Will someone explain the story?

[pyotr]

Alright, so after playing through chapter 1 of Higurashi, and it being my first VN and one of my favorite games now, I am a little confused on the story... Anyways...after playing through, I didn't realize until the very end that it was a hallucination(it was, wasn't it). So from my understanding, there is something in the town that causes severe paranoia, but I'm not positive. Then I started to wonder if it was the flu shot he got that started the paranoia, which is when the hallucinations started...anyways, I don't understand what the van almost hitting him was about and also the ending...with him running from the "possessed" villagers. Also of what happened with his suicide letter being censored mysteriously. It just left me puzzled and amazed at the end. I really am hoping that Keiichi wasn't insane and Rena and Mion weren't innocent, caused that is a ♥♥♥♥ed up and depressing thought that they were just trying to have fun...anyways all I know is from chapter one of the VN(haven't watched the anime, read the manga, or seen any of the live action movies) so try not to spoil anything that isn't explained in the first chapter. [spoiler/end]

[Alice]

Most of this stuff gets explained in later arcs, but for this one Rena and Mion were innocent.

[Ohagi-Chan]

BTW, the end tag for a spoiler is [ /spoiler ] (minus the spaces).
Also BTW, spoiler tags don't work in thread descriptions. The only cure is to stick your description into an early comment.

To be honest, I didn't understand the deal with the possessed villagers chasing Keiichi myself, until I watched one of the anime exclusive arcs, though the clues were there all along. It should be apparent if you aren't as dense as me, in just a few more chapters.

With the suicide letter, there are two possible parties that would benefit from censoring Keiichi's rambling garbage and syringes; one of which has already been introduced as a very important character in this arc. It never becomes apparent who exactly did the censoring in this chapter, but my suspicions are that it is the entity that you already have knowledge of. Think to yourself, who benefits from a police report have more lucidity, so that it is treated as evidence for a crime, rather than paranoid nonsense that may be closer to the truth? The murderer themself? Or the detective?

If you are thinking about the story this hard, then maybe you are almost within reach of understanding why Higurashi is a "game", rather than just a novel.

EDIT: Sweet! I didn't now if a double spoiler would actually work, But it DOES!