Thump, thump, thump.
My heart began beating crazily fast.
Every hair on my body stands on end, and my senses sharpen.
I want to live. What do I have to do to survive...?
My head is a mess.
The one showing me the path I must take
is none other than the voice of my mother, who should already be dead.
"Kill. Don't you want to live, my son?"
"Kuaaaack...!!!"
I tear at my hair and let out a ragged breath.
I'm scared. It feels hot.
My surroundings are scorching.
"M...om...."
The door bursts open, and I remember the terrible things that happened to Mom.
Beaten, stabbed, and collapsed.
The floor was covered in red blood.
That image overlaps before my eyes.
It's confusing.
Who am I?
Am I Sion? Or this little girl?
Is this little girl really me?
"Haa... haa...."
My heart pounds violently against my eardrums.
In my head, I hear my mother's voice—one I simply cannot ignore.
"Keuheuk... D-don't come closer."
Barely clinging to the thread of my sanity, I begged the man before me.
I asked him not to come. If he took another step closer, I felt like I would really hurt him.
"Kill! Drink blood! You grow stronger by killing!! Kuhahaha!! Our son, our admirable son."
My vision blurs.
But I was certain of one thing just now.
This thing speaking in my mother's voice is not my mother.
However, even though I realized that, it was already too late—my body was undergoing a change.
My arm burned black with a grotesque sound.
-Crack!
"…!!"
Fingers transformed like blades.
Fingers I had definitely seen somewhere before.
They look very similar to the security guard's hand.
"Kuaaaack!! It hurts...!! It hurrts...!!!"
Regardless of that realization, it hurt tremendously.
Tears flowed on their own.
"...Aren't you hungry? It's right in front of you. Eat."
My mother's voice rang out amidst the pain and agony.
I know it's not Mom, but that didn't matter anymore.
"Yes... Mom..."
I wanted to be freed from this pain.
My vision overlaps with the scene of the fire back then.
My mother falling with a sizzling sound and the murderer—both appear before my eyes.
"...I have to take revenge. I have to kill."
"……."
"……."
As my vision briefly returned, the man was speaking into a radio somewhere.
But that was none of my business.
'Please die. I'm sorry.......'
I just want to feel at ease.
Having resolved myself so, I gave up on maintaining my sanity.
* * *
"Chief."
"Yeah, it's a monster."
The man who spoke sighed and entered the studio apartment with his shoes still on.
Sion, pleading for him not to approach.
But that was no longer his concern.
He did not do things like respecting a monster's will.
Monsters are thoroughly beasts, lunatics trying to deceive someone.
And capturing or killing such beings was the man's main duty.
The man immediately raised his radio.
-Crzzzt—zzzt—
"Ah... This is Action Division One. Encountered a monster. Changing plans—aborting securing Sion's safety, proceeding with live capture. Over."
[Roger that, proceed.]
Finishing the radio call, the man took off his sunglasses and approached Sion, who was slowly catching his breath.
Sion—no, the monster—whose hands had now transformed as well, writhing in pain.
Looking at the monster with a gaze as if it were filth, the man jerked his chin toward the blonde behind him.
"Proceed. Secure the perimeter first, then capture and bring it."
"Sigh... My vacation ended yesterday. And it'll be over in five minutes."
"...Don't play around. You have three minutes."
"What if it gets interesting mid-fight?"
The blonde woman sighed.
The man clicked his tongue in exasperation at her and turned his body.
With an expression showing everything was a bother, he put a cigarette in his mouth and left the studio apartment.
A loud noise came from the room behind him, but he didn't care in the slightest.
After all, no matter what happened, it was certain the blonde would win.
-Swish-!
About five minutes later, with the sound of something being sliced by a sword, the situation ended.
"...Excuse me, Chief."
"What is it?"
"The head... got cut off."
"...What?"
And in a rather strange direction, at that.
The blonde came out holding the monster's severed head.
Seeing the blonde like that, the man smacked his own forehead. Thwack!
* * *
It felt as if something was controlling my body.
I moved frantically.
I did my best to kill the human before my eyes.
Because I felt like I had to.
But none of my attacks worked.
The woman played with me without even drawing her sword, no matter where I aimed.
Rather, I couldn't forget the woman's face as she looked at me with unfocused eyes, as if bored.
My entire body was soaked in burning pain.
Yet my mind felt like it was being devoured by that woman.
The moment I once again viscerally felt the sensation of being swallowed.
"Are you done...?"
