chapter 1

page 1

(image of the Interment Zone. amai’s building is visible)

A cool breeze flutters across the ground. The sun radiates its usual fervor.

(amai wakes up on the ground, next to boxes)

Sluggish and disoriented, a girl wakes up.

The valley around her is large and encompassing. Massive trees populate the distance. A creek babbles somewhere nearby. An overhang of stratus fog passes overhead. Nearby, a featureless building, and two cardboard boxes. A sheet of paper lie on the ground near her feet. The grass is thin and soft to touch, the air mellifluous and mild.

Immediately pressing however, was how none of her surroundings even remotely resembled… Her past? She wasn’t able to recall how it related to her past.

Mechanical whirring sometimes makes itself known somewhere, somewhere hopefully distant.

The air breaths against her fur.

Her own breath finds itself trembling, only a little bit.

(amai, standing)

page 2

She looks around a minute more, mildly paralyzed. Hesitant.

Hesitancy is odd to her. Most people want to work quickly, they want to get things done, yet invariably, they pause before starting. Was it to re-evaluate their confidence? She envies the brash. The breeze continues drifting by, her fur brushing by its wisp.

(amai staring, then looks down)

Her eye focuses on the papers. Maybe it had anything useful inside? Almost robotically, she pushes her leg forward. Not in any particular direction, simply forward. Her legs make the move to plant her feet onto the ground -

(amai falling to the ground)

And missed.

She nearly immediately succumbed to the inextricable force of gravity. Her knees buckled. How could her knees buckle? Something was off. Her legs feel unorganized, misaligned. Had she forgotten how to walk? Was that even possible?

The girl rolled over to try standing herself up once more, using one of the nearby boxes to push her body up. Her legs shake with almost antagonistic propensity. She slowly picks up the sheet, taking care not to lose her balance again.

(image of the sheet. its a sequences of images: first, it shows items being taken out of a box. then, it shows two cubes, a rope, and a ball. next to them are two selection boxes, the left one has a check mark. then, it shows a black ball. of the two selection boxes next to it, the right one has an X mark. then, it shows the items being placed back into the box.)

Oh. Instructions. There was also a pen attatched to it.

She turns to the boxes.

(amai opens a box)

page 3

(contents of the box: two cubes, a rope, and a ball.)

Exactly as the instructions presented.

(focus on the open box’s label) (she draws a check on the left square)