What You Lost V

The second hand jerked forward.

Tomoe remained sprawled across the floor, her severed neck a dark fountain that had slowed to a trickle. Through the doorframe, black and red splatter stained the walls like a grotesque mural.

Reina braced herself against the counter, shoulders folded inward as if trying to disappear. Her stare flicked from window to ceiling to faucet—anywhere but him. The counter’s edge bit into her palms, fingers drained of color.

He sat at the table, spine bent like a question mark, palm flat against his thigh. His pulse had already steadied. His thoughts hadn’t.

“Are you afraid?”

A strangled noise caught in Reina’s throat. She covered her mouth, trembling fingers pressed against her lips as she shook her head and lowered her stare.

He kept his focus on the floor. “I want you to know—if I’d seen another way, any other way out—I wouldn’t have chosen this one.”

She didn’t answer.

He talked anyway, the words tumbling before he could stop them.

“I tried so hard to keep this part of me hidden from you.”

“You… you killed those people, Ren.”

“They were going to kill me. Do worse to you.”

“You… brutalized them.” Her glance slid toward the doorway where something glistened on the wall.

His jaw flexed until a muscle jumped beneath his skin. “They were already monsters. I just made the outside match. Isn’t this what you wanted?”

“I didn’t want you to do this!”

“You can’t be serious. These people were going to—”

“There were other ways!” she snapped. He recoiled as if struck. “The proper authorities—someone else could have handled this!” Her voice broke. “Look at what you’ve done, Ren. All this blood…”

“Listen to yourself. I saved us. I stopped them.”

“Stopped them? You butchered them.”

“I did!” The words detonated from inside him. “And they weren’t the first. I’ve killed more people than you’ll ever know.” He leaned across the table. “You think someone else is going to handle it? The police? Social services? Where were they when this started? You’re wrong, Reina! Open your eyes.” His chest heaved once. “Yes, I killed them. And I’d do it again if it meant keeping you safe.” His stare searched her face. “Now answer me. Are you scared?”

Of me.

He exhaled.

“If you are—if you hate me… I’ll understand.”

Reina’s fingers trembled on the table’s edge. She stared at him, as if seeing him for the first time. The tight line of her mouth eased. She leaned forward and brushed her thumb along his cheek, wiping a crimson streak before it reached his eye. He almost flinched—the warmth of her skin achingly human. Somewhere between fear and pity, something gentler took root.

“I’m not a monster.”

“I know you’re not.”

Only the clock dared to move, marking another second gone. Her focus stayed on him. When she finally spoke, her words were barely more than a whisper. “What exactly did you do?”

His shoulders sagged, as if invisible hands had finally released their grip. “Sometimes,” he said, “I wish you would’ve left me alone.” Her expression flickered—hurt, disbelief. “Remember how you used to say I never fit in? You were right. I’ve got no place here. Not beside you. Not with anyone. This whole world… I’m just passing through it.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m from another world.”

The confession slipped out before he could stop it.

He froze, then repeated it softer.

“I’m from another world.” He lurched upright, pressing his fingers to his temple as if to hold back the flood. “I’m from another world!”

The names came first. The faces. Leon’s crooked smile. Sera’s blazing eyes. Voices he’d trained himself to forget came roaring back. He gripped the table’s edge as his knees threatened to buckle, his body shaking as years of denial tore themselves open. Reina could only watch as he fractured before her eyes like ice cracking over dark water.

“They’re gone.” A sound escaped him—half laugh, half sob. “Yet here I stand.” Their gazes met, and something inside him caved, leaving him hollow. The words scraped his throat raw. “Why am I still here?” He wasn’t asking her. Maybe he wasn’t asking anyone.

Reina sank to her knees beside him, arms wrapping around his trembling frame despite the corpse inches away. Through the thin fabric of his shirt, her heartbeat thudded against his chest, her tears burning trails down his skin as she pulled him closer.

For the first time in years, he let himself be held. His arm circled her waist, fingers knotting in the cotton of her shirt. In the spreading crimson pool, his reflection stared back—a vacant vessel with eyes that shimmered but refused to spill.

