June 2008
***
Seika Hitoishi was an ordinary 14-year-old girl from Kawaguchi, living in a single-family house a short distance away from her junior high who didn’t want for friends or a loving family life.
Summer had just started a short while ago, with the temperatures rising and the cicadas causing their annual ruckus, signaling that in a few weeks she would be able to go to the beach with her friends or visit various anime events once summer break starts. She was a bit of an otaku, owning figurines of various Magical Girls, be they dressed in sailor uniforms, wielding mechanical laser beam weaponry or summoning magic from a set of cards, which were placed on a shelf at the foot of her bed to be the first thing she saw in the morning as her alarm rang.
“Good morning.” She greeted them as she rubbed her eyes, getting out of bed. It had become a little bit of a tradition, and looking at her favorite characters gave her the energy to face her everyday life.
She walked into the bathroom to brush her teeth and get her hair ready, taking her round glasses with her. As she put them on, she looked at herself in the mirror. She wore her hair slightly below shoulder length – and currently it was presenting as a rather chaotic bedhead. She grabbed her toothbrush and started brushing, then she grabbed the hairbrush with the other hand to get both things done at the same time. Her mother walked in behind her and gave her shoulders a gentle squeeze.
“Good morning, Seika.”
“Mhnngnn” She replied as she kept brushing.
They stood next to each other, quietly brushing their teeth.
Her mother was beautiful, with short hair and a constant gentle expression on her face. She worked as a librarian, and sometimes Seika visited her at work after school – naturally her visits also involved reading all the manga that the library had stocked.
“I’ll get breakfast ready, so go get yourself dressed.” Her mother said after she finished brushing her teeth. She left the bathroom while patting Seika’s head.
“Will do!” Seika replied and hurried into her room.
She dressed herself up in front of her mirror. She put on her school uniform – in summer it was only a white blouse with a navy-blue pleated skirt, rather than the whole uniform with a blazer.
She grabbed her bag and went downstairs where her parents were already waiting for her. Her mother just got done packing her lunch and serving her breakfast. She was rather traditional about it, serving her miso soup, some warm rice and fish with an egg roll and greens on the side.
“Good morning, Seika.” Her father greeted her - he sat at the table, watching the morning news. Something about people going missing was being mentioned, but Seika didn’t pay it much mind.
“Good morning, dad.” Seika replied while sitting down to start eating her breakfast.
Her father turned around towards her and smiled. He was an average office worker, employed by a company that sells printers and fax machines to various businesses around Tokyo and the surrounding areas, so he was rarely seen without a suit. His hair was kept short, and he wore glasses, which made his constant scowl look even more intimidating. The looks were deceiving, though, as he was a kind man on the inside as Seika had to tell many friends who came over to her house.
“I was talking with your mother, and we were thinking that this weekend we could go to a picnic together. It’s been a while since we’ve all spent time together. Would you like that, Seika?” He told her with a rare smile.
Seika beamed happily at that. It was rare that both of her parents had time for her, so she nodded enthusiastically.
“Of course!” She could see her parents exchanging happy looks while she kept eating. The news report on the TV kept going on while nobody paid any attention to it anymore.
image [https://i.imgur.com/CdWLhkc.png]
Seika added a little spring to her step as she walked out of school to go home. She waved at her friends as they went separate ways after walking the first bit together.
Now alone she kept walking, imagining what her mother might be making for their family picnic. She loved the octopus sausages she made for her bento – hopefully she would make more of them!
Her little hops came to an end as she noticed something unusual on her way home. There was a vending machine at the street corner that she didn’t remember. She had been walking this way almost every weekday for the past two years and this was the first time she saw this specific machine.
Were they usually installed that quickly?
She stepped closer to it – there were scratches and signs of wear on it, like it had been here for a few years already, which made things even weirder.
Maybe it was brought here from a different spot? Were vending machines reused like that?
I guess I’ll have the first drink from it!
She picked her wallet from her bag and grabbed a 100-yen coin. Humming the theme song of one of her favorite Magical Girl anime to herself, she pondered what she should buy – and decided on a juice. After inserting the coin, she pushed the button for her drink – and the world lost some of its vibrancy around her as she fell right into a Shadow’s trap.
