Did you ever wake up one day and feel like the world was wrong? Like things didn’t quite fit in your life, or that there was something just fundamentally off about everything? For some reason Shinobu woke up with that feeling one particular morning, and it was eating her alive.
She went downstairs. She had breakfast with her family. She bathed. She got dressed for school. Everything seemed normal enough. Mundane to the point of being barely worth attention. Then again, perhaps her view of normal and mundane was left slightly askew by the fact that one of her “best friends” was an alien dating her boyfriend after he foiled their invasion. Still. She liked to think that she had at least a little bit of grounding in reality. Enough that she -
“Shoo!” she suddenly snapped, batting away at the skirt-flipping grass. “I’m not in the mood for that today! Buzz off!”
The grass recoiled and Shinobu carefully walked away. The grass bowed apologetically. Typical perverted grass. Always eager to flip a girl’s skirt at any opportunity, but when they get called out on it they get all mopey and try to guilt you into letting them flip your skirt. Same old routine for a brand new day. The grass rustled along like a wave towards a bush, which flipped open and deposited a steaming hot cup ramen which the grass then flipped back towards Shinobu and offered it as though it was a peace offering.
“… Alright, fine!” she said, unable to take it any more. So pathetic. “You are forgiven. Just… Ask in future, alright?”
The grass nodded and did a happy dance for her benefit. Shinobu rolled her eyes and slurped down the pot noodle. Business as usual in Tomobiki. Behind her, she heard another girl yelp and giggle as the grass flipped her skirt. Just like always. She ignored it and continued towards school, which involved turning the corner and trying very hard not to look at what was towering over Tomobiki. Up ahead of her was a mountain that naturally formed into the shape of a naked woman. It had always been there.
Except it wasn’t there yesterday.
All of a sudden Shinobu felt dizzy. Conflicting memories battled for supremacy within her mind. What? That didn’t make sense! It was nonsense. Nonsense! Of course there had always been grass-flipping skirts, of course there was a giant naked woman mountain, of course there were pot-noodle-producing bushes! These things were just… ordinary everyday parts of life. Except they weren’t. They were abnormal, the kind of thing you found in an alternative dimension, the kind of thing that just. Should. Not. Be!
“What’s wrong with me?” Shinobu asked. “My head… It feels like it’s about to burst! I can’t… I can’t! I -”
She collapsed into the arms of a man in a bunny suit. “You alright?” he asked. Shinobu blushed. He was… Handsome. Cute. “Sorry about this. I had to pick someone to bring back to normal, and you seemed like the most viable human candidate. This is going to sound weird, but… Reality is kind of broken right now around Tomobiki. I can’t stay long, and you have to fix it.”
“Huh?” Shinobu unintelligably said. Try that again. “What? What do you mean reality is broken? What could I possibly do to fix it?”
“Don’t know. Can’t analyse,” the bunnyman said. “Interference. I’m the only one left. If I stay too long, I’ll be gone too. You’re a part of this reality, you have to fix it!”
And then he sort of… popped out of existence like he was never there at all. Shinobu pinched her arm. Nope. Still in a really bad dream. Though now that her headache had cleared up, she could at least pinpoint exactly what it was that had been bothering her all morning. She could even sum it up in a single word.
Everything.
Fri Aug 01 11:08:58 2014