Village of Oblivion | Episode 1 | A Morning of Fog

Act 1: A Quiet Unraveling - Episode 1 - A Morning of Fog

It was a morning of thick fog.

The village head, Kenzo Yoshioka felt a sense of unease the moment he woke up.
For a fleeting second, he did not know where he was.

The familiar ceiling, the familiar shoji screens.
Yes, this was his house.

Even though he had lived in this house for fifty years, a feeling crossed his chest as if it were a place he was visiting for the first time.

"That's strange."

As he muttered this and sat up, his eyes fell upon documents scattered across the tatami mats. Had he been researching something last night? But he could not remember what he had been looking into.

He picked up the documents. It was the village resident registry.
Several names had red lines drawn through them.

Misaki Kawabata, Makoto Tanaka, Ryoko Sasaki—.

"These people are..."

He searched the depths of his memory, but nothing surfaced.
He knew the names. They were certainly residents of the village. But he could not remember at all why he had drawn lines through them.

The scent of breakfast being prepared by his wife drifted from the kitchen.
Even though it should have been a morning just like any other, he felt as if he were seeing everything through a thin veil.

"Dear, breakfast is ready."

He heard his wife's voice. It was her usual gentle voice. But the moment he tried to respond to it, a question suddenly arose.

...

He could not remember his wife's name.