Changing Fate

No one moved.

Both monsters waited in the dark. Staring. Silent. Waiting for Mina to make the first move.

Mina’s breath caught in her chest. Her limbs went cold, pins and needles trailing up her spine.

Her legs went numb, giving out underneath her, sending her to the floor. The move startled both monsters, sending them scuttling away into the darkness. Mina finally took in a shallow, stuttering breath. They may have left her alone, but she’s not safe yet.

Thinking quickly, Mina turned back to the loose wooden board of the wall. She shook as she grabbed it, splinters digging into her fingers as she pulled it away. It broke free with a snap, but it wasn’t large enough. Not yet. Snow began to blow in from the inside, bringing its stinging chill with it, but Mina had to keep going. The board beside it was much more difficult to remove, the wood still in too good a condition to fail. Mina persevered. Now she had a hole large enough to escape through.

They were right. All of them were right. Mina can’t be a shrine maiden, no matter how hard she’d tried. She wasn’t cut out for it.

Bitter tears stung her eyes as she crawled through the hole and out to the snowy landscape, though she didn’t let them fall. Her fingernails instantly turned blue with the cold, her teeth clattering uncontrollably.

Without her coat and boots, making it down the mountain was going to be horrible, but there was no way she was going to risk going back inside to get them.

Wait, she’s free. Could she unlock the door from the outside?

Mina circled the strange building, her cold, wet socks crunching over mounds of snow as she walked. The snow continued to fall, Mina brushed her head and shoulders often to clear the build up.

To her surprise, a large boulder tied with red string and even more paper talismans blocked the entire view of the door. They didn’t just lock her inside, but intended to keep her trapped there for good. Sacrificed. Unlike a proper maiden, her skills and prayers were of no use. Her only purpose was to keep evil at bay.

Mina took a cold, shaky breath, feeling it rumble in her chest. The long trek back to the main shrine was rough through the uneven fallen snow, her vision clouded by both the never-ending snowflakes and her tears. The cold of her heart was more painful than the cold of her limbs.

Partway through, she tripped, losing her footing and falling forwards, face first.

Mina could barely pull herself to her knees before she started crying. She sobbed loudly, openly, the winds drowned out her every noise.

What in the world is she supposed to do now?

She spent her whole life, all forty-seven years of it, dedicating herself to the temple. Her only dream was to be a shrine maiden. That was all she ever wanted. She kept pure, she learned the scriptures and the prayers and the ceremonies all by heart, she tried everything she possibly could to join.

The snow fell harder on her back, a thin layer grew thicker as she sobbed.

She was shunned! Sacrificed! When all she wanted was to be acknowledged!

Maybe… maybe that was all the good she would ever be.

Why did she try so hard to escape in the first place? Mina Mori has no place in this world outside the shrines that do not claim her. Why was she trying so hard to run from her fate? Perhaps this was all she was good for.

With a haze over her eyes, Mina walked back towards the darkness.

If the shrine maidens see her as a sacrifice, so be it. If she is to die at the hands of the malevolent creatures of the dark, so be it.

This was her fate.

“CUT!” Demini popped in, appearing out of thin air. He grabbed Mina by her shoulders and shook her a few times. “That’s not in the script, love. You can’t change the narrative all willy-nilly. That’s not why I brought you here.”

“I must be the sacrifice.” Mina mumbled. “It is what I was made for. That’s why I longed for the shrine. It is my fate.” Her head swayed, too heavy on her shoulders. She pushed forward, but Demini kept her in place.

“Sacrifice? What? No, no, no, that’s not the plan… stay here.” Demini frowned, pulling out a tablet and scrolling through it. “Uhh, here. Mina Mori, forty-seven, freezes to death encountering a Yuki Onna after being chased by two devil summons into the woods. You’re not supposed to have some ‘sacrifice for the greater good’ mentality. That’s weird… The summons didn’t chase after you, and you’re going back to them?”

Demini kept scrolling, frowning at the tablet. Mina tried walking back, but found herself still frozen in place. She looked up, finding specks of snow suspended in mid-air.

“I told you to wait, ungrateful roach.” Demini tusked, still not looking up from his tablet. “So impatient. There has to be something that could explain your behavior- Just where do I find it? I remember the stupid thing was here not too long ago… Aha! Found it! Ehem-

“Death Status- Failure. Section 8-1: If a death does not take place through its intended outcome, but does occur on the exact same date and time, the Predictor in charge is absolved of blame. See Human Rational Section 10 for more details. Humans are capable of making split-second decisions that change their thinking, thus changing their actions, leading up to their deaths. Section 8-2: If a death does not take place through its intended outcome, and does not occur on the exact same time or date, the Predictor in charge must take blame for their failure in prediction. The Overseer may reassign Predictor or engage with the death directly. See Overseer Rule Book Section 17 for more details.”

“Ahhh, that explains it.”

Mina blinked.

“Wow, you’re slow. You’ll never make it up the ranks of hell once you’re fully down here, you know.”

“I’m going to hell?”

“Eh,” Demini shrugged, too casual for his accusation. “Maybe. I dunno. I’m not a Judge. Anyway, it basically says I’m in charge, and it was totally not your fault wish-loser… where was I?”

Demini thought for a moment, stroking his chin with his sharp nails.

“Uhh… Why was I looking through the sections again? RIGHT!” He snapped, the snow continued falling as normal. Mina blinked it away from her face, a sparking effect twinkled around her.

A crash, bang, and roars echoed from the small building. Mina’s heart pounded at the sound, the panic from earlier setting in full force, the haze washing away.

“So, instead of a Yuki Onna- which is totally overdone by the way- with my power as your Overseer, I think it would be cool if you die at the hands of those two, cool, underutilized summons in the old shrine’s storage room.”

“B-but they didn’t attack me earlier! I don’t know what they want from me!”

Demini tapped away at his tablet, saying his text out loud.

“Mina Mori dies at the hands of two failed devil summons,”

“WHY BOTH?”

“Too much? Yea, too much. I know I can be a little too dramatic.”

Demini kept typing, editing his work again and again until he was happy with the wording.

“Okay, here. Mina Mori, yada yada yada, dies at the hands of a failed summon after killing the other. So if you can die in the next, say, I don’t know… nineteen minutes and fifty three seconds, we’d be golden. See ya!”

Demini poofed away, leaving Mina to figure out how she’s supposed to kill a devil.