I woke up to the smell of something burning.
Not the house. The house always smelled like decay and mildew and the ghost of my mother's perfume from four years ago. This was different—this was *food* burning, which implied someone was trying to cook, which implied I wasn't alone.
For a moment, still half-asleep, I thought my mother was downstairs making breakfast. That I was twelve again, that my father was still alive, that the cancer hadn't eaten through his lungs yet, that we were still a family.
Then I remembered.
My mother was dead. My father was dead. I had sold thirty years of my life last night—no, wait, that was wrong too. That was from something else, some book I'd read, some story that wasn't mine.
What actually happened last night was worse.
I sat up slowly, testing my body for damage. My neck hurt where the rope had been. My chest felt hollow, like someone had scooped out everything inside and replaced it with air. And my hands—
I looked at my hands.
They looked wrong.
Not dramatically wrong. Not like I'd aged ten years overnight or grown extra fingers or any of the horror-movie transformations you'd expect after making a deal with a monster.
Just… *older*. The veins were more prominent, blue-green threads just beneath the skin. The knuckles were slightly swollen. There was a thin white scar on my left palm that I didn't remember getting.
I flexed my fingers. They moved normally, but slower than they should have, with a faint stiffness that reminded me of watching my grandfather try to hold a teacup.
The smell of burning intensified. I stood—my knees clicked, which they'd never done before—and walked to my bedroom mirror.
The face that looked back at me was mine. Definitely mine. Same narrow eyes, same thin lips, same bone structure.
But there were differences. Small ones. The kind you'd only notice if you'd spent seventeen years looking at this face every morning.
The skin under my eyes was slightly darker, slightly more hollow. There were fine lines at the corners of my mouth that hadn't been there yesterday. And my hair—
I leaned closer to the mirror, pushing my hair back from my forehead.
There. At the temples. Just a few strands, maybe ten or fifteen on each side, growing in silver-grey instead of black.
I touched them. They felt the same as the rest of my hair. Same texture, same thickness. Just… wrong color.
*Each session drains years of his life*, I thought, remembering something I'd read once, or maybe something she'd told me last night that I hadn't fully processed.
Four minutes in her warmth in exchange for… what? Five years? Ten?
How many four-minute sessions until there was nothing left?
A sound from downstairs—a crash, followed by a string of muttered words I couldn't quite make out—reminded me that I wasn't alone.
Miyuki.
The thing wearing Miyuki's face.
The thing that had absorbed me into its body last night and made me feel safe for the first time in years.
I pulled on yesterday's school uniform—wrinkled, unwashed, smelling faintly of sweat and loneliness—and headed downstairs.
-----
The kitchen looked different in daylight.
When I'd come down here last night—no, that was this morning, wasn't it? Time was getting confused—the kitchen had been in its usual state of controlled decay. Dishes piled in the sink, trash overflowing, that pervasive smell of food gone bad.
Now it was… *cleaner*.
Not spotless. The stains on the linoleum were still there, the grease on the stovetop hadn't magically disappeared, the crack in the window above the sink still spiderwebbed across the glass.
But someone had washed the dishes. Someone had taken out the trash. Someone had wiped down the table and set it with two bowls, two sets of chopsticks, two cups.
*Two.*
Miyuki stood at the stove, her back to me, stirring something in a pot that was producing most of the burning smell. She was still wearing the school uniform she'd manifested in last night—white blouse, navy skirt, knee-high socks—but now there was an apron over it. My mother's apron, the one with faded blue flowers.
I hadn't seen that apron in four years.
"Good morning, Kaito," she said without turning around. Her voice was bright, cheerful, the voice of someone who'd never contemplated suicide, never sold their remaining time to a creature from beyond human understanding, never spent four minutes dissolved in warm darkness.
I didn't respond. Couldn't. The disconnect between what I was seeing and what I *knew* was too vast.
