-In an attempt to better evade Retrospec's stalking eyes, Kasen had decided to actually spend the night at his secondary studio in the Kaneda building. At first he'd attributed everything around him to a trick of the mind, of course, a compounding on his consciousness from his lack of sleep and his guilt over failing to reach out to his brother before he moved back to Japan. Or perhaps it was that disassociation from himself manifesting in a more profound form, painting his vision until he literally was an object, small and obscure in the world.

Or perhaps he was just literally shrunk. Getting outside the building was no small feat, given his studio was locked and on the second floor. He can be found trying to scale a water drain, panicing every step of the way. He calls out to anyone below or nearby.-

H-hello!? A little help, please?! Excuse me! I could use some assist-AAAH! -He slipped again, clinging even more tightly to the pipe.-

-He wasn't quite certain just what, specifically, had drawn him into this world of darkness. He'd thought he had heard a voice calling out to him, something achingly familiar yet wholly alien, and he was drawn to them. Further and further into the inky black, finding the source in speckles of faint, dying light beyond.-

I had a dream, which was not all a dream.
The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal space,
Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth
Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air...

-He just kept quoting the poem to himself as he moved further in, as if a madness had overtaken him, reaching out into that seemingly eternal void, as if to find a hand waiting for him to take.

Someone needed to drag him out.-

-Things had gone from bad to worse. A flood was sweeping Kasen away, who had only just barely made it to his apartment the day before by making use of one of his outdoor cats who'd come across him and, thankfully, had recognized him. But he'd be no help now in this torrent that was threatening to sweep him away.

But Kasen had learned something about himself in the time he'd been struggling to survive so far, in that he was far more capable in a pinch than he'd originally thought. And what had once been palette with its deep insets and relatively light weight made for a hell of a pontoon, and a long brush a hell of an oar. He made his way, heading back to the University. But he came across more than a few people who were threatened to be swept away.-

Come on! Take my hand! -He cried out to them, reaching out while keeping his grip on the oar secure.-

-The call of the voices had been enough to draw him away from the Kaneda Building, the University campus entirely, to hike out to the woods just as evening was setting in. A haunted longing pulled at his heart, and each step felt heavier than the last as he walked among the spectral flowers, their glow casting him in an even more eerie light.-

What am I? -He whispered it without thinking, unbeknownst if any were nearby that could hear him. He was, once again, entranced. But more than that, it was here the feeling of disassociation was at its strongest. That he was not a person at all, but perhaps like the song, a phantom in the night...-