Located on the eastern coast of Japan and enclosed by high mountains, it is a modern town, isolated if not for a few mountain roads and railways leading through the winding mountain. The crows fly overhead, and the sun shines heartlessly over the gray, impressionless city. At night, inhuman shapes flutter in the darkness, a night parade of one thousand demons. The locals keep their homes shut tight, windows and doors plastered with talismans.
Despite the fear, despite the superstition, despite the unexplained noises, it is a town that is vivid, alive with a melting-pot culture that grows as more visitors become residents. Though the unknown is feared, it is similarly respected, embraced as one of the hundred myths that have already been sewn onto the town’s tapestry. Its festivals are colorful, and its people are alive, filled with energy and imagination in a world that fostered the incomprehensible.
And now, it is a town of unexplained incidents. A house spontaneously combusted, lighting up without so much as a ‘boom’. A man was found on the mountains, floating inside a van filled to the brim with water. Several residents reported seeing a large eye appear at their windows at night. Children wake up to find their toys floating around them. The trees in a park disappeared without a trace, leaving an empty, grassy field, as if they had never existed. And, one day, an unfinished building appeared in the middle of the city, standing far above any other.
A series of events, either by coincidence or fate, connects you to this madness.
And one day, as you live your life, you receive a box from an unknown sender.
In there is a red cellphone, and a message, written on a yellowed sheet of paper.
You know me as much as I know you, child. If you wish to learn of my identity, share yours, and perhaps it will become apparent. Or perhaps it won't. It all depends on your own perception of the world on the underside of reality, doesn't it?
- What is your Name? Age? Gender?
- What do you look like? A picture speaks a thousand words, but there are words that can explain what pictures can not.
- Who are you? Tell me about yourself, your habits, your quirks, your fears.
- What are you? Where do you come from? Who are your parents? How was your life, up to this point?
- Whom are you acquainted with? Who are your friends? Rivals? Enemies? Role models?
- What is it that you desire, that which you can not attain with your own power?
- And finally, child, what am I?