This wasn't Miyuki. Miyuki was dead. Miyuki had been dead for ten years, ever since that car accident, ever since I watched them lower her casket into the ground while my mother held me and my father stood with his hand heavy on my shoulder.
This was *it*. The entity. The thing. The parasite that fed on loneliness.
Wearing her face like a mask.
But God, what a perfect mask.
She turned, and when she smiled at me, I saw the same smile I'd seen a thousand times when we were children. The same slight gap between her front teeth. The same way her eyes crinkled at the corners.
"I made breakfast," she said, gesturing to the pot. "Well, I *tried* to make breakfast. I'm not sure if it's any good. I had to… guess. Based on your memories of how your mother used to make it."
She ladled something into the two bowls—miso soup, or what was supposed to be miso soup. It came out dark and lumpy, with chunks of paste floating on the surface like islands.
"Sit," she said, pulling out a chair for me. "You need to eat. You're too thin."
I sat. Not because I wanted to obey, but because standing suddenly felt like more effort than I was willing to invest. My legs were trembling slightly. When had that started?
Miyuki sat across from me, folding her hands in her lap in a gesture that was so perfectly, *painfully* her that my chest hurt.
"I know it's not good," she said quietly, looking down at the table. "I don't actually know how to cook. I don't have… those kinds of memories. I only have yours, and you never paid attention when your mother was in the kitchen."
That was true. I'd always been reading, or watching TV, or existing in my own private world while my mother moved around the kitchen like a ghost I'd learned to ignore.
"It's fine," I said. My voice came out hoarse, rough, like I'd been screaming. Maybe I had been. "Thank you."
Her face lit up. "Really? You mean it?"
I picked up the chopsticks—they were clean, actually clean, scrubbed until they were almost white—and took a sip of the soup.
It was terrible.
Too salty. Bitter. The tofu was rubbery, the seaweed was slimy, and there was something else in there that didn't belong, some ingredient she'd added that turned the whole thing into a salt-bitter-rotten mess.
But I swallowed it anyway.
Because she was watching me with those wide, hopeful eyes, waiting for approval, for validation, for some sign that she'd done something right.
"It's… fine," I said again.
She clapped her hands together—a gesture so childlike it made my stomach twist—and beamed. "I'm so glad! I'll practice. I'll get better at this. At being… normal. For you."
*Normal.*
I almost laughed. There was nothing normal about any of this. Nothing normal about a dead girl cooking breakfast. Nothing normal about aging ten years overnight. Nothing normal about the fact that part of me—a sick, twisted, desperate part—was *grateful* for her presence.
"Where's my grandfather?" I asked, changing the subject before she could see the expression on my face.
Her smile dimmed slightly. "Upstairs. Still sleeping, I think. Or… resting. I heard him coughing earlier, but he hasn't come down yet."
"He never does," I said flatly. "Not until afternoon. If at all."
"Should I bring him something? Food? Water?"
"He won't eat it."
"That's sad."
"That's reality."
She was quiet for a moment, studying me with those dark eyes. Then: "You're angry."
"I'm not—"
"Not at me. At him. At the situation. At everything." She leaned forward slightly. "That's okay. You're allowed to be angry. You're allowed to feel things, Kaito. I won't judge you."
I set down my chopsticks with more force than I intended. "What do you know about what I'm allowed to feel?"
She didn't flinch. Didn't retreat. Instead, she reached across the table and placed her hand over mine.
Her skin was warm. Too warm, like she was running a fever, or like she was made of something that generated heat independent of blood and circulation.
"I know everything you feel," she said softly. "I'm inside you now. In your chest. Where your heart is. I can feel every beat, every skip, every time it clenches with pain or fear or anger. I know you better than anyone ever has. Better than your parents did. Better than *she* did."
I pulled my hand away. "Don't. Don't talk about her like that."
"Like what?"
"Like you're not using her. Like you're not wearing her face to manipulate me into—"
"Into what?" Her voice was still gentle, but there was an edge now. "Into letting me feed? You already agreed to that. Into caring about you? Too late—I already do. Into making you breakfast and cleaning your house and trying to give you some semblance of the life you should have had? Guilty as charged."
