[There's a chill outside, the kind that comes when Summer is just starting to give way to Fall. It's also dark, the dead of night and the moon rises, full and bright above you.
You glance up at the moon and stutter in your steps. It's bright, and beautiful. Like hypnosis you stare, unable to tear your gaze away before at length you shudder and step forward, forcing your eyes away. A part of you longs to get closer, to climb high as you can go, to jump toward it, anything to get closer.
You take a breath and grip tighter to the antique camera in your hands, the pain drawing you back to the present as you wander into the courtyard of the ancient, Japanese-style house. It's empty. It's quiet. There's no animals, no cicadas screams. Nothing but the sound of wind and the distant sound of crashing waves. It's unnaturally still.
Then, voices. In a rush there's chatter and the flicker of torches, some men in robes stand outside the door, laughing brightly. 'Let us in, Yomotsuki-san! It's the night of the festival, let us drink and celebrate before the ritual!'
You feel-- odd. The man whose face seems distorted and twisted, covered in shadow, laughs and steps aside to let them in. He speaks, but the voice is muffled. All you know is that it makes you uneasy. Trying to look at him makes you feel ill and before the men finish crossing the threshold of the doorway they disappear. The air goes silent and still, no light except for you flashlight sweeping across the land. No men. Just phantoms clinging to the memory of this place.
You move on, your flashlight catching on pieces of paper dropped there long ago. Picking it up, you wince as you read the words.
She is coming
Everyone who saw her blossomed that woman tha t w o man t hat wom an t h at w o ma n t ha t woman that woman
We came down here to get away from her
but she's coming her face
face
face
can't see face can't see face can't see face
can't see face can't see face
can't see face
The paper crumples a little in your hand and you straighten, tucking it away in your bag. "I didn't mean to hurt anyone..." You have to find out more and this place... You cast your flashlight around. A name plaque on the door. Yomotsuki, and Minazuka. Your own last name.
"Oh...Was this my home?" You try to think, but you can't remember exactly. There's flashes of something--piano music, a mother's hug.
Another piece of paper then, and of course you scoop it up to add to the pile in your bag, trying to make sense of everything through scraps of memory. It's all because of that damned mask.
That mask isn't a thing of this world. It belongs to another place...
What kind of disaster has that mask brought to this island?
It has brought about the Day of Tranquility.
Everyone lives yet becomes as the dead.
You absolutely must not look upon that face.
You know about this much, at least. The mask, the Vessel, the Day of Tranquility. But in order to find real answers as to who you are, you have to go inside the house. Your house.
You feel...reluctant. You don't know why, but it's like the more you want to know, the less you do.
There's a ghostly wail that rises up from the dead (no pun intended) silence around you. Moans of the dead and the dying, crying out for help, release, salvation. The hair raises on the back of your neck and you hurry through the door, deciding that whatever you face in there is, at least, less deadly than what you'll find out here.]
Ruka Minazuki | Fatal Frame 4
[There's a chill outside, the kind that comes when Summer is just starting to give way to Fall. It's also dark, the dead of night and the moon rises, full and bright above you.
You glance up at the moon and stutter in your steps. It's bright, and beautiful. Like hypnosis you stare, unable to tear your gaze away before at length you shudder and step forward, forcing your eyes away. A part of you longs to get closer, to climb high as you can go, to jump toward it, anything to get closer.
You take a breath and grip tighter to the antique camera in your hands, the pain drawing you back to the present as you wander into the courtyard of the ancient, Japanese-style house. It's empty. It's quiet. There's no animals, no cicadas screams. Nothing but the sound of wind and the distant sound of crashing waves. It's unnaturally still.
Then, voices. In a rush there's chatter and the flicker of torches, some men in robes stand outside the door, laughing brightly. 'Let us in, Yomotsuki-san! It's the night of the festival, let us drink and celebrate before the ritual!'
You feel-- odd. The man whose face seems distorted and twisted, covered in shadow, laughs and steps aside to let them in. He speaks, but the voice is muffled. All you know is that it makes you uneasy. Trying to look at him makes you feel ill and before the men finish crossing the threshold of the doorway they disappear. The air goes silent and still, no light except for you flashlight sweeping across the land. No men. Just phantoms clinging to the memory of this place.
You move on, your flashlight catching on pieces of paper dropped there long ago. Picking it up, you wince as you read the words.
She is coming
Everyone who saw her blossomed
that woman
tha t w o man
t hat wom an
t h at w o ma n
t ha t woman
that woman
We came down here to get away from her
but she's coming her face
face
face
can't see face
can't see face
can't see face
can't see face
can't see face
can't see face
The paper crumples a little in your hand and you straighten, tucking it away in your bag. "I didn't mean to hurt anyone..." You have to find out more and this place... You cast your flashlight around. A name plaque on the door. Yomotsuki, and Minazuka. Your own last name.
"Oh...Was this my home?" You try to think, but you can't remember exactly. There's flashes of something--piano music, a mother's hug.
Another piece of paper then, and of course you scoop it up to add to the pile in your bag, trying to make sense of everything through scraps of memory. It's all because of that damned mask.
That mask isn't a thing of this world. It belongs to another place...
What kind of disaster has that mask brought to this island?
It has brought about the Day of Tranquility.
Everyone lives yet becomes as the dead.
You absolutely must not look upon that face.
You know about this much, at least. The mask, the Vessel, the Day of Tranquility. But in order to find real answers as to who you are, you have to go inside the house. Your house.
You feel...reluctant. You don't know why, but it's like the more you want to know, the less you do.
There's a ghostly wail that rises up from the dead (no pun intended) silence around you. Moans of the dead and the dying, crying out for help, release, salvation. The hair raises on the back of your neck and you hurry through the door, deciding that whatever you face in there is, at least, less deadly than what you'll find out here.]