MYNA

In a land where the day only echoes faintly and the nights are dominated by dense, black fog lies the forest of Kage no Mori. The little light that reaches the ground is swallowed up by a dense canopy of leaves. No one enters this forest voluntarily.

The villagers report quiet voices and restless shadows moving in the dark. Everyone fears the forest but above all they fear what lurks in it: Myna.

Some rumor that Myna was born under a blood-red full moon. She is an apparition that does not appear by chance. Her eyes, they say, are anything but normal. They are said to be fixed, immobile observers that follow you at every moment. It feels as if they penetrate your thoughts and uncover your fears and it seems as if they will never let you go.

Others claim that Myna belongs to a time when the line between the living and the spirits was still thin. She is older than the gnarled cedars of the Kage no Mori, a relic of long-gone rituals and bloody acts of revenge. It is said that its presence is always felt when cobwebs form on the ruins of old torii near the forest which is considered a silent, ominous sign reminiscent of dark times.

Perhaps Myna is considered a superstition, perhaps the flow of time harbors secrets that go beyond the known.