f you are reading this, I have achieved my goal, because it means that someone has found my letter. I implore you to read each of these lines carefully, because I have something important to tell you, and this is how I must do it. By the time at which you hold this piece of paper in your hands, I am most likely already dead - if God was gracious to my soul. For in my situation, death can mean only salvation - I do not wish to think about the alternative.

Before you read any further, I want to ask you to make a promise: do not keep what I am about to tell you to yourself, but instead make my suffering mean something. Only if you share what you are about to learn with others, might there still be a chance to avert disaster.

My name shall play no role here, because I can trust no one: if this information were to fall into the wrong hands, I fear for the lives of my loved ones. All my life, I have dealt with filth, and experienced things that normal people would hardly have called ordinary. Murders, jealous wives, kidnapping, robbery ... all the filth of the earth. They paid me for it for years to eliminate this filth, because that's my job, private filth removal - they also call us private investigators. Now, for God's sake do not imagine some silver-screen hunk, born from the fantasy of some Hollywood director, surrounded by topless beauties, constantly full of booze and Colt 45's at hand. This job can be damn trivial and incredibly frustrating - at least it was until today. A single goddamn routine job has brought me into this deadly danger. It had all started so simply...

A regular client of my detective agency visited me early in the morning and asked me to investigate a mildly severe case of industrial espionage. According to my client’s statement, a rival company had copied engine parts from a special type of lawnmower he had developed. Of course, this was just a guess, but why else would you need my line of work? My task was to find the necessary evidence to convict the alleged spy – a completely routine job. Nevertheless, this thing had a huge catch: The company in question resided in a secluded location in the middle of the desert, not really the area where one usually imagines industrious lawnmower manufacturers. Then there was another problem, I could get no information about the exact location of the factory - probably due to fear of industrial espionage. However, my client was able to narrow down the area in question with relative accuracy, so that sooner or later I would probably be able to stumble upon the objective. Since I do not like to lose customers that pay well and on time, I took my entire daily ration of enthusiasm together, got into my rickety old car and started on my desert tour.

I do not believe in premonitions. Also, I cannot reliably say whether or not a desert is especially predisposed to stark changes in appearance. But this day seemed to be a little different than usual, and I could sense the change almost physically. It was late afternoon by the time I approached my destination. Twilight had already fallen and the sky darkened with ominous rapidity as I steered the car between bizarre rock formations that, in the ghostly twilight, appeared as threatening giants. Where the beam of my headlights wandered, they seemed to contract convulsively, as if the light caused them pain. The conditions outside seemed to me indicative of a sandstorm, and without warning a light wind arose, which seemed to support my suspicions. So I did the obvious thing and looked for a suitable place where I could most easily weather the rigors of the coming storm. I finally found shelter in the shade of a giant rock, behind which I parked my car. I turned off the engine and got out to try to confirm my suspicions about the impending storm. Suddenly I was immersed in a sea of silence. Total silence hung over the oppressive sultriness of the country, eerie and unnatural. I grew up in this area, and I know that even this barren wasteland is usually not completely silent, but the only thing I could make out now was the sound of my own breathing. Suddenly a violent wind arose, which whipped grains of sand into my eyes. I hurried to my car, pulled the door open and hurriedly closed it behind me. Not a second too soon, because a moment later a massive storm broke out around me.

I cannot remember how long I spent in the hell of the storm, because my sense of time dwindled in the howling crescendo of organ tones and grains of sand. At one point I thought I saw a huge shadow far away from my car that seemed to creep along through the churning sand, but I attributed this phenomenon to my frayed nerves. While I write these lines, I know that this was not the case...

Interested yet? Finish reading in the English or German manual. As you play the game, the story continues to unfold via the cutscenes.