"Here you go, sir—one of the best rice cakes we have. I'm sure your son will like it," said sixteen-year-old Sora Shimizu, her voice tight with politeness, a forced smile tugging at her lips as she handed over the last tray of rice cakes she had so carefully baked.
The man, Yuto Susuki, didn't even glance at her for a second. With a grunt, he snatched the sweets from her little hands, the force shaking her up a bit.
"I do not have a son. Get it right, miss," he snapped, slamming the coins onto the counter with a sharp clatter before storming out of the store.
Sora's head sank instantly, her shoulders shrinking under the weight of his presence. Only when his footsteps had died down was she free to let out a breath of relief.
She always hated that man, his bloated figure, the sour look on his face and above all, the reek of old candy and alcohol that lingered whenever he opened his mouth.
Grimacing, she quickly reached for the lavender spray and filled the air with its calming and sweet scent, desperate to erase the disgusting stench that caused her to retch. Only then did she turn back to the counter and gather the money he had dropped.
But her fingers froze as she did. The payment wasn't right.
She counted again—slowly, carefully. Only two dollars for ten rice cakes.
Her lips curved into a bitter, defeated smile.
"Oh well… how unfortunate," she murmured, using the words of her mother when things had gone south, trying not to tear up from the hardship and disrespect.
Sora sighed heavily at this scam, staring at the pitiful coins in her palm. Another scam. Another loss. Yet, with shaky hands, she forced herself to thank the gods for it, for at least she still had something to go by with, something many struggling families could earn tenfold.
Outside, the night had already taken full course, draping over the quiet village of Tatsuhama, where she resided, its street sinking into shadows, alleyways and shortcuts, clouded with shadows and fogs. Her shift was over. With slow, deliberate motions, she united her apron and peeled off the thin gloves that shielded her delicate hands—hands too soft for the world she lived in—from both the sticky touch of sugar and the clammy grip of unwanted strangers.
Another day survived. Another day not butchered, not beaten, not dragged into some filthy alley by some of the criminals who stalked the village's growing darkness. That alone was worth a breath of relief.
Still, Sora knew what awaited her tomorrow: hardships stacked higher than the sweets she sold, and the endless chorus of men and women praising her beauty. Compliments that only exhausted her, because she never believed she was someone worth desiring, much less drooling over.
She wanted to be simple, wanted to be told that she was doing a good job, or to be assured that everything would be alright.
But that wasn't the case.
Though she couldn't stop. Not if she wanted to live. Not that she wanted to pay for her schooling. So she had to work tirelessly in her mother's store, determined to make it the best candy shop in all of Tatsuhama—a town so small its faces were few, yet its tragedies many.
Here, rape and murder stalked the alleys like feral dogs, and someone like her—a girl alone, young and vulnerable—was always a target.
She hadn't always lived this way. Born into a proud family of bakers, she once knew warmth and abundance. Her father had owned one of the finest bakeries in the district, and her mother had built the candy store with her own gifted hands. Sora had lived well, happily even… until the day she turned fourteen.
Now, all that remained of that life was her mother's talent—a fragile inheritance she clung to with every ounce of her being.
But this talent of hers couldn't shield her from the sceptics and the mockeries that were thrown towards her like projectiles.
Once the shelves were scrubbed clean and the shop doors locked tight, Sora finally stepped out into the night. The silence that met her was thick, unnatural—Tatsuhama was never this quiet.
"I wonder where everybody went," she whispered to herself, clutching the silver locket her mother had given her. The cool metal pressed against her palm, grounding her as her eyes fixed on the fog-drenched road stretching ahead.
She moved forward, one step, then another, her school uniform still on her, its navy fabric stirring in the night breeze. The wind slid past her body like a ghost, brushing her cheek and her partially exposed thighs, its voice a hollow whisper too real to ignore.
Her heartbeat quickened. Pressure weighed on her chest and shoulders, that prickling certainty that unseen eyes were following, tracking, calculating her every move.
And what was worse was how she felt something clinging to her back, holding her down and watching.
Then she heard it.
Wet footsteps, the kind that should only come from something bare and soaked, dragging itself across the road.
Like a naked human being.
The girl quickly glanced behind her, gasping heavily, "I-is anybody there?" she muttered, her voice echoing as she gazed at the rising fog behind her.
Her heart pounded heavily in her chest, each beat loud enough to drown her sense of reasoning. Memories of her father and mother's nightly prayers flickered in her mind, every thought now filled with their whispers. With trembling hands, she pressed her palms together, eyes shut tight, whispering into the suffocating silence, desperate for the gods to hear her.
The stillness pressed against her ears, heavy and merciless. Worse still was the memory of those footsteps—the wet, dragging steps that had stalked her moments before.
Once, she had dreamed of wearing a white coat, of becoming a doctor, of saving lives. But what chance did she have now? In Tatsuhama, girls disappeared before getting the chance to achieve their dreams.
She could so easily be next, her name on the top thirty-five, in the list of the missing who were probably dead.
