John Foster and Steins Trost , the world renowned detectives are in Japan following a series of unexplainedble murders , dream hallucinations , escapist self harm and some weird sounds ringing throughout the night .
At first they weren't much into...
A dark street in Akihabara district, Tokyo, 14th January 1989,11pm
A drunk man sits down on a dustbin at the end of the street. He starts drinking his remaining booze. Suddenly he begins sobbing and shouts " Don't go please....please don't go......,m..mm..my dear...rr.. Su...mi...ee" ....."Damn, those employees .....I will kill them myself.... me........ they used to call me their family ....but now when I became bankrupt they called me a scoundrel and kicked my face...I will never forgive you....never ...never...never.. ne..v..er..... n...e...v...e...r"(sobs)(Sumie is his wife who left him cause he started drinking alcohol and abused her after his company got bankrupt and his employees left him 3 months ago).
After his company went bankrupt; he lost it and started drinking heavily and gambling. This way he lost all of this money and now was a beggar literally. He was constantly abused by his former employees and couldn't live in peace. His days began seeming hellish became wherever he went, he was ridiculed and criticized. Here he sat in his tattered clothes and was dreaming of his rich days. He was in utmost despair .....so much that he either wanted a way out of this or to die.
Suddenly he noticed that the neon lamps at the far end of the street were flickering. A sense of relief filled his mind as the air filled with a strange humming noise. which changed to ringing. The drunk man could only see a silhouette of a hooded old man stooping over his stick at the farther end of the street. Suddenly he felt that his booze seemed different .....but what was more surprising was...his wife came back to him....his company was reestablished and became the top company in Japan....his employees apologised to him and treated him like a God. He began shouting "All hail the Lord"..."All hail the Lord". But then suddenly he was at the edge of a cliff. He turned back to see that same silhouette of the hooded old man at his back. The old man pushed him off the cliff. Filled with terror he grabbed onto the foot of the old man. But, suddenly it turned into a figure that looked exactly like him; it then turned into his wife; then into his employees and at last into his mother whom he loved very much but had died 7 years ago. Tears flowed down his cheeks as he smiled and said, " Sorry Mom I can't live anymore....I'm coming to you"as his head smashed against the ground and died.
Next to the next morning, the newspapers reported....." Tokyo man found dead in a street in Akihabara district with a smile on his face. He had a bottle of sake in his hands. He had consumed a high concentration of heroin and another unknown drug that is being suspected as the cause of death around 111 pm The sake shop from where he got his booze said that the man had no money whatsoever and had been buying sake from him for credit for a week now. Now where from and how the man bought the drug remains a mystery. This was the 20th drug-related death in Japan and there were 5 different unknown substances identified in the people. One thing was common between all the dead " a peaceful smile" and the drugs vanishing 24 hours from time of consumption ."
(In this version of the world, there is technology not only to find the time of death but also the time at which the drugs were consumed within 24 hours. Sake is a type of alcoholic drink in Japan made by fermenting rice water.)
John F Kennedy Airport, Queens, NY 11430, 15th January 1989, 1 am
John and Steins begin boarding the plane bound for Japan. Both were distressed cause the plane was 12 hours late due to "unavoidable circumstances ". But now they were relieved cause the plane had finally arrived. While they were just entering the doorway John suddenly heard something which was as if someone was speaking in an extremely distorted voice " The dreams shall be stolen.....the dreams shall never end". John was freaked out of his wits and shouted "Who was it?..I repeat ..Who was it?" Steins along with the other passengers were surprised and started laughing at him cause they hadn't heard anything. John thought he might be making things up cause of being tired but Steins on the other hand was worried a little because of what he had encountered the previous day. They got seated.
John who was much worried put on his sleep mask put his headset on, connected it to his handset and slept cause he didn't want to hear anything else. But Steins was intently looking out of the window. Just as the plane was about to take off he heard the same ringing sound. He got distressed and thought "Where?....where?....where?" when he saw a hooded woman with a grim smile on her face as she waved goodbye to him. He panicked unmeasurable....put on the shutter, plugged in his headset and slept. He kept thinking " Who was that ? ...who was that?.....who was that?" as he receded into sleep.
