In a town where the sun never rose, shrouded eternally in snow as if preserved in a white shroud, a small, humble cabin clung to the harsh side of a mountain—carved from wood and necessity.
A thin line of gray smoke curling from its chimney was the only sign that something still lived in that freezing silence.
Inside, Yuka stood quietly in the narrow kitchen, dressed in her winter school uniform, sleeves gently rolled up as she stirred a pot of soup over a coal stove.
The only sounds were the simmering broth, the wind brushing the walls, and the soft growl of fire.
She later sat before the flame, back against the wooden wall, cradling her bowl and eating slowly—deliberately—as if tasting something older than food itself.
On a tattered mattress in the corner, her father lay silently, staring at the ceiling with empty eyes.
She spoke without turning:
— "Are you hungry?"
He didn't answer, but his gaze said enough.
Yuka rose, poured another bowl without care, and set it down before him.
It was scorching hot, but he began eating right away.
After the first bite, he gasped in pain, his tongue burned.
— "I think it's too ho—"
he murmured.
She cut him off, walking to the corner and lifting a heavy iron axe onto her shoulder:
— "Don't leave the house. Don't open the door for any voice. Not even if you hear Mother calling."
He stared at her for a long moment but said nothing.
She grabbed her bag, opened the creaking wooden door, and stepped into the snow without a word.
She didn't look back.
She didn't even think of it.
On her way to school, as she pushed through snow that reached her knees, her foot suddenly slipped on an icy ledge.
She tumbled briefly, her white scarf tearing as she stopped at the base of a leafless tree.
Rising slowly, she caught her breath.
The forest that lay beside the mountain was drowned in thick silence…
But not for long.
Something was moving.
From between the trees emerged rabbits—dozens of them—pure white, with glowing red eyes like embers in the night.
They walked slowly at first, then picked up speed, as if they knew exactly where they were going.
And then she saw them—
No, him.
A human body sprawled in the snow, bloodied, entrails exposed.
His face was blurred, featureless, while the rabbits swarmed him, devouring his flesh with small but ravenous teeth.
They moved fast, unnaturally fast, blood spurting beneath them like a crimson fountain over the white.
Yuka froze—
then her eyes lit up with a sharp, cold clarity.
She didn't scream.
She didn't tremble.
Instead, she gripped her axe with steady hands and walked toward them.
With a single strike, she crushed one of their skulls.
Hot blood sprayed across the snow…
And then the slaughter began.
She struck them one after another, her axe cleaving through their soft fur like tearing silk—
but they didn't stop.
They multiplied.
They came from beneath the snow, from between the roots, from within the mist.
In a voice that was barely more than a whisper, yet cut through the air like steel, she muttered:
— "Filthy... scum."
She kept fighting.
Her arms trembled from exhaustion, her wounds bled, but she didn't stop.
And despite their numbers, not a single rabbit attacked her—
as if they knew her.
She no longer distinguished one rabbit from the next.
She simply struck, and struck, and struck—
without count, without hesitation, without mercy.
The axe rose and fell, shattering their tiny white bodies like hollow eggshells.
Each blow echoed strangely—
not just bones breaking, but spirits screaming... laughing.
The snow had turned sticky.
Red.
Warm.
Beneath her, their bodies piled like forgotten layers of history,
each one staring at her with eyes that never dimmed—
wet, burning, afraid… furious.
But she did not stop.
Every step she took dripped with death,
every movement trailed a long shadow of violence.
She wasn't just killing them—
she was purging them.
She whispered to herself:
"If I don't kill them…
they'll eat Father…
they'll eat Mother…
they'll eat me."
And this…
wasn't the first time.
She'd done it yesterday.
And the day before that.
And every morning, for years.
When her breath slowed, when the rabbits stopped coming,
and when the ground was blanketed in their corpses like a war zone—
Yuka looked up at the gray sky and smiled a barely visible smile.
Her massacre was complete.
Her sacred morning ritual was done.
She didn't wipe the blood from her cheeks.
