What appeared in the light was a hand lying on the ground.
It looked like a woman’s hand, and for some reason, Chen Qinyao knew at first glance that it belonged to her sister. It had to be…
The hand that had once cooked for her was now covered in blood and wounds, with flesh torn open.
Several fingers were missing, their jagged stumps looking as if something had bitten them off.
Her stomach lurched. Chen Qinyao fought down the urge to vomit, trembling all over.
Her sister.
This was her sister’s hand.
Her sister had disappeared nearby just moments ago.
She couldn’t have gone far in such a short time, but Chen Qinyao couldn’t find her anywhere.
Just a moment ago, she’d still been wondering where her sister had gone.
Pain and terror crashed over the girl all at once.
She instinctively wanted to cry, but her primal fear made her cover her mouth and nose and grit her teeth to keep from making the slightest sound.
Perhaps the overwhelming fear had made her more alert.
She suddenly realized what was wrong with the hunchbacked man in front of her.
His height.
Although Chen Qinyao’s rented apartment was on the first floor, that was only according to the building’s floor numbering.
To reach the first-floor entrance, she had to climb a flight of stairs, which meant the apartment windows were as high as the second floor.
But the man in front of her could reach the second-floor window simply by stretching out his arm.
And he was hunched over.
Just how tall was he?!
“Tap, tap.”
Suddenly, the steady tapping stopped, and the thin, withered fingers hung in midair.
Chen Qinyao’s eyes widened.
The hunchbacked man in front of her hadn’t moved, yet she had the eerie feeling that his head was slowly turning toward her.
She could almost hear the shrill scrape of rusted metal.
Even though all she could actually hear was the rain.
“Tap, tap.”
The tapping started again, but at some point, the hunchbacked man’s face had turned toward her.
His features were withered, his eyes bulged like a fish’s, and his smile stretched all the way to his ears.
The hand kept tapping on the window, but the hunchbacked man had turned only his face, twisting it 180 degrees while keeping his body still.
He smiled as he stared at her.
Her hair stood on end. The fear that had been building inside Chen Qinyao erupted, and she turned and ran.
As she ran, she pulled out her phone.
She wanted to call the police, but no matter what she tried, her phone had no signal.
Chen Qinyao ran for who knew how long, stopping only when a stitch in her side forced her to slow down. She panted heavily and looked behind her.
There was nothing behind her but darkness.
All she could hear was the rain, and the silence made it seem as if everything she’d seen had been an illusion.
Her phone had no signal, and her sister was gone.
Overwhelmed by helplessness, the girl could no longer hold back her tears.
She sobbed between gasps for air. Her life had just started getting better, so why was this happening again? Why?
“Tap, tap.”
But fate was cruel.
She didn’t even have time to cry.
Two crisp taps rang out, and the sounds around her suddenly fell silent.
“Tap, tap.”
The girl didn’t dare take a breath.
She pressed herself tightly against the wall.
Everything around her was dark, but she could hear the tapping nearby, right on the other side of the wall.
She slowly held her breath and listened as the “tap, tap” moved around behind the wall for a while, then faded away one sound at a time.
Only after she could no longer hear anything and the rain was the only sound left did Chen Qinyao feel that she’d escaped danger.
Chen Qinyao was on the verge of breaking down.
What the hell was that thing?
A ghost?
A monster?
Or some other kind of freak?
She didn’t even dare think about what had happened to her sister.
She was afraid she’d break down and lose the will to go on.
“You could ask me for help.”
A somewhat childish voice spoke from beside her.
“What good would asking you for help do…” the girl replied instinctively, then suddenly realized she was alone here.
“Who’s there?!”
The girl looked toward the voice in terror and saw something perched on the wall…
A cat?
Or rather, some kind of creature that looked like both a cat and a rabbit, watching her with an almost human expression.
“What… what are you?”
The girl’s tongue had grown clumsy with terror.
“Make a contract with me, or you can sit here like an idiot until you become that big guy’s midnight snack.”
“What are you talking about?” Chen Qinyao asked blankly.
She’d already seen a ghost today, and now she was meeting a talking cat that wanted to make a contract with her.
It wasn’t all that different.
“You still don’t get it?” The creature that looked like a cat and a rabbit had a childish voice, yet its tone was nasty and impatient. “You’re not in the real world anymore. This is an illusion created by the Abyss. You couldn’t run out of here even if you had four legs. Understand?”
The childish voice continued.
“Becoming a Magical Girl is your only chance to survive. Do you understand now?”
“Then how did you get in here?”
The girl was still wary, but the cat-rabbit creature didn’t give her a chance to think.
It leaped lightly onto her shoulder, pressed its catlike face toward Chen Qinyao, and continued.
“How did I get in? Easy for me. It’s like picking a lock. You wouldn’t understand, but it’s no problem for a thief. Got it? But you’re out of time. If you didn’t have talent, I wouldn’t care whether you lived or died. My time is valuable. Understand, little girl?”
Tonight had been too bizarre.
The hunchbacked man who appeared in the middle of the night, her sister’s disappearance, and now the rabbit-cat in front of her that could talk—her brain had taken so many hits that it was about to shut down.
“All right, quit obsessing over common sense. We don’t have time for you to grieve over your sister, either. We have to go now.”
“Go?” The girl’s expression remained confused.
“Yeah, go. We have to get out of here. Time to skedaddle, make tracks, and get the hell out of Dodge.”
The cat raised a paw and pointed in one direction, speaking like an old man.
“We need to get somewhere safe to make the contract. Once we’ve made it, you’ll be able to escape and survive. If you want to live, get moving.”
As it spoke, the cat leaped lightly to the ground and darted into the shadows.
The girl wanted to shout for it to wait, but thinking that the freak was probably still nearby, she could only grit her teeth and run after it.
The girl struggled to keep up with the fast-running cat, following it along the walls and across empty roads.
It really did feel like she was inside some kind of domain.
The city looked familiar, but it was like a ghost town.
There wasn’t a single person, nor even the slightest sign of life.
All she could do was stay close to the cat leading the way.
“Go straight for 100 meters, then hurry through. Faster, faster.”
The creature’s four legs moved incredibly fast.
It ran while looking back to urge Chen Qinyao to go faster, but she was already nearly out of breath.
At first, Chen Qinyao had looked around to figure out where she was.
Eventually, she stopped bothering and focused only on following the cat, letting it lead her this way and that through the maze.
“That thing isn’t watching this area right now. Cut through the intersection up ahead, and we’ll find a relatively safe anchor point.”
“Faster, faster! If you don’t want to die, run faster.”
The creature’s four legs moved quickly, and its small body could easily slip through narrow gaps.
Chen Qinyao, on the other hand, had to find things to step on to boost herself up before she could climb over low walls.
“It’s over here.”
The creature slipped around a corner and disappeared.
Chen Qinyao hurried after it. This place really did feel unnerving.
A primal sense of unease made her deeply uncomfortable.
According to the cat-rabbit creature, this was an “anchor point.”
“Then what? What am I supposed to do?”
“Take this and crush it.”
As it spoke, the talking cat suddenly tossed something from who knew where.
Chen Qinyao scrambled to catch it and found a red gem in her hand.
She squeezed it with both hands, but no matter how hard she tried, the gem was rock-solid. It even dug painfully into her palms.
“I can’t crush this thing?”
She’d been trying for a while, but it hadn’t worked. She was about to ask when, in the blink of an eye, the cat from before…
Had turned into a cloud of blood mist.