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11:07 PM.

Television, radio, mobile phones, disaster prevention wireless systems. Regardless of the medium, alert sirens blared in unison. The high-pitched electronic sound cut off once, and after a brief silence, a mechanical narration began to play.

Emergency Information.

A Manifestation of Hirukakurofu has been confirmed.

Residents living in the target areas 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, storage spaces, or under beds.

If you visually identify the target, do not stare at it. 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 target is Hirukakurofu, 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 by the government and the Special Oversight Agency are only three: "Do not look. Do not respond. Follow designated evacuation procedures." The reasons have yet to be explained. It has only been proven that these actions most effectively lower encounter and mortality rates.

That is why the city was silent. Cars were abandoned, shops were closed, and only the traffic lights dutifully illuminated the empty intersections. Only the footsteps of those late to flee 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. And yet, 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 plastered. 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 confirm. 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 change. That is why that slight anomaly was so vivid. Like a single drop of rain falling onto a still surface, sending 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 no one had yet named.