The rain hadn't stopped for three days.It poured in thin, relentless sheets that blurred the city into a watercolor of lights and shadows. The droplets traced trembling paths down the window of the medical lab, each one catching a glint of the white fluorescence inside — sharp, sterile, cold.
Hana Tsukishiro sat alone, chin resting on her palm, eyes half-lidded with exhaustion. The rest of the university had long since gone dark. Only her lab still burned with the stubborn glow of sleepless obsession.The hum of machines filled the silence like mechanical breathing. The rain answered back, a steady rhythm — a pulse — echoing against the glass.
She didn't know why she was still there.Maybe it was the curiosity that wouldn't shut up. Maybe it was the fact that the last blood sample she ran refused to behave like normal human blood.
Under the microscope, it shimmered faintly — not red, but silver, the color of the moon's reflection in a puddle.She frowned, adjusted the focus, blinked once.The cells twitched.Then again.Not random. Rhythmic.
"…That's impossible," she whispered, breath fogging the eyepiece.
Then — click.A sound.Soft, deliberate, behind her.
Hana froze.
Every instinct in her body screamed to turn around, but the air had gone thick. She could hear it now — the rain against the window, the low mechanical hum, and something else.A faint, human hum. A tune.Beautiful and eerie — coming from the blood storage room.
She stood slowly, the stool scraping softly against the tile. Her lab coat brushed the edge of the desk. The room smelled of metal, alcohol, and something sweet — coppery, like blood.
Another sound.Drip.Drip.Drip.
She looked down.A thin trail of red led from the storage room door, curving across the floor toward her shoes.
Hana's voice trembled. "Who's there?"
Silence.Only the rain answered.
Then — the door creaked open.The humming stopped.
Her pulse thudded in her throat. She reached for the light switch near the wall. "This is restricted access," she said, her voice shaking. "You're not supposed to—"
Lightning flashed through the windows, flooding the lab in white.
And for one heartbeat, she saw her.
A girl — barefoot, drenched, wearing a torn hospital gown, blood blooming across her shoulder like a flower. Her eyes glowed faintly red, and for the briefest moment, Hana thought she saw her reflection behind the girl — except it wasn't hers.
Then the lights flickered out.
When they came back on, the girl was right in front of her — pale, trembling, her voice a whisper.
"Please… don't scream."
Her knees buckled, and Hana caught her instinctively. The girl's skin was cold as marble — but beneath it pulsed something real.A heartbeat.Two heartbeats.Syncing together like an echo that shouldn't exist.
Outside, thunder shattered the sky.Inside, Hana Tsukishiro held a stranger who bled silver light — and the night stopped feeling like her own.