Japan: February 25th, 2011

I peer out the window through the trees at the horizon. It's been thirty minutes since the earthquake, which means the tsunami will be here any moment. I've already called my family. They left the city for the highlands while I stayed behind. Rather than be trapped on the streets when the tsunami comes, my coworkers and I went to the top floor of our two-story shop. I hope my coworkers and I will be safe up here, though we will be trapped for a while. We have plenty of supplies we can eat from our Japanese candy shop.

The beach water starts to recede, which means the tsunami is coming. After a moment of stillness, the water starts to crawl up the beach. It looks harmless at first, but the water keeps coming and keeps coming, and it flows up the beach in mere moments and swells over the tree line and into the parking lot. Cars start drifting away.

From our vantage point we watch the water make its way into the city street and start gushing between the buildings in several raging rivers. The water rises and rises. It lifts up a smaller building and washes it away into another building right in front of us. Cars float by.

Michiko and Hana watch from the other side of the building, where the earthquake broke our large window. By now, the water nearly reaches their feet.

"Oh, no!" Michiko screams.

"The water is too high," Hana shrieks.

"Can we do anything?" I yell.

"We can go to the roof," Hana suggests.

Michiko nods as the water rushes over the top of the window and starts pouring in.

I shout, "Let's go!"

Our small shop sways underneath us as we head toward the deck on the other side of the building, where we can climb up to the roof. We reach the deck door and go out to see the powerful water has lifted our building. We're floating down the street.

Out of nowhere, a ripple in the air turns into a blur of brown feathers and fur hovering near the railing. A strangely dressed lady jumps off the beast onto the deck with us. I catch a glimpse of her brown curly hair. A few others follow: a man on a green flying lizard and another lady on a horse with wings.

I blink my eyes. Am I imagining things? No. Strange people just jumped off the backs of mythical creatures to save us. They start shouting at us in a language I don't understand, maybe English. I curse myself for not retaining my English lessons from childhood.

"Is that a dragon?" Michiko asks, pointing to the lizard with gleaming green scales. Finally, the dragon latches onto the side of the building, flinging bricks into the churning water.

"And a pegasus?" Hana adds, as she gestures to a black horse with black feathery wings. The beast is doing its best to hover alongside the railing.

"And that one is a griffin, right?" I shout as I point to the feathery brown creature, which has a bird head and wings on a feline body. The creature latches onto the railing with its bird-like talons. The action sends all of us staggering as the railing rocks on weakened metal joints. Hana and Michiko both scream. I stand in awe as water rushes over my feet and our shop closes in on a building towering over us.

Finally, the strange people give up on communicating and just reach out to us, each taking one of us by the hand and pulling us toward their mythical creatures. They effortlessly leap onto their creatures' backs, and I finally get a good look at them. Two women and a man, all dressed in gray under colorful vests covered in pockets. They all have circular intricate tattoos all over their hands, and jewelry with intricate circular designs. There's something mystical about them, and it's not just the fact that they flew in on mythical creatures. They seem timeless, untouchable. Like superheroes. We're being rescued by secret superheroes!

The lady holding my hand drags me up onto her griffin, and immediately, I feel myself jolting up and down as the creature takes off, and I hold on as tightly as I can around the strange lady's torso as I ride behind her on her strange beast.

I look back as we zoom away to see Michiko on the pegasus with the other strange lady, while Hana rides the dragon with the strange man. They follow along behind as we head for a very tall building standing firm against the rushing waters. As I land with my rescuer, other creatures appear, all carrying strangely dressed rescuers with tsunami victims, including a lady with a toddler and an elderly man and woman and more shop and restaurant workers. We all stand together on the roof as more strange people appear with those they've rescued.

I make out several other mythical creatures large enough to ride. A dragon with butterfly wings, a large black cat with gray wings, a wolf with striped brown wings, and several strangers flying on floating clouds. The sight is so bizarre; I blink my eyes in disbelief. It's like one of my teenage boy's manga he's always reading. I can't wait to see his face when I explain what happened to me.

Finally, the last of the rescued land on the building with us, and all the strangers mount up. I spot the lady who rescued me with her strange griffin, and I find myself waving at her. "Thank you!" I call out, and other victims mirror my sentiment.

The strangers fly up above us, hold out their hands, and with a shimmer of orange light, they all waver in my mind for a moment. Then everything goes blank.

I find myself not in my shop, but on the rooftop of an office building. How did I get here? Who are all these people? Everyone mills around looking as confused as I feel. Then Michiko and Hana spot me, and they run up. "Look!" Michiko points over the side of the building, down to our shop, which is crushed against the side of the tall building on which we stand. We'd surely be drowning if we hadn't somehow made it up here.

I look at Hana and Michiko, at all the people who are up here with us. "Does anyone know how we got up here?" I ask, and several people shake their heads. Others huddle together crying in relief.

"We were in the street when the water rushed around us," the lady with the toddler says. She holds her little one close and kisses his head. "I don't know how we got here."

"We were in our shop and it was starting to drift down the street!" Michiko tells them. "We were going to crash into this building, but now somehow we're up here."

"We were in the train station," the elderly man says as he holds onto his elderly wife's hand. "But the trains weren't running anymore. We had no idea what to do, so we left the station to find the water creeping up the street. Then suddenly we were up here."

Others chime in. 

"We got separated from our class," a student says, gesturing to two others wearing school uniforms. "We were frantically searching for our classmates when we suddenly found ourselves up here on the top of this building."

"We were trying to escape in the company car," a shop owner says, gesturing to two shop employees. "The water picked up our car and it started floating down the street! Then suddenly, we found ourselves up here."

Everyone has similar stories to tell.

"This can't be a coincidence," I say. "Something magnificent has happened."

"What do you think it was?" Hana asks.

I shrug and say, "It must have been true magic."

Thanks for reading this short story, which won a short story competition hosted by LowFantasy called True Magic. This version has added details that you cannot find in the short story that was submitted for the contest. I hope you enjoyed it! Please vote or leave me a comment. I have a book based in this world called Fragments of Alchemy. It was shortlisted in the Wattys in 2021. Please check it out!

~A.C.

The title graphic is by SilverFlight on Deviant Art.