Afterimages (A Story inspired by the Persona Series.)

[EchoWolff]

Synopsis:Reality has two sides to it, the normal 'real' world, and the Alter world. Just like everyone has dark sides, the worlds are the same, yet fundamentally different. The Alter World houses mirror images of people and structures of the real world, but as negative emotion and fear incarnated into monstrous creatures... This place has always existed, hidden behind the veil of ignorance in which humanity places itself. 4 young people are drawn into this world, bound by a mysterious contract signed in a dream that felt too real. Led by their other selves, their Afterimages, the lines between what is hidden and what is true reality are blurred, in a mission to save reality from itself.

Neo Tokyo is a sprawling Japanese city and a hotspot of negative thoughts and emotions. Suicide rates have been on the rise recently for unknown reasons with almost no pattern or apparent reason why. Close friends of the most recent victims had said that they had gone crazy, babbling about an alternate reality and a figure called The Masked Man or some similar moniker. All the victims were alumni or current students of シルバーシェード (Shirubashedo) Academy, a community college near the Shinjuku District.

Afterimages

Afterimages are pure manifestations of negative emotions that reside in the Alter World, similar to the Mirror Creatures, and seemingly represent an animal that a person accepts as another version of themselves. After a person acknowledges and accepts their manifested dark side, the two beings merge into one, similar to a symbiotic relationship. The Afterimage then modifies its host to be halfway between the animal the Afterimage represents and the host's original human body. The more the host discovers about themselves, the more powerful their Afterimage becomes.

Afterimages are classified by "types" consisting of an element and an inclination.
Elements are Heat, Cold, Light, and Dark. Inclinations are War, Peace, Order, and Chaos.

Afterimage Type Components

The elements and inclinations are generally determined by the host's personality, the Afterimage mirroring its host's true self.
Heat usually consists of an inextinguishable passion or rage, even a hot temper could manifest this way.
Cold represents a sizable pride or reserved nature, perhaps even a tendency to avoid others could result in a Cold Afterimage.
Light represents an unnaturally cheerful disposition, a mask that was donned so many times that it became the host's true face.
Dark consists of the true meaning of a dark side, almost a complete flip-side of the host's main personality.

War is bent on harm, a figment of violence.
Peace is focused on protection and mending, a living shield.
Order is based on prediction, forcing adversaries to follow a set script.
Chaos is the wild card, its actions are unpredictable and uncontrollable.

Mirror Creatures

The mirror creatures are pure manifestations of negative and repressed emotions, emanated and reflected from the 'real' world. traditional weapons tend to have little to no effect on them and can only be destroyed by attacks infused with Afterimage power, known in the Alter World as "soule" energy. While they are beings created of human emotion and fear, they are not tied to a human, simply a reflection abandoned to wander the Alter World with no hope of ever encountering its originator.

This includes themes of suicide, self-harm, brutal deaths, and a grimdark alternate reality.