That afternoon, inside Apartment 305, a cheap studio apartment.
The curtains were drawn tightly, making the room stuffy and hot. A strange, sweetish odor mingled with the stench in the air.
Clothes lay in a messy heap on the sofa, while dishes were piled in the sink. On a small bed pushed against the wall, a young man with short blackish-brown hair was snoring away. The bed was too small, leaving one of his arms dangling over the edge.
A black fluid seeped through the crack beneath the door. An eye opened within it, seeming to survey the surroundings. It quickly spotted the young man in the room and sensed powerful negative emotions coming from him. This was the target it had been seeking.
The Devourer crawled up the young man's arm before suddenly springing up and burrowing into his mouth and nose.
"Ugh!"
The young man sat up in bed and waved both hands frantically in front of him. Once he came to, he tried taking a deep breath, but felt nothing foreign in his mouth or nose.
"Was it a dream? That... that scared the hell out of me."
The young man sat dazed on the bed for a while before lying back down to rest. Just then, a loud bang suddenly came from upstairs. The young man, Eich, sat up again and glared furiously at the ceiling. He had no idea what his upstairs neighbor did every day, but it often sounded as if the man were hammering the floor.
As a servant at the Soya Grand Hotel, Eich needed to get enough sleep during the day. His upstairs neighbor was clearly disrupting his normal life.
"Can't that fat pig keep it down?"
Eich put on his clothes and made as if to confront the upstairs resident.