The candlelight trembled.
Rain still clung to the windows like breath from the dead, streaking the glass with cold tears. Somewhere above, thunder rolled in the distance, fading slowly—as if the sky itself had finally grown tired of screaming.
I was still on the floor. My Hands shaking.
Mouth stained red.
Her blood... was on my lips.
I drank her blood.
And I didn't know what was more horrifying—
That I did it…
Or that it felt good.
She sat where I had bitten her, slouched against the wall, her breathing slow but steady. The wound on her neck was small. It should have bled more. It should have hurt more. But she didn't even flinch. She just looked at me.
Eyes half-closed. Crimson, glowing dim in the dark.
"W-Why…?" I choked out. My voice was ash. "Why didn't you stop me?"
She blinked. "Because I knew you would."
I stared at her, heart pounding in confused terror. "You knew I'd… bite you?"
She didn't nod. She didn't move.
Just whispered.
"Do you even know what you are?"
The words crashed through me like lightning.
I struggled to answer, but there was no voice left in my lungs.
She leaned her head back against the damp wall. Her neck glistened faintly where I had bitten her.
"I've seen hunger before, Mahiru. I've seen what a dying ghoul looks like when it drinks. But what I saw in your eyes... that wasn't death. That was birth."
I swallowed. The copper taste of her blood still clung to my tongue.
"I'm human," I muttered. "I'm human—just broken. Hurt. You said I was healing. That's it. That's all."
Her eyes met mine again. They weren't cruel.
They were tired.
Tired of seeing people lie to themselves.
"You're not what you were," she said softly. "And I'm not what they told you I'd be."
I shook my head. "You don't know me."
"No," she said, "but I knew your name the moment I saw you dying in the rain."
I froze.
"I heard it... whispered, almost," she said. "Like the river said it."
She looked down at her hands—small, delicate, stained with old blood.
"My name is Meika," she said.
I let her name echo in my mind. Meika.
A name like petals falling through twilight.
"I'm Mahiru," I said finally. "Mahiru Tsukihara."
She smiled—barely a flicker, like a candle that doesn't know if it wants to keep burning.
"…Mahiru." She repeated it like it was familiar.
A silence fell between us. It was thick, uncomfortable, and yet… not painful.
And then, in a voice quieter than the rain, Meika said—
"You remind me of her."
I looked up. "Who?"
She didn't answer at first. Her eyes had gone far away.
Then she whispered,
"The human who saved me."
Meika's voice was a thread of glass—fragile, sharp, and delicate.
"I was twelve when I first understood what it meant to run for your life."
She didn't look at me. She didn't need to. Her words painted the memory in fire and silence.
"My father was a tailor. My mother sold flowers by the river. We lived in a small apartment above a shop in the city outskirts. Quiet place. Ordinary days. Until one evening... there was a knock at the door."
Her hand curled into a trembling fist in her lap.
"I remember the sound of their boots first. Then the shouts. Then the fire."
I said nothing.
"They didn't wait. The moment my father opened the door, they shot him. No warning. No hesitation. I screamed. My mother ran to him, and they shot her too."
Her voice cracked—just a little.
"I didn't understand. I didn't even know what I was. I didn't know why they came. Why they called us monsters. Why they laughed while they set our home ablaze."
She swallowed hard.
"They wore black. They had patches on their chests. IGBU."
My breath caught in my throat.
I wanted to say something, to tell her I was different. But what did that even mean now?
"I ran," she whispered. "Out the back. Through the smoke. Through the fire. I was covered in blood—my parents' blood. It burned into my skin. It stayed with me."
She looked up at the ceiling like she could still see the flames licking the sky.
"I didn't make it far. My leg was torn open from a stray shot. I crawled into the woods and collapsed. Thought I'd die there."
Her eyes drifted closed for a moment.
"But someone found me."
Her voice softened—like a memory she still didn't know how to hold.
