When I came to, I was lying on the floor. My body ached. All over. Throbbing dully. Like I'd been beaten. I opened my eyes. Nothing changed. Dark. Just dark. I stared at the ceiling for a while. Concrete. Cracked. A single bulb hung above my head. Glowing faintly. (Where... is this?) I tried to sit up. Pain shot through my arm. My right hand burned. A small burn scar there. No idea why. I didn't know. That was everything. My name. Where I was. Why I'd collapsed. All blank. Completely white. Who am I? The question spun in my head. No answer. There couldn't be. No memory. Nothing left. Complete erasure. I pushed myself up slowly. My arms shook. White shirt, filthy. Black slacks, caked with mud. No mirror. Couldn't see my face. Short black hair. Deep brown eyes. A thin scar between my brows. I felt that much with my fingertips. I looked around the room. Small. Six tatami mats maybe. Concrete walls on all sides. No windows. One door. A rusted iron door. On the far wall. The smell hit me. Rust. Moisture. Dust. Old. Really old. Only my breathing echoed in the room. (Stay calm. Think.) I didn't know my name. But I could move. I could act. I had to understand the situation. That much was clear. Why, I didn't know. I walked to the door. Pulled the handle. It didn't budge. I pushed. I knocked. Nothing. Locked from outside. Trapped. That fact settled quietly in my chest. I turned to walk along the wall. My feet stopped. Red letters covered the entire wall. ——You're the killer. Big letters. Spray paint. Bold. Clear. Written with force. Something pounded in my chest. The killer? Me? Killer of what? No memory meant I couldn't deny it. I wanted to say "no." But I had no proof. I'd woken three seconds ago. Didn't even know who I was. No way to refute it. Not a shred. The letters were dry. Written long ago. Who wrote it. When. Why. No idea. But those five characters stabbed into my head like a blade. Wouldn't come out. I searched my pockets. Right pocket. Something there. I pulled it out. Crumpled paper. Folded messily. I opened it. My hands trembled slightly. Scrawled handwriting: "Nocta Building 3rd floor. Don't forget the room number. Don't trust." I read it. Read it again. Nocta Building. That's here? Third floor has something. Room number. But I don't know the room number. (It says don't forget. But I forgot.) The last three characters bothered me. "Don't trust." People? Information? My own memory? The handwriting told me nothing. Couldn't even tell if it was mine. I put the memo back. Looked around the room again. An empty can lay on the floor. Label peeling. Unreadable. A rolled blanket in the corner. Old. Thin. Someone had used it. (Someone was here recently.) The wall had other marks. Scratches. Fingernail marks. Thin lines. Tally marks. Not one or two. Over a hundred. Someone counted days here. Trapped for that long. Maybe I wasn't the only one. That thought crawled up from my feet. A different kind of fear. I don't know how long I stood there. Quiet. Really quiet. Just my breathing. Then—metal scraping. From beyond the door. Click. A small sound. The lock opening. My body froze. The door creaked. Slowly. Outward. I held my breath. Looked through. A dark hallway stretched out. No one there. The person who opened it—gone. Nowhere. I waited. No footsteps. No presence. Just the open door. The darkness beyond. Then, far away, something fell. A dull thud. Once. Silence again. (Did they run? Or... were they ever there?) No answer. But staying in this room changed nothing. That much I knew. I gripped the memo. Took a deep breath. With shaking legs, I stepped into the hallway. The hallway was dark. Half the ceiling bulbs were dead. One glowed faintly here and there. I moved carefully. Found stairs at the end. Leading down. I descended into a machine room. Underground. Low ceiling. Rusted pipes everywhere. Abandoned office equipment. Cardboard mountains. Only one path to walk. Empty cans here too. Plastic bottles. Rolled blankets. (Someone lived here.) But not now. No sound. A heavy iron door at the back. Padlocked. Wouldn't open. I went back. Found stairs going up. Climbed. An entrance hall opened up. A large front door. Chained. Padlocked. Sealed tight. I tried picking the lock. Useless. I searched for a back exit. Found one quickly. Boarded up. Nailed from outside. Wouldn't budge. All windows—boarded. (Can't get out.) Those three words spun in my head. A mailbox on the wall. I opened it without thinking. Stuffed full. Papers everywhere. Flyers. Envelopes. I checked the address. "Nocta Building" The top one was dated three years ago. The bottom ones older still. Three years of mail. Piled up. Untouched. A notice on the wall. "No Entry." Government order. Dated three years ago. This building. Abandoned three years. Sealed. Closed. Minase City. Tooka Town. Nocta Building. That address was all I had. Outside—no way to see. Windows sealed. Day or night? Impossible to tell. No signal. No phone anyway. Completely cut off from the world. (Three years trapped in a closed building.) When that thought hit, the ground felt soft beneath me. Scared, but my head wouldn't work right. Too much information. Emotions couldn't keep up. I sat on the entrance floor. I stared at the notice on the wall. Looked at my right hand. The burn scar. How old? Before three years? Recently? No idea. "You're the killer" in red letters. Still in my head. Was I here because of that word? Locked in by someone? Did I come myself? Nothing made sense. I don't know how long I sat. Then—a sound. From above. A low scraping. Zzzzz. Something dragging across the floor. Heavy. Slow. Not footsteps. Irregular. Stopping sometimes. Second floor. I looked up at the dark ceiling. Stairs visible in the gloom. Beyond that—nothing. The sound continued. Moving. Something moving on the second floor. (Human?) Unknown. Didn't sound human. But too big for an animal. I pulled out the memo. Read it again. "Don't trust." Who shouldn't I trust? The thing making that sound? Someone else? (Don't trust...) I folded the memo carefully. Put it back. I looked up. Into the dark stairwell. Should I go? Staying here changed nothing. Waiting for rescue—unlikely. Three years abandoned. But that sound. What was it? No idea. Scared. Honest truth. But sitting here wouldn't help either. I stood slowly. Toward the stairs. One step. Another. Old wood creaked beneath me. The sound continued. Zzzzz... Zzzzz... I climbed into the darkness.