Kokuro: First Case My name is Natsu Matsuo, and this is my story. The story of how I began to lose
faith in humanity, and started to feel that we truly are hopeless, violent beings at the
core. But I'm getting ahead of myself. First, I should tell you a bit about myself. I am
25 years old, and was born in the year 1823. I live in Japan, in a small village
surrounded by forest.
My village is very poor, and we generally barter rather than use what little
money we have. We have very little contact with the rest of Japan, as my fellow
villagers are very superstitious, and believe that the forest is haunted by evil
creatures. Meanwhile, those from other villages have no reason to brave the forest to
reach us, as we have nothing of value.
Everyone in the village has their own purpose: Atsushi bakes bread using wheat
grown and harvested by Hachiro, while I am an author. Sadly, most of my fellow villagers
are illiterate, so I also carve small wooden figurines to trade for food and other
necessities.
On the day that this story began, I was sitting on a rock outside my home,
reading a book I had recently obtained from a traveling merchant. The village was a bit
livelier than usual, as most everyone was searching for a girl that had gone missing.
Personally, I felt certain that she was either exploring the forest, or off with
some boy her parents didn't approve of.
I was wrong.
Author's Note: This is only about 1/5 of the first chapter. If you want to read more, you can find all currently available chapters HERE. New chapters are posted approximately whenever I feel like it. 
Comments are encouraged.