"She was an old woman. Alone. No family. No children. She lived near the edge of the city in a run-down hut surrounded by silence. When she saw me, she didn't scream. She didn't ask questions."
Meika looked at me, and for the first time, I saw something behind her crimson eyes. Not sorrow. Not pain.
Guilt.
"She cleaned my wounds. Fed me. Covered me with blankets at night when I shook with fever. For days, she never asked who I was or why I looked… different."
The candle between us flickered again.
"And when I was strong enough to walk again… I decided to kill her."
My heart thudded.
She didn't flinch at her own confession. She just went on, steady and slow, like reading pages soaked in blood.
"I waited until night. She was asleep. Peaceful. Like she trusted me. I stood over her with a knife I'd stolen from her kitchen."
She looked down at her hands again. "But I couldn't do it. I kept thinking—why did she help me? What did she gain? Nothing."
A tear escaped the corner of her eye.
"She just wanted someone to live. Even if it wasn't her."
Silence.
"She told me once," Meika said, "that not all monsters come with claws. Some wear badges. Some wear lab coats. Some call themselves heroes."
I couldn't breathe.
"She said, 'Everyone kills for something, Meika. But saving someone without a reason? That's rare. That's love, even if it's small.'"
Her voice broke at the edges.
"A month later, I came home from gathering herbs… and found her body near the old train yard."
I swallowed, my throat dry.
"She was killed by a ghoul."
She wiped her cheek with the back of her hand.
"So now I live with both truths:
My parents were killed by humans.
The only human I ever trusted was killed by a ghoul.
And I—somewhere in between—have saved both."
She turned toward me slowly, her crimson eyes now full of something deeper than pain.
"Do you understand now, Mahiru?" she asked. "I didn't save you because I thought you deserved it. I saved you… because someone once saved me. And I couldn't live with myself if I didn't pass it on."
I looked at her, trembling. Words rose in my throat and burned there, swallowed by the storm still raging outside.
And for the first time, I understood—
She wasn't bleeding because she was dying.
She was bleeding because she refused to stop caring.
After Meika's story, the room didn't feel the same.
The shadows clung tighter to the walls. The silence wasn't empty anymore—it was heavy, like a grave left open.
She sat still, her eyes lowered, as if she'd shown me something sacred and now regretted it. I wanted to say something—anything—but nothing came out. What words could reach a girl who had buried both her family and her savior? What comfort could I offer with my blood still on her skin?
But she broke the silence instead.
"Your name," she said softly. "Mahiru. Do you know what it means?"
I blinked. I'd never really thought about it.
"'True midday,'" she whispered. "A name that's supposed to mean light."
She looked at me, and her eyes weren't cruel. They weren't distant.
They were just... tired.
"But you're not light, are you?"
I didn't answer.
"You're like me," she said. "Living in the middle. Not alive. Not dead. Not light. Not dark."
Her words sank into me like frost.
"I don't know what I am anymore," I admitted. "I was supposed to fight monsters. Kill ghouls. Protect people. But now—" I looked at my hands, still faintly stained with the memory of her blood. "Now I can't even trust my own body."
She moved closer—not to touch, not to comfort, just to be near.
"That's the truth they never told you," she said. "Justice doesn't have a face. It just wears whatever mask the powerful give it. Ghoul. Human. Doesn't matter. We're all just clawing for survival."
Her voice dropped lower. "But we forget... survival isn't the same as living."
I looked at her. At the girl who should've let me die. At the girl I nearly killed.
"Why didn't you tell me everything before?"
She shrugged faintly. "You weren't ready to hear it."
"And now?"
"You drank my blood," she said. "You're changing. Whether you want to or not."
I turned away, my thoughts tangled and burning.
"…What happens to me now?"
She didn't answer right away. When she did, her voice was like ash.
"Maybe you'll die. Or maybe… you'll become like me."
My stomach twisted.
She stood, walking slowly toward the broken window, rain still hissing against the glass.