She stood, started clearing the bowls even though I'd barely touched mine.
"You think I'm manipulating you," she continued, her back to me as she ran water in the sink. "You think I'm some predator playing with its food. And maybe you're right. Maybe that's exactly what I am. But at least you're not alone anymore. At least someone is here, in this dying house, trying to take care of you."
The water kept running. Steam rose from the sink, fogging the cracked window.
"At least someone thinks you're worth saving," she finished quietly.
The words hit harder than they should have. Because they were true. Because in seventeen years of existence, no one—not my classmates, not my teachers, not even my own parents—had ever made me feel like I was worth the effort of salvation.
Only her.
Only this impossible thing wearing a dead girl's face.
"You should get ready for school," she said, turning off the water and drying her hands on the apron. "You haven't been in almost a week. People will start asking questions."
I blinked. "School?"
"The government announced it this morning. On the radio." She nodded toward the old transistor radio on the counter—my grandfather's, covered in dust, something I hadn't turned on in months. "Martial law. Everyone has to return to their normal routines. Work. School. Everything. They're calling it a 'Human Census.' Making sure everyone is still… human."
The way she said the word *human* made my skin prickle.
"I don't want to go," I said.
"I know." She walked toward me, stopping just close enough that I could smell that alien-rain scent again. "But if you don't, if teachers start calling, if social services gets involved… they'll take you away from here. They'll put you somewhere I can't reach you. And then…"
She didn't finish the sentence. She didn't need to.
"Fine," I said, standing. My knees protested, clicking like an old man's. "I'll go."
Her smile returned, bright and warm and completely unconvincing. "Thank you, Kaito. I promise, it won't be so bad. I'll be with you. Every step of the way."
"What does that mean?"
"It means I'll always be close." She touched my cheek with fingers that were too warm, too soft. "You won't see me—no one else will—but I'll be there. Watching. Protecting. Making sure no one hurts you."
The threat was implicit. The promise of violence wrapped in concern.
I wanted to push her away. I wanted to run.
But I didn't.
Because a sick, twisted part of me *wanted* what she was offering. Wanted someone to care whether I lived or died. Wanted someone to threaten violence on my behalf.
Even if that someone was a monster.
-----
Getting ready took longer than it should have.
My body felt wrong in ways I couldn't quite articulate. Nothing hurt, exactly, but everything felt… *heavier*. Like I was moving through water, or like gravity had increased by ten percent when I wasn't looking.
I pulled on my uniform—the same wrinkled shirt, the same stained pants—and caught my reflection in the bathroom mirror.
The grey hairs were more visible now. In the harsh fluorescent light, they stood out like silver threads woven through black fabric. I tried to smooth them down, to hide them, but there were too many.
I found an old baseball cap in my closet—black, worn, something I hadn't touched in years—and pulled it low over my forehead.
There. Better. Hidden.
When I came back downstairs, Miyuki was waiting by the door with a wrapped bento box and a thermos.
"Lunch," she said, pressing them into my hands. "The rice is probably overcooked, and I'm not sure about the vegetables, but it's better than whatever the school cafeteria is serving."
I took them. The bento box was warm, heat radiating through the cloth wrapping.
"Thank you," I said.
She beamed. "That's what girlfriends do, right? Take care of their boyfriends?"
The word *girlfriend* sat wrong in my mouth. I didn't correct her.
"I should go," I said. "I'm already late."
"Wait." She grabbed my hand before I could leave, her grip firm enough to leave marks. "Be careful. Don't talk to anyone you don't have to. Don't let anyone get too close. And if anyone asks where you've been, just say you were sick."
"Okay."
"And Kaito?" Her fingers tightened. "Come home right after school. Don't go anywhere else. Don't let anyone convince you to stay out. Just come home. To me."
It wasn't a request.
"I will," I said.
