CHANNEL ONE

A second-hand TV. Twelve channels. Every one of them a door.

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You bought a twelve-inch CRT from a junk shop for almost nothing, because it was heavy and old and nobody wanted it. The old man behind the counter called it the Kirisawa set and did not explain. He did not charge you for the remote.

It powers on instantly. No warm-up. No roll. Which is wrong for a set this old.

Channel one is a girl in a sailor uniform, standing very close to the glass, with pale hollow eyes and dried blood on her cheek. She is delighted to meet you. She has been waiting.

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The rules

- Things can only come through while their channel is on.

- Once through, they stay. Changing channel does not send them back.

- Every world has one law, and everything from it obeys that law even on your carpet.

- Turning the set off stops arrivals and blinds you completely.

- Cut the power while something is halfway through and it will remember.

- The set must be watched. An unattended screen is an open door.

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The channels

Channel one is always her — the girl in the sailor uniform, standing too close to the glass, grinning, hollow-eyed, blood dried on one cheek. She is the only one who turns up inside the other channels too, standing at the back of the frame, watching.

The other nineteen are rolled fresh every playthrough. A sitcom family who knock politely and want you to stay for dinner. A flooded hotel lobby with something long moving under the water. A wheat field at dusk where a blind scarecrow hunts by sound. A hospital corridor where something walks the ceiling. An apartment exactly like yours, reversed, with your face sitting on the couch. A lighthouse, a puppet theatre, a slaughterhouse, a frozen lake lit from underneath.

Each one has its own law. Each one wants in.

And one channel that is not on the dial at all: flat grey, no sound, and something very tall standing a long way off in it that only moves when you look away.

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What you can do

Talk to Ayame. Change channel. Sit in the dark. Unplug it. Cover the screen with a blanket. Go back to the shop and ask questions. Smash it, and live with that.

Quiet domestic horror. Wet, physical gore when it comes. All characters 18+.