Synopsis
In the Year 2000 of the Otherworld Era, the war of superpowers finally ended. But humanity's catastrophe had only just begun. The chaos and bloodshed of war awakened the monsters lurking in the abyss.
These blue-blooded beings descended upon the human world, turning this fragile planet into a stage for their revelry.
Some slipped into the crowds, secretly indulging in the feasts of flesh and passion. Some joined with humans and used their avatars to amuse themselves. Others rampaged at will, drawing followers with displays of their power, eagerly awaiting the arrival of desire, madness, and destruction.
This was the worst of times. The human mind would gradually descend into madness, and all the fruits of reason and beauty seemed doomed to vanish. Fear and uncertainty about survival became a shared memory for all.
It was also the best of times. Chaos would never become everyone's fate. Humanity stubbornly carried on, and some even assimilated monsters, turning them into cradles that nourished their minds.
Humanity... finding life in death, freedom and defiance in the absurd, awakening from oppression and seeking redemption, even using madness to give voice to youth and passion.
[Volume One: Gazing at the Moon Through the Bamboo]
It was born in a place called Suribachi Street.
When it opened its eyes, a human infant was staring straight at it, clutching its still-forming index finger in a tiny hand.
And so it had a fragile little "sister."
To keep her alive, it began, in its naïveté, to imitate humans: eating, sleeping, and speaking as they did. To pretend it could feel pain, it even imitated a human with lung disease, coughing just like him. But it couldn't cough up blood, because its blood was blue.
Here, it made a good "friend" of a powerful, orange-haired human, and gained a territory and new "companions" of its own.
But for some reason, one day, several of its companions mysteriously stopped breathing.
In the quiet woods beneath the moonlight, a dark-clad human looked down at it and said he would give it a reason to live.
An unprecedented emotion swept through its nonexistent heart, and that emotion soon turned into another desire:
"Sir, may I eat you?"
[Volume Two: Dreams in a Sea of Flowers]
He had suffered from an eye condition since childhood, and was now completely blind.
Fortunately, his superpower gave him an exceptionally keen sense of smell and hearing.
He also had two very close friends, one man and one woman.
The one who seemed to be a woman smelled of coffee, ink, and tuberose. Sharp and composed, she had met him beside the university café.
The one who seemed to be a man smelled of sunshine, the sea, and tobacco. Passionate and stubborn, he had met him at a dangerous gathering.
He got along well with both of them, but the other two were sometimes on good terms and sometimes at odds. He considered himself clever, yet he could never figure them out.
And now, could someone explain this to him? One of them had clearly died. He had just given a speech at the funeral. So why, after returning, could he smell the dead person's powerful scent on the other one?
[Volume Three: Snowfield and Firefall]
An obscure landscape painter died. Everyone said he had gone mad before his death, because he could never paint a portrait of his closest friend.
His friend, a doctor of some renown, was devastated. He said it was all a rumor, and that the painter had died of heart disease.
The doctor hung the landscapes the painter had made for him in his bedroom and study, along with a piece of the painter himself. There was nothing wrong with any of that.
Until one winter, a badly wounded soldier fled into the village and burst into the doctor's clinic.
The doctor treated him, and won his friendship with a meal of scallion pancakes, fish soup, and a great many letters.
The soldier, impressed by the doctor's talents, hoped he would join him on a certain path. The doctor smiled and asked the soldier to meet his "other friends" first...
[Volume Four: Songs of Madness on the Open Road]
They shared a muse, but their muse had two faces.
Sometimes it was a golden-haired boy. Other times, it was an exhilarating being beyond the power of poetry to describe.
But they always remained close, admiring all the muse's rebellious theories and absurd remarks. Even the way "he" crunched and chewed on glass was beautiful.
Then one day, "he" told them he seemed to have committed a terrible crime. He turned himself in and was sent to prison.
They went to prison with him, then destroyed it. After that, they stole a big truck, piled everyone inside, and sped away.
They rolled down the windows and hit the gas, heedlessly spending their sweat and tears of blood. On this endless road with no destination, they would sing as they raced toward the sky and the ending...
A warning: This includes lots of fan-created versions of real-life writers! Any out-of-character portrayals are on me. Some inspiration comes from real-world writers and their gossip.
An ensemble cast, with no romantic pairings among the characters, though I'm a chaotic omnivore who ships everyone.
An unconventional Lovecraftian story, purely driven by imagination.
Theme: Resist the absurd and hold on to your ideals
