244.1

Tomoyo woke to something cold pressed against her back.

Her first thought was that she'd rolled onto her water bottle again, which happened more often than she'd like to admit. Her second thought died the moment she twisted around and saw the umbilical cord.

It emerged from beneath her shirt, pale and translucent, pulsing with something that might have been blood but moved too slowly. The cord stretched upward, disappearing into the shadows near her ceiling.

She sat up slowly, following the cord's path with her eyes until she found the source.

A pelican eel.

Its body was long and serpentine, tapering into a whip-like tail that coiled in the space above her bed. The mouth was the real showstopper, though. A gaping jaw that looked like it could swallow her whole if it wanted to, lined with rows of needle-sharp teeth that gleemed faintly. Its eyes were black and glassy, staring at nothing and everything all at once.

Tomoyo blinked.

"Huh."

The panic that had been clawing its way up her throat just… stopped. Because she knew this thing. Not personally, obviously, but she'd seen pelican eels before. A model of it in the deep-sea section at Sky Tree Aquarium, where the lighting was dim and blue and made everything look like it belonged to another world.

They were fascinating. All that empty space in their mouths, built to gulp down prey twice their size, and that bioluminescent lure dangling from their lower jaw could attract food in pitch black waters.

This one didn't have a lure, though.

She reached out, fingers hovering near its translucent skin.

"Are you… supposed to be here?"

The eel didn't respond. It just drifted, tail swishing.

Right. Okay. So there was a giant pelican eel attached to her spine via some kind of fleshy umbilical cord, and it was floating in her bedroom.

Tomoyo grabbed her phone from the nightstand.

Her fingers moved on autopilot, unlocking the screen and opening the browser. She needed answers. Gaggle would have answers. Gaggle always had answers, even if half of them were conspiracy theories on Rednot.

But before she could type anything, her eyes caught on the lock screen.

The date and time were there, but... blurred?

Tomoyo squinted at the screen. The numbers were definitely there - she could make out the general shape of them - but they refused to come into focus.

She rubbed her thumb across the screen. Still blurred.

The pelican eel drifted past her periphery, its jaw opening and closing. Tomoyo watched it circle the ceiling fan before deciding she had bigger problems than blurred numbers.

She pulled up Gaggle. Pelican eel umbilical cord attached to spine what do i do sounded insane, so she tried strange appendage spine medical emergency instead.

The search results loaded, but before she could read anything, notifications flooded the top of her screen, each one accompanied by a cheerful ping that quickly became grating.

[the dishes are burning] - 3 new notifications

The group chat. Of course it was the group chat.

She tried swiping the notifications away, but they kept coming, piling up faster than she could dismiss them. Her phone vibrated so hard it nearly jumped out of her hand.

Tomoyo gave up and tapped on the banner.

Mika: three people got STABBED

Kuroko: where?

Mika: HERE! IN ADACHI!!

Kenji: mika ur so full of shit lmao

Mika: IM NOT

The group chat had a running joke about everything. Last month, Mika had convinced everyone that the cafeteria was serving horse meat. This was probably the same thing - some elaborate thing that everyone was in on except her.

Tomoyo's thumb hovered over the keyboard.

ok very funny guys, you can stop now.

But instead of hitting send, she opened a new tab.

adachi murders

The search results loaded immediately.

Three Dead in Suspected Serial Killing Across Adachi Ward

Tomoyo's stomach did something complicated. She clicked the article, skimming past the standard disclaimers about ongoing investigations and withheld victim identities.

First victim found near Umejima Station. Second in a residential area close to Ayase. Third-

Her eyes caught on the location.

Two blocks from her school.

She checked the map embedded in the article. The red pins formed an almost perfect diagonal line cutting through the ward, like someone had drawn a ruler across a map and marked every few centimeters.

It couldn't be that much of a coincidence, could it? People saw patterns everywhere, like faces in burnt toast or Jesus in water stains. Three murders that sort of lined up if you squinted didn't have to mean anything.

Her phone buzzed again.

Kenji: yo school still on btw

Mika: WAT

Kuroko: r u serious

Mika: people literally DIED

Kenji: two blocks away isnt that close

Mika: KENJI I COULD THROW A ROCK AND ITLL LAND IN THE CRIME SCENE

Kuroko: mika pls dont throw rocks

Tomoyo's fingers typed out that's messed up then deleted it. Typed are they serious and deleted that too. She settled on nothing, letting the conversation spiral without her.

Tomoyo looked up from her phone. The eel had curled itself into a loose knot now, its tail brushing against her shoulder.

