The silence of the Dark Hour was a living thing. It wasn't just an absence of sound; it was a presence. It was a heavy, velvet blanket that smothered the world, making the frantic beating of my own heart the loudest thing in the universe.
I was fourteen, and four years of this had not made it any easier. I had simply gotten better at hiding the aftermath.
I stood in the middle of my room, no longer huddling under the covers. I faced the window, a silent sentinel against the unnatural stillness. My hands were clenched into fists at my sides, my nails digging half-moons into my palms.
The sharp, familiar pain was a grounding force. It was a reminder that I was still here, still real, in this world that felt like a fading photograph.
The greenish-gray light painted everything in shades of decay. My bookshelf, usually a riot of colorful spines, was a monochrome tomb. The poster of a band I liked was now a grotesque smear of gray.
Outside, the coiling structures that reached into the sky—the Tartarus that I had no name for—pulsed with a slow, malevolent rhythm.
I made myself breathe. In through the nose, out through the mouth. A controlled, steady rhythm. It was a ritual.
A way to assert control over a situation where I had none. I was a prisoner in my own skin for one minute every night, and this was my small rebellion.
Then, a sound.
It was faint, at first, barely a whisper against the oppressive silence. A scuffling noise, like something being dragged over asphalt. It came from the street below.
My breath hitched. In four years, the Dark Hour had never contained a sound that I didn't make myself. My heart, which had just begun to calm, seized up again, pounding against my ribs like a trapped bird.
This was new, new feeling that was terrifying.
I crept back to the window, my movements slow and deliberate, afraid that any noise would draw attention. I peered down into the street, my forehead pressed against the cold glass.
There it was.
It was a shifting, writhing mass of shadow. It had no definite shape. One moment it seemed like a hunched-over man, the next it dissolved into a puddle of black oil, only to reform into something with too many limbs.
It oozed up the street, leaving a glistening, dark trail on the pavement. A low, guttural gurgle reached my ears, a sound that promised nothing but pain.
Fear, cold and sharp, injected itself directly into my veins. This was what the silence was hiding. This was the source of the primal dread I felt every time the world turned green. My every instinct screamed at me to run, to hide, to make myself small and hope it passed me by.
But as the thing—the Shadow—slithered past my apartment building, it stopped. It seemed to… sniff the air. Its formless head tilted upward.
It was looking at my window.
A jolt of pure, undiluted terror shot through me. I stumbled backward, away from the glass, my legs turning to water. I landed hard on the floor, my breath coming in ragged gasps. It knew. It knew I was here. I was a wakeful thing in a sleeping world, and I had been discovered.
The dragging sound grew louder. It was no longer on the street. It was in the building. I could hear it in the hallway, a wet, slithering scrape against the wooden floorboards. It was coming for me.
My mind raced, a frantic, panicked mess. There was no escape. The door? It would be there. The window? We were on the third floor. I was trapped. The scraping was right outside my door now. I could hear a low, hungry whisper, a voice made of static and nightmares.
I scrambled backward until my back hit the wall. There was nowhere else to go. I pulled my knees to my chest, making myself as small as possible, just like I did when I was ten. The doorknob to my room began to jiggle. Slowly. Tantalizingly.
This was it. This was how it ended. Not with a bang, but with a whisper in the dark, alone in my room.
But then, a different sound.
A sharp, clear voice cut through the oppressive silence like a shard of glass. "Identify yourself!"
It was a voice I knew. It was her.
The scraping at my door stopped. The Shadow's attention shifted. I dared to look up, crawling back toward the window to see what was happening.
Down in the street, standing with an impossible calm amidst the green haze, was Mitsuru Kirijo. She was not in her school uniform. She wore a dark, form-fitting outfit, a stark contrast to her fiery hair. In her hand, she held a long, slender sword that gleamed with a pale light.
The Shadow at my door forgotten, I watched, transfixed. The writhing mass of darkness oozed back out of the building and into the street, converging on her. It was easily three times her size.
She didn't flinch. She raised her sword, her posture flawless, like a dancer taking her opening position.
"Per… so… na!"
The word was a command, a declaration of power that shattered the silence of the Dark Hour. The air around her shimmered, and from a burst of blue light behind her, a figure emerged. It was tall, regal, and terrifying. A woman with a blindfold, riding a floating, skeletal horse, and holding a long, cruel-looking sword.