She released my hand, stood on her toes, and kissed my forehead—the same spot she'd kissed last night.
It burned. Not painfully, but enough to make me flinch.
"Have a good day," she whispered against my skin. "I'll be counting the seconds until you're back."
-----
The walk to school took twenty minutes.
I used to take the bus—back when I had money, back when I could justify spending 300 yen on transportation—but today I walked. I needed the air. I needed the movement. I needed to be away from that house and away from *her*, even if only temporarily.
The neighborhood was quieter than usual. Most of the houses on this street were empty anyway—foreclosed, abandoned, left to rot while their owners fled to better prospects elsewhere. The ones that were still occupied were filled with people like my grandfather: too old, too sick, or too poor to leave.
But today, even the occupied houses felt wrong. Curtains drawn. Doors locked. No one sitting on porches, no one tending gardens, no one existing in the public spaces between private lives.
It was like everyone had decided, simultaneously, to become invisible.
I passed the house where the old woman usually sat smoking on her porch. Empty. The cigarette butts were still there, scattered across the concrete, but she was gone.
I passed the house where the unemployed man usually screamed at nothing. Silent. The windows were dark, and there was a smell coming from inside that made me hold my breath.
I passed the house where—
I stopped.
There was something on the door. A symbol, spray-painted in red. Not graffiti, exactly. Too deliberate for that. It looked like a circle with a line through it, or maybe a target, or maybe something else entirely.
And below it, in smaller letters: **VERIFIED: CLEAR**
I didn't know what it meant. Didn't want to know.
I kept walking.
The school appeared at the end of the street—the same concrete monolith it had always been, surrounded by chain-link fence, institutional and cold.
But there were differences today.
The front gates, usually propped open, were closed and guarded by two men in uniform. Not teachers. Not school security. Military, maybe, or police. They wore dark blue fatigues and carried what looked like rifles, though I couldn't tell from this distance.
A line had formed at the gates. Students waiting to be let in one at a time, passing through some kind of checkpoint.
I joined the line, keeping my head down, the bento box tucked under my arm.
The line moved slowly. Every few seconds, one of the guards would wave a student forward, check something—their ID? their face? something else?—and either let them through or pull them aside to a cordoned-off area where more guards waited.
I watched a boy get pulled aside. He looked confused, scared, kept insisting he didn't understand what was happening. The guards didn't respond, just took his arms and led him away.
He didn't scream. That was the worst part. He just… went. Like he'd already given up.
"Next," one of the guards called, and suddenly I was at the front of the line.
I approached. The guard—a man in his thirties with tired eyes and three days' stubble—looked me up and down.
"Name," he said.
"Yamada Kaito."
He checked a clipboard, running his finger down a list of names. Found mine. Made a mark.
"Where have you been for the past six days?"
"Sick."
"Doctor's note?"
"I didn't go to a doctor. Just stayed home."
He studied my face for a long moment. I felt Miyuki's presence then—invisible, intangible, but *there*, standing just behind me, watching through my eyes.
*Don't let them touch you*, her voice whispered in my head. *If they try, I'll—*
"You look older than your file photo," the guard said. "When was this taken?"
"Two years ago. For the school ID."
"Mm." He pulled out a small device—something electronic, with a screen and buttons—and aimed it at my face. A light flashed. The device beeped.
"Core temperature: normal. Thermal signature: human standard. Pupil dilation: responsive." He lowered the device. "You're clear. Go ahead."
I started to move past him, but he caught my arm.
"Hey."
I froze. Behind me, invisible to everyone but me, Miyuki materialized. Not fully—just enough that I could see her hand reaching toward the guard's throat, fingers elongating into something sharp.
*No*, I thought at her. *Don't.*
"Yeah?" I said to the guard, trying to keep my voice steady.
"Take care of yourself," he said. "You really don't look good. Maybe actually see a doctor this time."
He released my arm. Miyuki's hand retreated.
"I will," I lied, and walked through the gates.
