Basically... you try to save a young girl (Persia) from a devil who wants to manipulate her and consume her soul. The girl died, killed by this devil, who then tricked the girl into making a deal with him, where she unknowingly gives him a piece of her soul, in exchange with seeing her mom again. This will allow him to control her, and consume the rest of it over time. This is what happens in the "Lost" ending.

Persia is dead. She was killed by a man breaking in (listed in a newspaper clipping found on outside of wall). This can be seen in flashes of images drawn with crayons that pop up in the "Reverse" ending. The red-haired man had been watching her for a while (as seen in her diary) and she saw him outside from her window at least once. On the day of her murder, her mom (Mary) left for work. Her mom locked the door every day, but Persia would go to the fence, put a chair against it, and climb over to go play. That day, Persia went to do that, but the red-haired man, a serial killer (as told in the "New Life" ending by the police), climbed over the fence. She ran inside, he chased her. She was running to the front door, but remembered it was locked, so she ran upstairs instead, slamming and locking her room door from the inside. He banged on it, claiming he wasn't going to hurt her. When she didn't open, he went downstairs to get the gun (either that, or he had it in the first place? I don't know how he would have known there was a gun there). She runs out of the room, he shoots her. She makes it to the balcony, cries out to her mom, and he shoots her, killing her and knocking her off.

If you may notice, this sounds familiar because this is the third sequence you run through in the loop, except Persia plays as the serial killer, and is the one trying to kill the red-haired boy, playing as herself. This is indicated early through the pink text the red-haired boy says, right as he is shot and knocked over the balcony.

My current theory is that we are the crows. However, I don't know how that fits with the how we are represented as the white and black people in the void world after an ending.


The crows that are placed throughout are actually a representation of "us", the player. Sometimes the devil's dialogue refers to US, and not Persia, as it speaks. So sometimes when it says "you" it means us, the crow, and "her" as Persia. The devil at one point, says something along the lines of "she called for you to help her".

The reason the crows exist is because of a seed planted by the father when Persia was younger. He was performing some sort of ritual (as listed in the mom's diary) with Persia in the center. He claims that the seeds have taken well, and grew in the shape of a crow. These seeds are a part of the devil, who wants them back, which is WHY HE COMES AFTER PERSIA. The father worships the devil, which is also why he is dressed kinda crow-like. However, they could also be related to the traumatic incident from Persia's youth, 5 years after the ritual happened and May moved away with Persia to escape her dad.

The traumatic incident is viewed/remembered in the "Reverse" ending. Basically, Persia gets out of the house through her usual way, goes to a far-away park to play on a whale slide, and gets lost on her way home. There had been many missing children reports. A man stops her, asks why she is alone, and gives her a device to "help" her find her way home. It leads her to a deserted alley, where the man, who followed her, grabs her and tries to either rape her, or rape then kill her. Her father was also tailing, and kills the man by ripping out his heart. The man melts. I believe this is due to her father simply having mystic/devilish powers of sorts due to his cult following. He is seen various times disappearing into thin air. He erases the memory from her head, until we just unearthed it.

The characters are:

• Persia: the little pink girl, red haired boy, black-haired man, and yellow-haired girl are all parts of the pink girl (Persia)'s soul. The in-game explanation (found via chair achievement) is that her subconscious makes up their appearances based off her own real-life experiences.
  
• May: the mom
  
• Red-haired man: the red butterfly, red silhouette in cutscenes, red orb, glitch-man in chair achievement, and the owner of the body that murdered Persia
  
• Pano: the dad, black top-hat wearing man. appears in "Reverse" ending's traumatic memory incident, as well as in "Reverse" right before the police show up
  
• The Devil: the white angel iconography in the crayon drawing sequence, the crow-beaked hooded figure, the text in center of screen telling Persia what to do.
  
• The police... self explanatory

The red-haired boy, black-haired man, and yellow-haired girl are all real people, but when we see them in the game, they are parts of Persia's soul. The red-haired boy represents her liveliness, her soul itself (based on what happens when he is sacrificed, and how dull Persia is afterwards compared to before. notably, how she describes objects comparatively). The yellow-haired girl could be cautiousness, or loneliness (based on dialogue when told not to come to the neighborhood again). The black-haired man could represent Persia's sense of self-preservation, as he immediately tries to save red-haired boy, and is depicted as being older than Persia's actual self.

In real life, the yellow-haired girl is a neighbor that Persia wants to be friends with. The black-haired man is a police officer. Not sure who the red-haired boy might be.

NOTE: In the "Hide-and-seek" segment and that whole section, the yellow-haired girl is not part of Persia's soul, she is a "fantasy", which the devil placed to try and trick/manipulate Persia into staying compliant until he fully devoured her.

In the "Lost" ending...
In this one, the girl gives her soul, or at least, the part that makes her whole, up to the devil. It eats it, then fills in that part of her with itself (as shown in the interactive drawing section, with the yellow-haired girl). It uses that hole to control and manipulate Persia, aiming to eventually consume her all the way, or leave her half-consumed and use her to lure others, like it does with the red-haired man.


In the "New Life" ending...
In this one, the devil is not yet through consuming Persia's soul, as you can see her egg is still mostly intact, and he has just gotten to pecking at it. The red-haired man gives up the last of himself, of his soul, to fill the void from where the devil ate at Persia, to prevent the devil from controlling her fully. This ends up putting Persia into the original body of the red-haired man, after her murder. The man was out of it, literally vacant, as the devil was busy trying to consume Persia, who was resisting. The police arrested him, but a drunk driver caused the police car to get into an accident. The black-haired officer was injured, but woke up fine in the hospital later (brown-haired officer, unaccounted for), as seen on the TV in the void). Persia wakes up in the red-haired man's body just after this, and is reasonably frightened. She runs into the woods, where the ending closes... But she is chased by a group of cultists in robes, and it appears that she is cornered by them, as seen on the TV in the void. Unsure what this means... perhaps they're related to the devil, as all the iconography in the in-between world shows robed-individuals? Or perhaps they're related to the father's cult?


In the "Reverse" ending...
Persia resists the devil's demands, which can be seen in her actions when not being controlled, and in her subconscious via the red-haired boy (after attempting to sacrifice him, he looks angry in this sequence, and speaks a different dialogue in pink letters, indicating this is true-er to Persia. In the previous sequences, he did not speak in pink letters, and was crying, not angry). She hugs her mom and tells her to come back quick. The devil makes the murder sequence play out, not allowing the player to stop it (because "you are not her" or something along those lines, as the Persia-image we play as with the gun is not actually Persia, but the devil controlling the red-haired man), but this time, at the penultimate moment, the mother returns home early, and shoves the pink girl off of the balcony, who is actually the red-haired man, saving the little boy, who is actually Persia. There is a chase, and the devil stops May (the mom) and Persia in front of the house. Persia's dad shows up last second to take a bullet meant for May, then the police show up, the devil-man vanishes, and May and Persia go to May's family home. Persia goes to sleep, then the devil shows up and "consumes" the crow, claiming it is not over yet.


In the "Free" ending...
After breaking out of the fantasy, Persia works her way to escape the in-between spirit world, and by not getting injured or having her soul damaged, she is able to fly to heaven, and be free of the devil. The red-haired man is either supposedly gone for good in his last-ditch fight, or that small part of him is still trapped with the devil.