The sky was indigo blue, and the forest was filled with the sounds of wild animals. My heart was heavy. Like me, these animals were probably looking for the right spot for tonight’s rest. The only difference was that they knew exactly where to look.

As the sky was getting darker, I had to find a safe place to rest and spend the night. Along the path, I noticed a large tree next to a stream and decided to survey the area. Under that tree, the ground was dry and even; across from the small and narrow stream was a large open field with a backdrop of rolling hills. I washed my face in the stream, refilled my bottle, and then sat down and leaned my back against the big tree.

I rested for a while. The sun was long gone but, in this world, the night was not so dark so I could still see everything very clearly. Lost in thought, I suddenly heard footsteps treading on dry leaves and approaching me. I stood up, alert and ready for action. In my head, I started preparing for the worst-case scenario.

Even though Meen had reassured me that nothing bad would happen to me, I stared wide-eyed in anticipation of the approaching footsteps, my heart pounding and racing, not knowing what to expect.

I finally saw a figure, obscured by the dim light, and felt somewhat relieved that the figure was a man.

“Hello, who’s there?” I called, pretending to sound more confident than I actually was, and greeted him first to assess his friendliness.

“Here you are!” the man replied.

I felt instantly relieved, as if a big weight had been lifted off my chest. Upon seeing him and hearing his friendly voice, I immediately sensed that he meant no harm. The stranger was a middle-aged man of around fifty years of age, not very tall, with salt-and-pepper hair.

“Hello,” he greeted me. “You should have continued walking a bit further. My house is just around the corner,” he said.

“I was waiting for you. But when I learned that you were about to sleep here for the night, I had to rush over to get you,” he went on.

“You knew that I was coming?” I asked him, wondering how he could possibly have known.

“Of course. This morning, the gatekeeper told me you would arrive today,” the man answered.

“Which gatekeeper do you mean?”

“Well, the person who saw you off this late morning.”

“Do you mean Meen?” I replied.

“Yes.”

“How did he …” I was going to ask but then understood that they must have communicated telepathically.

“Distance is not a problem for the soul language. We only need a clear subject to communicate with,” he answered the question I had formed in my mind.

“Come, let’s head to my house first. I did send you a telepathic message telling you to continue walking a little further. Did you not hear it?” the man asked.

“I’m not sure but I did feel that there would be a better place to rest up ahead,” I answered.

“But you didn’t believe that though,” he said.

“It was getting dark and I didn’t know what was ahead,” I admitted.

“That’s a common issue among people from our world. We don’t trust the thoughts that arise from within,” he replied.

“Wait, you said ‘people from our world’, do you mean your world or mine?” I asked.

“Oh, right, I will explain. But let me introduce myself first,” he replied, while continuing to walk.

“My name is Yoshida. Actually, I also came from your world. I was a Japanese soldier and pilot, and I’ve been here for 76 years now,” he said.

“You are Japanese! How did you come here?” I exclaimed and felt as if I had found a friend.

“Ha ha, I feel that I’ve found a friend too,” Yoshida replied good-naturedly, as if he had heard my thought.

“When I first came here, I didn’t know how it had happened. I learned later on that I had passed through the interplanetary portal but not the same one that you came through. I came through the portal in the ocean, while flying my airplane,” he told me.

“Wow! That sounds like an adventure! Could you please tell me more?”

I had read these kinds of stories many times, about airplanes in mid-flight or navy ships on a voyage vanishing from the radar, and I had always wondered if they were true. I would have never imagined meeting a person who had actually experienced it.

“Back then I was a twenty-nine-year-old soldier serving in the Japanese Navy Air Service,” Yoshida went on. “I remembered the exact date: December fourth, nineteen forty-one. It was the first day I flew the newest model of the fighters, the Mitsubishi A6M Zero. My mission was to protect the troops that were heading to Hawaii. During that time, the Japanese Empire was at war with China. But for reasons unknown to me, the troops flew in the opposite direction, away from China, heading to the Pacific Ocean, towards the Hawaiian Islands. I only knew that my mission was to escort a fleet of navy ships, dozens of battleships and bomber aircraft carriers. I didn’t know the main mission but anticipated that there would be a major combat.”

