"Hey! Open your eyes, wake up quickly! How long are you going to keep sleeping here?"
A firm feminine voice broke through the darkness enveloping Kazuki's consciousness.
*Hmm... a woman's voice?*
Slowly, Kazuki opened his heavy eyelids.
"Uhh, who are you?" asked Kazuki with a hoarse voice.
His still blurry vision began to focus on the figure before him—a young girl with long black hair, wearing a neat school uniform. Her pretty face looked at Kazuki with an annoyed expression.
"What do you mean by 'who am I'?!" The girl placed both hands on her hips, her chin raised in a gesture of frustration. "Did you forget your own classmate's name? My name is Hanah! We even sit not too far from each other, you know!!!"
"I see, sorry I don't remember," answered Kazuki with an expressionless face. His black eyes stared flatly at the girl who claimed to be named Hanah.
"YOU!!!" Hanah clenched her fist, looking ready to explode. However, a second later, her shoulders slumped in a gesture of surrender. "Anyway, forget all that. Now what should we do? Are we going to stay here forever?!"
Confusion was clearly visible on Kazuki's face. "What do you mean?"
"Hey, don't you see what's around us now?" Hanah pointed to their surroundings with a broad gesture of her hand.
"Around...?"
Only then did Kazuki truly notice his environment. He was no longer in his classroom.
"Huh?! This is like... ground...?"
Kazuki felt the sensation of damp grass beneath his body. He rose slowly, patting his male school uniform—white shirt, dark blue pants, and a tie loosely knotted at his collar.
Around them stretched vast green meadows. Tall trees loomed in the distance, forming a dense forest that surrounded the open area where they were. There were no signs of human life—no buildings, roads, or even footpaths.
"Uhh, what is this? Where are we now?" Kazuki turned slowly, trying to find clues about their location. The bright blue sky above them was adorned with slow-moving white clouds, the sun shining brightly almost directly overhead, indicating the time was around midday.
"How would I know! That's why I woke you up!" Hanah crossed her arms over her chest. Her long hair, blown by the wind, occasionally covered her face, which showed a mixture of annoyance and worry.
Her clothes—a school uniform with a long skirt, white shirt, and red ribbon tie—looked slightly dirty in some places, perhaps because she had been awake and exploring around before waking Kazuki.
"What should we do, Kazuki?" she asked again, this time with a softer tone. Anxiety was clearly heard in her voice.
"Obviously we need to go home, why even ask?" Kazuki answered briefly.
That answer seemed to ignite Hanah's anger again. "Of course I know we need to go home!" she shouted in frustration, her hands raised in the air. "But the problem is, how?!"
"Ah, you're right," answered Kazuki with his flat face, as if just realizing the complexity of their situation.
"Why do you look so calm?!" protested Hanah, bewildered by Kazuki's too-relaxed attitude in facing this extreme situation.
"Hah!" Suddenly Kazuki tensed. His body froze, his head raised like an alert deer detecting the presence of a predator.
"What's wrong?!" asked Hanah, suddenly becoming vigilant seeing Kazuki's change in attitude. Her instinct made her step closer to her classmate.
"Something is coming this way!" answered Kazuki, his voice turning low and serious.
Hanah immediately moved to hide behind Kazuki. Her trembling hand clutched the back of the young man's uniform. "W-what... what's coming here?" she whispered fearfully.
"I don't know, but it's not human," Kazuki answered calmly. His black eyes focused toward the movement coming from the edge of the forest, about fifty meters from their position.
"Not human? How do you know that—"
Her sentence was cut off when something emerged from behind the tall bushes. Not an ordinary animal, nor a human, but a giant snake. Its jet-black body had a diameter of at least one meter. Its large head was raised high, about three meters from the ground, with glowing red eyes that gazed hungrily at them.
Most striking was the single silver-colored horn growing on top of the snake's head—an appearance impossible to find on any reptile in the world they knew.
"Uhh, is this a snake with a new style?" commented Kazuki with a flat tone that didn't match their tense situation. "How can it have a horn on its head... that looks very weird."
"Hey, are you trying to make it angry?!" Hanah whispered in panic, her grip on Kazuki's uniform tightening.
"Not really," Kazuki answered casually, shrugging his shoulders slightly. "Besides, it wouldn't understand human language, right?"
However, contrary to Kazuki's assumption, the snake's red eyes seemed to flash more intensely. Its forked tongue darted in and out with a fast rhythm, and its large body began to coil in a ready-to-attack position.
"Hey, can't you see it?! It's clearly angry!!!" Hanah almost screamed, extreme fear making her voice tremble.
The next second, the giant snake moved with surprising speed for its size. Its black scales rustled against the grass, creating a terrifying hissing sound as it lunged toward the two teenagers.
However, just as the creature was about ten meters from them, something strange happened. The snake suddenly stopped, its body tensing in an unnatural position. Its red eyes, which had been focused on Kazuki and Hanah, suddenly looked empty, as if losing consciousness.
And then, as if controlled by an invisible force, the snake turned and attacked itself. Its long, sharp fangs plunged hard into its own body, biting and tearing at its blackish scales brutally.
*Alright, that's what you want.*
From somewhere, a cold voice echoed in the air—or perhaps only in Hanah's head. The girl was too shocked to ascertain its origin.
The scene before them became increasingly horrifying as the snake continued to injure itself, ferociously biting its body until blackish blood spurted from the open wounds. Its body writhed in painful struggle against itself.
After a while, the snake finally stopped moving—its body lying stiff on the grass now stained with blackish blood.
"What... what just happened?" Hanah asked with a trembling voice. Her eyes were wide open, staring in disbelief at the horrifying sight before her. Her legs were shaking badly, and if not for her grip on Kazuki's uniform, she might have fallen sitting down.
"I don't know," Kazuki shrugged casually. "Maybe it ate something poisonous and got drunk, then killed itself."
"Hey, that sounds ridiculous, you know?!" Hanah released her grip from Kazuki's uniform and took one step away, looking at the young man with a suspicious gaze. There was no snake—even a horned one—that suddenly attacked itself to death without reason.
"Really?" Kazuki tilted his head slightly, still with an expressionless face. His black eyes stared vacantly at the snake carcass. "I don't know why it did that either. But most importantly now, we're safe. And do you know something... why we're in this forest?"
The question that suddenly changed topics made Hanah blink, distracted from her suspicion momentarily. She took a long breath, trying to recall the previous events.
"That... I'm not sure either," she answered, occasionally glancing warily at the snake carcass. "At that time, I entered the classroom. There was nobody inside, even though before I went to the toilet there were still many other students in the class."
Hanah moved her hand in a gesture of frustration, trying to arrange memories that still felt vague and confusing.
"At that time there was only you sleeping at your desk," she continued. "And then, when I was about to sit at my desk, suddenly there was a strange light that appeared from under my feet... and now, I'm here."
Kazuki looked at Hanah with a gaze that was difficult to read.
"I see..." he murmured softly, as if keeping many things to himself. "It seems we need to find out where we are now, and how to return."
His gaze shifted to the sky, which was beginning to be adorned with gray clouds in the distance, a sign that the weather might change.
"We need to move," he decided. "It's not safe to be near a carcass like this. The smell of blood could attract other predators."
Hanah nodded in agreement,