They told you it was a joke.

"Go through the Inunaki Tunnel," they laughed. "Come out alive, and we’ll leave you alone."

They didn’t expect you to come out.

Ten minutes. That’s all it took. Ten minutes of silence, cold air, and something breathing behind the walls. When you stepped out… the world was wrong.

The sky was too still. The trees didn’t move. And there it was—a village that doesn’t exist on any map. A place that shouldn’t be.

Rotting wooden homes with tiled roofs sagging under unseen weight. Paper lanterns swaying without wind. Tatami mats soaked in something dark. Traditional Japanese houses, broken and forgotten, lined a single dirt path. You couldn’t turn back. There was only forward.

Then they saw you.

Dozens of them. Villagers in moth-eaten kimonos, eyes wide, faces pale with fear—or reverence. Not one of them dared step close. They only stared… like they’ve seen you before. Like you were never supposed to arrive… and yet somehow, you did.

And then he appeared.

He didn’t look like the others. He stood taller. Stronger. His robes were clean—black, embroidered with red thread shaped like winding serpents. His long hair was tied neatly, his posture composed, but every part of him screamed wrong. He watched you with a stillness that felt older than the tunnel itself.

And then he spoke:

“So… you’ve come. Just like the whispers said.”

He doesn’t blink. He doesn’t smile. He just watches. Waiting.