The Bitsee Naka Chronicles

• CHAPTER ONE - PART ONE - ARRIVAL

  • The year is 2069. There’s nothing left in this world except death and decay: decay; decay, disease and famine. It all started ten years ago, when all of a sudden, the traffic sped up; the paint on buildings became nothing but a colourful confusion of bright light and claustrophobic movement.

    Head: around, around, around. Eyes: side to side to side: cars, shops, people, voices, sky, pavement, buses. Yes... Ten years ago to the day, all of a sudden, they first arrived. I remember the sound. The sound will never leave me. The sound of a wailing: like shadows of all the tortured souls to have ever existed.

    “Bitsee... Bitsee... Bitsee” - It’s somebody’s voice overshadowing the overwhelming noise locked in between the intermittent passages of stunning silence. I think it’s a voice I know? I think it’s my father’s voice...

    I can barely hold onto his words. I can taste the drop in his tone: a drop of panic, confusion and concern. It’s a tone I’ve heard before, but there’s a severity like never before. I watch his mouth pull different shapes, like there are words coming out, but the silence has become deafening once again.

    I start shaking; my body is acting of its own accord. When my neck jolts upright from the rapid rigours routing through my body, I notice them. There are hundreds of them: maybe thousands. They appear to be like neon bees connected to one another through an electric impulse.

    The light they omit overwhelms me in dizziness. I snap my eyes back to my father, which is when I notice them. Onii-san and Mama lying on the pavement, Onee-chan collapsed next to them, her face painted with tears. It’s at this moment I notice it is not my body that is shaking of its own accord; it is Papa that is shaking me by the shoulders.

    “Ruuuuuuuuuuuuunnnn!” my father bellowed. Before I could even contemplate his words, he had already lifted Onee-chan from the floor and flung her onto his shoulder, grabbed my hand and begun running. I couldn’t find my voice, but I was screaming for him to stop. Mama and Onii-san were still lying on the floor; a thickness of red seeping from around the bodies. They were dead.

    It was starting to make sense. It became apparent at that moment that shards of light were raining down from the sky; evaporating drones of people spread through the streets. People were running for their lives. We were running and running and running: left, left, left, right – I’m not sure.

    Finally we were inside a building. The door closed behind. The screaming continued. Ten years ago today they arrived: the oppressors from another world. The new central authority. They would later become known as: ‘The Gatekeepers’.

    

    

• CHAPTER ONE – PART TWO – NOTHING

  • The next part happened so fast that even trying to play the game of hindsight, it’s still a blur.

    The first thing I could hear was the deafening silence. That might sound strange, but the last thing I heard before collapsing into my dreams were screams. Screams and shrieks so loud the hairs all over my body stood up as though they were protecting me from pure malevolence.

    When I had convinced my mind to act courageously and part my eye-lids, a blinding blackness betrayed my sight. I wasn’t even sure if I’d opened my eyes.

    I whispered the only words which clouded my mind... “Oto-San... Onee-San?”

    Nothing. No response.

    I reached my hand out, expecting to touch something... Anything. Hoping. Again; nothing. On autopilot, my body clambered to its feet. The nothingness gripped my body and pushed me forwards. Was I dead? I repeated my previous words: “Oto-san? Onee-San?”.

    Still nothing. An overwhelming fear shrouded my mind and consumed my senses. I screamed so loud I was convinced my throat was about to rocket through my mouth.

    After some time, I walked forwards, my hands out in front of me. Stumbling around in the pitch black I came to what felt like a wall and shimmied my way along. Somehow I found a light switch and reluctantly flicked it upwards.

    The first thing I noticed in the light of the room was the pungent smell. A smell so powerful I threw up instantly. It was like the darkness had dulled my sense of smell.

    The next thing I noticed... Nothing.

    The room was empty. But the smell made sense. There was stale blood in every corner of the room and I couldn’t see my father or sister anywhere. This time I couldn’t bring myself to scream.

    I was inside some kind of pharmacy – it looked like it had been looted. The door ushered me in its general direction; I couldn’t resist. My body still wasn’t under my control as I tentatively trudged towards the threshold of the door.

    I pulled down the door handle, opened the door and crept through... All I remember was white. Everything was white. I squeezed my eyes open and closed them repeatedly. I made a fist and lifted my knuckles to my eyes – rubbing vigorously.

    Eventually my eyes found their focus and before me lay a street in ruins. Before I was taken the only image I could fully process was the two people who lay on the opposite pavement; I believe they must have been husband and wife, or boyfriend and girlfriend, or lovers. The remains of their mutilated corpses half-embraced in an eternal night.

    A flash appeared out of the left corner of my eye... But I couldn’t take my eyes off that couple, that image will never leave me. What had happened to them? Why had this happened to them? Was anybody waiting for them?

    Children?

    The flash turned into three or four people all around me. I couldn’t figure out what they were wearing, but it wasn’t normal clothing. The next thing I know I’m in a moving vehicle and once again I can see nothing.

    And this is where things really started to get interesting...

    

    

    

Lolita's Story

• CHAPTER ONE - PART ONE - CHANGES

  • I first noticed this little girl because she was different from the rest of us. Save for crying ‘oto-san’ and ‘onee-san’ for several hours when we first got there, she never made a peep. She would curl up in the corner with her knees tucked under her arms and stare at her trainers for hours; such a delicate little thing. Pretty too.

    But soon the ensuing events would evaporate this innocent little girl and she would become something entirely different.

    This feeble young girl was taken and re-taken every day. And this re-occurred for weeks on end. But what was particularly distressing, was that every time she was taken, less of what she was, seemed to return.

    At first when they came for her the changes weren’t noticeable, but it wasn’t long before physical and mental changes became apparent.

    Subtle, at first: such as a difference in posture; she now lifted her chin from her knees. Sometimes she’d look you directly in your eyes. Never have I met the gaze of more accusatory eyes. Yet, what could I do to prevent her from being taken by them?

    In the darkness of the night (though we had no real way of knowing whether it was day or night within this steel cage – the lights would go on and off periodically – which is when we slept), the screaming would start.

    The screams clawed their way through the darkness like a nightmare sporting a serial killer’s smile. Unforgettable. Undeniable. Unholy. Yet the next morning, when she had been dropped back in the cage, nobody dared approach the girl. I think people feared asking her: “are you OK?” would only serve as a reminder of every second she was out of this cell. A reminder of whatever happened.

    Eventually, the changes shifted from subtle – to extreme. Her physicality was now... transforming.

    At first I wondered whether this was in-line with the normal bodily changes of what I guessed was a teenage girl. In hindsight, perhaps this is what I was praying, and hoping for.

    But that wasn’t it. Marks began to manifest upon her body, in particular her arms, which were occasionally cocooned by some form of bandages; however they were mostly left exposed for the world to see. Perhaps this was Their way of instilling fear. And it worked.

    We all knew something was happening, physically and mentally, to this young girl.

    And soon we’d see some of what that something was.

    This is the story of our Guardian. This is a story of survival. This is the story of Lolita.

TEAM

ROBBIE COCHRANE

Co-Founder

IDON LIU

Co-Founder

EMMA LIU

Co-Founder

NOI SACKDA

Head Designer

MAGNUS DUFWA

Software Engineer

PRASANTH BALAKRISHNAN

Developer

MOHAMEDALI ASGARI

Motion Graphics Designer

SAEED EBRAHIMI

Concept Artist

CHRIS YARBROUGH

Environmental Artist

AILEEN ORACION

Comic Artist

CHASE LAYMAN

Advisor

RUSS FRANKLIN

Advisor

JAMIE TURNOUGH

Advisor

ERIC BULVID

Advisor