Bio-Study-Observation 01 : Subject ACER-0138234691

It has come to my attention that our most recent find has proven to be quite possibly the most interesting subject I have ever beheld with my own eyes. It isn't due to his inhuman threshold for pain. It isn't due to his lack of nerve reaction despite having his arm cut open. It isn't any such aspect that makes this subject so interesting. It is simply the fact that he survived. He survived the deaths of hundreds and successfully lived on nothing more than a heavy concentration of sheer force of will. He had somehow escaped that horrid incident with his life- but not with his memory. He is a mere shell of a man, one who has clearly lost everything he held dear in that accursed occurrence of the month of June.

After looking into our sudden arrival, I learned that he had been located nearly eleven years ago along the bank of the river that once ran through Hinamizawa, the village in question- about a year after the incident had occurred. He'd been placed in stasis for those eleven years and now that his condition finally stabilized to the point where he was operate-able we were handed him to determine the source of his 'physical ailments'- a front for determining how he survived the disaster.

We opened him up to determine what the cause of his heavy breathing was. It turned out he had literally about a liter of blood left in his bloodstream. We weren't sure how it was physically possible, but it was true. We didn't know how such a pivotal fact got past the initial staff that had control of the body. We weren't even sure if he was human, for god's sake. He surely didn't seem like it.

We woke him in the morning. He could react to stimuli, but that was about it. We tried to assess his motor skill functionality- he could do little more than spin his arms in circles. Whether it be the trauma of that incident or the severe and simply unexplainable loss of blood he couldn't have possibly lived off of so little for so long. We began to doubt if he was even alive at this point. But we decided to place him in a state of drug induced sleep. We would keep him comatose until his brain could properly function again.

We'd heard the rumors, of course. Everyone did. It was a topic of importance in general. Everyone had heard about the mass murder of an entire village at the hands of their own self created god. None of us bought it, of course, being scientifically inclined due to our field of work. But the rest of the country- it was a talk of much concern. To make matters worse, cases of the supposed Hinamizawa Syndrome that had reportedly been the primary cause for the destruction of the village began to appear all over the nation. People that had moved out of the village prior to the incident all suddenly fell ill, thus determining the strength of the syndrome as a "contagious airborne virus" and afterward the quarantine of nearly five hundred people and their syndrome-free family members. Of course, this situation was cleared up and it was determined that the syndrome was applicable to only residents of Hinamizawa.

This man was both a resident of Hinamizawa- assumedly since he was found in Hinamizawa- and a victim of the disaster. Yet he was still alive. It was a complete miracle to begin with, and it only became more miraculous once we discovered that he had shown no signs of the syndrome. We thus moved the importance of this project to the top- we would keep this man alive for as long as possible. It was a mutual agreement amongst the lab members. We could admit him to a regular hospital in a matter of weeks at the rate we were going.

About four weeks in he spoke. It was so unnerving that I nearly fainted. All he said was four syllables, but four syllables that mean more than a thousand words.

"So-no-za-ki…"

Of course we didn't know at the time what that name meant. But upon investigating the incident in further detail we determined that "Sonozaki" was the name of a branching yakuza family that had broken from the mob years ago. Furthermore "Sonozaki" was the name of the family that led the strike against the dam builder project that would have destroyed the village if completed. Needless to say this incident ended in tragedy. And the Sonozaki family was most likely behind it- and possibly the recent disaster as well. We needed more information- and we had only one source.

Week 5 was the first week he became truly self aware. He asked where he was. Aria, the nurse watching him at the time, was almost unable to reply. After the ordeal I asked her about the details of their conversation. She told me that all he had wanted to know was whether or not the cicadas were still crying. He was a bit more specific- the Higurashi, he called them. They were cicadas that continued to remain active after twilight- and well into the night at that.

The next day I spoke to him myself. His voice, just like his eyes, was empty. It was as if he weren't even alive and he simply just existed…A likely case indeed. I determined that he was suffering from a severe case of amnesia. It appeared that he could only recall that sound- and that name, "Sonozaki." I told him about what we knew. He didn't react to anything. We needed more information on the Sonozaki family in order to get some sort of stimulus going- all we had was the family name and evidence of their Yakuza connection.

Of course, leave it to Mido and Aria, the two members on this study team that I happen to be closest to, to pull up a few names in a matter of hours- from some random occult website, no less. Of course, the internet was still in its infancy, but people who could work around the limited servers and such- like my two associates- could find anything. There were names of family members, but the only two that stood out were the names of the two youngest members of the family and their parents.

Mion Sonozaki, Shion Sonozaki-

I didn't even need to finish reading the list before he let out a pained gasp. Visually, it appeared that he had begun to sweat profusely and was shaking ever so slightly. It seemed that the name "Shion" left an impression on him. He couldn't recall why, but that name caused a great pain in his chest. Eventually it came to the point where he started to babble incoherently and eventually we had to knock him out again. It was most likely an infant stage of the syndrome. Of course, roughly twelve years after that incident, we have measures to counter the syndrome if it ever arose. It was most likely that further investigating this Shion person would render results. Of course, as I had been expecting, there was literally no information on her. Not even the occult fanatics running the syndrome scare knew anything about her. After all, Hinamizawa was just some obscure village- not even a town- hidden from the eyes of the public.

The rate at which he progressed afterward was astounding. He managed to produce a few more interesting memories for us after much work on attempting to trigger any potential flags: he spoke of a gathering of demons and a sea of cotton. These were most likely references to the ritualistic practices of the village- which we had more or less no intelligence on. Again, without speaking with a resident- which was nearly impossible given how most have kept their identities private and those that did not have died out due to the syndrome. However, Aria's protégé nurse from the precinct's infirmary, Saika, managed to elaborate from memory the details of the so called "cotton-drifting" ritual that she had read in an article. Kids these days keep getting more and more specialized (or as I prefer to say engrossed) in this sort of stuff. She determined that the memories most likely came from the days prior to the incident, as the last ritual occurred shortly before the incident.

Beyond that we still have no idea, but as of the time that this record is being written our subject has become significantly weaker than he was when we woke him. We assume that the drug induced sleep managed to help rehabilitate his dying body if only for a short period of time. We're going to need a serious blood transfusion, but I really don't have any idea who would have that much blood up for donation, or if anyone on record or in stock matched his type. We just have to wait and see.

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