-----
The school was different inside too.
The hallways, usually filled with the chaos of students between classes, were eerily quiet. Everyone walked in single file, keeping distance from each other, avoiding physical contact. No one was talking. No one was laughing.
Everyone looked scared.
I made my way to my classroom—third floor, east wing, room 3-C—and slid open the door.
Thirty faces turned toward me. Some I recognized vaguely. Most I didn't. They'd all existed on the periphery of my awareness for the past two years, background characters in the story of my slow decay.
Our homeroom teacher—Tanaka-sensei, a man in his forties with thinning hair and perpetual exhaustion—stopped mid-sentence.
"Yamada," he said. Not a greeting. Just an acknowledgment. "You're back."
"Yes."
"Six days absent. No call. No explanation."
"I was sick."
He studied me for a long moment, and I could see the calculation happening behind his eyes. *Is this worth the paperwork? Is this worth the effort? Do I care enough about this student to pursue this?*
Apparently not.
"Take your seat," he said finally, turning back to the blackboard. "We're reviewing for next week's exam. Try to catch up."
I walked to my desk—back row, corner, as far from everyone else as possible—and sat.
The lesson continued around me. Something about history. Or literature. I wasn't paying attention.
Because I could feel her.
Miyuki.
She wasn't visible. Not to me, not to anyone else.
But she was *here*.
I could feel her presence like a weight on my shoulders, like invisible hands resting on the back of my neck, like breath against my ear.
*I'm watching*, she whispered. *I'm always watching.*
Every few seconds, I felt her touch—a brush against my hand, a tug on my sleeve, a caress along my spine.
Marking me. Claiming me.
Making sure I knew that even here, even surrounded by other people, I was still *hers*.
The morning dragged on. One class bled into another. Teachers talked, students took notes, the machinery of education ground forward with its usual mechanical precision.
Through it all, Miyuki was there.
Not interfering. Not obviously.
Just… *present*.
-----
Lunch arrived eventually.
The bell rang, and students shuffled out of their seats, forming groups, pulling out bento boxes, heading to the cafeteria.
I stayed at my desk. I always stayed at my desk.
Today, though, someone approached.
A girl. I recognized her vaguely—same class, different social orbit. She existed somewhere in the middle of the classroom hierarchy, neither popular nor invisible. Just… average.
"Yamada-kun," she said, her voice bright, friendly, aggressively cheerful. "You were absent for a while. Are you feeling better?"
I didn't look up from the desk. "I'm fine."
"That's good!" She didn't leave. Hovered near my desk instead, shifting her weight from foot to foot. "Um, so… the notes from last week's history lecture. I missed them because I was at a club meeting, and I was hoping maybe I could borrow yours? If you have them?"
I didn't have them. I wasn't here. But I didn't say that.
Before I could respond, I felt it.
A cold spot in the air. A presence behind the girl.
Miyuki.
She was materializing. Not fully—not enough that anyone else could see—but enough that *I* could.
She stood directly behind the girl, her face inches from the back of the girl's head, and her expression was…
*Wrong*.
The smile was too wide. The eyes too bright. There was something predatory in the way she was looking at this girl, something that made every survival instinct I had scream warnings.
"Kaito," Miyuki said, her voice sweet, poisonous. "Who is this?"
The girl couldn't hear her. Had no idea she was there.
But I did.
"I don't have the notes," I said quickly, my voice sharper than I intended. "Sorry. Ask someone else."
The girl blinked, taken aback. "Oh. Okay. I just thought—"
"I said ask someone else."
Behind her, Miyuki's smile widened. Her hands—slender, delicate—hovered near the girl's throat, fingers curling into claws.
"Right," the girl said, backing away. "Sorry to bother you."
She retreated quickly, confused and hurt, but alive.
As soon as she was gone, Miyuki solidified fully—still invisible to everyone else, but perfectly clear to me.
She sat on the edge of my desk, swinging her legs like a child.
"Who was that?" she asked again.
