Em. Not what I expected. It was. I don't know how I feel after. It's a complex. Lera went through all this incredibly strongly, but everything changed after the scene with the piano. It's hard for me to understand why she began to sympathize with the madness of the meat cult around. To be honest, I feel very sorry for Nika and I have never been scared because of her, but I was scared for her. Perhaps I will now break the romanticization of this post-soviet vibe, but when you go through growing up in an unhealthy and poor family, the devastation and poverty around, than this hyperphysical horror narrative does not look like a nightmare, but very real and close to you. As you grow older, when you realize all this, it seems as though your entire childhood was cursed. But while you are a child, you do not understand anything and continue to look for joy in everything. I see that Nika really has an dysfunctional family here that keeps her. She cannot run away, she cannot tell how bad she is feel, she cannot be a part of society. She just wants to be a normal child. All she did was listen to her family. I don't see surrealism and body horror. I see a victim of mental disorders and abuse or maybe even worse. I have no idea what kind of nightmares she went through as a child. This is not something Lera could help her with, but I am still very sorry that she could not save her. For some reason, I was completely sure that Lera would ask her to leave with her. Common sense here is just shouting to contact the police, child protection, whatever, just get her out of here. It seems to me that I am close to the state in which Lera was too. I felt similar in past. And the more you will hate is the same architecture of doom outside the window and everywhere. Everything around you will choke you and remind you of your illness and anxiety. When you want to run away from everything, but you cannot run away from yourself. There are tons of things that can make you yearn. But we see that Lera is deeply depressed. The confessions and memories that the characters share make me feel that even if they have different traumas, they share a very similar and deep hopelessness. It seems to me that this sympathy for each other and that they can't change anything is the greatest pain. This is the main reason why I feel so empty inside after playing. Well... I've released my emotions and can write a little about the game. Art is mesmerizing. Everything is conveyed in great detail. As if my strongest memories from Russia were stuck somewhere in a snowy yume nikki dream. The painfully familiar concrete building on the cover is exactly what made me click and go through all this. Everything breathes with the atmosphere of despondency of concrete buildings and dirty courtyards. Lera's design is amazing and realistic. The game pulled me over the whole night and I went through two endings. I entered it completely by accident and cannot believe that the release was so recent. It won't go away from my head for a long time. Good work and good game. ✨✌️🥺