The Let's Play Archive

Chaos;Head

by OddHaberdasher

Part 1: In Media Res

Part 1 - In Media Res

I'd recommend watching this:
Video:Chaos;Head Prologue

We start with a view of a Gray Sky, heavy with rain, as a young boyish voice begins narrating.



Those eyes are always watching me.
The stare pierces through the rain clouds coated in pitch black.
It pours down on me like the rain

-Don't look at me.

My body won't stop trembling.
But it's more the cold rubble I'm sitting on than the chill of the rain.

It's horribly cold....

An anonymous gaze from the heavens pierces me.

As if to escape it, I raise my head ever so slightly, surveying my surroundings.


The camera pans down from the sky to reveal...



These are the remains of the Shibuya 109 building (labelled '107' in this game), one of the most well-known buildings in the Shibuya district of Tokyo...



and from the looks of it, the rest of Shibuya is in similar shape.

No one is here. No one is moving. No one is alive.
All I can hear is the sound of the rain, continuing to fall.

This way everything will-
both alive and dead-
will it all be gently enveloped and washed away?

If all that happened was just a delusion, I'd be happy.
However, it does not seem to be so-




Our protagonist, yet unnamed.

I'm trembling, but that's no more than a physiological phenomenon.

The action is involuntary. I don't want to shiver like this.
If I can't move it freely, then it isn't my body.

It's as if I was never born with my own free will.
No one knows where the soul is kept.

Despite that, how can anyone say for certain that my soul is inside my body?

But-

If that's the case, then where am I?
Am I here?
Am I nowhere?


OST:M.I.L.

(SFX:Footstep crunching on rubble)



Someone approaches.

The source comes floating out of the midst of nothingness.

-Who are you?

The reason your skin appears so pale-




But she isn't trembling.
And, almost hidden by her forelocks, these eyes-

-Don't look at me.




If-
If she and I are the only ones in the world, if we continue gazing solely at each other like this for the rest of eternity-

Would my world be reduced to what her eyes reflect?
Would her world be reduced to what my eyes reflect?

I am what's reflected in her eyes.
She is what's reflected in mine.
When I think about it that way, the world instantly becomes much smaller.


"Hey-"



She hangs her head-
and spreads her arms apart-

It's like she is trying to take off and fly away, taking aim above the clouds.

Or it's as if she were to catch all of the rain.


At the very least, watch this part:
Video:Chaos;Head Prologue (Last Half)



The Girl spreads her arms...



speaks...



and brings her arms together...




From the light in her hands...




something emerges...



With the way she hangs her head, theres no way I can assess her expression from my position.




Beyond the thin film of rain, what kind of face are you making....?



--An angel?



Ah.....I see. I understand.



She slowly drops to her knees before my collapsed form.
Even now, her head hangs down.
She softly reaches to embrace my head.

Relieved by the fact that she isn't looking at me, I simply surrender my body to her.




The girl says something, but nothing can be heard.

A whisper near my ear. A lovely noise.
But I can't hear it very well.



A warm, soft, tender, sweet sensation.
It's much like anesthesia.
And mysteriously, my trembling gradually starts to lessen.

Her faint breaths tickle my cheek.
A very sweet scent.

I abruptly feel a pressure on my chest.

The great sword she carries is tearing the skin of my chest, boring into my flesh, threading between my bones and steadily sinking its way into my body.



Because you kill me like this, so gently--
I unexpectedly become anguished--
I'm on the verge of crying--

To keep her from noticing, I look past her head, up past the dark gray sky that goes on dropping rain on us.



I no longer sense that gaze anymore.
There's no longer anything out there.
As my consciousness dims, I stretch a hand towards the sky.

Somebody,
tell me,