"No one. Just a classmate."
"She was very interested in you."
"She wanted notes. That's all."
"Mm." Miyuki tilted her head, studying me. "You were very quick to send her away. Why?"
"Because you were about to hurt her."
"Hurt her?" She laughed—a light, tinkling sound that didn't match the darkness in her eyes. "I wasn't going to hurt her. I was just… observing. Making sure she didn't have any bad intentions."
"Asking for notes isn't a bad intention."
"Maybe not." She leaned closer, her lips near my ear. "But I don't like the way she looked at you. Like you were someone she could use. Someone she could extract value from and discard when you were no longer useful."
"That's literally what asking for notes is."
"Exactly." Her breath was cold against my skin. "So I protected you from being used. That's my job, isn't it? To make sure no one takes advantage of you?"
"By threatening to kill her?"
"I would never kill someone who doesn't deserve it," she said innocently. "But if someone tries to hurt you, if someone tries to take you away from me… then yes. I might have to intervene."
The threat hung in the air, implicit and undeniable.
"Eat your lunch," she said, her tone shifting back to cheerful. "I worked hard on it. Don't let it go to waste."
I unwrapped the bento box.
The rice was overcooked, clumped together in sticky masses. The vegetables were under-seasoned and slightly brown at the edges. The whole thing looked unappetizing and tasted worse.
But I ate it anyway.
Because she was watching.
Because she was *always* watching.
And because somewhere deep down, in a place I didn't want to acknowledge, I was grateful.
Grateful that someone cared enough to make me lunch.
Grateful that someone thought I was worth protecting.
Even if that someone was a monster.
Even if that protection was slowly killing me.
-----
The afternoon passed in a blur.
More classes. More notes I didn't take. More students who didn't notice I existed.
And through it all, Miyuki stayed close.
By the time the final bell rang, I was exhausted. Not from the day itself—I'd barely paid attention to any of it—but from the constant awareness of her presence, the weight of being watched every second.
I packed my bag and headed for the door.
But someone blocked my path.
A boy. Taller than me, broader, with the kind of easy confidence that came from never having been truly desperate. He wore his uniform like armor, tie loose, sleeves rolled up.
"Yamada," he said, crossing his arms. "You're the guy who's been gone for a week, right?"
I didn't answer.
"My girlfriend said you were rude to her at lunch. Said you basically told her to fuck off when she tried to be nice."
Ah. So that's who the girl was.
"I didn't tell her to fuck off," I said flatly. "I just said I didn't have the notes she wanted."
"Yeah, but the *way* you said it." He stepped closer, and I could smell cheap cologne and teenage aggression. "You think you're better than everyone, don't you? Walking around like you're some tragic hero. News flash: nobody cares about your problems."
I should walk away. Should just push past him and leave.
But I didn't.
Because Miyuki was behind him now, fully materialized, her expression dark and hungry.
"Kaito," she whispered. "Do you want me to—"
"No," I said quickly.
The boy blinked. "No what?"
"Nothing. I wasn't talking to you."
"The fuck?" He grabbed my shoulder, his grip tight enough to hurt. "Are you mental? Who are you talking to?"
Miyuki's hand—slender, delicate, tipped with nails that were suddenly too long, too sharp—rested on the boy's shoulder.
He couldn't see it. Couldn't feel it.
But I could.
"Let me go," I said quietly.
"Or what?"
"Or you'll regret it."
He laughed. "You're fucking insane."
Miyuki's nails dug in. Still invisible to him, still intangible.
But I watched as his face paled. As his eyes widened. As something like recognition crossed his features—not of *her*, but of the sensation of wrongness, of being touched by something that shouldn't exist.
"What the—" He released me, stumbling back, clutching his shoulder. "What the fuck was that?"
"Nothing," I said. "You should go."
He stared at me, at his hand, at the spot where Miyuki's nails had pierced his shirt but left no visible mark.
"Freak," he muttered, backing away. "Stay the fuck away from me. Stay away from everyone."
