World Alliance (1)

There was a tunnel just wide enough for a single child to twist sideways through, scraping their clothes against the rough rock walls. The miners called it a “Mami-ana.”

I suddenly remembered something like that.

Since a Mami-ana branched off like the limbs of a tree, choosing the wider passageways meant that eventually, you would reach the root—the mine entrance.

——Then what if we climbed upward from the root instead? What if we were in the main passage and went into a branch?

I suddenly found myself wondering about that.

——No, in the end, all of them would become tributaries and lead to the source. In that case, there would be no need to get lost.

Everything was the tip of the same branch, each one a single leaf——.

★

I woke because I was struck by an intense chill and nausea.

Then a stabbing pain shot through my head, and I clutched it...