It was a certain winter in February.

My family moved to an apartment in a remote area due to personal circumstances. The area around the apartment was strangely chilly, and all the flowers and grass looked dull. Bored, I wandered around the house, fell, and scraped my knee, forcing me to return home. I tried asking my mom and dad to play with me, but they both found me annoying and told me to just go explore the house. Exhausted by the boredom, I wandered through every nook and cranny until I found a very small door covered by wallpaper. I begged my mom to open it with a button-shaped key, but the inside of the door was blocked by bricks. That evening, after seeing the tasteless meal my dad made, I went to my room and fell asleep without eating properly.

How much time had passed? I woke up to the sound of something moving and saw mice. Driven by curiosity, I followed them and saw them enter the small door that had been blocked by bricks during the day. When I opened the small door again, unlike during the day, it led to a strange, long passage stretching deep inside.

I stepped outside the house in a daze, and a landscape full of life—unlike reality—spread out before my eyes. Even the neighbors, who had seemed like eccentrics, were all kind to me here. Everything was fine, except for the fact that their eyes were buttons. But then, strangely, people whose eyes were not buttons appeared before me. Every one of them felt somewhat unsettling, yet they took very good care of me, and I began to think this place was better than reality.

After playing for a long time, I grew tired and closed my eyes for a moment. When I opened them, I was lying in my bed as if nothing had happened. 'I guess it was a dream...' I thought, but then I noticed the wound on my knee had completely vanished. Come to think of it, I remembered a person named Ness treating my wound there. Thinking it might not be a dream after all, I opened the small door again, but it was blocked by bricks just like yesterday afternoon. Just in case, as soon as my mom and dad fell asleep, I headed toward the small door. Again, unlike during the day, the passage was open.

Since that day, I started playing there every evening through that passage. And tonight, as usual, I headed toward the door.