***
Naturally she had no idea what was going on. As the world lost some of its color, she at first rubbed her eyes and looked around, thinking something happened to her eyesight.
The surrounding area was eerily quiet, as if all the humans and animals had vanished – most noticeable was the complete absence of cicadas.
Seika started walking through the abandoned neighborhood, trying to find another person. Maybe an adult would know what was happening right now, so she had to find one.
“Hello? Is anyone here? I need help!”
She shouted – her voice echoed eerily through the quiet streets in a way she had never heard before, as if she stood at the entrance to a beast’s lair, rather than an empty street.
“Is anyone out there?”
Something was skittering around behind her in response to her shouts and she turned around quickly with a gasp. She only caught something black vanishing around a corner, but she knew that she was in trouble.
She quickly walked backwards, keeping her eyes on the spot where that thing had vanished - then she turned around and ran in the direction of her house, hoping against hope that it was still a safe haven.
She heard a sound getting closer – it almost sounded like waves crashing against the shore, just that the sound got more intense and louder instead of growing louder and quieter in turns. As it got too loud to bear, she turned around and saw nothing but abyssal black – a giant maw extended, with jagged teeth pointed towards Seika from all directions. She screamed – and then all went dark.
***
She couldn’t move. She tried to flail her limbs around, but it was no use. Her entire body was enveloped, or rather encased in the black shadowy mass that made up the monster that had swallowed her. Her legs were pushed together and her arms firmly against her side.
She could see – but what she saw wasn’t what she experienced. She saw the streets in muted color and how houses passed by, despite her body not moving at all. She closed her eyes, and she still saw what was happening in her mind’s eye with vivid detail. Was she forced to see through the eyes of that black creature?
It’s so dark…
She wanted to shout for help, but her jaw was locked in a half open position. The mass making up the shadow was all around her and all inside her, permeating everything. She felt like gagging and like she was suffocating, but those feelings went nowhere. Tears welled up in her eyes as the hopelessness of her situation set in – she was trapped in a situation that she didn’t understand in the least and she had no idea what would be happening to her. The sheer uncertainty of it scared her more than the uncomfortable feeling of the darknesses’ embrace.
A shiver went through the creature that she could feel in her core. Something was changing. Through the forced sight that she shared with it she could see it hold up its arms that grew and grew. The limbs became longer and sprouted claws – at a glance one could think they were feminine hands with very exaggerated nails. The rest of its body grew, too – at least that’s what the shrinking houses in Seika’s vision seemed to imply.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
The vibrant colors returned to the world as did humans – who didn’t react at first, but once their eyes caught the form around Seika, they panicked and started running.
The creature made its way down the road in a slithering motion – the movement of its vision made Seika dizzy. On the way it snatched an unassuming man who vanished somewhere below Seika’s sight. She didn’t want to assume what was happening but in her current situation her mind ran wild anyway.
It's eating him!
Seika tried to close her eyes – she didn’t want to see any of this, only to be forced to bear witness to it anyway.
It crawled its way towards the north to an unknown destination – the panicked residents must have called the emergency hotline, since Seika could hear an approaching siren.
A police car stopped in front of the creature, causing it to cease its movement, if only for a moment.
“What is that thing?”
“I thought they prank called us.”
The men who left the car seemed uncertain what to do – and then the creature attacked them. Its claws ripped right through the car, and it was all they could do to dodge out of the way. They quickly unholstered their revolvers and aimed it at Seika – or rather the creature whose eyes she looked through.
“Bring it down! Whatever it is!”
Shots were fired – even from that distance it hurt Seika’s ear a little. Twitches went through the large body – apparently it could feel where it was hit.
Then Seika felt a dull pain in her left shoulder, like someone just hit her with a hammer, followed by a burning hot sensation. She tried to scream but no sound came out – it took a long time for her to realize that she had just been shot.
It hurts… no one knows I’m in here… they are trying to kill me…
The pain worsened as the shadows constricting her movement filled her wound. She tried to bite down on the shadow filling her mouth, but she was simply unable to move her jaw for even a centimeter.
