<B.R.I.G.-Lab VHS Tape, found inserted into a broken TV-VCR in a previously-blocked-off conference room located in an abandoned wing of the Bell Jar Project’s Monitoring & Control Center>

<The beginning of a glitchy workplace training & orientation video: scenes of a stormy sea surrounding a bedraggled island, with an accompanying jocular voice-over>

 ***Caught between* churning skies and raging seas**, the inhabitants of the resource-rich & strategically-located **Gardenhead Island,** and the nearby metropolitan mainland, seem to have always been haunted by a constant plague of storm-surges and catastrophic floods.

 ***Fifty years ago***, to protect their interests on the island and in partnership with the island’s various governing bodies, **Golden Boy Corporation** began undertaking construction on a massive civil infrastructure project. Located deep below **Gardenhead Island**’s surface, it would serve to protect the wider area from these frequent, deadly floods by redirecting the kinetic force and flow of surging flood-water along miles of underground tunnel systems.

 ***Twenty-five* years ago**, construction was completed on **The Bell Jar Project**, one of the largest civil engineering projects ever built: Five underground silo-like concrete structures, called **Bell Jars**, are placed at crucial points along the tunnel system, to collect flood-water overflow from the ocean and nearby rivers during emergency weather events. The **Bell Jars**, each large enough to house a space shuttle, are designed to rein-in the wild kinetic energy of the surging water as much as possible and then send it along on its way down the tunnel system toward a massive cavernous central cistern, called **The Temple**, where a matrix of column-like pumps made using repurposed jet turbine engines continues to slow the flow and force of the flood-water further and further until it is, eventually, able to be released harmlessly back into the sea.

***Now***, at the start of every period of seasonal shift turnover, the **Golden Boy Corporation** workers’ housing colony on Gardenhead Island welcomes a ferry from the mainland carrying fresh-faced recruits. This lean, efficient, capable crew of hand-selected contract workers, like many others before them, go through a period of rigorous training in which they learn to fully run and maintain the **Bell Jar Project**’s systems remotely, from the **Monitoring & Control Center**.

 After training is over, these brave men, women,— <*laughter heard on the recording, a dog barking*> —and yes, of course, good boys too, are stationed on the island to work under their own cognizance for the remaining duration of the season. For many reasons, the environment on Gardenhead Island is not especially safe or conducive for long-term on-site employment, so, after five months, these workers will be heading back home to roost at the good ol’ **Golden Boy Corporation** **Headquarters** located on the mainland; until then, they’ll get to sit out the worst of **Gardenhead Island’s** storms while nested safely deep underground, enjoying the comforts of our state-of-the-art **Monitoring & Control Center.**

 From all of us here at **Golden Boy Corporation**, to our latest wave of **Control Center** crew members:

 **THANK YOU**.

 Your important work keeps all of us safe.

<recording transitions and fades, glitches and blips>

<A different voice begins to speak, with a noticeably different recording quality; their tone of voice is tired, stressed>

 **This morning**, *something* *happened*. An anomalous weather event that none of us could have been trained to handle: a black wave, a towering tsunami of staggering proportion, seemed to appear out of nowhere and crash against the island, plunging all of the Bell Jar Project’s carefully-calibrated systems into cascading chaos and disarray. Cut off and unable to establish any contact with the surface or the mainland, me and a small skeleton crew of workers are trapped underground in the **Bell Jar Project**’s **Monitoring and Control Center.** I think, for now, we have enough resources to survive for a forced extended stay. However, we can’t stay here forever: water is starting to leak into this part of the facility, and the still-partly-functioning monitoring equipment is indicating some, uh, *very worrying stuff*. Very soon, we will need to take full stock of our surroundings; get more of the systems turned back on, somehow; and, unfortunately, some of us will have to begin scouting further out along our only available route of egress: deeper into the tunnel systems leading further into the belly of the Bell Jar Project, on towards the cavernous Temple where, hopefully, we’ll find a safe passage back up to the surface…

 Who knows what we'll find up there, if we can even reach it. Based on what we've been seeing on the few currently-working camera feeds, stuff seems to be, uh...*happening,* in the tunnels...

