Still sitting in this freezing interrogation room, the concrete walls reflect a pale light to me filtered through the rice paper of the ceiling light. The questions continue to rain in, but my thoughts get lost in the tumult. I can't see clearly... until "konkon" sounds.
A sound... unique.
Dry, strange, vibrating in the depths of my mind. Like the thud you hear in video games when a character falls, definitely. It only sounded once. However, this brief impulse was enough to turn everything upside down.
The interrogator froze. His behavior changed immediately. He who showed himself to be implacable, almost mechanical in his rigidity, lets a... human nuance filter through. His voice, until now sharp, becomes soft. Benevolent. His features relax. He looks at me differently. As if this simple vibration, this isolated "konkon", had forced him to see something in me that he did not suspect.
<<< You may not yet understand the full extent of what you have gotten yourself intoinvolved, >> he says calmly, placing his files on the table with almost solemn slowness.
Then he straightens up and begins to explain:
<<<< We are the CPIN brigade - International Power Control. Our mission is to monitor and regulate energy flows and abnormal phenomena. We are also responsible for neutralizing direct threats to humanity. >>
I remain silent, still in shock. My mind has only retained that sound. Once. And yet... everything changed. Even the tone of the dialogue. Even the language: from then on, he began to address me formally.
As if I had gone from being a suspect... to being a key player.
He continues: << We were tailing, on the trail of an individual. A man linked to an international criminal network. Thanks to him, we hoped to locate their base... but your intervention, this impulsive race after this figure, compromised everything. >>>
Around me, the two other agents remainsilent. Their presence is heavy, but not hostile. Almost... perplexed. As if they didn't expect the interrogator to share so much information. Neither did I, for that matter.
We still don't know their exact name or their objectives. But what we know is already too much. Murders, trafficking, corruption... and above all, a connection to the monsters that appeared after the Catastrophe. They operate far beyond Japan.
Every word resonates. This room is no longer a place of interrogation. It becomes the vestibule of a parallel world. And this unique and mysterious "konkon" seems to have been the key.
Then he concludes: Your involvement, although fortuitous, has generated a disruption we would never have known about otherwise. You are not an ordinary person. We need you. To understand this lost trace. To discover the role you are meant to play
My heart is pounding. This noise - konkon - only sounded once. But it was enough to take me out of everyday life... to plunge me into the unknown.
And I, a simple high school student from Sora, I no longer know if I I'm an actor... or a pawn. The tension in the room was already unbearable. The concrete walls, the cold light, the staring... And yet, nothing had prepared me for what was to come.
The door burst open. A woman entered. Her gait was that of a hawk on the hunt: determined, calculated, without hesitation. Her gaze, incisive and searing, cut through the room like an invisible blade. She wore no uniform, but her presence alone commanded respect. Icy beauty. Fearsome charisma. An aura so strong you'd think every person here already belonged to her.
Without a single word of introduction, she advanced straight toward me. With a swift movement, she drew a sword—long, sharp, almost ceremonial—and slid the blade against my pendant. Her stance was menacing, the point ready to slice into my flesh. Then her voice cut through the silence
<< Do you really think we're going to remain blind?
You take us for fools, don't you? >>
The shock was brutal. My body froze, petrified.
My heart was beating so hard it could have torn my ribs. Panic struck, I felt a damp heat running down my legs... I was unable to keep my composure.
<<< I... I swear... I don't know anything! I'm just a normal high school student! >>> I stammered. <<< I heard a strange noise... and then... and then the interrogator changed... >>>
Her hand closed around the hilt of her sword.
Slowly, she sheathed it without taking her eyes off me. The contempt in her eyes was evident. But there was something else... a kind of burning attention, as if probing the deepest layers of my mind.
Before she spoke again, one of her colleagues—an agent who had come with her earlier—leaned discreetly towards her and whispered a few words. She closed her eyes briefly. A short breath. An almost invisible tension. Then she opened her eyes again.
It wasn't what he had said that had disturbed her. It was the interrogator himself.
Her face remained strict, her expression impassive. An outside eye would not have noticed anything. But she had seen it.
She turned her gaze back to me, cold, clear, sharp
<<<< Listen to me carefully. Because of your unfortunate
power, you know too much. >>>
My breath caught.
She let a beat of silence pass, then continued:
<<< Here's your ultimatum: either you join our ranks...
or we'll erase all your memories. And for three years, you'll be watched. CloselySilently. To prevent you from compromising our Secret and revealing our existence.
Each word was a lock being sealed on my life. The world flickered around me. It wasn't a threat. It was a sentence. And everyone else—the interrogator, the three agents—waited. They said nothing. Because the choice was no longer theirs.
I understood. She was a commander. It wasn't her title that proved it, but the attitude of the others when she entered. Only the interrogator had looked at her as an equal. I don't know if it was because of me or not. The others had straightened up as if before a superior officer.
And me? I was no longer that high school student from Sora. The konkon sound had sounded just once, and had changed everything
This hidden world, this silent war, this power I didn't yet understand... My life had just been turned upside down in an invisible theater. And the curtain had only just risen.