Chapter 3--- The changes
As days went by.
Something shifted. Ryuchi's smile grew hollow. His calm mask buzzed with frantic energy. His eyes looked haunted—like something inside him was gnawing away. And then, one day, I found a note inside my diary.
"You are being used. You will be killed." I laughed it off. Ignored it. But I shouldn't have.
Part 1 ----- The Discovery
One night, dread and curiosity dragged me to Ryuchi's house. He let me in, annoyed but polite.
"I'll be right back," he said, heading to the bathroom.
That's when my hands betrayed me. I opened his cabinet. Inside: a stack of photos. A little girl—maybe six years old. And Shuko. Pinned on the wall was Shuko's smiling face, with a circle of dried stains beneath it. Blood. In the shape of a star. And scrawled underneath: "Sacrifice. Age 41." I slammed the cabinet shut just as
Ryuchi returned. He didn't notice. But the image of that blood star burned into my mind.
Part 2
The next night, I returned. Mask on. Heart hammering. At 3 a.m.,
I slipped through his window. The air smelled of ozone and iron. And there he was. Ryuchi knelt inside a star drawn in fresh blood, symbols curling around him like veins. His eyes were wide, unfocused. His lips whispered prayers.
"To my sister, Anna… I offer this sacrifice. Someone aged forty-one." The same words I had seen written in his cabinet. A crash in another room. A cat.
His head snapped up, eyes sharp, scanning the shadows. I barely escaped alive.
The 1st Sacrifice
The next day, a teacher pulled me aside. "Itsuki… your mother is in the hospital."
I ran. My lungs burned. My heart screamed. The doctor's words cut me open:
"Kidney failure. Surgery is needed. Two hundred thousand yen."
We had one hundred and twenty thousand. I needed eighty thousand more.
I begged. I called every relative. Every friend. Even Ryuchi. No one answered. By nightfall… my mother was gone.
Age 41 . My world shattered.