Minutes bled away like seconds, time warping and breaking apart as though the world itself was no longer obeying its own rules. The wind shifted, chilling her one moment, then—unnaturally—growing warmer, brushing across her skin in waves that didn't belong to the night.
Her lashes fluttered open.
And what she saw ripped the air from her lungs.
The world before her was wrong. So wrong she staggered back and collapsed onto the ground, landing hard on her bottom.
"Wh–where am I?" she stammered, her voice brittle with panic.
Her breath tore from her throat in ragged gasps, eyes darting wildly across the unfamiliar sight. She was certain—certain—that only moments ago she had been walking along the cold, familiar streets of Tatsuhama.
So how… how had she ended up here?
This new world stretched wide before her, the sky a deep red and the wind hot like the gaze of Tatsuhama sun; the grasses were a blood-red, like it rained corpses. The breeze lashed against her face, the force causing her to squint.
Off in the distance, where a pale moon sat, was a city, much different from her village, with tall buildings and hard roads reduced to ruins.
Trying to make sense of her surroundings, her gaze landed on a figure standing not too far away. It looked skinny, standing in a distorted manner, fingers, legs and torso bent in unnatural ways.
Who could that.. be? She muttered in her thoughts.
Hesitant but curious, she rose to her feet, walking up to this person. Even if she didn't trust this person, she needed to know where she was.
"Hey, ma'am. Do you... Know where we are?" she asked, but this individual did not answer, quiet but moving, fingers twitching.
Sora didn't know what feeling this was, but it looked like there was a need to approach this person. Stretching her hand forward, she asked again, "Umm.. ma'am"
As her palm made contact with the shoulder of this person, she could feel a strange hardness as if she was touching a wooden and metallic surface.
This sudden gesture was a mistake, a horrible pain spreading through her arm as it was ripped away by a strong force, the feeling of something sharp, cold and metallic going through her elbow.
Sora's eyes widened, the shock lingering for seconds before the pain. The young schoolgirl could see her arm drop down to the ground, blood spewing on the dirt.
Pain spiked through her nerves as the poor girl dropped to her knees, screaming out loud, her eyes widened.
Sora fell on her bottom, crawling back and trying to get away from this figure, seeing that it was the cause of her losing this limb.
This thing turned, facing the girl as its form was revealed, skin made completely from wood and iron carvings; it possessed multiple arms, about six of them holding sharp knives on each, one stained with blood from the life-threatening injury it gave Sora.
The schoolgirl cried, tears rolling from her eyes, "Stay away from me," she demanded.
The face of this wooden creature was terrifying, with round eyes as black as the abyss, a slit mouth which it opened wide, screeching loudly as it revealed sharp rows of teeth and sticky saliva.
"No..." she muttered under her shaky breath.
As she was inches away from death, the memories of her family, the thought of happiness, and now she was close to death, ready to claim her place in the afterlife.
The monster drew nearer, raising one of its arms and ready to drive the blade into her skull. Sora shielded herself, thinking it would all be over for her in a second.
But nothing.
Sora slowly dropped her hands, looking up, her breath heavy as sweat trickled down from her hair, tears mixing.
The creature had stopped, like time had frozen, its body covered with red flowers which looked similar to the grasses.
"Huh?" Sora exclaimed.
Now the pain she felt in her arm had gone, like it never happened, and she could feel something writhing on the open wound. Raising it, she glanced at what was supposed to be an open wound.
What?
Now her arm was restoring, bones, nerves, flesh, skin and nails.
How was this possible? She wondered, utterly confused as she stood to her feet. But there was no time to dwell on her confusion, as the wooden figure began to move, its fingers twitching one more time, hands balled into a fist.
Sora panicked, the creature reaching for a fist attack, its movement quicker than her reaction.
In that instant, her vision went blank, her life flashing once more before her very eyes. But the figure stopped once more, the sound of flesh being torn following.
Sora opened her eyes as she watched the figure pause, its head sliding off from its neck alongside other body parts, limbs, torso and fingers.
As the figure dropped to the ground, a man, who had stood behind it, now stood before her, with a silver axe in his hand, clean of the blood, but Sora was sure that he was the cause of the wooden figure's demise.
The man was tall, his hair raven dark, eyes as cold as ice, as he gazed upon Sora with an icy look, covering every inch of his body was black, a black top and pants, with a trench coat and a pair of gloves which was smeared in blood.
Sora lifted her gaze to him, her eyes trembling with a storm of distress. In this place, if anyone else stumbled upon another human, even after being rescued, their first instinct would be suspicion, doubt clawing at the very edges of their sanity.
But the schoolgirl was different. Her lips quivered as though the weight of her own voice threatened to crush her, and in a broken, stuttering whisper, she breathed, "Are you… My saviour?"
The man stood quietly, saying not a single word. In that instant, the young girl began to feel a strange sensation in her head, her vision blurry. From the young man, she could see something cold and dangerous, like dark flames burning but not affecting him.
What am I seeing? With that, Sora dropped to the ground, her vision going blank as though blood was drained from her body.