MORITARIN
One day, Ina left behind a note and disappeared.
"I… need some time… I'll be back soon…"
episode zero
Ina entered an underground bunker that no one knew about and unpacked her belongings.
Inside, there were several months' worth of food and water, a single laptop, and walls lined with countless books.
Ina did nothing for several days. She simply ate when she was hungry and slept when she was tired, repeating the cycle.
Of course, her mind was complicated, and she could not rest from her thoughts.
Then one day, Ina picked up a pen. She began writing down the memories of that day on paper.
She tried to write them as detailed as possible.
She tried to recall what clothes she had worn and what food she had eaten that day.
"What did I eat again?"
She tried to remember the weather and wrote down her physical condition that day.
Then she recalled the moment she faced the future EAT and continued writing on the paper.
.......
After a while, she set the pen down and lay back on the bed.
Closing her eyes, she tried to remember if there was anything she had missed.
Then suddenly, a memory from that day came back to her.
"Ah… right!"
Ina quickly got up and went back to the desk. She picked up the pen again and wrote down the fragmented things EAT had said that day.
Her memory was faint, but she wrote down everything she could recall.
"Pol… lun… cure… betrayal… judgment… seed… swallowed…"
Ina wrote each word on paper and stuck them onto the wall.
She tried to infer something from their combination, but there was not enough information.
"I don't know… something feels off…" Ina muttered.
Suddenly, she felt hungry. She rushed somewhere, grabbed a piece of bread.
She put ham and vegetables between the bread, added sauce, and immediately took a bite.
"Munch munch," she chewed diligently while lost in deep thought.
Her eyes suddenly widened. Ina hurried toward the laptop.
Before that, she quickly took two more bites of the bread.
"Munch munch."
She accessed the data storage containing her personal records and checked the record from that day.
There, everything had been recorded from the moment the space connection device was activated.
"Yes, this! This is it!"
She took two more bites of the bread again, drank a sip of water, and began replaying the video from that day.
With a very serious expression, Ina replayed the footage over and over again.
........
Spending several days focused on a single video was enough to exhaust both mind and body just by watching it.
One day, while watching the video, she suddenly stood up and wandered aimlessly around the bunker.
Then she recalled something—
the continued blackout after EAT disappeared.
The more she thought about it, the more suspicious it became.
"Why is there still three minutes of recorded footage?"
That day, she raised the volume higher than usual, but only noise could be heard.
It felt very strange. Why?
This noise was extremely suspicious.
An unexplainable sense of unease.
Ina hurried somewhere again.
She found a large pair of headphones, put them on, and raised the volume once more.
She listened to three minutes of noise.
Without moving, she focused all her senses on hearing.
Finally, at around 2 minutes and 27 seconds—
she detected a very faint sound mixed in with the noise.
Ina wanted to analyze this three-minute blackout,
so she edited only that portion and sent it to her "secret ally" for analysis.
Then she stuffed the remaining bread into her mouth and chewed.
After a while, a notification sound broke the silence.
"Mami~"
Ina checked the result.
She frowned with dissatisfaction.
"Seriously… you're making me wait two hours for this?"
After thinking briefly, Ina had no choice.
She hung a towel around her neck and entered the shower.
After some time passed,
Ina came out of the shower with a towel wrapped around her head.
She walked straight to the refrigerator, took out a chocolate milk, and gulped it down.
"Ahh~~ the best."
She walked toward the bed and looked at the clock.
"Ugh~ only 50 minutes have passed~~~ this is driving me crazy."
Ina hung the towel on the wall.
Without even drying her hair, she went to the kitchen.
"Clank clank"—it was very noisy. She seemed to be cooking something.
Ina brought a large plate filled with noodles and returned to the laptop.
She turned on a movie and began eating.
"Ah, this is really good~" (Ina is good at cooking.)
"Mami~"
A message arrived.
Ina quickly prepared the analyzed audio file and put the headphones back on.
Before listening, she took a big bite of noodles and chewed.
Then she played the file.
"—zzzt… …please…"
"Connect… zzzt..."
"Scales…"
"…Nia..."
"…Ina…"
Her chewing stopped.
EAT's desperate voice pierced deep into Ina's chest.
Ina closed her eyes, clenched her fist, and tried to calm her trembling emotions.
Her eyes filled with resolve.
She slowly removed the headphones, picked up a pen, and began writing something.
Then she stood up.
She covered her mouth with both hands,
then slowly moved them across her forehead and through her hair.
Her fingertips passed the back of her neck and stopped under her chin.
Ina looked up at the ceiling.
"…Scales?"
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