The rain that had begun as a dense, constant drizzle during the early hours of the morning transformed, at the stroke of midnight, into a strong, powerful thunderstorm over the quiet district of Setagaya. The thunder rumbled with furious force against the glass windows of the duplex apartment, making the wooden structure vibrate. Every so often, lightning momentarily illuminated the darkened rooms with bursts of white, bluish, and spectral light.
Past one in the morning, a particularly dry and deafening thunderclap shook the foundations of the house, immediately followed by a dull click in the main electrical panel. The few pilot lights that remained on in the hallways went out completely, plunging every corner of the dwelling into a dense, freezing, and suffocating darkness.
