Act 1: The First Lie, scene by scene

Prologue & day one

1. 1

   The prologue: the witch and the requiem

   Before any UI appears, the game reads a narration over near-black: “This is it. Let her hear it. A requiem for a world bound by ‘truth.’” A white-haired witch faces a shattering sky while the text asks, “Are you still scared? Like a child?” Let it play — it’s short, and it’s the thesis of the whole story.

   

2. 2

   Day one: the staff-room ultimatum

   The story proper starts with a classroom nap and a summons: grades slipping, absences piling up, and the higher-ups asking whether the two of them should keep attending at all. Mr. Keats hands over the way out — an address, a form, and a meeting “in under an hour.”

   

3. 3

   Sign the A.A.R.C. leaflet

   The paper is thin on details: a government scheme, “an extra avenue for student progress,” an adviser named Freya Turner and an address. Nia signs to avoid expulsion; the other girl barely hesitates. Sign when prompted — the Timeline unlock follows immediately.

   

4. 4

   The Timeline opens — and locks its doors

   The Scenario Timeline lays each girl’s story on its own row of dated tiles. Some tiles are wide open; others carry ACCESS REQUIREMENTS — “Read: Nia, 27 8, Noon / Read: Mei, 27 8, Noon.” The structure is the game’s pacing: to move one girl’s day forward, you may have to live someone else’s first.

   

The first A.A.R.C. meeting

1. 5

   Five girls in one room

   The first meeting gathers the cast: Nia, the chattiest fan of stage-fiend music; Mei, polite and careful; Iris, the truant who already met the adviser; Ayame, who talks a mile a minute; and Story, the mute exchange student who introduces herself by holding up a phone — “My name is Story.”

   

2. 6

   Freya’s icebreaker: your deepest secret

   Adviser Freya Turner’s first exercise has every girl write their deepest secret, then reads the papers aloud for the group to match secret to owner. Refusal isn’t an option — she’s explicit that life gets worse for anyone who sits out, and the binds around their necks make lying expensive.

   

The arrest & the assignment

1. 7

   The arrest by the river

   The meeting recesses to the waterfront and plainclothes police walk straight to Story: hacking accusations, a detective, and a mute girl who can only answer by lifting her phone. Ayame steps toward the officers; Story goes quietly — “I don’t want people I just met getting hurt on my account.”

   

2. 8

   Freya drops the protest in one move

   When Iris physically blocks the arrest, Freya appears behind her — no warning, no sound — and locks her arm before anyone reacts. “Why did you let that happen!?” earns only a flat “It’s unfair, yes.” It’s the first proof the adviser is far more than a bureaucrat.

   

3. 9

   The assignment: prove Story innocent

   Freya’s first assignment comes with a threat attached: prove Story’s innocence, find the real culprit — and don’t let anyone else close the case first, or the program ends. She leaves a key to the meeting room and a mailbox combination, then walks off reading her book.

   

Visitation, the first dive & the broken bind

1. 10

   Visitation: the Death and Summer file

   Saturday, the police station: the girls do the talking at reception and meet Story in the visitation room, where she explains the case through a messaging app — a hacker collective called Death and Summer (41072) that leaks and vandalizes. She admits nothing, and one careful question hints she has hacked before.

   

2. 11

   The Dive: into the detective’s heart

   After the visitation, one girl stays behind — and panicking at a station computer, she’s caught by the detective. The panic turns into something new: the world dissolves into pale light and she falls into his heart. Dives are In Falsus’s story-driven encounters — memories and emotions laid out as a playable field — and this first one spawns the ZFC encounter.

   

3. 12

   The bind cracks — and lying becomes possible

   After the dive, she checks her palm for a heart-check: “It’s glowing yellow, the triangles fading into my skin.” Her lie-detection bind has broken. For the first time she can lie — she talks the detective into reopening the computer, then practices in a bathroom stall (“I can speak ten languages” — it works twice in ten tries).

   

4. 13

   Iris’s timeline: the recruitment

   Act 1 keeps intercutting side timelines. Iris’s entry rewinds to her recruitment: a government representative finds her mid-truancy, denies being a gang scout, and offers the A.A.R.C. — “Now listen. I am an Advisor of the AARC initiative. I’d like you to join it.” Reading timelines like this one is what unlocks characters (see the unlock guide).

   

The plaza broadcast & May’s song

1. 14

   The alley fight — and Iris’s first dive

   Iris’s timeline also holds Act 1’s best action scene: a shakedown in an alley, a thrown phone, a knife — and a corkscrew takedown the streamer had to look up. Mid-fight, Iris experiences an involuntary dive: she sees through her attacker’s hesitation and makes it real. The girls’ abilities are multiplying.

   

2. 15

   41072 hijacks the plaza

   The investigation pays off when every monitor in the Amachi plaza lights up: the hacker collective — “Death and Summer” — broadcasts five masked personas, leaks buried documents, and promises hours of traffic-light chaos. The girls watch a live demonstration of exactly what Story was accused of.

   

3. 16

   May’s studio night becomes a song

   Act 1’s first stretch closes on May: a hospital phone call, an empty apartment, and a studio session where she builds a track out of pure frustration. The scene becomes her first dive, and the track — Memories in Noise by Nyolfen — lands in the song select with difficulties from 2 to 11. Every girl’s story, it turns out, ends in a chart.