CH-14: Echoes Beneath the Stars...

The campfire had long since burned down to glowing embers, tiny red eyes blinking in the dark. The school courtyard lay quiet under a sky thick with stars, the only sounds the soft rustle of sleeping bags and the occasional sigh of someone shifting in their sleep. Saki lay curled on her mattress between Michi and Lily, knees drawn close, the prototype's bag tucked protectively against her stomach like a second heartbeat. Her breathing had finally evened out after the day's chaos—until it hadn't.

She blinked once, twice.

The world tilted.

The courtyard vanished.

She stood barefoot on cool, endless mist. Fog curled around her ankles like living smoke, thick enough to swallow sound. She looked down—her school uniform was gone. Instead she wore the pale yellow sundress she had loved when she was seven, the one with tiny embroidered sunflowers along the hem. Her hands were small again, fingers short and unscarred. She was a child.

A giggle bubbled up from somewhere ahead.

Saki's heart lurched.

She knew that sound.

She turned.

Through the fog, a boy walked—back turned, dark hair catching faint silver light that had no source. He moved with the easy bounce of someone who had never learned to be afraid. His schoolbag swung loosely from one shoulder; the strap was fraying at the edge, just as she remembered.

"Hisato...?"

Her voice came out thin, swallowed by the mist before it could travel.

He didn't stop.

Saki took a step—then another. Her bare feet sank into nothing. The fog thickened, clinging to her legs like wet cotton. She tried to run. Her muscles locked. She could not move forward.

Tears pricked her eyes.

"Hisato!"

Still no sound left her throat. She clawed at her neck, panic rising. Her mouth opened in a scream that made no echo.

The boy kept walking.

She watched—helpless—as the fog began to swallow his outline. First his swinging bag, then his shoulders, then the messy cowlick at the back of his head she used to tease him about.

"No—no—no—"

At the final edge of desperation, something inside her broke open.

She forced every scrap of air from her lungs and screamed with everything she had left.

"HISATO!!"

The name tore free—raw, shattering.

The boy stopped mid-step.

The fog stilled.

Slowly—agonizingly slowly—he turned.

His face was hidden in shadow at first. Then the mist parted just enough.

His eyes were empty. Not angry. Not sad. Simply... gone.

His lips moved.

Too late... Saki... Too late... to save... Late... very much...

The words layered over each other—his voice, but multiplied, ghostly, overlapping like a dozen mouths whispering at once.

Saki's knees buckled. She fell forward, hands reaching uselessly.

"I'm sorry," she sobbed. "I didn't come to you earlier—I didn't—I should have—"

The boy tilted his head. A sigh escaped him—long, tired, ancient.

I will give you one...

His voice deepened, splintering into something colder, something that wasn't human anymore.

...chance.

In slow, deliberate motion he raised his hand. Between his fingers glinted a small, dark pistol—too large for a child's grip, yet he held it steady.

Saki froze.

The barrel leveled at her chest.

Nothing... he whispered.

The gunshot cracked—silent and deafening at once.

Pain bloomed sharp and white behind her ribs.

Saki gasped awake.

She bolted upright on the mattress, hands flying to her chest. Fabric. Skin. No hole. No blood. Only the frantic thud of her own heart.

Sweat soaked her shirt. Her breath came in shallow, panicked bursts.

Lily stirred beside her, blinking sleepily. "Saki...?"

Saki pressed trembling fingers over her sternum again, searching for the impossible wound. Nothing.

"It was a dream," she whispered, mostly to herself. "Nothing else..."

Tears slipped down her cheeks anyway. She curled forward, hugging her knees, the name slipping out like a prayer and a wound at once.

"Hisato... I miss you..."

The moment the words left her lips, something shifted.

A faint shimmer—violet, barely perceptible—rippled across her skin. The curse marks beneath her sleeves glowed once, softly, then faded.

Around her, the air changed.

Memories that weren't hers flickered at the edges of the night—brief, stolen glimpses: black-clad figures climbing the fence, rifles raised, gas canisters primed. They had been here. Minutes ago. Ready.

And then—nothing.

The images dissolved like smoke.

No footprints remained in the gravel. No spent cartridges glittered under starlight. The agents had simply... vanished.

Saki's breath hitched.

She looked down at her own trembling hands.

Did I...?

A sudden warmth bloomed in the center of her chest—gentle, golden, like sunlight trapped behind ribs. The tightness in her lungs eased. The terror receded, not gone, but quieter.

She exhaled shakily.

Her eyelids grew heavy again.

She slipped back into sleep, cheek pressed against the prototype's bag, unaware that Yudashi's phone—still recording from earlier—had captured every second.

The screen glowed faintly in the dark.

It showed Saki's tears shimmering violet.

It showed the air above her ripple like heat haze.

It showed a black shadow—human-shaped, fluid, faceless—detach itself from the night and drift toward her sleeping form.

The shadow hovered, tendrils extending toward her chest as though to drink the light inside her.

Then—contact.

A barrier flared—soft gold, pulsing like a heartbeat.

The shadow recoiled.

It tried again. And again.

Each time the barrier flared brighter, pushing back.

Finally the shadow paused.

A single tear—black, viscous—rolled from where eyes should have been.

It hung in the air for a heartbeat.

Then the shadow dissolved—melting backward into the night as though it had never been.

The recording continued for another twenty minutes—nothing but sleeping faces and embers—before the battery icon blinked red and the screen went dark.

At the first edge of dawn, Yudashi stirred, reached for his phone, and saw the notification.

Low battery: 3%.

Recording saved: 4 hours 17 minutes.

He stared at the file thumbnail—Saki curled tight, a faint violet glow outlining her silhouette.

His thumb hovered over the play button.

He hesitated.

Then he locked the screen, slipped the phone into his pocket, and lay back down.

He did not sleep again.

The sun rose slowly over the school courtyard.

Embers had gone cold.

A new day waited—quiet, watchful, and already beginning to crack open.

------------------------XOXO------------------------