The road to school felt longer that day… longer than usual.
Yuka walked in silence, her bag slung over her back, and the axe wrapped in cloth like a heavy musical instrument. Her pale eyes stared blankly ahead. She wasn't walking so much as bleeding her steps toward school.
At the school gate, her eyes met those of the guard.
He quickly looked away—
as if afraid to see her for what she truly was.
---
Inside the classroom, everything was the same...
but not as it should be.
The desks, the boards, the air —
all holding a kind of silent tension,
as if the earth itself was waiting for an explosion it couldn't yet predict.
The whispers began early:
— "Someone saw her dragging something heavy in the woods…"
— "My sister says her dad's been dead for years, but she still takes care of the body…"
— "Why doesn't she ever walk with anyone? Does she even know how to smile?"
Yuka didn't respond.
She didn't glance.
She didn't speed up or slow down.
She sat in her usual seat by the window, and opened a notebook —
its pages blank,
except for a spiral.
Widening.
Widening.
Widening…
---
By the end of the day, when the sun had sunk behind the mist and the school emptied out, Yuka remained behind.
---
She walked toward the back building.
The old library.
A place no one entered —
unless they were running
from something.
She pushed the faded wooden door and stepped inside.
Rows of silent shelves.
Books that slept like those buried in cemeteries.
The scent of old paper mixed with metal and dust.
In the far corner…
a student sat in a slanted wooden chair.
His head tilted back,
a book spread open across his face,
blocking the dying light from the window.
He wore an old pair of blue headphones.
He looked deeply asleep—
as if he were drifting in a bottomless sea.
Yuka paused.
She looked at him.
Then kept walking between the shelves.
She didn't care.
Didn't ask.
Didn't approach.
She moved silently, pulling out books only to return them without opening them.
Her ash-gray eyes scanned for something beyond the written world.
And then—
she stopped.
Something had moved behind her.
She turned slowly,
looked toward the corner where she'd left the sleeping student —
Ren Shindo.
His head still hung back.
But—
Something was above him.
Shadows.
Small, black, slender as fingers, floating without sound.
They hovered above him, one by one descending—
to his chest,
his neck,
his eyes.
They layered, gathered, thickened—
until they formed a spreading, living darkness upon his sleeping body.
---
Then he gasped.
Once.
Twice.
Then began to choke.
His limbs flailed.
He struck at the air as if he were drowning.
Suddenly, he bolted upright:
— "Aaah— Sorry! Sorry, Grandma! I broke the plate! It wasn't the cat!"
Breathing heavily, he looked around—
Then saw Yuka.
She stood absolutely still, holding a book in her hand,
staring at him with an empty gaze—
as if she were seeing through him, not at him.
---
He froze.
Then pointed at her with a trembling finger:
— "You… you were on top of me! I saw you! Like a ghost… A ghost of some angry woman!"
---
She didn't answer.
She simply stared for a moment, then closed the book slowly.
Without turning to face him, she said:
— "You're so weak the spirits play with you."
Then walked toward the next shelf.
Ren stayed seated, panting, stunned.
Then muttered:
— "You're… not normal. Who are you?"
But she didn't reply.
Ren remained seated, staring at the ceiling as though his mind were still chasing after his body.
He exhaled slowly and leaned his head back.
He placed the blue headphones back over his ears—though they no longer worked—wiped his face with both hands, scratched his head aimlessly, and muttered aloud:
— "The library… I thought at least this place was safe."
He glanced at the surrounding shelves, then mumbled as if speaking to ghosts themselves:
— "Even here… you try to kill me, huh? Wonderful. Just wonderful."
He gave a short, dry laugh—
then coughed.
Across the library, Yuka was still walking slowly between the shelves, looking for a particular book.
She didn't turn toward him.
She didn't speak.
She didn't even show signs of having heard anything at all.
But her fingers paused briefly over the title of a book.
She pulled it from the shelf, glanced at the cover for a second…
then slipped it into her bag.
As if she were never really there with him.
---
Ren watched her for a moment, then muttered:
— "And now she's ignoring me too… Makes sense. I was only almost murdered five minutes ago."
The library was quiet.
Light dust drifted.
The air was heavy.
The setting sun cast its final golden strands through the rotting wooden window.
But then—
everything changed.
The light vanished.
Not gradually.
It snapped away,
like someone switching off a lamp in a sealed room.
The library plunged into darkness,
as though thrown to the bottom of a well.
The books were mute.
The walls trembled.
And Yuka… froze.
Her body locked in place—
as if the air itself had turned to stone around her.
Ren looked around, startled.
— "What… just happened?"
Then, from behind the window,
something appeared.
Something that resembled nothing.
An eye.
A single, massive eye, bone-white,
its black pupil writhing and shifting side to side—
glaring into the library.
No face.
No body.
Just a gigantic eye floating behind the glass.
Then, in a voice not human—
smooth, warped, like it was speaking through cold water:
— "At last… I've found you."
— "I've been searching for you… for so long, Shindo Ren."
Ren froze.
His eyes widened.
— "What the he—?!"
He didn't finish.
He cursed and stumbled back.
But Yuka moved.
With inhuman speed.
She reached into the pocket of her skirt and pulled out—
a small silver-bladed knife.
Without a word,
she ran toward the window.
And leapt.
Her full body crashed through the glass, shards bursting, blood flying, splinters everywhere—
And in a single motion—
she plunged the blade deep into the giant eye.
A scream.
Not a sound—
a quake.
The earth shook.
And Ren's heart with it.
He saw Yuka falling—
through the air,
with the fragments,
with the blood,
with the echo of the knife.
---
He didn't think.
He ran.
Jumped through the shattered window after her.
Reached out.
But the air between them felt miles wide—
as though the distance was not in space,
but time.
He shouted:
— "YUKA!!!"
She was falling—
in that dreadful, slow-motion descent.
Her face was calm.
Her eye fixed on the edge of the blade.
---
Then—
something in Ren changed.
His face, always worn with fatigue, anxiety, hesitation—
sharpened.
His left eye, half-hidden by his hair—
fully opened.
It glowed.
Blue—
with a mirror spinning inside it.
---
In a voice not quite his own, he whispered:
— "Don't fall."
---
And gravity broke.
Yuka stopped in the air.
Time, or space, or something else—
collapsed.
The knife dropped.
But Yuka…
did not.
---
And Ren, with his eye wide and gleaming, floated gently downward until he was beneath her.
He caught her with one arm,
and landed—
as if the earth itself had been forgotten for a moment.
---
Gravity returned.
The sun returned.
The library returned.
But the giant eye…
was gone.
And Yuka…
was in his arms.
She stared at him, one gray eye calm—
unmoved by anything that had just happened.
---
She said, in a quiet tone:
— "…You used it."
He nodded.
"...And you jumped."
---
He set her down.
Turned away.
And as he walked, he murmured to himself:
— "All this… over a book?"
But inside him—
something was trembling.
The mirror inside his eye…
hadn't stopped spinning.