Chapter 5: …

Sayuri stared vaguely at the girl.
It was a necklace she had only just received, but it was her favorite.

—Give it back.

That was all she had thought.
Her mouth did not move, and she did not even know how to let her voice out.
It only echoed inside her head.

The girl slowly walked around Sayuri, watching her.

“Sayuri-chan, you’re cute.”
Her face came unnaturally close.

“Can you… not hear anything anymore?”
The words that should have been whispered right by her ear were fading away, as if underwater.

The girl opened her mouth.
It spread wider and wider, to an impossible degree.

Even faced with a mouth large enough to swallow her head whole, Sayuri kept staring at it vaguely.

—It’s big.

Though she was about to be swallowed, it somehow felt like it was happening to someone else.

—Huh? It’s pitch-dark.

Before she realized it, the girl’s hands had seized Sayuri’s arms, and the enormous mouth had completely covered Sayuri’s head.

—That was the moment—

The necklace began to glow faintly.
From within the light, hands of various sizes sprouted out and seized the girl’s body all at once.
Then, they tore it apart by force.
The torn-off limbs and face turned into black mist and vanished one after another.

On the girl’s face, unmistakable fear had surfaced.

The girl shoved Sayuri’s body away
and tried to peel off the approaching hands.
But the moment she touched them, those hands too were torn apart, turning into mist and vanishing.

“You—what are you—”

That scream never reached Sayuri.

Swaying unsteadily, Sayuri simply watched the scene as if it were a dream.