Chapter 1: Blaze of Darkness
Perspective: ???
...
Silence.
No birds. No wind. Only that distant echo of rusted metal creaking among the ruins.
"See anything?" Kurt's rough voice shattered the stillness. He was aiming his shotgun at a half-collapsed pharmacy.
"Nothing. But it smells like fucking hell," Nash replied, pulling down his mask and spitting onto the soot-covered floor. His beard was filthy, his hands cracked from cold and age. None of them were past forty.
Three men. Hunters. Not the kind that went after animals—
the kind that hunted people.
"This place is already picked clean, man. Let's not waste time," said the third one, younger, swinging a nail-covered bat, grinning like all this was some kind of sick joke.
"No. We go in," Kurt said flatly. His word was law for the other two.
The glass doors were shattered, the frame hanging crooked and rusted. Inside, the stench of dampness and old blood clung thick in the air—sticky, heavy—like someone had died here weeks ago… and never really left.
Long shadows stretched from broken shelves. Mold crawled across the walls. Faded medicine posters peeled off in silence.
"Stay by the entrance," Kurt ordered Flea.
Flea nodded, keeping watch, drumming his fingers on the bat.
Nash and Kurt moved deeper inside, weapons raised, steps slow.
"I swear I heard something…" Nash muttered.
A dry sound. Something dropped behind them.
They turned instantly.
Nothing.
"Flea, was that you, asshole?" Kurt barked.
Silence.
"Flea," he repeated, quieter this time.
Nothing. Only that damned silence.
"Don't fuck with me…"
A figure flickered between the shadows.
Fast. Silent. Like it didn't even touch the floor.
Kurt lifted his shotgun.
Too late.
A hand came from behind Nash and yanked him into the dark. He screamed—but it was short, strangled, as if the sound had been ripped out of him. Then a dull thud.
Kurt fired toward the noise. Nothing. Just echoes bouncing off rotted walls.
"Who the hell are you, huh?! Come out, bastard! We're not easy prey! I'm not dying here!"
Footsteps. Left. Then right.
It was playing with him.
Kurt began to back away. His breath came fast. His finger trembled on the trigger.
Then he saw it.
A silhouette, between two shelves, barely visible.
It said nothing. Didn't move.
Just watched him.
The air thickened.
"What… what are you?" Kurt spat, aiming straight at the face hidden in shadow.
Nothing. Silence.
Then the figure vanished.
Kurt spun around. Too slow.
A precise strike to the neck—blinding pain—then the cold floor. His face hit the stained concrete.
He wasn't dead. But he couldn't move.
The ringing in his ears drowned everything else.
Through the blur, he heard faint footsteps fading into the hollow echo of the pharmacy.
...
Perspective: Ayanokōji Kiyotaka
It wasn't difficult.
The first had poor posture. Too much weight on his right leg. I could predict his movement from the start.
The second relied too heavily on his weapon. His eyes moved from the floor to the front, but never to the sides. Not much of a thinker.
The third stayed by the entrance. An easy hit.
I neutralized them without effort. None of them knew what happened. Their movements were basic—almost choreographed. Not military training. Just years of unchecked violence.
Now they're on the floor. Unconscious. Still breathing. They'll crawl when they wake. I don't care.
I stopped beside a broken shelf. Picked up a bottle with a faded label. The ink had bled away; the glass was cloudy with dust and moisture. The whole structure of the building was deteriorated, untouched for years.
Where am I?
Outside, the streets were empty. No working vehicles. No lights. No power. A few decomposing bodies. Old clothes hanging from rusted balconies. Trash swept by the wind. A post-industrial graveyard.
None of this feels familiar.
But it doesn't surprise me either.
I moved among the wreckage of the pharmacy. A fallen sign bore a name I didn't recognize. The language was English. I understood it—but the names meant nothing.
The architecture offered no clue. Somewhere in the West. Maybe the United States.
Is this a war zone? A nuclear accident? An economic collapse?
No obvious signs of advanced technology. No surveillance. No transmissions.
Only silence.
And bodies.
And ruins.
A dead world.
I stepped outside. The avenue was overgrown—trees twisting through cracks in the asphalt, buildings half-collapsed.
The sky was gray.
I wasn't hungry. I wasn't cold. I wasn't hurt.
This isn't the White Room.
No observers. No cameras. Nothing.
Completely alone.
I walked down the avenue. No trace of recent life. The footprints in the dry mud were old, washed away by rain. No voices. No animals. No machines.
Only the wind.
Wind that slammed rusted doors and lifted plastic bags like ownerless ghosts.
A store across the street had shattered windows. Inside, empty shelves.
I stepped carefully—glass crunching softly under my shoes. Nothing reacted.
I picked up a can. Beans. Canned food. I shook it; something still sloshed inside. Not swollen. Probably edible. I kept it. I might need it later.
I kept moving.
The buildings looked abandoned in a hurry. Offices full of scattered papers, overturned chairs, computers buried in dust. I didn't linger.
The decay wasn't new. Nature was reclaiming everything. It wasn't sudden destruction—it was slow, patient, like time itself had stopped.
Ahead, a park with broken swings and fallen benches. A corpse slumped against a tree, bones mostly clean, clothes shredded.
How long has it been?
No data. No calendars. No working clocks.
I don't even know how I got here.
Last memory: darkness. A sharp pain in my head. Dizziness.
And then this.
I checked my pockets. My phone—dead. No battery.
My student ID from Kōdo Ikusei Academy. Nothing else.
No signs of capture. No new scars. No chemical traces.
This wasn't a normal transfer.
I wasn't taken by plane or vehicle.
Something else brought me here.
A simulation?
No. The White Room wouldn't allow such chaos.
This is real chaos. Real death. Real time.
I kept walking. The hours stretched endlessly. I stopped before an abandoned school—graffiti on the walls, shattered windows. A broken sign at the entrance: Welcome back, students.
I stepped back. Heard something.
A footstep.
Very faint.
I turned.
Nothing.
That silence again. Not the kind that belongs to night or to a library.
My body moved on instinct. I slipped into a nearby building, silent, keeping close to the walls. Climbed the emergency stairs—to the roof.
The view stretched far. The city was still dead.
But down below—something moved.
Not human. But shaped like one. Its body was uneven, lurching as if dragging its own legs. Not slow, though. Erratic. Animalistic.
It stopped. Sniffed the air.
I made no sound.
Yet it lifted its head.
And looked at me.
It had no eyes.
Only darkness where they should've been.
I didn't move.
...
Where am I?
End of Chapter.