The creature now retaliated. It swiped at the policemen, tossing them away. They crashed against a wall a few meters back and stopped moving. Seika hoped they were just unconscious.
The creature slithered away and withdrew back into the world of muted colors that it came from.
image [https://i.imgur.com/CdWLhkc.png]
Seika was tired. Not in the sense that she lacked sleep – in fact, she was remarkably awake – rather she felt like she had no energy, like after suddenly doing a lot of sports.
She suspected it had something to do with what the creature had been doing without pause since it slipped into the world of muted colors.
It withdrew to the Kawaguchi City Green Center where it made its ‘nest’, periodically plucking some of the shadowy mass making up its body from itself and shaping it between its hands, like it was nothing more than a ball of clay.
Some of the things it created were shaped like animals, others were shaped like people, or yet others like a teru teru bozu. There didn’t seem to be any rules what the things the creature created had to be shaped like, but every time it was done it lifted them up and Seika could feel a pull on her entire body that made her grow weaker while the shaped mass became animated and slithered away – probably to abduct more girls like her.
She didn’t know how many days it had been – time didn’t seem to move in the world of muted colors in the way she was used to. She wondered how her parents were currently dealing with her going missing – or if her friends at the literature club thought she was skipping school.
Mama is probably crying right now.
She caught sight of one of the created shadows returning. It stopped in front of Seika’s sight and let itself be picked up by the bigger creature. Then it was devoured whole. Seika could feel more energy returning to her body than she had spent creating that thing.
It ate… and came to feed me. No, I hate this… I don’t want this!
What would my favorite Magical Girls do now?
It was a delusional thought, clinging to her favorite anime characters who would meet this danger with a smile or a stern look before punishing the evil that had set foot into her life. She was a child, after all.
But in that moment her delusional dreams became reality.
***
A lightning strike brought blue back to the muted colors of the creature’s world. Seika was partially blinded by the bright light, but she could make out the silhouettes of two people. She had no idea how they got in here. Maybe this was what it looked like when someone entered this world? When they touched something, like she touched that vending machine?
Please run away! You have to get away!
She pleaded mentally with the two people. She could only see their unusual appearance as her eyes recovered.
It were a man and a woman in peculiar outfits. The man was dressed in purple royal robes of some kind. His hair was glowing in the same color, or at least the part that she could see under his wide-brimmed pointy hat. The hat’s brim was crowned by a wreath of laurels and ivy, and over his robes he wore a crimson cloak with an eagle embroidered on it. His eyes were shining in a golden color, apparently emitting their own light. His face was very pretty, androgynous even, wearing a carefree expression that established direct eye contact with Seika or rather the creature whose eyesight she was forced to borrow.
“Remember, dear. Only immobilize it and don’t hit the core.”
“I know, I know.”
The woman who stepped to the forefront was in many ways similar to the wizard-looking man. Her hair flowed in the same glowing purple color accompanied by the golden glow of her eyes. She wore armor – European style armor, to be precise. She wore a chest plate with bracers and armored greaves; whichever part of her wasn’t covered in steel was instead wrapped in purple fabric.
She wore a short skirt made out of leather straps, with the ones in the back being extended with peacock feathers. She featured the same androgynous features as the man.
After they stared Seika down for what seemed to last an eternity the woman made a move. She launched herself off the ground at breakneck speed – Seika closed her eyes reflexively, even though it was useless to do that. She felt vibrations going through the large body encasing her and heard a loud roar as an arm fell to the ground and dissolved into liquid shadow.
The body moved, slithering along the surface and clawing at the woman with its remaining arm. She easily dodged and now Seika could see that she was wielding a spear and a shield that hadn’t been there before.
The spear had a heart-shaped tip, and the shield was polished to mirror-like brilliance, reflecting the creature she was fighting.
This was the first time Seika caught a good look at what the creature that swallowed her became.
The upper body of it looked just like a woman – it had all the curves and shapes and even though it lacked color distinction its face was undoubtedly a human woman’s. Its right arm was currently missing and in the process of growing back. Its lower body was that of a snake, explaining its slithering motions up to this point.
