Bubble

Bubble

Five years ago, bubbles started falling from the sky. Not the kind kids blow through a plastic wand. These bent gravity itself, and after a blast nobody can explain, Tokyo drowned inside one enormous bubble. The government drew a line around the ruins, called it off limits, and walked away. The orphans stayed. They turned the flooded streets and crumbling towers into a parkour arena, leaping rooftop to rooftop while crowds cheer. Hibiki is the best of them, a loner who can hop between bubbles like stepping stones. He swears he hears a sound coming from the Tokyo Tower, a voice in the hum. So he goes looking. Then the water swallows him. A girl pulls him out. Odd clothes, odder manners, doesn't even have a name until he gives her one: Uta. She doesn't explain where she came from, and Hibiki doesn't push. But the way she moves through the bubbles, the way they seem to listen to her, makes him wonder. What exactly did he drag out of that flooded city, and why does it feel like she has been waiting for him?