Her lips brushed his ear. “Whatever your reasons,” she breathed, “I’m happy that you are.”

━━━━━━━━━━𝑾𝑪𝑨━━━━━━━━━━

The kitchen table separated them, morning light spilling across the blood-stained tiles, turning everything it touched a sickly amber.

“Those people at the school,” Reina said. “And at the bridge too. You saved us then, didn’t you?”

He nodded. “I thought if I just disabled them—the ones that didn’t look too far gone—maybe they’d have a chance later.” The corner of his mouth pulled downward. “I realize how stupid that was.”

“All those times I thought we got lucky,” she murmured. “That wasn’t luck at all.”

Ren studied the darkened grout between the tiles. Her words hung in the air between them, unanswered.

“Does it ever bother you?” she asked, softer now.

He glanced at the body. “Sometimes. My world had its own wars. I was born with…” He paused, searching. “A certain mutation. I was fighting for my life before I knew what it meant.” His gaze drifted somewhere she couldn’t follow. “Eventually, we got used to it.”

“We? You weren’t alone?”

A ghost of a smile crossed his face. “I had people. We protected each other. Fought together.” The smile faded. “And we lost. The rest is history.”

He looked at her.

“Leave with me.”

She blinked.

“We could disappear together. Today. You and me, somewhere no one would find us.” He didn’t know why he said it. Maybe because the thought of losing her felt too much like losing them again.

Her lips curved upward, though it wasn’t a smile born of joy. “What about Lilly? What about your friends? What about everyone else? ” She shook her head, the gesture gentle despite the weight behind it. “I won’t abandon my sister. Not even for you.”

Ren recognized the ghost in her. He’d tried to dismiss it as cruel coincidence, the universe’s final joke at his expense. Yet despite every wall he’d built, every cold shoulder he’d turned, she remained. Close enough to see his suffering. Close enough to matter. And that was the problem. She had begun to matter.

Reina’s laugh caught in her throat as she brushed tears from her lashes. “Besides, even if I wanted to go with you. I haven’t earned that right.”

He stayed quiet.

“That first day, your expression carried such loneliness. I thought you looked so sad. It broke my heart. So I did what I always do—worming my way into your life, wielding my smile like a lockpick, using every trick I knew to mend what looked broken. To make the sadness retreat. To make you better. Fix your life. Fix you. And when I succeeded, I’d vanish. Move on to the next person.”

A rough sound escaped her, almost a laugh.

“Never mind what I left behind. You see, I convinced myself I was balancing some cosmic scale—erasing a ledger of wrongs. The whispers followed us everywhere: how my family promised the world while emptying your pockets.” Her voice cracked, tears catching the amber light. “That first day I saw you standing alone, something in me recognized something in you. I thought: here’s someone even more broken than I am. Here’s someone I can save. I never meant to—to—” The confession died in her throat. “Even if I wanted to go with you, I haven’t earned it.” An empty laugh escaped her. “You were right, you know—there is something wrong with everyone. Some pair we make, don’t we, Ren?”

The second hand moved again. Her truth settled into the space between them, neither shocking nor surprising him. What remained wasn’t judgment or pity, just the weight of recognition—two cracked mirrors catching the same fractured light.

She lifted her head at last, the whites of her eyes threaded with red. He rose and moved to her side of the table. His thumb found her cheek, sweeping away a rust-colored smear that had dried there during the morning’s violence.

“None of that matters now,” he murmured. His hand lingered against her skin. She searched his face, hunting for absolution—or maybe just a fragment of forgiveness.

That’s when he saw it reflected in her eyes—a flicker of movement, a flash of color that didn’t belong.

His head snapped toward the window. Through the pale morning light, an orange streak sliced the horizon like a wound. They moved as one to the glass, shoulders nearly touching, and watched the flare arc over distant rooftops.

It paused at its apex, suspended between earth and sky, before dissolving into a ribbon of smoke. Across the city’s glass towers, the reflection rippled—too precise, too intentional to be anything but a message.

He released a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding, his gaze fixed on the fading trail. “Let’s find the children,” he said. “And get out of here.”