Synopsis

There’s a simple three-step plan for celebrating the end of exams.

Step 1: Go to an izakaya.

Step 2: Drink just a little too much, but not enough to black out.

Step 3: Try not to get caught in the middle of a fracture in reality.

Asahi and Wren failed step three. Spectacularly.

On the walk home, they stumble into a reality fracture, and their presence awakens its resident: the Stalker. As the creature hunts them through the broken space, Wren attempts to fight their way out, but they are brutally overpowered.

They wake up in a hospital, with Asahi’s own family selling them a convenient lie about a drunken shenanigan. Knowing the official story is a lie, they break into their doctor's office and find the proof: the hospital staff knows exactly what the Stalker is. Their discovery, however, is cut short when they are caught by Raechal, the formidable right-hand girl of Daiki, Asahi's elder brother, whom he hates more than anything.

It turns out the Stalker was Raechal’s case to handle, and she found them first. She brings the two before Daiki, who decides the best way to handle the witnesses is to recruit them by force. He gives them a choice: join the shadowy Keepers and learn the truth of the world they manage... or have their memories of the event, each other, and the truth permanently wiped.

Forced onto a new career path, Asahi and Wren must navigate deadly Keeper politics and an endless array of strange, reality-bending cases. Their new life involves battling mannequins that eat clothes, escaping twisting, turning mazes, avoiding trains haunted by people hiding in suitcases, and even dealing with talking cats. Forget grades and student loans; their new curriculum is survival.

Characters