"But whatever you become, Mahiru… don't lose yourself. Even monsters can choose what kind of monster they want to be."
For a moment, we both stood in silence. Just breathing. Listening to the storm outside.
Then—
Knock. Knock.
We both froze.
I turned sharply. The sound echoed through the abandoned building like a scream underwater.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
It came again.
My heart leapt into my throat.
"No one comes here," Meika whispered. "No one even knows this place exists…"
My breath went cold. We were on the 10th floor of a forgotten building on the edge of nowhere. This place was a ruin, a tomb, untouched by the living.
Then who the hell was knocking?
The door creaked.
Shadows moved beneath the crack.
Footsteps. Heavy. Slow. More than one.
I looked at Meika. Her face was pale. Too pale.
"…Get back," she whispered.
"Who is it?"
She didn't answer.
Then a voice spoke from the other side of the door—calm, male, steady.
"Mahiru Tsukihara... You're alive."
My blood ran cold.
They knew my name.
The voice behind the door echoed like a blade unsheathed in the dark.
"Mahiru Tsukihara… You're alive."
My breath caught in my throat.
Meika stood frozen. Her lips parted. Not a word came out.
The silence after that voice was louder than thunder. It pressed against my skull, suffocating. The wind had died outside. Even the storm seemed to be listening now.
I stepped back slowly. My hands clenched into fists by instinct, but I knew—I wasn't ready.
Not for a fight.
Not for answers.
"Who… is that?" I whispered.
Meika's eyes didn't leave the door.
Then—another knock.
This one softer.
Like a whisper disguised as kindness.
"Open the door, Mahiru. We know what you are."
A chill wrapped around my spine like a noose.
Meika's hand grabbed my arm. Tight. Trembling.
"You can't open it," she hissed. "You don't understand. No one should've found this place. No one."
I swallowed hard. "Then how—?"
She cut me off. Her voice shaking now.
"This building has no records. No one uses it. It's buried under thirty years of silence and rot. If someone's here… it means they weren't looking randomly. They were looking for you Or me or something else."
Footsteps echoed again outside—more of them. Three. Maybe four.
Boots. Heavy. Precise.
Like soldiers. Like hunters.
"You're changing, Mahiru. We saw it," the voice said through the door. "You drank her blood, didn't you?"
My heart stopped.
"Who the hell are you?" I shouted.
No answer for a moment.
Then came it—
The sound of fingers tapping lightly on the doorframe.
"We are what comes after the silence."
A loud click followed.
Metal.
A safety switch. A trigger.
Meika pushed me back.
"We have to go. Now."
"But where?"
"Down," she said. "Basement. There's an old maintenance tunnel. It leads into the sewers."
More knocks now—faster.
Not polite anymore. Demanding.
"Mahiru… If you don't open this door in five seconds, we'll assume you've chosen a side."
Bang.
A boot slammed against the door. Dust fell from the ceiling. Wood cracked.
Meika's eyes snapped to mine.
"I don't know who they are," she said, "but they're not here to help you."
"Are they IGBU?" I asked, heart racing.
She hesitated.
"…They might be worse."
Bang.
Splinters exploded from the doorframe. A small hole appeared. Through it, I saw a dark eye watching me.
"Four…"
Meika grabbed my wrist. "Run."
"Three…"
We stumbled through the room, toward the back where broken shelves leaned against a cracked wall. She kicked aside the boards, revealing a rusted trapdoor beneath.
"Two…"
She yanked it open. Darkness yawned below. Mold. Dust. Cold.
"One."
We dropped just as the door exploded behind us in a flash of splinters and light.
I hit the bottom hard, my ribs screaming. Meika landed beside me, already pulling the hatch shut as boots crashed into the room above.
From above, I heard a voice.
"It's him. The ghoul-blooded. Don't let him escape."
My blood turned to ice.
Ghoul-blooded.
They knew.
They knew everything.