I scared a lot of people that day. Namely, the taxi driver and the pedestrians who had decided it was a good idea to walk past an airport at 2am (I'd like to make it very, very clear that I am not that kind of crazy). Anyhow, there weren't many people on the streets when I threw myself out of a moving taxi.
Yeah, I know. You're probably thinking- Well, thanks for the scare, but I'll be on my way to find someone more interesting. To be honest, I don't blame you at all. But maybe, just maybe, there's somebody out there who understands why I made the decisions I made. I have to hope, because that means I can save that someone from the stupid choices they will inevitably make. But this is rather boring, no? If you're going to read the story of a hot mess, I might as well make it good.
~~~
I hit the ground running, suitcase clutched tightly in sweaty fingers, wondering what the hell I was thinking. It's not like I normally make rash decisions, rush into things without thinking...
Well. Maybe not...
I stumbled forward across the burning pavement, Japanese signs flashing all around, the late afternoon practically blinding me. The taxi driver cursed as he sped away, shrieking in something that sounded like German. I honestly didn't know why he was so pissed; after all, my change of mind hadn't effected the number of zeros on his paycheck. Unfortunately, the same wouldn't hold for me.
I sucked in a deep breath, pulling myself into a semi-standing position. It's 1923, Tokyo, Japan, and one of the largest earthquakes in Asia is about to hit. And I'm the idiot who volunteered to research it. Japan had always been a soft spot of mine, though, and this had been as close to Hiroshima as anyone with common sense would let me be. A
rather excessive amount of security measures had been put in place to keep me from jumping a few years in the future to be there for the world-rocking atomic bomb drop.
It's not like I wouldn't leave before it hits, I thought sullenly, still feeling more than a little bit miffed at being sent to an earthquake instead. Fortunately it wasn't just any earthquake- it was the Great Kanto. The magnitude was suspected to be over 7.9 and the death toll far exceeding 140,000. And me? I was more excited than I had been on any jump before.
I checked the tiny seismograph on my wrist, grinning as the tiny pen jumped across the line at a steady rise. It was happening. I took a deep breath, pulled out a recorder, set it on my shoulder, and braced my feet.
The first shockwaves hit. The ground rolled beneath my feet, almost throwing me completely to the ground. I stood shakily, trying to reset the camera, then the big shake began. Immediately I knew that I had made a mistake- a big one. The ground beneath me rocketed upwards, throwing me into the air. I clutched my camera to my chest and jumped to the first place that came to mind.
