(Rene wanders a distorted landscape, a bleached white cityscape. The buildings all around him are misshapen and slumped like melted candles. Blackened eyes glare out from the walls, and the pavement roils up and down like the ocean. He comes to the base of a great tower of grasping pale hands cradling a jewel at…

In a particularly isolated part of the Sabita district in Mitakihara, the afternoon sun begins to approach the horizon, casting an amber glow on an isolated alleyway. Three men are gathered, tossing dice and lamenting their misfortunes while a fourth person, a blonde woman in a long, black coat joins in relative silence. A small…

Pearls of sweat trickling down her flushing forehead, Niko groans as she stirs awake, the fever ravaging making the heavy bed sheets feel like treacly magma slowly burying her body underneath layers of discomfort. As she tries to expel the disease with increasingly desperate pants, she looks around her, squinting to get a sharper impression…

A group of adults, ranging from fresh out of college to deep middle age are huddled in a small, worn out room. Chairs are arranged in a semblance of tidiness around a cracked wooden table, and haphazardly as they are, a sense of order can be gleaned from the arrangement. All in attendance— one to…

November has come, and with the skies turning ever more grey and the nights turning ever darker, the streets of Mitakihara have become silent. Gone are the traffic congestions, the busy pedestrians and the patrolling soldiers, replaced by the occasional cyclist nervously looking over his shoulder as he pushes forward his bike, loaded with rations…