Prologue #1

I am finally here. And I know what has come to pass.

I won’t say who I am right now. At least not until I can finish writing this whole story.

What is the DenDenGarden, why did it come into existence, what are we anticipating? I now write, so that even if my soul ceases to exist, my friends will be left with this record.

There is a back door to the main shrine. I cannot write in detail how, until my safety is guaranteed, but under certain conditions it will appear. I believe it must have been fate that led me to discover it.

The door of that back entrance is nothing like the rest of the garden, in style or material. When you open it, it leads to an unfamiliar stairwell descending deep into the ground. The spiral stairs snake down what looks like an enormous well that goes ever so deep. And covering the walls of this well in places are what looks like moss glowing in a sort of rhythm as though they are breathing. The soft dimming and glowing extend deep like an infinite universe, disappearing into the distance, disorienting those who dare to advance.

The bottom of the well goes so. so deep, no light touches it. I had to go down, the blood in my veins was telling me so. I steeled myself and started to descend the steps. And when I had gone down, I suddenly found myself in a huge room. How long did it take? I do not know. I was merely circling the same scenery, and who knows, space-time might be warped in that place.

The room itself was invaded by plants in certain spots but did not look like it was abandoned or forgotten. Rather it continued endlessly in a monotonous white. The air, the smell, the walls, the floor and what they were made of, all of it had ‘something’ off about it. Perhaps it didn’t come from our civilization. Civilization? My heartbeat quickened.

When I stepped into that space, something cut across the corner of my eye. I stopped and stared. I seemed to have approached the core of something. In the walls of that space, some things would suddenly float up and disappear again intermittently. Going nearer, they looked like dotted lines, or long worms. It looked inorganic but moved like a living organism. After slowly looking around the whole room, I noticed the same light rising and floating around everywhere. I could swear that the flickering of these lights synchronized with the glowing moss in the stairwell. It was almost as if the whole space was breathing. Could it be some kind of source of life? Were all creatures of the Garden born here?

As my eyes got used to the dim light from the organisms, I made my way into the room and came face to face with an enormous stone enshrined there. It didn’t look like a stone at first. It was made of many small units linked up one by one, and intertwined and tied together thus forming a singular shape. The shape was so organic, but it suddenly stopped when I entered the room, as if to hide the fact that it was alive. It felt like a child playing ‘Daruma-san fell down’.

And it was through this stone that I learned the history of the Garden. The stone kept all the records of the garden. As to how these records came to me and how I was able to decipher them, I will document that another day. I write today about why the Garden was created.

A long long time ago, even before the mythical age that we talk about today - the Garden was born. I have no idea about how that civilization was back then because that age was wiped out of history. What I do know from the stone is that that civilization was very advanced, although, at the same time, it suffered from a myriad of problems like abnormal weather, poverty and constant conflict.

The beginnings of the Garden originated with a couple called Nagi and Nami. The two of them were archaeologists of their time, exploring the world to find ancient truths. One day, in the area we now know as Kyoto, the two discovered a group of enormous stones, which looked more like advanced circuits than stones. And each of the stones were connected as though they were a chain. On the stones was a mysterious language. The husband and wife, captivated by these cryptic stones, devoted the rest of their lives to deciphering the language upon them. And the language they spent their lives on - that was the blueprint of the Garden.

The two had a son called Hiruko.