Chapter 1: Prologue

Prologue: “On The Wall”

There are instances where the appearance of an existence previously undiscovered completely shakes up your beliefs. For example, a piece of art drawn on a city wall. Maybe even words thrown at you without any warning. Possibly…an encounter with someone. In my case, it was a ghost appearing in the thick fog.

“Where am I…?”

Put in simple terms, I was lost. Ending up a lost child despite being in university is an embarrassing situation to end up in, but the circumstances are what they are. After all—I stood on foreign ground. Going west from England’s London, you’ll reach a port city running along a river—Bristol. And I just began my studies abroad here at Bristol University. Hill roads built of stone moved up and down, interesting at every corner. Houses of brick were awkwardly squeezed in there like there was no care for infrastructure. Granted, it wasn’t anything unusual for the people who grew up in these parts, but as the Japanese that I am, this unfamiliar scenery was akin to a labyrinth.

I finished the formalities and then headed to the faculty connected to the university. That much was fine. The real predicament struck on my way home, as my phone had run out of battery. And naive as I was, I didn’t know that the concept of Japan’s convenience stores, which sell you about everything you could need on a daily basis, doesn’t exist here in England. Even worse, a dense fog had started to fill the streets. I had heard that this was a common phenomenon, but to encounter it immediately upon arriving was definitely a stroke of bad luck. Thus, ending up lost now was definitely something out of my control—The crux of the situation, however, is that making up excuses like this won’t allow me to find my way home any easier.

“Every single path looks the exact same as the previous one, too…”

Thinking I had found the right way, and proceeding for a moment, another unfamiliar sight opened up in front of me. Then again, the majority of the area here was unfamiliar to me. It was the natural course of events, so to speak, but it still didn’t help in my bewildered state. I attempted to rationalize and took off my glasses to wipe them off, but as one would expect, it didn’t suddenly reveal my back home.

Walking around further, I ended up completely confused as to where I was when I realized I had stumbled into a small pathway. The walls to my sides were made of brick, and at the end of it, I reached a dead end. Deep from within the fog—appeared a lion with blood dripping from its mouth.

Reflexively, I tried to protect myself, as my heart rate spiked. However, I quickly came to the realization that what I thought was a lion was just a drawing filling the brick wall ahead of me.

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“Oh, geez…Just a drawing,” I sighed in relief.

Now that I had gotten a closer look, it wasn’t as realistic as I initially had assumed. But what led to my initial shock was the fact that it emitted some sort of weird energy. Call it passion, tenacity—Or maybe, a soul. I felt like it was pulling in, so I abided by my desires when I saw another silhouette appear inside the fog. Something was standing in front of the wall. It resembled a human person, looking up at the drawing of the lion.

They had long golden hair that reached down their back, the bottom part of their white skirt almost seeming translucent. What was I looking at? A fairy? An angel? Or maybe… a spirit? It felt like this being would vanish as quickly as it appeared. Watching them felt like my heart had been grasped, making it harder for me to breathe. And as I stood still in awe, that shadow raised its left hand—which held something. It looked like…a spray can? Seeing that, I sighed in relief. Because it helped me understand that the shadow in front of me wasn’t anything supernatural, but a regular human being.

“Um, excuse me?”

My body finally allowed me to raise my voice. I simply wanted to ask for the right way out of this maze…But the shadow suddenly turned around, and—something flew toward me.

“Wah?!”

I protected my body, as something bumped against my arm, falling onto the stone pavement. A clattering sound echoed through the fog. Soon after, I confirmed that this was created by the spray can the shadow held not even a moment ago. But when I raised my head, that shadow had disappeared. It had vanished without a trace. That should have been impossible, however, as this was a dead end, and yet…Maybe it was a ghost after all?

I crouched down and picked up the spray can at my feet. It was colored in silver and had the number 94 written on it.

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