, and the worst work shift anyone—human or not—has ever lived through. Welcome to
Phantasm Japan
.

Miyuki Miyabe

Lauren Naturale

Tim Pratt

Benjanun Sriduangkaew

Seia Tanabe

Joseph Tomaras

Dempow Torishima

Sayuri Ueda

Seventeen-year-old Aiko lives a life of casual sex and casual violence, though at heart she remains a schoolgirl with an unrequited crush on her old classmate Yoji Kaneda. Life is about to get harder for Aiko, as a recent fling, Sano, has been kidnapped, and the serial killer Round-and-Round Devil has begun slaughtering children. The youth are rioting in the streets, egged on by the underground Internet bulletin board known as the Voice from Heaven. Expecting that Yoji will come and save her from the madness, Aiko posts a demand for her own murder on the V of H, but will she be left waiting … or worse?