The woman asked so, and in the instant I couldn't even open my mouth, she moved behind me and swiftly slashed my neck.
"Kkeoheuk...!"
"Oops, I cut it."
And so, looking up at my own body, I lost consciousness,
and when I opened my eyes, I was here.
"...Hmmmph...!! Mmmmph!!"
A dark room. There, bound and seated on a cold metal chair.
The gloomy air brushed against my skin, making goosebumps rise all over my body.
An unknown space with a black table and chairs; my body remained that of a girl.
'So it wasn't a dream...?!'
The back of my neck still aches.
As if to prove the memory of being struck hard.
My mouth is gagged and my body is tightly bound.
My strength seemed weaker than before, and I couldn't move.
Tears trickled out drop by drop.
I'm not usually the type to cry easily, so I don't know why this was happening.
"Mmmph... mmph...!! Mmmph...!"
I struggle with all my might and shout for help, but no one listens.
The pitch-black space is simply terrifying.
'The tape makes it hard to breathe... and the ropes are too tight....'
Just as the dizziness was setting in from lack of air,
"You'll ruin your lungs breathing that frantically?"
"...!!"
A voice spoke from the darkness.
I rolled my eyes with all my effort, and a blonde woman came into view.
"...!!!"
In that instant, I felt goosebumps spread all over my body.
This woman is dangerous—my entire body warned me so.
I want to run away.
I'll die. If I'm with this woman, I'll die, one hundred percent.
But she only drew nearer.
And finally arriving before me, she perched on the black table set before me.
In that moment when cold sweat flowed on its own, the woman reached her hand toward my face.
"...Pretty face. Is it because you're a monster?"
Then she stroked my face and spouted strange words.
Her eyes are dead.
But the corners of her mouth are smiling faintly.
An expression as if something not human were mimicking a human.
That twisted expression even evoked an inexplicable sense of disgust.
"Mmph...? (Monster...?)"
"Stuffy? Shall we stop this now?"
Smiling, she stopped stroking my face and gently scratched at the tape stuck to the corner of my mouth.
-Scritch, scritch
Every time her nails scratched the surface of the tape, it made me shudder.
"...Your breathing is ragged. Am I scary?"
Cold sweat and tears emerged.
I'm scared. I was so terrified.
Of the atmosphere the woman exuded.
The woman whispered in a voice full of mischief.
My pupils shook and cold sweat flowed.
Tears were already streaming down from my eyes.
The woman with her frozen smile is terrifying.
"Come on, let's get comfortable quickly!"
The woman said brightly and grabbed the edge of the tape that had come slightly loose.
Then she giggled and threw a question.
"Are you trembling? Scared?"
An atmosphere that made me feel I had to say no.
The moment I tried to shake my head,
"There!"
-Riiip!!!!
With a ripping sound, terrible pain flooded my face.
"Kkeuheup...!!!!!"
"Oh, you held it in."
"I-It hurts......."
When I said it hurt, the woman's eyes returned to their dead state as she looked at me.
I avoided that woman's gaze for quite a while, but unable to bear it any longer, I asked one thing.
"Um... it's stuffy, my chest."
"Hm? Ah."
"…."
The tightly pulled rope.
Embarrassing as it was, I spoke up because it was so suffocating, and the woman alternated her gaze between hers and mine.
"...Is it because you're a monster?"
Muttering so, the woman drew a dagger.
And then, quickly drawing the blade from its sheath before sheathing it again,
-Swish!
the rope snapped and my chest loosened slightly.
Thanks to that, breathing became much easier.
When I hurriedly raised my head to say thank you,
"Ah... I feel better. Thank y—h-hick?!"
"...I lost to a monster."
The woman looked down at me with a spine-chilling expression of despair.
I fidgeted, and she let out a deep sigh, getting off the desk.
"Sorry for tying you up. There's basically some investigating to do."
"...Wh-what is it? Wasn't I dead to begin with?"
"Yeah, that's right. You died. I made a mistake."
The blonde woman looked at me as if asking if I had a problem with that.
At that, I quickly shook my head.
Then she smiled in satisfaction and showed me some documents.
"...Your head was cut off, but when I placed it next to your body, it reattached itself on its own?"
"Huh...?"
"It was so, so disgusting that I thought, 'As expected of a monster,' but it seems you didn't know either. Anyway, understood..."
The woman began writing something like a checklist.
Watching her, the confusion I felt only continued to grow.
'...My head reattached itself...?'
Horrifying imaginings began to unfold.