I am Kei..... Kei Karasu.

Karasu means Crow in our language...

I would be shedding light on this strange origin of our surname, later in this chapter.

I was born and raised in a small rural town of Yasha, a small SEA nation such you've never heard of. Legends say that Yasha was raised out of sea by mystics and wizards. However for a great long period it has been ruled by the Japanese. So it has left very dominant footprints on our society and culture.

Unfortunately I do not own any detailed memory of the town I spent early years is my life. Except some foggy imageries and a long forgotten sweet aroma. It was a breezy town, clad with greenery and covered by hills. The ocean had accompanied the small town. In bright cheerful days you could observe the calm blue sea gleaming under the sun like a giant sapphire. While the sea breeze would flow through the alleys of the town and kissed the children who seemed to be playing at the parks and on the edges of the woods.

The town had a very strange aura of idleness, as far I can recall. People used to take things much casually and with a certain amount of laxity.

There were vastly stretched farmlands on the outskirts. The majority of the people were farmers. The elders used to gather and roam around the town, and the same was applicable for the young ones. And another speciality of such small town was that where anybody knows everybody. So the topics of gossips never used to run out for the elderly ladies. But they were warm hearted too. They would have given their hundred percent efforts while helping each others.

And there were these tiny creepy shrines around the town, which often accommodated creepy looking idols of local deities. I remember the colourful festivals and fireworks in hot summer nights. All townspeople would gather at the riverbank to watch them go all ablaze. They would share foods and drinks like one big family.

Everything was like a sweet fairy tale. Oh, how could one forget about the fireflies? The woods, the river, the entire landscape wrapped in countless blinking lights. So my childhood, as I mentioned before, took place on a surrealistic plane. Where dreams and reality were almost the same thing, at least for me.

And on one such surreal evening, our grandmother left this world.