"Did you-" Her voice came out scratchy. She cleared her throat. "Did you have something to do with those murders?"

The eel's jaw clicked shut then opened again.

"It's not a coincidence, right? Things don't just - fish don't just appear attached to people's back right around the time three people get killed."

No response.

Tomoyo's chest tightened. Her thoughts scattered again, then reformed around a shape she'd been trying not to acknowledge.

"Was… Was Raika one of them?"

Her friend Raika hadn't answered her texts in three days. Not unusual, technically. Raika went radio silent when she didn't feel like dealing with the world, but something felt off this time.

Tomoyo pulled up their message thread. Her last few texts sat there, unread:

still on for the aquarium later this week?

raika?

raika, please get back to me as soon as you can. i'm worried

She sent the first one on Monday. Today was Thursday. Seventy-two hours of nothing.

Her fingers hovered over the keyboard, then dropped. What was she supposed to say? hey just wondering if you got murdered lmao. But the alternative - not asking, not knowing - made her stomach twist into something that felt like it might never unknot.

The article hadn't listed names. Victims' families hadn't been notified yet, the police said. Could be anyone. Could be three random strangers she never met.

Could be Raika.

A knock rattled her door.

"Tomo-chan?" Her mom's voice cut through her panic. "You're going to be late if you don't get up now."

Tomoyo's head snapped toward the door. The eel immediately went still, flattening itself against the wall behind her bed.

"I-yeah. Coming."

Her mom's footsteps retreated down the hallwf'day. Tomoyo sat frozen on her bed, phone still clutched in one hand, the other pressed against her chest like she could physically hold herself together.

School. They were actually doing school today. Three people dead and the administrators had looked at the situation and decided yeah, this seems fine, let's make teenagers sit through a couple classes today.

She couldn't believe it.

Tomoyo swung her legs over the edge of the bed. The moment her feet touched the floor, the room tilted sideways.

She knew this feeling. The stuffy sensation in her skull, the way her limbs suddenly weighed twice what they should. Period anemia. The kind that made her mom force-feed her iron supplements and liver, which Tomoyo would gag down while trying not to think about what organs tasted like.

But she wasn't on her period.

Her eyes drifted to the umbilical cord. It pulsed faintly, a steady rhythm that didn't quite match her heartbeat.

Babies drained nutrients through umbilical cords, didn't they? That's how it worked. The baby just... took what it needed from the mother. She'd read somewhere that some women's teeth fell out during pregnancy because the baby had leeched all the calcium.

Was that going to happen to her?

Tomoyo pressed her palm against her forehead, willing the thought to pass. It didn't. She took a breath and pushed herself to stand. The room swayed, and she had to grab the edge of her desk.

This was fine. She just needed to get to the bathroom, splash some water on her face, and figure out what the hell was happening.

She reached out and pressed her palm flat against the wall. One step, then another. By the time she made it to the bathroom door, the dizziness had started to fade. Walking seemed to help, like her body just needed a minute to remember how circulation worked.

Tomoyo stepped inside, flicked on the light, immediately regretting it when fluorescent brightness stabbed her eyes. Blinking hard, she gripped the edge of the sink and stared into the mirror.

Her reflection stared back: pale skin, dark circles carved deep beneath her eyes. The silvery-blue of her hair looked almost white in this lighting.

God, she looked terrible.

Was it the stress? The eel, the bodies, all of it? Or just another sleepless night bleeding into the next? She couldn't tell anymore.

Her fingers drifted to her neck, then lower, tracing the path of her spine through her sleep shirt. The spot between her shoulder blades ached.

Don't look.

But her hands were already moving, tugging her shirt up and over her head. She turned, craning her neck to glimpse the space between her shoulder blades in the mirror.

The skin around where it attached had gone blotchy: purple bleeding into green, like a bruise that couldn't decide what color to be. She watched the cord contract, probably drawing something from her.

Tomoyo dropped the shirt.

She twisted the faucet hard, water gushing out in a violent stream. She cupped her palms, brought it to her face - once, two, three times - but the image burned behind her eyelids anyway.

When she finally straightened, water dripping from her chin and nose, she caught movement in the mirror.

The eel had drifted closer. Its head hovered just behind her shoulder, those black eyes angled toward her reflection.

"Stop staring."

It continued staring.

She grabbed a towel, pressed it against her face. Breakfast. She needed breakfast. Food would help clear her head, probably. Maybe. Hopefully.

Tomoyo dried off quickly and headed out of the bathroom, the eel trailing behind her.

