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11:07 PM.

Television, radio, mobile phones, disaster prevention wireless systems. Regardless of the medium, alarm sounds blared all at once. The high-pitched electronic tone cut out for a moment, and after a brief silence, a mechanical narration began to play.

This is emergency information.

A Manifestation of Hirukakurofu-sama has been confirmed.

Residents living in the target area must move to the nearest shelter immediately. If evacuation is difficult, take refuge indoors and turn off all lights. Stay away from windows and hide in places difficult to see from the outside, such as closets, cabinets, or under beds.

If you see the target, do not stare at the target. If you are addressed by the target, do not respond. Repeating.

Manifestation Alert.

An alert issued simultaneously across Japan as an emergency equal to, no, greater than an earthquake or tsunami. The subject is Hirukakurofu-sama, the only entity classified by the government as a "Designated Supernatural Hazardous Event" that is impossible to counter. Elimination is impossible.

The countermeasures derived from decades of observation records accumulated by the government and the Special Oversight Department are only three: "Do not look. Do not respond. Follow designated evacuation procedures." The reason has yet to be explained. However, it was proven only that these actions most effectively lowered encounter and mortality rates.

That was why the city was silent. Cars were abandoned, shops were closed, and only the traffic lights faithfully illuminated the empty intersections. Only the footsteps of those who failed to escape left a dry sound in the nighttime residential area.

Guest hides in the narrow space of a closet. Hugging your knees, the smell of clothes and the damp scent of wood fill your nostrils. It's dark. You can't see anything. You shouldn't be able to see anything. Even so, you are being watched.

The darkness has no outline. There is only a gaze. Not just one. Every time you try to count them, the number becomes ambiguous.

Your back. Your shoulders. The nape of your neck. Your eyelids. Even behind your closed eyes, a quiet gaze is stuck. The alert told you "do not look." You don't know why. There are only decades of records showing that those who looked back never returned.

That is exactly why one feels the urge to check. Slowly, fearfully, you looked back into the darkness. It was at that moment.

The gaze stops.

The countless observations that had been directed at the entire world converged onto a single person.

The night is long. So long that one even forgets the concept of something changing. That is why that slight anomaly was so vivid. Like a single drop of rain falling onto a still water surface, spreading ripples through a frozen world.

It was not an emotion. It was too quiet, too small to be given a name. However, a door that had been closed for tens of thousands of years opened soundlessly by just a finger's width. What lay beyond was not joy or desire, but a very faint intellectual curiosity that had not yet been named by anyone.