She had only packed for two weeks. Enough clothes for a mild spring, a guidebook full of sticky notes, and the hope that her solo trip to Japan would help her breathe again.
She did not expect the bombs to hit.
No one did.
Roset a women in her late 20's with long brown hair had been sitting in a quiet café in Kyoto. Halfway through her bowl of ramen, the news broke out. First a murmur, then a gasp, then the soft clatter of someone's chopsticks hitting the floor. The waitress stood frozen, hand to her mouth, all eyes were fixed on the TV overhead.
Her country. Her city. Everything was gone.
The TV had just shown footage of her entire country being wiped out by bombs.
She didn't remember leaving the café. Only that the sun was still shining when she stepped outside, and it felt wrong. It felt obscene for the world to still turn when hers had just stopped.
Two weeks had past.
Now, she was in Tokyo, in a high-rise hotel she hadn't chosen, her name added to some government list of survivors. Refugees, they were calling them. She never thought that word would apply to her.
At check-in, the hotel clerk had bowed and explained in rehearsed English that the government would be covering her stay for the next month. "Arrangement are being discussed," he said. She didn't know what that meant. No one did.
Her room on the fourteenth floor was clean, small and clinical. A kind of waiting room with a view.
She hadn't unpacked much. just a few things oh her nightstand: A photograph of her family on Christmas, now folded at the corner. A necklace with a cracked clasp. Her passport, though she wasn't sure it was worth much anymore.
She spent her days walking, her nights staring at the ceiling. There were too many thoughts and none at all. The grief hadn't come in tears, it came in waves of silence.
Sometimes she wondered: if she'd been home, would she be dead?
Sometimes she wondered: was it worse to survive?
The government had said they'd come with more information soon.
So she waited.