Empress of Okubo: A Mafia Boss's Rising Tale

The last thing I remember was drinking with my boys. Now I'm in a bed that barely looks big enough for a kid and staring at a ceiling fan.

I roll over and look at the face of the sleeping girl next to me. I feel like I should be grossed out, but she's actually kind of cute, if you ignore the fact that she's got crusty snot all over her upper lip. Jesus, what did these people do with their kids?

I get out of bed and start looking around. The room is so small that it only takes a few seconds to find everything. There's a simple wooden dresser with some clothes on top, an old TV, and a window that must have been put there by an idiot because it's surrounded by plywood on three sides. It's not even covered in glass; it just has some thin plastic sheets covering the holes where glass would go. If you wanted to break into this place, you'd just knock out one of those sheets and be inside before anyone knew what was going on.

I pick up the phone on the dresser and dial 911. The operator answers quickly. "You've reached 911, what is your emergency?"

"This isn't an emergency," I say. "I'm just looking for some information."

"Can I ask what kind of information you're looking for?"

"Yeah, sure," I say. "I'm in Japan, but I don't know what city this is in or where."

"What is your name?" she asks me point blank.

"Uh..." I stammer out loud. What IS my name? I try to think back through all my memories, but they're still blurry and disjointed from when they were stolen from someone else's brain. All I can think of is 'Donny.' That sounds right.

"Donny," I answer her question finally. "My name is Donny."

After a brief pause she responds: "Where are you located right now Donny?" She sounds impatient and irritated, like this is something she does all day long and she wants me to hurry up and get to the point or something so she can move onto another call that might actually need her help.

"I'm... uh... in a house," I tell her honestly. This shit is hard! "In what looks like someone's bedroom."

The operator sighs audibly before asking me again how I wound up here: "How did you wind up in this house Donny? Do you know who lives here?"

"I honestly don't know," I admit to her, shrugging my shoulders helplessly as if she can see me doing it through the phone receiver in my hand – which she couldn't, obviously, because phones don't work like that anymore. "One second I was at my office celebrating with my boys and then suddenly, all of us are waking up here together... including these two girls who are asleep right now."

The operator sighs yet again audibly before telling me: "We have no record of any such thing occurring, Donny." Her voice is flat and droning as she tells me this; you can practically feel the boredom radiating through the phone line as she relays whatever information she has access to.

At this point, I start questioning my own reality. I wonder if this occurrence is something more than just an unfortunate event, and whether there are intricate layers of existence outside our very own. The concept of multiple dimensions and alternate realities intrigues me, but there's no way to find concrete answers here and now. It's best for me to focus on the present situation and try to figure out where I am and why I'm here. Resigned to finding solutions instead of dwelling on the unknown, I stay quiet, waiting for the operator's next instructions.