This city is dead to me . . .
I feel it’s emptiness killing me inside. . .
Neon lights and pollution fill the air. . .
Its all so meaningless . . .

My name is Yume, the year is 3093, I am an 18 year old student living in Neo-Shibuya District 33. I have been here as long as I can remember…
My mother and I came to this city when I was just an infant, I don’t remember much about my place of birth.

Finding work as an assistant doctor when we got here, my mother made a living taking care of families who couldn’t afford traditional medical treatments....
I grew up a pretty average childhood attending Shibuya-Ku G-12 Tech Institute where I took up pursuit in medicine as well. I intended on one day moving into the medical field and taking over where my mothers research would leave off...

3 months ago however my mother came down with a terrible illness, she had been treating a young child who had contracted something she had not seen before.
In this day and age new illnesses form everyday, some are introduced into society by the elite to control population and kill the weak, others mutate and form from the conditions in which we exist……

We live in a society that has nearly eradicated all organic life in exchange for inorganic satisfaction. We were so overzealous with our technological growth that we moved at an exponential rate. It wasn’t until the year 2847 that we realized we had eradicated too much agricultural space to survive, and we could no longer provide food for the masses, we were even beginning to run out of oxygen….

In an act of desperation to survive as a species we began supplementing our meals with synthetic creations. We began replacing our oxygen with a synthetic hybrid molecule we had created……
We were losing ourselves but we made sure we would survive.
Satisfied with our accomplishments we continued our paths of agricultural destruction with no fear of survival left. . . .
In this day and age all that stands are man made monoliths as a testament to our supposed greatness, lined in bright lights and surrounded in a thick polluted fog. We live in a society that is obsessed with pleasure, survival, and nothing else, a society that has evolved and regressed into some form of technological barbarianism.

My mother and I were of average descent, we lived a normal life, but we weren’t a part of the “elite society”.
When my mother fell ill we went to doctors in search of help but because of our social standing they refused to help. We were told any service would be at least 10,000,000 Zenny and that was only for a walk in to assess the issue…That was nearly the cost of what my mother would make in 4 years on her salary.

I was in a state of disbelief…
I began to become defiant before security came and threw us off the premise like sub-humans.
We returned to our home in defeat.

My mother became more ill everyday. I tried everything I could to aid in her recovery but nothing was working. I went out to the families who my mother had saved herself, to the people my mom had risked her well being for, to the individuals who owed their life to my mother…..Every person turned a cold shoulder, some even went far as pretending they didn’t even know who we were.

My mother passed away less than a month after diagnosis.

Not one person attended her funeral…..

After all my mother had done for the city in which I live not one individual cared enough about her to pay their final respects. Everyone so obsessed with their own personal life and enjoyment that they didn’t care. My mother sacrificed her life for others. She would have laid her life on the line for others, even when taking a loss herself. To watch someone so kind pass away because of social standing and to see her shunned by her peers really opened my eyes. When I realized the cold callousness of what we had become I began to feel sick..


I have lost desire to remain in this city any longer. The neon lit skies and pollution are ending me. Every second I spend in this wasteland is killing me…. I want to leave the city, I want to find something else out there, I want to experience the world outside this man made nightmare….

I’ve heard stories there was once a great forest in this place, a forest that was almost magical in essence, A place where individuals would retreat to for escape, a place of nurturing solitude….
There is rumor that a small patch of this forest still remains on the outskirts of the city, past the industrial fields and a few miles outside of Old-Tokyo.
Though there is no existence of it in satellite imaging, and no photo of the forest exists the story still remains…
It is said that those willing to embrace it and for those who are ready to learn the path will reveal itself….

I hear there is a bus that drives out to that area once a month, the last bus in existence ever since the hover initiative protocol of 2913…., no one rides it anymore but they keep it running out of tradition. It is the only way one can make it to ground level outside of Old-Shibuya, all airways outside of Neo-Shibuya/Tokyo are off limit unless sanctioned by governing forces.

I think it’s time I leave this place,

I think it’s time I go in search of the fabled Aokigahara Forest

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Lucid Sound Driver is back with a new journey. This album is a trip, following its protagonist from the sites of a city through a forest to a divine place that focuses you on what's important.
Lucid Sound Driver is walking the small line between a scary, unsettling and a soothing yet meditational album. If you're looking to get lost in the woods, just follow us to the Fountain of Wisdom.

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lucidsounddriver.bandcamp.com
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