<end of recording>

FLOATING WORLD, by Eddie Strange IV, is a collection of speculative mystery stories, blending horror, sci-fi, fantasy, historical, and comedic elements, that explores (among many things) themes of identity, reality, mythology, philosophy, and transcendence (or unity) of the Self.

While most of the stories are self-contained and “episodic”, designed to (potentially) be experienced in any order without necessarily needing to see every other episode first, there are a few connecting major overarching storylines and character arcs that will wind throughout them all. To contrast with the episodic stories, there will be at least some “main narrative” episodes/stories with culminating storylines that will bring back seemingly-disparate details from previous storylines and episodes and begin to reveal some of the big secrets of the mysterious FLOATING WORLD.

All of these stories generally follow the experiences of "[**Hana Marise**](<https://spring-fish-d0c.notion.site/Hana-Marise-247d87f8b0844da29aaee9ea68e608ae>)", a rebellious electrician’s apprentice who works for a distant “faceless” corporation called [GOLDENBOY CORP](<https://spring-fish-d0c.notion.site/4179f25265614ea4a826faa8d0b86f82>), which constructed, owns, and maintains most of the infrastructure and employed-workforce on her current home, "[**Gardenhead Island**](<https://spring-fish-d0c.notion.site/7ba4dcaeb8d64e8b91f7f091039aba57>)". **Gardenhead Island**’s civil infrastructure includes a massive complex of underground flood control & prevention systems, called the [**Bell Jar Project**](<https://spring-fish-d0c.notion.site/56a16773da35495c892070fc292e3371>), which serve to protect Gardenhead Island as well as a large part of the nearby mainland (visible on the not-too-distant horizon from Gardenhead but often shrouded in mist and clouds) from the frequently devastating flood-water overflow of the surrounding rivers and ocean during inclement weather. 

 After one particularly catastrophic weather event tears her away from her [mentor](<https://spring-fish-d0c.notion.site/Gus-Fechner-8e82446bfa27426091aef9df863cf907>) and a life she'd just started feeling comfortable living, Hana is left stranded, alone and unprepared, deep underground in the belly of the Bell Jar Project tunnel system. Upon exiting and re-emerging, she finds herself, quite unexpectedly, walking through a strange, twisted, uncanny, and dangerous version of Gardenhead, an island Hana thought she once knew intimately. 

 Thankfully, or perhaps not-so-thankfully, it is not too long before Hana encounters two ...odd... characters who, in time, will become her steadfast travel companions: "[**Shiro**](<https://spring-fish-d0c.notion.site/Shiro-28b8fc41466d41a5bde80f8b0abdd97e>)", a loyal, protective, distractible, and sometimes terrifying "shapeshifting amalgamating entity...thing" who, it seems, usually prefers taking the form of a white dog; and "[**Satori**](<https://spring-fish-d0c.notion.site/Satori-character-2d106f2888c24e8ab9a8c58d53ca46a0>)", a playfully-enigmatic formless extra-dimensional entity who appears to Hana as an impish trickster. Apparently, Hana and Shiro are the only two beings around with physical bodies who can, currently, perceive Satori, so Satori desperately needs their help to pull off his "big plan", the full scope of which only he can see and the true goals of which he keeps very close to his chest. 

 Together, they'll embark on an epic quest of the body, mind, and spirit: to escape this place, to help their friends and anyone else in need along the way, to discover the unfolding truths behind the ever-mysterious "Floating World", to find a way home, or to die trying. 
Which, as it turns out, they'll certainly be doing. 
Dying, I mean. 
They'll definitely be doing that part. 
And...quite a lot, actually...over, and over, and over….