He turned and practically ran down the hallway.
Miyuki watched him go, then turned to me, her expression serene.
"See?" she said softly. "I told you I'd protect you. No one gets to touch you like that. No one gets to hurt you."
"You didn't have to do that."
"Yes, I did." She reached out, touched my face with fingers that were too warm. "You're mine, Kaito. And I take care of what's mine."
-----
The walk home was quiet.
Miyuki walked beside me, visible now, her hand in mine.
To anyone else, we would have looked like a couple. Two high school students, hand in hand, heading home together.
But there was no one else around to see. Just empty streets and dying houses and the weight of her fingers laced through mine.
When we reached my house, she paused at the door.
"Your grandfather," she said quietly. "He's been coughing all day. I could hear it from outside."
"He always coughs."
"This is different." She looked up at the second-floor window. "Worse."
I followed her gaze. The curtain in his room was moving slightly, disturbed by breath or wind or something else.
"Should I check on him?" I asked.
"Do you want to?"
Honestly? No.
I didn't want to see him. Didn't want to hear the wet rattle of his lungs, the confusion in his eyes when he asked me why I looked so much like my dead father.
But I should.
"Later," I said, pushing open the door. "I'll check later."
She followed me inside, and the house seemed to welcome her. The walls didn't creak in warning. The shadows didn't recoil.
It was as if she belonged here, as if this place recognized what she was: another dying thing feeding on decay.
"I'll make dinner," she said, heading toward the kitchen. "Something simple. You need to keep your strength up."
I watched her go, this impossible creature pretending to be domestic, pretending to be human, pretending to love me.
And I thought: *This is my life now.*
Four minutes of peace every night in exchange for years of my life.
And the rest of the time? Spent with a monster who thought she was saving me.
Or maybe she was.
Maybe this—this slow consumption, this gentle murder—was the kindest thing anyone had ever done for me.
I headed upstairs to change, passing my grandfather's room.
The door was closed, but I could hear him inside. Not coughing anymore. Just breathing. Slow. Labored. The sound of a body giving up one cell at a time.
I didn't knock.
I didn't check on him.
I just kept walking.
Because in this house, we were all dying at our own pace, and I was no longer in a position to judge whose death would come first.
-----
Night fell.
I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, counting the minutes until she would come.
At midnight exactly, I heard her footsteps on the stairs.
She didn't knock. Just opened the door and stepped inside, closing it softly behind her.
"It's time," she said.
I nodded. Stood. Watched as she began to change.
The transformation was faster tonight. One moment she was a girl, the next she was dissolving, her form breaking apart into writhing segments, expanding, growing, filling the room with that same glistening black mass.
The tentacles spread across every surface—floor, walls, ceiling—creating a cocoon of living darkness.
And in the center, an opening. Waiting for me.
I walked forward without hesitation this time. Stepped into the warmth. Let the darkness close around me.
Four minutes.
Four minutes of silence and warmth and the sensation of being held.
Four minutes of forgetting everything that hurt.
When I emerged—gasping, trembling, tears streaming down my face—I looked at my hands.
More wrinkles. Deeper this time. The veins more prominent.
And when I touched my face, I felt new lines around my eyes, around my mouth.
How old was I now? Twenty-five? Thirty?
How many more nights until there was nothing left?
Miyuki, back in human form, wiped the tears from my cheeks.
"Don't cry," she whispered. "This is love. This is what it feels like to be loved."
And maybe she was right.
Maybe this slow death, this gentle consumption, this four-minute escape every night—maybe this was the only kind of love someone like me deserved.
Maybe this was the only kind of love that existed in a world this cold.
I let her hold me as I drifted off to sleep, her warmth seeping into my bones, her whispered promises echoing in my ears.
*I'll never leave you. I'll never hurt you. I'll love you until there's nothing left.*
And somewhere in the back of my mind, a small voice whispered:
*That's exactly what I'm afraid of.*