Two students living in Hinamizawa, Rika Furude, and Mion Sonozaki, rest at a bus stop on a rainy day and wait for the bus to arrive. Some employees soon join them, who are working on a project that will build a dam in Hinamizawa but result in the village's destruction. As the group makes their acquaintance, they talk about a phenomenon related to the strange deaths of dam project employees, the curse of Oyashiro-sama. Hinamizawa Teiryuujo was the prototype of what would later become Higurashi When They Cry, initially proposed as a stage play written by Ryukishi07, but it was rejected by the theater company and later repurposed for the game.