Cutscene: Squire of the Abyss
Characters: ???
He sees the truth.
His shadow, grown from the moonlight, trails after him, as he walks down the streets of Tatsumi Port Island, a dark ghost to mark his every movement. It's still cold, especially at night, enough to prompt him to pull his coat tighter. To cross his arms over the canvas bag he carries tucked against his stomach. He needs to keep it safe. Yes. Yes, of course.
He hunches over it, as if he could shield it from any jealous or wandering eyes.
Of course, no one passes by the man walking alone in the dark. Not at this hour, not here.
No, it wouldn't do if someone took this from him. Oh no. Not now, not when his work has only begun.
He still remembers that first night, clearly. That time, when he stepped out into the darkness, only for everything to shut down, dead. That's what had happened -- everyone had died. Their corpses, neatly packaged up, strewn all around like a mockery of the living. That moon, too. Disgusting. An abomination. And then there were those things. They followed him. Oh yes, he could see them. Even when the lights had come back on. They'd come after him then, too.
In the darkness that embraces the city at this hour above all others, he knows if he looked up he'd even see it in the sky. The moon, and that... thing. That monster, leering over the city...!
Even he had thought it was a hallucination at first. It was only natural. He drank too much. Or maybe he had fallen asleep. Normal things like that.
He quickens his step. Best to be careful. He can't let them catch him.
Then it had happened again. And again. And those creatures kept following him, in and out, there and back again, all the while staring at him with those eyes of these, like lamps in the night. He'd yelled at those things, oh yes he had. He'd told other people what had happened, and they had laughed at him. They had called him crazy!
They're following him. He can see the lights. He knows though oh yes he does know what will happen if they catch him. It would be better to hide from those things. Oh, but that's just not possible, is it?
It doesn't matter. He has a mission, again, tonight.
It's for here, outside the flattened black smear that he knows is a mall in the daylight hours, when the sun shines clean and pure and bright. He'll bring it back. A normal moon, normal skies. People walking the streets. Once he's finished...
He moves quickly, as quickly as he dares. The bag hits the pavement first. Then, there's the rattle for the tools he'll need, all of which are turned out one by one. Quickly, but not too quickly. Yes, yes, because haste makes waste. He can't make any mistakes. The fate of everything rides on this.
The voice, hissing in his ear, had told him everything. Once he marks out the entire city, everything will be well again.
Eventually the light returns, blazing so bright as if it had never vanished away. Something glints, plastered flat onto the sidewalk outside Paulownia Mall:
IN THE SHADOWS
IT BEGAN
THROUGH WHAT REMAINS
I REACHED FOR THE LIGHT
So reads the elaborate tile.