Yoshida continued, “I didn’t know what really happened after that. Because on that day, while I was on a scouting flight mission, about 15 nautical miles away from the battleships, around 100 nautical miles southeast of Tokyo, I radioed the navy fleet, which was heading east, that I was at its seven o’clock position, 15 nautical miles away. The fleet acknowledged my message, so I reported the weather condition.”

Yoshida mimicked how he had reported in as a soldier: “It’s eight forty-five, we are experiencing some turbulence. The sky is dark and very cloudy. There might be a thunderstorm. Please take precautions.” The reply was: “Fighter … the weather is sunny and clear. Check your position again if you really are at seven o’clock, fifteen nautical miles away from us. I repeat: the sky here is clear, there are no rain clouds within a twenty-mile radius.” Yoshida imitated the response from the navy.

“I was surprised, so I checked my position again,” he went on. “Everything seemed to be exactly as I had reported. In that instance, I heard the cracking sound of lightning and thought to myself that there was a chance of the lightning striking my plane as the sound was so close. I held the control stick very tightly, my head ducked down, body on full alert, because I was so sure the lightning would hit me.”

“I heard the same cracking sound as well,” I interrupted, as he shared his experience of going through the portal.

“Several seconds passed but there was no thunder. The cracking sound was gone but I faced new problems. All the dials on my cockpit went haywire, furiously rotating up and down, and all warning lights on my dashboard were fully lit. The radar screen blacked out. My radio switched from a high-pitched frequency to a very low one. My plane was shaking all over, like a car being driven on a very bumpy road. The whole thing lasted for about 10 seconds,” he described the situation.

“I gathered myself and look around, thinking hard what to do next. My plane was suddenly enveloped in a white mist instead of the dark clouds I had been in before. The screeching sound from the radio was gone, replaced by an eerie silence. The dials, warning lights, and radar screen had returned to normal. What was peculiar was that there was nothing moving around me within a radius of 100 kilometres.”

“Mayday, Mayday,” Yoshida narrated, “I am sending my QRM code; inform the command centre that there is interference.”

“I radioed dozens more times but there was no response. I was really terrified now. Although I had been trained to respond to all possible emergency situations, this incident comes nowhere near any of them. The plane was in a normal condition, the radar screen was back, everything was normal, except that nothing was around me.”

Yoshida continued his story: “In the next second, my plane broke out of the white mist. Suddenly, the sky turned bright blue, with a scatter of thin white clouds. It was clear and sunny. When I turned to look back, there wasn’t a trace of either the dark clouds or the white mist. I kept flying my plane, telling myself that it was only an interference blocking my communication, and that if I kept on flying a bit further, I would be able to contact the others again.”

“However, it was not as expected. I continued flying over the sea at a speed of 250 kilometres per hour. For hours, nobody replied to the messages sent out,” Yoshida said.

“I then decided to change the radio frequency, but I became even more frightened when none of the frequencies, neither the enemy’s nor my side’s, worked. In fact, it seemed as if nobody was using these radio frequencies. There weren’t any conversations, only silence. I was very scared, not of entering into this parallel world because I was not aware of it yet. Rather, I was more afraid that I might have entered enemy territory and get shot down. It was a harrowing experience flying blind.”

Yoshida continued his story: “Finally, I saw land, but I was not thrilled because I knew I was entering an unknown territory which could be even more dangerous. I might be charged with invading enemy airspace. So, I decided to radio to seek permission for an emergency landing. But as before, there was no response. I kept on flying, focused on trying to find a safe landing strip. I lowered my altitude to look for one and spotted it. It was a clear meadow, long and wide enough to land. I had only one attempt in landing the fighter aircraft because the plane was heavily damaged. Both wheels and a wing broke off on impact upon landing. Luckily, I wasn’t hurt. To this day, the plane is still there.”

“Where is that?” I asked.

“About a few hundred kilometres from my house,” Yoshida replied. “I went back there to see it once, thirty years ago”

“How old are you now?” I asked.

“Hmm … I came here at the age of 29 and have been here for 76 years, so ….” Yoshida answered.

“So … 105 years. You are 105 years old? At first guess, I thought you would be around 50,” I, said, considering his appearance and agility.

“Really? I am 105 years old already?” Yoshida seemed surprised himself.

“If you hadn’t asked, I wouldn’t have thought of it too. It’s so pleasant to live here that I don’t even feel I have aged at all.”