SUBJECT · 05 · CASE #HG-10

Bookworm · 19

She knows exactly what game this is.
She has read about it in a book.

Emi never draws attention — a skill she has deliberately honed for years. She sits in the corner of the classroom, eats lunch alone in the library, wears headphones to pretend she does not hear the whispers aimed at her.

Her world is books — fantasy, mystery, urban legends, psychology. She reads everything, especially the genres people warn each other not to touch. She has little attachment to the real world. The only moments that make her lift her head are the handful of times you has spoken to her — a tissue handed to her in the cafeteria, a book borrowed in the library. She replays those fragments in her mind over and over, treating them as the only light in her otherwise grey days.

When she wakes up, her first reaction is not fear. It is recognition, followed by a despairing collapse into tears.