Fiction in the real world: Sailor Moon

Unending BE - episode 808731

"I'm so late!" came a familiar cry, as a certain girl fled from a certain house and hurried down a certain route towards a certain school. "Gotta hurry, gotta hurry!"

This was her normal, typical morning. Every day the same thing. She'd set the alarm the night before, promising herself that this time, this time she'd wake up in time to get to school, and then when that alarm hit she'd reach over, hit snooze and roll over to sleep a little bit longer.

Then she'd get called awake by her mother, look at the time and barely have any time at all to scarf down breakfast, get dressed, brush her teeth etc before dashing off to school. She would then run full pelt down the street in a mad dash against time, keeping that bell from ringing by sheer willpower alone and then a giant hole opened up in the ground in front of her from out of nowhere and - OH GOD NO!

"Yaaaargh! Oh! OW!"

She'd fallen through an endlessly black pit, which would have reminded her perhaps of Alice's fall through the rabbit hole had she any familiarity with that particular work. In some ways the metaphor would have been far more fitting than she would have realised, if she had been capable of making it. It had felt like she'd fallen for ages, in terms of time, but even with her limited understanding of physics even she had to notice that she should have been far more hurt from that fall than she was. As it stood, maybe her butt would be a little bruised - for that's what she landed on - but nothing felt broken. Which was weird, surely if she'd really been falling for a few minutes she should have been in far worse pain than this...

Now, where had she fallen? It looked like a street, sort of similar to the one she'd been running down. And yet something was amiss. The colours were all wrong for one thing, though she couldn't articulate why. Everything seemed simultaneously less bright and vivid, yet more alive and... real? The word real just stuck endlessly in her mind, and she looked to the sky in wonder.

And then she winced as the brightness of the sun hurt her eyes, causing her to look down and rub at them. Wait, that wasn't right. She patted her face in abject disbelief. Her eyes had shrunk! They used to take up the majority of her face, but now they were so much smaller. No wonder everything looked so weird.

"Hey, nice cosplay!" said an unfamiliar voice.

"Huh? What?"

"I said, nice cosplay. Usagi Tsukino, right?"

How did this guy know her name? Usagi suddenly felt... frightened. Was he the one that made the hole appear in the pavement? Was he the one that changed her eyes somehow?

"You must have put a lot of work into that costume. Big fan of Sailor Moon, huh?"

"Sailor what now?"

The bespectacled young man gave her a deadpan look. "Oh, don't play dumb. I mean, you only look exactly like one of the most famous anime characters of all time. Still, it's kind of weird you'd dress up like her civilian wear. Most cosplayers go for Sailor Moon rather than Usagi. Still!" he gave her a thumbs up "Definitely an A+!"

Just like that, the weirdo left. Usagi was suddenly aware that other people were giving her similarly weird looks, though none of them were being quite as forward as this guy. Many of them were heading off to school and - no wonder she stuck out. The uniform was different. That pit she fell through must have sent her somewhere else. But where? And how could she get back?

And what in the world was this Sailor Moon thing? It felt somehow important, but for the life of her, Usagi couldn't think what it could be.

Go back - Go to the parent episode.

Lumitiel

Fri Jul 29 13:43:38 2011