It was still morning, the rush hour had passed, and because of that, the train was emptier than usual.
Rei's face reflected a mix of emotions: happiness and relief at the rare chance to sit during his ride to school, even though he was extremely late. This scenario was a miracle in his routine.
Still seated, he pulled a manga from his bag and started reading the first page, making use of the free time he usually had during his daily commute to school.
The first page of the manga began with a phrase very common in comic stories: "It all started when..."
Rei seemed intrigued as he read that.
"I've always wondered about these opening narrations in comic books," he thought. "Who are they even talking to? Do the characters realize they're part of a story? Are they speaking to someone in the future within it? It doesn't make any sense to be in a story and just start narrating things like that..."
These thoughts faded from his mind when a sharp sound rang out. It was the noise of a phone hitting the floor in front of him, near the train seats.
The phone's owner continued walking toward the door, and surprisingly… or perhaps not… everyone saw it happen, but no one dared to get up and pick up the phone.
The passenger in question was wearing headphones and seemed oblivious to the attempts some made to alert him about the fallen device.
The usual moment of hesitation passed, that brief pause when we wait to see if the owner might notice and retrieve the fallen item themselves. Still, everyone chose to ignore it.
Moving in that situation meant giving up the comfort of the journey until their destination. And so, the phone remained where it had fallen.
Mentally disagreeing with his own decision, Rei gave up his comfort and stood up. He picked up the phone and hurried toward its owner, who was already stepping off the train onto the platform.
"Hey, wait! You dropped your phone!"
The phone's owner was a middle-aged man wearing a black overcoat, prescription glasses, a white face mask, and a gray beret.
He turned toward the train door when Rei called him, but he was already off the train, standing on the platform.
The door closed with Rei still reaching out from inside the train, while the phone's owner stood outside, staring at the boy with a blank, unreadable expression.
The train leaves the station with that scene still unfolding, and everyone inside watching in silence.
"Did he hear me?" the boy wondered.
Rei walked back toward the train seat with the phone in his hand, but obviously the seat he had been sitting in was now taken.
"I can't believe this... Now I'll have to go back to return it and end up even later for class because of it." He checked the train's digital clock, almost ready to skip school entirely.
So, he walks toward the train door, leans against it, and begins inspecting the phone. Despite the loud crash when it fell, the phone remained remarkably intact.
He pulled out his own old phone from his right pocket and unintentionally began comparing the two.
"It's so light. Looks like a state-of-the-art phone. Lucky the screen didn't crack from the fall."
The two phones were worlds apart. Rei wasn't the type to upgrade his phone unless it stopped working.
Soon, the train arrived at the next station. Rei disembarked and boarded a train heading in the opposite direction, hoping to find the phone's owner at the previous station.
After a few more minutes, he arrived and tried to remember the exact spot where the train had stopped and where the owner had gotten off.
Luckily, Rei remembered because, at that moment, there had been a popular ad for the musical group NJ1 behind the man.
"I think he got off here... I remember that panel with the ad behind him."
He walked toward the ad and the area where the man had likely exited but saw no sign of him. He looked to the other side of the platform but found no one there either.
The only person in sight was a security guard standing near the stairs to his left.
"What do I do now...? Leaving the phone at the station's lost-and-found seems like the safest option... or should I wait for someone to call looking for it?" he thought as he stared at the phone, uncertain of his next move.
As he absentmindedly shifted it, the screen lit up, displaying the message: "Use your fingerprint to unlock."
Without thinking, Rei impulsively placed his right thumb on the designated area, and the phone unlocked immediately, displaying a message on the screen: "Fingerprint recognized. Welcome, Kojima Rei."
"What? How does it know me? It recognized my name from my fingerprint? Is technology really this advanced now?" he thought, alarmed.
Suddenly, as if the phone had a mind of its own, the app menu opened, and a single app, located centrally on the screen, launched itself. The screen turned black, and Rei heard a voice.
"Hello? Can anyone hear me?"
Startled, Rei quickly placed the phone to his ear.
"Hello! Yes, I can hear you. Can you hear me?"
"Yes, I can hear you too."
To his surprise, the voice was that of a young girl. Perhaps the owner's daughter? Uncertain, Rei continued.
"Oh, great! Do you happen to know the owner of this phone?"
"Phone? I can only see... I think it's your ear," she says, confused.
"What do you mean, my ear?"
With the phone still pressed to his ear, Rei glanced around the platform, searching for someone. He found no one. The only person nearby was the security guard.
He looked at the phone's screen, hoping for answers, and saw a girl in a video call.
"Now I can see your face, but who are you?" she asked, her expression a mix of distrust and fear.
Rei was taken aback. The girl seemed about 15 or 16 years old, with long brown hair streaked with orange highlights. Judging quickly, it could be said that she has European ancestry, as her brown hair and light green eyes stood out prominently.
"Sorry, this might seem strange, but I didn't steal this phone. Could you let its owner know I'll leave it at the station's lost-and-f—?"
Before he could even finish the sentence, the phone began vibrating intensely, flashing repeated red messages across the screen like spam:
ALERT ALERT ALERT
Startled, Rei tapped one of the pop-ups, and a chat opened with a message that read:
"Good morning, Rei. You've found a lost phone, and now it belongs to you. However, to keep it, you must follow these fundamental rules:
1. It is FORBIDDEN to abandon or return this phone to any establishment, especially the police station.
2. You will lose something precious if you mention anything about this phone or the prisoner to anyone unauthorized. That guard to your left doesn't need to know, does he?
3. Enjoy yourself."
Rei glanced at the guard by the stairs with a terrified expression. "How is this even possible?"
"P-Prisoner? What do you mean, prisoner? That guard to my left doesn't need to know... So he's here? Where? The station is empty!"
Through the phone, the girl seemed to notice his shock and tried to call out to him during the ongoing video call.
"Hey... HEY! Can you explain what's going on? Who are you?"
Still in shock, Rei responds, but not exactly to what she asked.
"Stop messing around... You... why did you send me those messages?" he asked, his tone accusatory, as if blaming her for his predicament.
"I didn't send you anything. I've been trapped in this room for hours with this call open... I should be the one saying, stop messing around and get me out of here!"
Rei was overwhelmed, a whirlwind of fear and doubt consuming him.
"So she's trapped somewhere? And why can't I tell anyone? Damn it, what do I do?"
It was then that he, no… it was then that I realized that the narrations in comic stories might actually be the character's own consciousness. A form of self-reflection, perhaps to organize their feelings, make sense of things, or understand something out of the ordinary that had happened.
So... this would be the perfect moment to start a narrative, wouldn't it?
End of Report 00.