★★★★✩.

! “the mistress of silence, owner of bunkers and corpses.”

it’s like a nightmare version of pokemon mystery dungeon.

perhaps a bleaker The Myth of Sisyphus - Albert Camus? a cosmic The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas - Ursula K. Le Guin?

reminds me of Perfume by David Süskind in that the main character is unique and definitively alone in his/her exploration of the world.

exploring worlds like Roadside Picnic by Boris Strugatsky. facing an absurd world, so ridiculously alien that you question you might not really be on earth. technology alien and banal.

the fundamental differences in lived experience, like Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin;