The bus dropped me off at a stop that hadn't changed since I was a kid, same crooked pole, same sun-faded timetable no one read. The ocean was on my left. The town sat on my right. A gull screamed at nothing. I set my duffel down and flexed my left hand out of habit. Four fingers moved.
People think the ache is the worst part. It isn't. It's the itch that shows up for something that's gone, and the way strangers pretend not to look. The boy across from me hadn't. He'd stared, mouth open, like I was going to pull a coin from the space where the pinky used to be.
Freedom has a price. Mine fit in a handkerchief.
I swung the duffel onto my shoulder and started walking, keeping the sea on my left. The air smelled like salt and wet rope and diesel from the harbor. The wind pressed my jacket flat against my ribs. In Tokyo I had learned to keep every corner in my eye. Here, the only corners were curbs and the breaks in the seawall where the steps led down to the shore line.
A cat watched me from the top of the breakwater. Gray, one ear nicked, eyes yellow as old tea. "You're still alive," I said. The cat blinked slow, ruling in my favor. I took the steps down, boots tapping concrete, and sat on the lowest one where spray could reach. The tide was working its way back, dragging stones over sand. I lit a cigarette with my right hand. The lighter flared, stuttered in the wind, then caught.
I held the smoke in my lungs and listened. Wind. Waves. A loose sign creaking up on the street. Nothing else. For the first time in months, my shoulders came down from around my ears.
Tokyo was a place that never stopped buzzing. You can live like that until you forget the buzz is there. Then went you leave, you realize how loud it was. I thought about the apartment I'd left behind: one steel door, one narrow window, one plant I'd never watered. A drawer with oiled rags for a blade I kept cleaner than my dishes. Two burner stovetop and a kettle that screamed when it boiled. A rooftop where I smoked when I needed air.
I took another drag and watched the horizon. The day I joined up, it rained so hard the gutters overflowed in brown sheets. I'd been stupid and proud and out of money, and I had a good right cross. Turned out that was enough to get me in the door. It wasn't luck after that. I earned my place for 20 years. You don't survive without some form of skill.
That lived in me for years. I learned to enjoy it. On the nights we came back breathing hard and laughing like we hadn't just bled on concrete, I'd clean my blade first, then smoke on the balcony with a towel around my neck. City light on steel. The sound of tires from the expressway. An ache in the wrists that meant I'd be sore tomorrow.
Wind pushed the smoke sideways. I tapped ash and watched it fall. Leaving wasn't a surprise to me. I'd done the jobs I was given. I kept my word. But lines were getting blurrier the longer I stayed. A stupid kid of the boss maked life harder. Our new young recruiters were getting dumber by the week, ears full of boys who thought cruelty was proof you were a man. "Sigh....." Times were a changing it seemed.
I took one last pull and crushed the cigarette out on the step. The filter left a thin brown smear. A wave rolled up and erased it like it meant to.
"You got anything to eat?" I asked the cat. It yawned, showed me its pink tongue, and slunk down a few steps. It sat just out of reach, pretending I didn't matter. Cats like you more when you accept that they don't owe you anything. People are not so different.
I dug in my duffel and found the convenience store onigiri I'd bought at the transfer stop. Salmon. The sea had seen worse offerings. I peeled the plastic, split the triangle, and tossed the cat a corner of rice with one fish flake. It approached, tried to act like it wasn't interested, then ate with quick bites. "I'll take that as a no," I said.
I ate the rest and tried not to think about the room upstairs from the snack bar where I used to do my homework. The owner had corrected my kanji with a red pen when the place was quiet. He died my second year in Tokyo. I sent lilies. I didn't go back for the funeral. That was the first thing I regretted when I started packing.
The sea pulled back and returned, patient, patient, patient. The ritual wasn't dramatic. People imagine a knife in the middle of a table and everyone yelling. That's movies. Real life is slower and silent. We were in a back room with tatami so old the straw showed through, a low table that wobbled, and a white towel that had been boiled. The boss didn't raise his voice. He didn't look pleased or angry. He was tired. So was I. Two old souls slowly being pushed out by the new blood.
"You sure?" he asked.
"Yes," I said.
He didn't try to talk me out of it. There was a small blade. There were clean cloths. There was a bowl. It wasn't the first time that room had seen it. It wouldn't be the last.
I got the handkerchief later, when the bleeding stopped and the room didn't smell like antiseptic anymore. I carried it until I got to the river, then I went out on a footbridge and let it fall. The cloth bobbed and twisted and went under. I smoked then too. Wind blew the ash into my eyes and I laughed like an idiot. It was the first honest laugh I'd had in years.
A car rolled by up on the street. Music leaked from the windows, it was the young master i gave him a small bow and then they car snapped off. I stood and stretched my back. The cat flicked its tail like I'd offended the sea and trotted higher up the steps. "Relax," I said. "I'm not going to hurt ya" It didn't change its mind about me.
There's a path that runs from the seawall into town, past a rusted slide, past the shuttered bait shop, past three vending machines that were here before I left and will be here after I'm gone. The red one still sticks so you would have to kick it. I walked, and I let my feet remember which cracks in the sidewalk to avoid. Muscle memory is its own map.
A woman behind the counter at the tiny market looked up when I pushed in through the plastic curtains. Her eyes softened "Welcome," she said. "Can I help you find something?"
"Cigarettes," I said. "And a bottle of the cheap umeshu."
"ID?" she asked, out of habit or respect or maybe trying to see if i was someone she could remember. I pulled mine from my wallet. She nodded like she'd expected that. The register beeped as she hit the totals. "Haven't seen you in years," she said, neutrally. "Back for good?"
"For now."
She handed me the bag. "The sea's different in November," she said. "Good for thinking."
"I noticed."
"Your mother—" she started, and stopped herself. "Tell her I said hello."
"She's in Niigata with my aunt," I said. I didn't feel like explaining distances that were bigger than train lines. She knew by the way she pressed her lips together that there were things she shouldn't ask. That kind of knowing is a kindness.
Outside, I lit another cigarette as I wasnt in a hurry. I tucked the bag under my arm and walked the long way toward the hill where the houses got smaller and older. The road up was steeper than I remembered. Halfway, there's a shrine set back from the street with a red torii that used to glow in fresh paint. The paint had gone chalky. The bell rope was new, though, thick and bright. Someone still cared enough to replace it.
I rang the bell. The sound went up and out. I bowed, twice. I clapped, twice. I closed my eyes and stood there with my breath moving in and out like waves.
I didn't ask for forgiveness. I asked for fresh start, That's all I ever needed. When I was a kid, I used to race the boys down the hill with my eyes closed, counting steps and turns and trusting the world to be the same as yesterday. I only fell once. I cried like the world had ended, then I got up and did it again. The first scar I earned is under my knee. It's small. You only see it if you know to look. The newest ones are everywhere. People see those first and tend to treat me like some monster, That's fine.
On the way down, I cut behind the laundry and found the alley that leads to the back of what used to be the snack bar. The upstairs window was still there, but the sign had changed. New owner it seemed. The smell from the kitchen was different too, more frying oil, less broth. A man came out the back door carrying a tray. "We open at five," he said, then blinked. "Sorry. Didn't mean to bark."
"I'm not hungry," I said. "Just passing through."
"You from around here?"
"Once."
He tilted his head at my duffel. "Room for rent upstairs," he said, as if the words had been lifted out of my chest. "Month to month. It's not the best but we can promise it wont be to loud."
"I'm not picky."
He studied me for the second it takes to decide whether to waste time. He decided not to. "If you don't smoke inside," he said, "we won't have a problem."
"I can do the steps," I said, nodding at the fire escape.
"Good," he said. "You can pay cash?"
I looked at the sea. "Yes."
The room had a window that looked out on the narrow street. There was a sink. The bed was a mattress on a platform. It was exactly what I needed, which is to say: a door that locked and a place to put my head down.
I set the umeshu on the counter and the cigarettes next to it. I opened the window. The sea pushed a chord of air through the curtains and left the room smelling like salt and rust and distant kelp. I sat on the mattress and took off my boots while the day turned the color of a bruise I didn't mind. My phone buzzed in my pocket. A number I knew but didn't want to answer. I watched it flash and fade. It buzzed again. I turned it face down and let it stop being a problem.
People think the dangerous part of a fight is the middle. It isn't. It's the start, when you decide you're going to stand, and the end, when you decide if you're ever going to stop.
I stood. I went back out. The cat had found a place on the warm hood of a car and pretended to sleep until I passed, then cracked one eye.
Down at the seawall, the wind had picked up. A striped windsock at the harbor stuck straight out like a finger pointing at the next town. Boats knocked at their moorings, bumpers squeaking. Two old men in rubber boots were mending a net. They talked without looking at each other, hands moving with that calm you only get from doing one thing for forty years. One of them looked up when he heard my steps and then looked down again.
I lit a cigarette and cupped it from the wind. The paper crackled. Smoke went into the air and got torn to threads. I leaned on the rail and let the steel press into my forearms. My left hand sat on the rail. A kid on a bike clattered across the concrete behind me, brakes squealing. Somewhere up the road, a dog barked.
A stairwell, wet with rain and something else. The smell of curry coming up from a shop below. A man trying to make himself into a wall at the landing while his friend moaned two floors up.
A rooftop in summer, tar soft under my shoes and heat coming up like a second sky. A real cigarette between my lips and a cheap beer sweating in my palm. Someone's radio two buildings over playing a song I didn't know.
I took the cigarette from my mouth and looked at the short column of it. Almost out. I flipped the filter over the seawall and watched it vanish into water that didn't care about my bad habits. The first of the light was dragging itself across the horizon. The gray cat had followed me again and sat two steps above, tail wrapped around its paws like this was its place and I was the visitor. Maybe that was true. I didn't mind.
"Okay," I said to the wind, to the waves, to the girl who left and the woman who came back. "I'm here."
The air seemed to tighten, just a notch, like the town had taken a breath it hadn't planned to take. A gust came from the wrong direction and rattled the metal sign over the bait shop. The two men at the net paused in the exact same beat and then kept working. The cat's ears tilted flat for a second and lifted again. I felt the hairs on my arms stand up like I was in an elevator when the cable catches.
There are different kinds of quiet. This one wasn't the soft kind. It wasn't loud either. It came from the cape and from the breakwater and from the space above my head. It came and then it went.
I rolled my shoulders once, more out of habit than nerves. "Whatever," I said, to nothing in particular. "Not today"
I didn't go back to the room. I kept walking. Past the shrine, past the alley with the laundry steam, past the hill that would've taken me toward the old house. I didn't want to see my mother. Blood is a fact, not a bond. We share a name and that's about it.
The town before dawn is a different place. Streetlights click off one by one like someone's bored with the show. A fisherman's scooter coughed to life somewhere I couldn't see. I lit up and shoved my free hand in my pocket.
I cut down to the seawall again and took the long steps to the low ledge. First ferry horns hadn't started. My eyes on the line where the sky was about to get lighter.
I wasn't thinking anything important when the air changed. It went still, too still for wind that close to water. My lighter's tiny flame, when I flicked it out of habit, didn't lean. It stood up like a nail. Then it died for no reason at all. Hell even the water stopped flowing.
They were just there... two shapes on the breakwater like they'd stepped out of thin air. Tall.....They looked like people but that didnt make sense what kind of people could stand on water that far out and deep? One carried something long....sword? Or was it a staff? I couldn't tell at first. The other's hands were empty but they had this stance like they were ready for a fight.
I froze the way you do when trouble enters a room, like when i was a kid. In all of my 53 years of life i had never felt anything like this. None of it mattered if I was seeing what I was seeing. They didn't look at me. They looked at each other like the rest of the world didnt matter...
The first moved, fast, faster than anyone has a right to. The second slid aside. No sound at first. Then a crack, not from them, but from the space between them, like ice under weight. The hair on my arms stood up. My cigarette burned strange, brighter, then guttered.
I stood up without meaning to. "Hey," I said, like an idiot, what else could i even had said. Neither of them turned. The thing with the long weapon cut again. The air split. Not a metaphor. A line opened in front of them, black and not-black, a seam where dawn should have been. It ran vertical, taller than any door. It hummed in a way that you could feel in your soul.
Wind found me again, but it wasn't wind. It was a pulled. The duffel slid an inch. Gravel grated under my heel. I grabbed the rail with my right hand and locked my wrist. The rail vibrated like a train was about to pass through it.
"Stop," I said, because I was out of better words. The pull got stronger. I dropped the cigarette and the ember smeared and then stretched, like even the ash wanted to go. I put my left hand on the rail and felt the absence where my pinky used to be. Grip was worse on that side. I shifted, let the right take more weight, braced my boots against the lip of the step.
"Hey!" I tried again, louder. The one with the empty hands flicked a glance my way, just enough that I knew it had known I was there the whole time.
The seam tore wider. The pull went from suggestion to demand. My feet lost grit. I slammed my hip into the rail and hooked my elbow around it.
"Move," I told myself. My body didn't listen. It knew the rail was the last thing between me and whatever this was. I tried to take a hand off long enough to yank my belt around the bar. That was a bad idea. The instant my fingers shifted, the force took it personal. My heels came up. My stomach dropped like the first step of a fall.
The two figures blurred together, then apart. The long weapon flashed. The empty hands caught and turned, and something like a shockwave hit the seam. It hiccuped. The pull snapped hard enough to ring my teeth.
I made a sound I didn't plan. My right hand slid. Skin went hot, then slick. The rail cut my palm. I felt the sting and filed it away. The world beyond the seam was dark.
The pull took me off the step. My ribs hit the rail. My breath punched out. I held as tightly as I could. I've held people heavier than me with one hand over a parapet to make a point.
"Not like this," I said.... It was annoyed. I had left Tokyo on my terms. I wasn't going to be stolen by weather.
The rail groaned. The seam's edges feathered like torn cloth. The two figures collided and separated, fast, fast, too fast. The one with the long weapon cut again across the seam, like trying to stitch something closed with a blade. For a second, the pull eased.
My elbow slipped.
I reached for more rail with my left hand and caught nothing. My hand grabbed air. Stupid, My weight shifted a hair, and the pull took the invitation.
I went forward like a fish yanked on a line. My thigh slammed the step. My knee scraped. The rail tore out of my grip.
The world spun, seawall, stones, sky, seam, all wrong angles. I reached for anything. My fingers brushed concrete and slid. My shoulder hit, once, hard. The seam filled my whole view.
For a blink, everything slowed enough. I saw myself. Body on the ledge, weight half off the step, face turned toward the water, eyes open in a way eyes shouldn't be. I was both too heavy and too light. My chest didn't rise. The cigarette smear by my boot made a short, ugly line.
The two not-people flanked the seam like bookends. The empty-handed one looked straight at me or through me and what was on its face was pity. The other raised the long weapon as if to drive it down through the center and close this thing for good.
I didn't fall. I tore. There wasn't the feeling of air on skin or the sound of my own breath. There was a jerk inside my skull like a tooth being pulled, then the hook went deeper, behind the eyes, under the tongue, down the spine. My right hand reached for the rail again on instinct. The hand moved. I felt it move. But it wasn't attached to weight. The weight was behind me, slack as laundry on a line. I understood in a flat, practical way that my body had been left on the step and the rest of me hadn't.
The seam swallowed me. Cold, then hot. Bright, then nothing. A taste in my mouth that wasn't taste, metal and storm and the first bite of a battery when you're a kid and stupid. I tried to curl my shoulders and there were no shoulders. I tried to swear and there was no tongue. Panic tried to sprint and found no floor.
Somewhere far and near, something howled deep and feral from this void. Its voice ringing the very realm it self.
I thought, stupidly, of my mother. Not out of love. Out of logistics. If she heard about a body on the seawall, would she go? Would she send someone else? Would she call me by my name when they asked asked her to identify the body?
Then movement changed. The drag turned to glide. The tearing stopped. Whatever I was now washed forward, slower, like the seam had spat me into a current instead of a drain.
I hung there, no, I didn't hang, I existed with the sense of drifting through a place that didn't agree on what direction meant. There were shapes sand and a night sky... Far off, a pulse, big and patient, like a heartbeat chained to a mountain.
The last thing I felt before this new gravity decided what to do with me was simple and familiar:
I was not welcome. I was also not being sent back.
The current grabbed me again, and I went where it wanted.
I woke up face-down in damp grass with the taste of earth on my tongue. For a second, I just lay there, eyes squeezed shut, willing the pounding in my head to stop. This can't be right, I thought, half expecting to feel the familiar bruises and wounds from battle aching across my body. Instead, there was only the faint throb of a headache and the cold dew soaking into my clothes. My unfamiliar clothes.
Groaning, I pushed myself up onto my hands and knees. Wet blades of grass clung to my skin as I lifted my face. The world around me was dim and gray, caught in that murky pre-dawn light before sunrise. A chill breeze swept over me, raising goosebumps on my arms. I shivered, but not just from the cold. Nothing about this place matched where I'd been only moments ago... Had it only been moments?
I tried to gather my scrambled thoughts. The last thing I remembered was the clash, the deafening roar of two monstrous beings tearing into each other, the sky itself ripping open like a piece of paper. I'd been caught in the middle of that chaos, trying to... what? Survive? Intervene? It was all a blur of adrenaline and terror. There was a flash of blinding light, a sensation like being yanked backward through a tunnel, and then... that roar? Scream? That thing that i felt in my very soul. Then nothing.
Now I was here, wherever here was. I rose unsteadily to my feet, my legs wobbling for an instant. The grass beneath my bare feet was cold and soft—bare feet? I glanced down and felt a jolt of confusion. I wasn't wearing my boots, or any of my gear from the battle. Instead, I had on a simple yukata-like robe, coarse and a bit too large, colored in drab off-white. It was tied at the waist with a frayed sash. Definitely nothing I owned.
I brushed clinging dirt from the front of the robe, my fingers catching on a tear in the fabric. The material was cheap and thin. Underneath, I could feel the contours of my body, clean skin, no bandages, none of the protective leather I'd worn. Whoever dressed me in this had removed everything else.
A spike of alarm shot through me and I quickly ran my hands over my body, checking for injuries or... or any sign of violation. Focus, Kagetsu. Everything felt intact, just inexplicably uninjured. The gash I'd taken to my shoulder earlier was gone; the bruised ribs from last week's skirmish—gone. My fingers pressed against my side where there should have been tender flesh, only to find nothing but smooth skin.
I swallowed, my mouth dry. This didn't make sense. Either I was dreaming, or I had somehow been... healed? And stripped and redressed in a old ass outfit. My ears rang in the silence as I slowly turned in a circle, taking in my surroundings.
I was standing in what looked like an open field at the edge of a settlement. To my left, a cluster of ramshackle huts crouched in the gloom, their silhouettes crooked against the still-dark horizon. Most were made of wood, patched with sheets of thatch. A few had wisps of smoke curling from makeshift chimneys, but there were no lanterns or electric lights anywhere that I could see.
To my right, the grassy patch continued a short way before meeting a dirt road that led toward the huddle of buildings. Farther beyond, I saw darkness and the suggestion of more shapes, maybe more huts, or just piles of debris.
The air smelled faintly of smoke, dry earth, and something acrid, sewage, perhaps. In the distance, a lone crow cawed, the sound echoing through the quiet dawn. The whole place felt... impoverished. Desolate. And utterly foreign. I couldn't shake the feeling that I'd stepped straight into a feudal-era slum.
A slum full of unfriendly eyes, apparently. As I took a cautious step toward the dirt road, I caught movement at the edge of my vision. Between two hovels, a pair of eyes glinted, reflecting the weak light. I turned to face them. A figure was watching me from the shadows, short, scrawny, wrapped in ragged cloth. Could have been a child, could have been a small adult. Hard to tell. Whoever it was, the moment I swiveled toward them, they ducked back out of sight like a spooked animal.
Not exactly a warm welcome, but at least they hadn't attacked me. I couldn't blame them for hiding, fear might have been the safer choice, but thats just not who i am. I exhaled slowly, realizing I'd raised my empty hands as if expecting to fend off a strike. With effort, I lowered them to my sides and tried to force the tension out of my shoulders. Keep it together. I needed information.
"Hello?" I called out quietly, my voice came or well sounded much younger? I cleared my throat and tried again, a little louder. "Hey! Can anyone hear me?"
My words seemed to fall flat, swallowed by the vast stillness of the early morning. No answer came, but I felt more eyes now. A prickling sensation crawled up the back of my neck, the unmistakable awareness of being watched by multiple unseen onlookers. Behind broken shutters, around corners, through cracks in walls, I imagined the residents of this shabby place peering at me, the strange newcomer who'd appeared out of nowhere.
I bit back a curse. Fine. If they wouldn't show themselves, I'd go to them. I squared my shoulders, lifted my chin, and started walking toward the cluster of huts. The dirt road was cool under my feet, packed hard by countless footsteps, and littered with pebbles that bit at my soles. I ignored the discomfort as best I could. It wasn't the worst pain I'd felt, far from it and I refused to look as vulnerable as I felt right now.
As I moved deeper into the settlement, more details emerged from the gloom. The buildings were crammed together haphazardly, separated by narrow alleys barely wide enough for one person. Many structures leaned against each other for support, as if a strong wind might topple them outright. Here and there, I saw crude signs of life: a battered pot left outside a door, cold ashes from a fire pit, a scrap of cloth hanging on a line. But the people themselves remained hidden, shadows flitting at the edges of my vision. Occasionally id see the lone house out towards the outskirts.
My frustration grew with each silent second. Where the hell am I? I wanted to shout the question, demand answers from the people of this place. Not knowing anything was torture. But I clenched my jaw and held it in. Yelling might only attract the wrong kind of attention. The last thing I needed was to provoke an attack from frightened villagers or worse, alert any predators lurking about that there was fresh meat in town.
I passed an alley and caught a glimpse of two figures farther down, crouched over something. One looked up as I walked by. Even in the low light, I saw the hard glint in his eyes, the look of someone sizing me up. I met his stare with a flat one of my own and kept walking, hand instinctively drifting into firsts. Maybe it would be smart to grab a thick stick i could use as a weapon.
The man in the alley did nothing, though I could feel his gaze boring into my back long after I'd passed. Maybe he decided I wasn't worth the trouble, or maybe he was waiting for backup. Let him. If trouble was coming, I'd rather face it head on than worry about it sneaking up on me. Still, I quickened my pace slightly, eager to find at least one person here who might actually speak to me without pulling a knife.
Ahead, I spotted what looked like a shallow well in a small clearing between shacks. A wooden frame supported a spindle and rope, from which hung a battered bucket. Water, now that I thought about it, my throat was parched. A drink and maybe a quick look at my reflection couldn't hurt.
I approached the well, pausing to glance cautiously around me. I didn't want to get caught off guard at a vulnerable moment. Satisfied that no one was immediately nearby, just more half-seen silhouettes keeping their distance. I turned my attention to the well. The bucket was resting at the top, about half-full of relatively clear water. Someone must have drawn it recently. They weren't around now, perhaps scared off by my approach.
I peered down into the bucket. In the dim light, I could just make out a face reflected on the surface of the water. I almost didn't recognize it at first. Slowly, I leaned closer, bringing the image into focus. A young woman with unruly black hair stared back at me, her gray eyes narrowed in wary concentration. I blinked. The reflection blinked too, of course, but it still felt like I was looking at a stranger.
Tentatively, I raised a hand to my cheek. The woman in the water did the same, copying my movements. My fingertips brushed along my cheekbone, then down along my jaw to my neck. The face in the reflection was undoubtedly mine—just... younger. Years younger. I'd always had a sharp, angular face, but now the angles were smoother, the lines softer. The few tiny scars that had nicked my chin and forehead over the years were gone without a trace.
I pushed back a lock of hair, tilting my head to examine myself more closely. In the water's mirror I saw confusion flash across my features. This is me... but not the me I remember. I looked to be maybe eighteen. I certainly hadn't been that young in a very long time. My eyes were the same stormy gray they'd always been, but the shadows under them had lightened. Even the streak of white in my bangs a souvenir from a nasty lightning strike a few years ago had vanished. My hair was pure black once more, no sign of the hard-earned oddities that had marked my body.
I didn't know whether to laugh or scream. All those scars, the subtle reminders of battles won and lost, the proof of everything I'd survived...they were just... erased. As if none of it had ever happened. As if I hadn't happened.
My hand curled into a fist against the rough wood of the well's frame. Stay calm. This wasn't the time to get sentimental about scars. I'd never been the sentimental type anyway. They were just marks. If they were gone but I was alive or at least in one piece that was what mattered. Still, it was unnerving to see a face so close to one I hadn't seen since my youth, staring back at me in a place that made no damn sense.
I let out a slow breath and lifted the bucket carefully. It creaked in protest as I brought it to my lips. The water was cool and tasted of minerals. Not the freshest, but drinkable. I took a few cautious gulps, enough to wet my dry throat, then set the bucket back down. As I did, a faint rumble in my stomach made me pause.
Hunger. Real, physical hunger gnawing at my gut. The sensation was so unexpected that I actually pressed a hand to my abdomen, frowning. I couldn't remember the last time I'd felt genuinely hungry.... during intense situations, adrenaline usually kept such mundane feelings at bay. Yet here I was, in the middle of... wherever this was, with my stomach growling as if I'd skipped a day's worth of meals.
Terrific. I grimaced. Thirsty, hungry, lost in a ramshackle ghost town, just when I thought things couldn't get any better. My sarcasm, even in my own head, was a poor shield against the cold reality settling over me. I had no idea where I was, no idea how I'd gotten here beyond the memory of that supernatural brawl, and no idea what to do next. All I had were the clothes on my back (itchy and ill-fitting as they were) and the lingering taste of uncertainty in my mouth. In that moment, I would've killed for a cigarette to steady my nerves, too bad I didn't even have pockets, let alone a smoke.
I gave my reflection one last glance in the well water. "At least you still have your charming personality," I muttered under my breath. The young woman with no scars gave me a wry, lopsided smirk before her image rippled away in the disturbed water.
Time to move. Dawn was creeping closer the eastern sky had turned a paler shade of gray and I doubted things would get magically safer once daylight fully arrived. If anything, daylight might bring a bolder approach from whoever lived here. Maybe I could get someone to talk to me once the sun was up, or find a market or some clue as to what this place was.
Because one thing was sure: this definitely wasn't anywhere I recognized. Not any town or city I'd ever heard of. The architecture and clothing (what little I'd seen) suggested something far removed from the modern world. It felt like I had truly fallen into another era entirely.
Another possibility tugged at the back of my mind, one I'd been avoiding thinking about too hard: maybe I was dead. After all, I'd been swallowed by a tear in reality itself while two godlike beings fought. For all I knew, my real body had been vaporized and this was the afterlife. Some sort of... spiritual waystation for the departed? If it was, it certainly wasn't the heaven any priest ever preached about.
I rubbed the heel of my hand against my forehead, trying to dispel the beginnings of a headache. Whether this was another world or the afterlife or an insanely lucid dream, I had to keep my wits. I couldn't just stand here philosophizing when there might be threats around or chances to get answers. Overthinking would get me nowhere; survival first, questions later.
I stepped away from the well, forcing my senses back to the present. The area around me was still eerily quiet. Too quiet. If this was a town or district of some sort, where were the morning sounds of life? In a normal village, by now I'd expect to hear roosters crowing or people stirring, doors opening as early risers went about their chores. Here, I heard only the whisper of wind through cracks and the distant cawing of that crow.
It struck me that perhaps most of the inhabitants were deliberately staying out of sight. Hiding, or lying in wait. The latter thought put me on high alert again. My skin prickled with the sensation of being watched more intently now than before. Yes, definitely. I could feel multiple sets of eyes on me, some closer than earlier. Not just curious now; this felt predatory.
Casually, I shifted my stance, turning as if admiring the surroundings while actually scanning for any approaching figures. There a flicker of movement behind an old cart to my left. And another, by the dilapidated fence on my right. The hairs on my neck stood up. I was being surrounded.
I adjusted my grip on the well's wooden frame, flexing my fingers. The nearest thing to a weapon in reach was the bucket or the length of coarse rope attached to it. Neither was ideal. A little farther behind me, leaning against the well, was a broken plank of wood part of the well's cover maybe, split and discarded. It was about forearm-length, with one end splintered into a nasty jagged point. That would do nicely.
Feigning ignorance, I took a step away from the well, positioning myself closer to that plank. "Alright," I said aloud, addressing the open air with a bravado I half felt. "I know you're out there. If you're planning to do something stupid, can we get it over with? I haven't got all day."
My voice sounded confident. Project strength, even if you're one breath away from panic that was the golden rule. That was a lesson I'd learned young, and it had saved my hide more times than I could count. Cowards and bullies smell fear; they respect strength, or at least the appearance of it.
For a heartbeat, nothing happened. I wondered if maybe I had misread the situation. Then, from behind the old cart, a tall figure stepped out into the open road. To my right, two shorter figures emerged from behind the sagging fence, and a fourth slid out of the shadows of an alleyway, cutting off the route behind me. Four of them—scruffy, rough-looking men with predatory grins. They moved with the easy confidence of those who have long ruled these streets through fear.
The tall one from behind the cart was clearly the leader. A lanky giant with arms like gaunt tree limbs, he carried a rusty blade loosely in one hand. His lips pulled into a wolfish smile when he saw me eyeing the blade. "Mornin', sunshine," he drawled. His voice was low and scratchy, like metal scraping on stone. "Lost, are we?"
The two from the fence chuckled as they slunk closer. One cracked his knuckles; the other toyed with what looked like a sharpened bone, flipping it between his fingers. The fourth man, blocking the way I'd originally come from, was shorter and broad-shouldered, hefting a wooden club studded with nails. A lovely welcoming committee indeed.
I felt my muscles tighten, adrenaline starting to flood my veins. Despite the danger, a part of me almost welcomed it, the clarity that comes when a fight is about to go down. A fluttering in my chest. Four opponents, armed and probably experienced in group fights.
I allowed myself a thin smile, hoping it came off as more confident than crazed. "Yeah, I'm lost," I answered the leader, rolling my shoulders back to loosen them. "I don't suppose you gentlemen are here to give directions?"
The big man barked a laugh, showing a row of yellowed teeth. "Hear that? She wants directions." He took a step forward. The morning light was just bright enough now that I could make out more of his face, a mess of scars crossing sunken cheeks, and eyes that had long lost any hint of mercy. "We got your directions right here." He tapped the flat of his machete against his thigh. "Clothes, shoes, oh wait, you ain't got shoes, any valuables. Hand 'em over, and maybe we'll direct you somewhere nice and quiet."
"Like a grave," one of his friends snickered.
Another step from the left, the knuckle-cracker, trying to flank me. My eyes darted, noting each position. They were spreading out, encircling me like hyenas around a carcass. The plank of wood I'd eyed was now just behind my right heel. Easy...
I raised my hands halfway, as if in surrender. "Look, I don't want trouble," I lied smoothly. "I literally just got here. I have nothing of value, and frankly, this outfit isn't worth the cloth it's made of." I tugged the rough fabric of the robe with a slight grimace, as if to demonstrate. "You'd be wasting your time—"
"Too late for that," grunted the short man with the club behind me. He spat on the ground. "We've seen your face now. Can't have strangers wandering 'round. Our turf, our rules."
The leader spread his arms in an exaggerated shrug. "See, we got to make an example of you. Otherwise, other lost little lambs might not learn their lesson. Ain't that right, boys?"
A chorus of agreement answered him, the men chuckling darkly as they edged nearer. They thought they had me scared senseless, surrounded and meek. They thought I was just another victim.
They were about to learn otherwise.
My pulse thudded in my ears. I pivoted slightly, putting my back toward the well—toward the plank waiting on the ground. I could feel the wood's presence even without looking; just a couple more inches...
"Last chance," the tall man sneered, his patience evidently wearing thin. "Hand it all over, then crawl back into whatever hole you came from. Or don't. Maybe we'll just bury you here."
His three cronies fanned out, ready to pounce. I saw the bone-knife wielder lick his lips in anticipation. It made my skin crawl. Enough talking.
I dropped the pretense of submission. My eyes locked onto the leader's. "You're welcome to try," I said coldly.
For a split second, confusion flickered in his eyes, he hadn't expected defiance. In that heartbeat, I struck.
My foot slid back and kicked up the loose plank from the ground into my hand. In one fluid motion, I lunged sideways. The sharp splintered end of the wood whistled through the air, aimed straight for the lanky leader's throat...