An amateur entomologist arrives at a remote seaside village seeking a rare beetle species he hopes to name after himself.

Villagers guide the man down a rope ladder into a deep sand pit where a lone woman lives in a shack.

The man wakes to find the rope ladder has been pulled up, leaving him with no way out of the pit.

The man digs at the base of the sand wall in blazing heat trying to change its incline, then collapses from sunstroke.

After five days in bed, the man's identity is revealed to the reader: Niki Jumpei, a 31-year-old schoolteacher.

The man overpowers the woman, binds her hands, gags her, and announces he will hold her hostage until the villagers release him.

The villagers respond to the hostage plan by cutting off the water supply to the pit entirely.

The man and woman make love as sand cascades into the house and onto them.

The old man lowers a bucket of water into the pit after the man and woman resume shoveling sand together.

The man secretly weaves a rope from scraps of clothing and other materials, planning a daylight escape.

The man climbs out of the pit by throwing a pair of shears like a lasso around sandbags at the rim.

Villagers herd the escaping man toward the sea, where he sinks into boggy quicksand and must be rescued.

The man constructs a sand-slide trap for crows and names it Hope, intending to attach escape letters to any bird caught.

The man discovers that his crow trap has collected fresh water through the capillary action of the hot sand.

The woman is taken to hospital after a miscarriage, leaving the rope ladder in place, but the man chooses not to climb it.

Niki Jumpei, an amateur entomologist, arrives at a remote seaside village and is lured into a sand pit with a widowed woman who shovels sand every night to protect her home. After discovering the rope ladder has been removed and he cannot leave, he tries to dig himself free, suffers sunstroke, and schemes to hold the woman hostage as a bargaining chip. The villagers systematically counter every plan, using physical deprivation and constant surveillance to maintain their hold over him. Following a desperate escape attempt that ends with him sinking in quicksand, Jumpei's will breaks and he gradually adapts to life in the pit. He builds a crow trap he names Hope and accidentally discovers it collects fresh water, giving him a sense of purpose and reduced dependence on his captors. When the woman is hospitalized after a miscarriage and the rope ladder is left in place, Jumpei chooses not to climb it.

The headline arc: entrapment, defiance, a failed escape, and quiet surrender to life in the sand.

Approaching the village, the man notices houses sitting in deep sand depressions, resembling cells in a vast beehive.

The woman tells the man that her husband and daughter were crushed to death by sand during a typhoon the previous year.

Villagers lower shovels and tin cans into the pit meant for the other one, confusing the man who expected to leave at dawn.

The woman explains that sand absorbs coastal fog and releases it as mist at night, making the shoveling work easier.

Village trucks circulate all night as residents haul baskets of sand up from the pits across the dune settlement.

The man tears away the woman's face covering and discovers she had concealed sand-reddened skin with white flour to appear attractive.

The man feigns a spine injury, hoping his cries of pain will keep the woman awake during the day and force the villagers to act.

The man requests a newspaper and is surprised when the villagers send down a current issue the very next day.

The woman reveals that a postcard dealer was trapped in the village the previous year and died because the work was too hard.

The villagers pretend to haul the man up in a basket and then let the rope go slack, dropping him back into the pit.

The villagers send sake and cigarettes down into the pit instead of water, which the man mistakes as an opening to negotiate.

The man gives the woman sake and aspirin on the night of his escape attempt to ensure she stays asleep.

During his escape run through the village, the man collides with two children in the dark, sending all three tumbling into a ditch.

The woman quietly strings beads at home for extra income as the man grows increasingly restless in the pit.

After the failed escape, the woman consoles the man by telling him no one has ever successfully left the village.

This pool traces the smaller but essential events that reveal the texture of daily life inside the sand pit and the methods the villagers use to maintain control. The woman's backstory and the rituals of the village — the nightly sand hauls, water rationing, and weekly deliveries of sake and cigarettes — paint a picture of a closed, self-sustaining community with its own ruthless logic. The man's failed psychological strategies, including feigning illness and attempting to exhaust the woman, expose his inability to outmaneuver captors who know the terrain far better than he does. His escape attempt is built on weeks of careful observation and preparation, but it unravels in a chaotic collision with children, dogs, and alarm bells. The pool ends with the woman quietly consoling the defeated man, framing his failure not as tragedy but as the ordinary fate of everyone who has passed through this pit before him.

The supporting details: village customs, daily survival, and the mechanics of escape and capture.

The woman gives the man a playful poke while shoveling at night, sparking his first awareness of physical attraction to her.

Without the rope ladder available, the man attempts to climb the sand wall, falls, and injures his shoulder.

The man confronts the woman about his imprisonment, and she admits the sand-clearing work is simply too hard for a woman alone.

The man recalls leaving a letter about traveling alone on his boardinghouse desk, realizing investigators might conclude his absence was intentional.

The man recognizes that the newspaper article about a construction worker killed by sand was sent deliberately as a warning by the villagers.

The woman explains that the absence of stars signals calm winds and less urgency to clear sand, surprising the man with her quiet logic.

The man recalls his impotence with a former lover but feels genuine, primal desire with the woman in the sand hut.

After water and supplies are delivered the morning after their first night together, the man finds he does not mind the work.

A cartoon magazine arrives and the man laughs hysterically, recognizing himself in the plight of a cartoon horse with broken legs.

The man scatters the woman's bead work in frustration and learns the villagers secretly sell salt-laden sand to construction companies.

The man suddenly realizes the villagers see themselves as the ones abandoned and punished by the outside world, not as his persecutors.

The old man agrees the man can climb up to see the sea, but only if he has sex with the woman while villagers watch.

The woman fights back against the man's assault with her full strength, striking and injuring him until the watching crowd disperses.

The man and woman acquire a radio so he can track weather data and study his water trap more scientifically.

An official court document declares Niki Jumpei legally dead as a missing person seven years after his disappearance from the village.

This pool captures the pivotal moments of discovery and internal shift that drive the man's transformation from defiant outsider to resigned inhabitant. Early revelations — about the woman's loneliness, the villagers' use of the newspaper as psychological warfare, and the man's own uncertain legal status as a possible voluntary absentee — steadily erode his confidence that rescue is coming. His unexpected primal passion for the woman, so unlike the emotionally distant relationship he had outside, marks a deeper shift in how he relates to another person. Later turning points — learning that the villagers see themselves as society's abandoned victims rather than his persecutors, the woman's fierce physical resistance against his assault, and the accidental discovery that his crow trap collects water — reframe his understanding of purpose, freedom, and belonging. The pool closes with the official court declaration of Jumpei's death, a bureaucratic document that confirms how completely the outside world has moved on without him.

The turning points: key revelations and emotional shifts that slowly transform the man from captive to willing resident.