1st Night: The Strangling Ritual (第一夜 裂き縄) is the first chapter in Fatal Frame.
The player controls Miku Hinasaki, Mafuyu's younger sister, who goes in search of him after he went missing during his journey into the Himuro Mansion.
Description[]
It's been two weeks since Mafuyu's disappearance. Worried, Miku decides to go find her brother. As she enters the Himuro Mansion, she wanders off into the Rope Hallway and finds her mother's camera Mafuyu had brought along, laying in front of the big mirror. She then has a vision of her brother running away from a ghost. Immediately after this, Miku spots the same ghost right behind her in the mirror, as soon as she turns around however, it is gone.
Entering the Fireplace Room, Miku finds all doors locked, stopping her progression. On her way back to the Rope Hallway she encounters a girl in a white kimono who approaches her. The girl gestures her to use the Camera on the folding screen right next to her, informing the player of it's secondary function for puzzles.
As Miku proceeds to the Library, she discovers a tape recorder hidden within a closet, but as she is reaches for it, a man grabs her arm, throwing Miku into a flashback of what has happened; He was running away from a ghost and tried to hide in the closet. It appears the same ghost she encountered in the Rope Hallway had been chasing the man, which forced him to hide in the closet. Unfortunately she finds him and, with nowhere to left to run, kills him.
After returning to the present Miku notices a sliding door opening behind her and she goes to investigate. Here she finds her first spirit orb and encounters the ghost of the man who died in the closet, Koji Ogata. Using the camera to defend herself, Miku exorcises and captures his spirit. In the same room, she finds a photograph of Koji and is shocked to see ghostly impressions of ropes wrapped around his wrists, ankles, and neck.
Miku also encounters and battles the ghost of a woman who also saw the girl in the white kimono and other supernatural phenomena around the mansion. This ghost alludes to a mirror that may be a key in undoing the curse, and after battling the ghost of Mr. Takamine, Miku finds a shard of the mirror inside the Narukami Shrine. After recovering the mirror fragment, Miku notices the ghost she saw in the Rope Hallway emerging from the mirror in the shrine. While promising that Miku would feel her pain, the ghost grabs her wrist, inflicting her deadly curse on Miku. Miku then reawakens in the Doll Room where she sees rope marks forming on her wrists.