Night of the Paper Lanterns

Each autumn, the city of Hanamura releases paper lanterns onto the river - a quiet ritual of memory, marking what has been lost and what endures.

This year, the lanterns come back.

Unburned. Intact. And carrying something no one expected.

Inside them are documents - records, statements, fragments of a story the city has not been told. As more lanterns appear and their contents begin to spread, a pattern emerges: this is not random. It is deliberate. Structured. Timed.

For Mei, a reporter traine...