The entity, her Persona, swung its blade. A storm of ice shards, sharp and glittering, erupted from nothing and tore into the Shadow. The creature let out a shriek that was the sound of tearing metal and breaking glass. It recoiled, parts of its form freezing and shattering on the pavement.
The fight was brutal, efficient, and over in seconds. The Shadow dissolved into a black mist, then faded away entirely, leaving only the eerie silence once more.
Mitsuru stood there, her Persona fading behind her. She lowered her sword. Then, slowly, she turned her head. Her gaze, sharp and piercing, traveled up the side of my apartment building until it found my window. Until it found me, my face undoubtedly a mask of utter shock and terror.
Our eyes met across the green-dark distance. There was no curiosity in her look now. No vague recognition. There was only a cold, hard certainty.
She knew I had seen everything. She knew I had witnessed her power. Our shared secret was no longer just about the Stillness. It was about the war being waged within it.
She gave a single, curt nod. An acknowledgment. A confirmation.
Then, the Dark Hour ended.
The world snapped back into color and sound. A car horn blared in the distance. The clock on my wall ticked cheerfully. The normal world rushed in, a wave of overwhelming sensation after the utter silence.
I slumped against the wall beneath the window, trembling uncontrollably. The memory of the Shadow's whisper was etched into my mind. The image of Mitsuru and her Persona was burned onto my retinas.
The following day at school was a blur. I moved through my classes like a ghost, the lack of sleep and the residual fear making everything feel distant and unreal. I couldn't focus. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the shifting black mass and the brilliant flash of ice.
I saw her.
I avoided the main courtyard during lunch, seeking refuge on a secluded bench behind the school. I needed quiet. I needed to process, to think. I stared at my untouched lunchbox, my appetite gone.
The sound of footsteps on the gravel path made me look up.
She was there.
Mitsuru Kirijo stood before me, back in her pristine school uniform. She looked as composed as ever, as if she hadn't been fighting monsters from the subconscious just hours before. Her expression was neutral, but her eyes held that same focused intensity.
"Kaito Tanaka," she said. My name. She knew my name. Her voice was calm, level, devoid of any greeting.
I could only stare, my mouth suddenly dry.
She didn't wait for a response. "What you witnessed last night is classified. The existence of the Dark Hour, and the entities within it, are a threat to the stability of this world. Your continued… awareness… of the phenomenon presents a complication."
She was speaking to me like a CEO addressing a junior employee. It was jarring, but also, in a strange way, comforting. It was a reality I could grasp, unlike the formless terror of the Shadow.
"I… I didn't ask for this," I managed to say, my voice hoarse.
"None of us did," she replied, her tone softening by a fraction of a degree. It was the first hint of anything resembling empathy I had ever heard from her. "However, ignorance is no longer a luxury you possess. Your safety, and the safety of others, is now in question."
She took a step closer. Her gaze was unwavering. "You have two choices. You can continue as you are, a vulnerable observer in a war you do not understand. The Shadows are drawn to those with the potential, and now that one has found you, others will follow."
The thought made my blood run cold. One was bad enough. The idea of more…
"Or?" I asked, the word barely a whisper.
"Or," she said, "you can be brought into the fold. You can learn. You can be trained. You can fight back." She paused, letting the weight of her words settle over me. "The decision is yours. But you do not have the luxury of time to contemplate it indefinitely."
She reached into her blazer pocket and produced a simple, white business card. There was no name, no title. Only a phone number.
"Consider your options," she said, placing the card on the bench beside me. "When you have reached a conclusion, contact that number."
With that, she turned to leave. But after two steps, she paused and glanced back over her shoulder. The morning sun caught the red of her hair, setting it ablaze.
"The potential is within you, Tanaka," she said, her voice quieter now, almost… personal. "I sensed it the moment I saw you this morning. The question is, do you have the will to grasp it?"
Then, she was gone, her footsteps fading on the gravel path.
I looked down at the card. It was just a plain piece of cardstock. But it felt heavy in my hand, heavier than any book. It was a key. A key to a world of terrifying danger, and unimaginable power. A key to understanding the secret I had carried for four years.
A key that led directly to her.
I picked it up. The paper was smooth under my fingertips. My heart was still pounding, but the tremors in my hands had begun to subside. The fear was still there, a cold stone in my gut.
But for the first time since the green dark had first descended, something else was there, too. A spark. Not of hope, not yet. But of resolve.
The silence was over, and the war for my life...
Had begun.