She didn't clean the axe.
She simply slung her bag over her shoulder and walked toward school—
as if nothing had happened.
As if life still waited for her.
As if she were not death itself,
disguised as a girl.
The bell was ringing… but it sounded distant, as though it echoed from the bottom of a well.
Yuka entered through the school gate, her shoes leaving faint, bloody prints on the wet, icy ground.
Some blood from her morning battle still stained the edge of her skirt—
but no one noticed.
Or perhaps… they pretended not to.
In the third-year hallway, students were chatting, laughing, exchanging books, and chewing mint gum.
But when she appeared… the noise faded.
One girl whispered to her friend:
— "Look… she's here again…"
— "Didn't you hear? Shinji saw her near the mountain. She was carrying something… bleeding."
— "And doesn't someone say she talks to herself sometimes?… Or to the trees?"
Yuka passed through the murmurs without pausing.
Her gray eyes stared only ahead, as if she didn't hear them—
or perhaps… she heard them too well.
When she sat at her desk by the window, the seat beside her remained empty—
as it always was.
No one dared sit next to her.
The teacher entered. She greeted the class, then looked at Yuka for a long moment—
as if she had forgotten her name.
"Mizuno…" the teacher said,
"don't forget to take off your scarf in class."
Yuka didn't move.
She replied, her voice soft but cutting:
— "If I take it off… I'll freeze from the inside."
A few students laughed under their breath, but it was a nervous laughter—
the kind that pleases fear, not amusement.
At the end of the day, as Yuka left the school, she glanced back for a moment.
She saw the students' shadows in the windows… watching her.
As if they weren't sure—
If she was human like them—
or a nightmare dressed in a school uniform.
Yuka returned to the mountain.
The snow had thickened, and fog now descended from the sky like the breath of hidden spirits.
Her steps were steady, the axe still resting on her shoulder, drops of dried blood trailing from its edge.
But no one in those mountains would ever dare ask:
Whose blood?
Then suddenly—
she stopped.
She heard voices.
Humans.
Laughter. Scattered words. One of them said:
"Let's climb a bit higher. Maybe we'll reach the summit."
Yuka listened to the words drifting in the frozen air.
And in her mind, cold as the snow beneath her, she thought:
"They don't know…
this mountain doesn't welcome anyone.
No one climbs here except to die—
by the rabbits."
She continued upward, her steps slicing through the snow like a machine.
The air grew thinner, the sky heavier.
Until she reached her home.
Just a few meters from the door stretched a circular field of fine white salt, delicate yet unbroken—
surrounding the house like a sacred thread.
Yuka had drawn it herself—
every morning, every night.
"To keep the spirits out. To keep the rabbits away."
But this time…
something was wrong.
Her gray eyes lowered to the ground—
and there she saw it.
A spot, no larger than a handprint, where the salt had been disturbed—
partially covered by snow.
And at that gap.
stood the spirit of a black-haired girl.
Her body was hazy, shifting, smoke-like at the edges.
Her hair floated as though underwater.
Her mouth hung open in a way no human mouth should—
revealing an inner void, a bottomless abyss.
She had no pupils—
only hollow black holes in a pale, gray face.
She was trying to move forward… slowly, crawling across the snow.
One arm raised, then fell again.
Her empty gaze fixed on Yuka's house.
Yuka stood calmly before her, just beyond the salt circle,
watching without fear.
Then, without warning, she raised her leg—
and kicked the spirit hard.
The smoky body scattered for a moment…
but the spirit did not vanish.
It looked at her, lifted its hand slowly to return the blow—
but its fingers stopped at the edge of the salt.
They trembled there, as if pressing against an invisible glass barrier.
It pulled back, shook, then sat in the snow… and kept staring.
Yuka said quietly:
— "You no longer have the right to enter."
Then she turned her back, opened the wooden door, and went inside.
The spirit remained.
Staring.
Waiting.
Crying…
or perhaps laughing.
And when the door closed,
the scene faded—
as if it had never been.