Dragon Head, Volume 1

Teru Aoki and his classmates are riding home from a school trip when a sudden disaster derails their train and leaves it trapped in a collapsed tunnel. Most passengers are dead, the tunnel is pitch-black and unnaturally hot, and the survivors have no idea what happened outside or whether rescue is coming.

As Teru, a wounded girl, and a boy gradually losing his mind try to stay alive, the volume focuses on fear, exhaustion, and the strain of being sealed in with corpses and dwindling hope. The outside world remains mysterious, and the story keeps withholding what caused the catastrophe.

The volume ends by deepening the uncertainty rather than resolving it, with tension driven by the survivors’ breakdown, the hostile environment, and the sense that something may be waiting beyond the tunnel. It functions largely as an introduction to the larger crisis and the people caught inside it.