It felt just like I had woken up from sleeping, but I found myself somewhere strange again. Was I dreaming still? Or had that vision of the Usami house perhaps been reality and I had somehow passed out in the middle of it, only to awake now?

These thoughts went through my head as my eyes remained closed and I slowly took stock of my senses. I was laying on something soft and gritty, listening to the pleasant sound of a recurring susurration, almost like the sound of waves on the ocean. That would have been impossible though, there are no oceans in Gensokyo. Could I be in the Outside world?

I sat up before I opened my eyes, feeling the surface I was sitting on shift underneath me. Sand, I thought to myself. I'm sitting on fine sand. I opened my eyes and took in the sight of a broad and peaceful sea. Beneath the starry night sky the waves were black, extending out as far as I could see. The smell of the water was refreshing, but devoid of the fishy tang I might expect. I stood up and brushed the sand off my dress. It was exceptionally fine and I noticed with mild surprise that I was wearing a dress, rather than the nightgown I had gone to bed in. So this must also be a dream then, I reasoned.

The beach was bare and grey under the night sky, without ornamentation or signs of life. There was no driftwood here, nor seaweed or barnacles. Above the surf, the sand disappeared into an expansive grove of peach trees. Only peach trees. All of them growing in neat clusters, without a hint of variation or undergrowth, laden with heavy, pale fruit. The peach trees reminded me of the ones I had seen in the heavenly realms, but there was no ocean there, was there? We hadn't explored extensively in that world, but I would be surprised if there were any islets large enough to host an entire sea.

"Merry!"

The voice calling my name was instantly familiar. I turned toward where it had come from and saw Renko popping out from behind a tree. Like me, she was in her usual clothes, hat, trenchcoat and all.

"I finally found you!" she cried, dashing out of the forest and across the sandy slope to run toward me. Her shoes scattered sand as she ran and as she drew close she slowed down then stopped beside me, mesmerized by the sight of the impossible sea. A sea that couldn't exist in Gensokyo.

"Merry, that's an ocean, isn't it? This isn't the shore of the lake at the Moriya shrine or anything, right?"

"I've never known that lake to have waves like these on it, have you?"

"So we're not in Gensokyo then? The last thing I remember was going to sleep with you at home. We must be in one of your dreams again!"

Renko had come to the same conclusion I had. Was this really a dream though? I felt perfectly alert and aware and the air felt pleasantly warm on my skin. If this was a dream, it was among the most detailed I had ever experienced. The only other dream I could remember having with this level of realism to it had been the ones in which the two of us had met Doremy Sweet, the Administrator of the dream world. This place was nothing like the bizarre inorganic field in which those dreams had taken place, however.

"Merry, are you touching my face while we sleep?"

"How would I know, Renko? I'm asleep. Also, haven't we had this conversation before?"

"We have, but this place looks completely different than that unfinished-looking dream world, doesn't it? Have you seen Doremy around anywhere? Or have you dreamed us across the barrier into the Outside world?"

"I don't really know. I was somewhere else until just a moment ago, but that place felt like a dream too..." I trailed off, having just then realized that I had been holding something in my hand this whole time. I looked down and and stared, dumbstruck, at the object in my palm. A smooth, hard chunk of amber, in which some sort of large prehistoric insect was suspended. It was different than any insect I had ever seen before, but its shape reminded me of something I had seen in Gensokyo. A butterfly maybe? Those were extinct in the Scientific Century.

"Whoa! Where did you get that? That's the same one, right Merry? Can you bring it back with us? How'd you find it?" Renko's eyes went wide as she stared at the jewel and she ran a hand through her hair, tousling it and dislodging her hat.

I didn't have answers to any of her questions. I could remember reaching for the amber, but not grabbing it, nor could I recall how I had come to be here. Had Renko been in the hallway of the Usami house with me? I hadn't seen her. There was too much going on to keep up with.

"Renko... does this look like the amber we found in Sumireko's room to you?"

"Sheesh," she muttered, staring down at it. "I only ever saw that thing for a second and it was more than ten years ago. I had thought it was smaller than that, but it looks more or less right, I think. Why do you have it, Merry?"

"I found it in my dream... the one I was just having, but I don't remember taking it and I don't remember how I ended up here."

"Where is here, anyway?"

"You're the human GPS, Renko. You tell me."

"That doesn't work in Gensokyo though."

"But we aren't in Gensokyo, there's an ocean here."

"Well, I don't think it would work in a dream either, but let's see."

We both tilted our heads up to look for the moon.

We didn't find it. There was no moon hanging in the sky. Stars were visible, but they were dim and distant-looking, barely twinkling.

Instead of a moon something else appeared suspended above us. Round, massive, beautiful and vibrantly blue.

An elegant blue marble streaked with swirling tendrils of white.

The Earth was floating in the sky.

We stared at it, horrified, mystified, stunned into silence with awe.

There's a limit as to how many sudden and unexpected developments one can stand. Writing these words on paper, I am insulating you, dear reader. There is no way that my mere writings could ever convey to you what it felt like to be starting up at our home planet, knowing that wherever we were standing, it was somewhere profoundly else. It was a hopeless, senseless and utterly baffling development. Upon seeing it, the mind divided itself neatly into two opposed parts. The one that knew with absolute certainty that what we were seeing was impossible. And the other that knew that the sphere in the sky could not possibly be anything else.

"...Hey Merry?"

"...Yeah, Renko?"

"Are my eyes lying to me?"

"How could I possibly know, Renko? It's impossible for anyone to experience the same things in the same way as another. Your perceptions are uniquely your own."

"Really, Merry? You're going to do this now? I'm not talking about Relative Psychology here. I just want to know if you're seeing this or not."

"If you're asking that question then you're probably seeing the same thing I am."

"...Well, I guess that's to be expected. This is your dream after all, so I must be seeing whatever you're dreaming about. It's pretty, Merry." She sighed and adjusted her hat to shade her eyes from the glare.

"That's the Earth, right?"

"Absolutely. It's Earth."

"Then where are we?"

"Well, I can't get a reading from looking at that, but there's only one celestial body we could possibly be standing on and have Earth be hanging in the sky and looking that big: the satellite Jules Verne tried to reach with a cannon."

"That's what I thought. That puts us roughly 380, 000 kilometers from where we went to sleep, right?"

"Give or take."

"But there's air here. And water too."

"Well that shouldn't be too surprising, really. We know a few people who came from here. There'd have to be at least this much for them to live, right?"

"Alright then, I suppose that just leaves one question."

"I'd say so, yes."

Standing on the sandy beach, staring up at our home hanging in the sky we spoke at the same time.

"Why are we on the moon!?"