It looked distressed in the face of the woman with the spear. It swiped at her, making the woman launch herself inhumanly far into the air. Then the creature revealed its magical capabilities. Magic circles appeared around it as Seika could feel the life drain some more from her body. It fired a hail of fireballs at the armored woman, only to have them intercepted from the side.
The man in the royal robes had summoned magic circles of his own – as the creature looked over to him, he wagged his finger.
“Would you please simply lie down and die without draining your occupant any further?”
A screech was the creature’s response, just as something pierced its head from the side. The creature’s eyes - Seika’s only connection to the outside world - ceased to function and darkness embraced her.
image [https://i.imgur.com/CdWLhkc.png]
Seika had lost all feeling of time again. She floated in the endless darkness, unaware of what might be happening around her.
I wish I could have gone to that picnic before things ended like this.
Her thoughts were her only companion in this moment, so she sank deep into them. She thought back to the two strangers who battled the snake chimera that she was trapped in. She had so many questions about them.
Who are they? Why did they come to battle this thing? What are these creatures in the first place?
In that moment light hit her closed eyelids, and she opened them.
Seeing with her own eyes for the first time in a week was unpleasant. At least it was nighttime from what she could tell, so there was only the moon rather than the sun’s blinding light.
Brighter than that were the eyes and hair of the man who held her and steadily pulled her towards himself.
“Easy does it, young one.”
Seika felt sick. She rolled over to the side and vomited.
All that came out was a black sludge that seemed to disintegrate and vanish as soon as it hit the ground.
“Nasty stuff, isn’t it? Gets in every little nook and cranny. They fill your lungs and stomach and wherever else and fuse you into themselves. All so they can drain magic more efficiently.”
So it was magic?
Seika was disoriented. She looked around.
“Where am I?”
“On a rooftop. Didn’t want everyone to see us pull you out of that thing.”
The man pointed to the remains of the snake-woman hybrid which dissolved and was soon nothing more than a bitter memory.
“Oh dear, what do you have there? Let me have a look at it.”
With the dissolving of the creature and all the black stuff in and on Seika the hole on her arm was breathing free again. She could feel a warm trickle of liquid run all the way down to her fingers – she didn’t want to look.
“This is why we don’t attack the core of the Queens. Not like the humans knew that.” A blue light came from the direction of her left arm, accompanied by a soothing feeling.
“It will leave a bit of a scar, but better than bleeding out, hm?”
Seika dared to look – and there really was a circular scar on her arm. After moving it around a little she found a matching one on the backside of the arm as well. The bullet went straight through and the shadows surrounding her had kept the hole completely sealed this entire time.
She looked at the man with tears in her eyes – only now she noticed that the man’s companion – the woman - stood some distance away, looking at the city with crossed arms, like she was keeping watch for more of those creatures.
“Tell you what, young one.” The wizard patted her head.
“Let’s get you back to your parents. You can go back to your normal life. But you know as well as I that you won’t forget what happened anytime soon, so…”
He paused, rubbing his chin with his hand.
“If you want to know more… about that creature, about us, why it grabbed you in particular… and if you want to know how you can prevent it from happening to others… we’ll be waiting for you in that park where that creature was hiding. Every day in the afternoon, for as long as we are still in town.”
***
Seika walked into a nearby small police station, looking disheveled. Her uniform was torn in various places, had a bloody hole where she had been shot and her hair was a mess. Her glasses had been lost entirely.
She squinted as she saw the wall showing missing people. There was the man who was swallowed whole by the creature as it made its debut, but also various other men, women and children were listed as missing.
Among them was her own picture.
As a policeman noticed her, he did a double take between her and the posters. He hurried to her side immediately, gently holding her shoulders.
“You went missing last week? Oh, thank the heavens you’re safe.”
From there all it took was a few questions, one phone call and ten minutes of waiting – then Seika was in the arms of her wailing mother who held her so tight that she almost couldn’t breathe. Even her father’s stern face teared up as he saw his daughter alive.
After being embraced by cold shadows for so long the warmth of her mother was almost scalding.