***

The apartment opened into the living room, if you could call it that. More like a hallway that someone had shoved furniture into and declared it a space for living. The chabudai sat in the middle, low and cramped, with cushions that had lost their shape years ago. Bookshelves lined the other side, packed with those nursing textbooks and old newspaper Tomoyo's mom hordes but doesn't read anymore.

But at the far end, where morning light should have spilled through the window, there was only darkness. Like someone had draped black cloth over that entire section of the room, swallowing the curtains, the window frame, everything.

Tomoyo stared at the darkness.

It didn't make sense. The window was right there, or at least it should have been. She'd spent three years walking past that exact spot every morning. Sunlight always poured through it, enough that her mom complained about needing blackout curtains.

But now there was just… nothing.

Was this the eel's doing? They lived in total darkness, didn't they? Maybe it was bringing its habitat with it, like those hermit crabs that dragged around shells twice their size.

"Oh, is that you, Tomo-chan?"

Her mom's voice drifted from the kitchen area - really just the corner with a microwave and mini-fridge that the landlord generously called a kitchen. She stood with her back turned, hunched over a bowl.

The smell finally hit Tomoyo. Ochazuke. Hot broth poured over leftover rice with whatever toppings were lying around. Comfort food. That's what she'd called it once, explaining it to her mother, though her mother never asked why Tomoyo needed comforting so often.

Her mother. Right.

Tomoyo's mind went blank. She'd been so consumed by the murders and Raika and the thing on her back that she hadn't thought about explaining any of it to her mom.

She could run. Retreat to her room, claim a headache, buy herself time to figure out what the hell was happening. Her leg muscles tensed.

Too late.

Her mother turned, steam rising from the bowl she held. "What topping do you want? I've got the pickled plum if you'd like, or there's some furikake if you're feeling-"

Tomoyo's breath caught.

Her mother was looking directly at her, where the eel should have been impossible to miss, coiled around her chest and shoulders, glowing faintly in the dark room.

But her mother just stood there, waiting for an answer about pickled plums versus bonito flakes.

"You... can't see it?"

"See what?" Her mother's head tilted.

"Nothing. Bonito flake's fine."

Tomoyo watched her mother's shoulders relax slightly before she turned back to the counter. Relief washed over her - her mother couldn't see it. Somehow, impossibly, the pelican eel coiled around her daughter was completely invisible to her.

But then her mother paused, a wooden spoon now hovering over the bowl. She glanced back over her shoulder, and something in her expression shifted.

"What's troubling you?"

"Nothing. Why?"

Her mother set the spoon down, turned to face her fully. "Well, you only eat bonito flakes right before something stressful. Important exams and such. You have a test coming up I don't know about?"

Tomoyo's mind scrambled. Had she really been that predictable? She tried to remember the last time she'd requested bonito flakes. Two weeks ago, maybe? Right before that chemistry quiz she'd gotten an A- on anyway.

"I just felt like having them."

The lie sat heavy in her mouth. Her mother studied her for another moment, then turned back to the counter. The sound of bonito flakes being shaken onto rice filled the small space, each shake loud in the silence.

Tomoyo watched her mother work. She looked tired. Overtime at the hospital does that, but there was something peaceful about her ignorance right now. Blissful, even.

She didn't know about the murders. Couldn't know yet. Her mother got all her news from the newspaper, insisted on the physical copy even though Tomoyo kept telling her she could just read everything online. And given how recent the killings were, there was no way it had made it to print yet.

Tomorrow's paper would carry it, though. Big bold headlines about three dead in Adachi Ward. Her mother would read it over breakfast tomorrow, make that concerned humming noise she always did when the news was bad, and then she'd start worrying.

But for now, she was just making ochazuke and asking about exams.

Tomoyo crossed the room toward the chabudai. That's when she noticed the darkness moving with her.

Not following her, exactly. More like it was tethered to her the opposite way the eel was. When she stepped left, the darkness slid right. When she moved forward, it retreated. It was like watching someone adjust a dimmer switch in real time, except the control was her body.

Her hand found the light switch unconsciously.

Click.

"Ah!" Her mother jerked, nearly dropping the small plate of pickled vegetables she'd been carrying. "Tomo-chan, what was that for?"

"It's dark."

Her mother blinked at her. "Dark?"

"Unless you want me to open the blinds instead?"

"The blinds? Tomo-chan, the blinds are already open. Its super sunny out."

The words didn't make sense.

Tomoyo turned toward the window, squinting at the blinds. They were all the way up, exactly like her mother said. But beyond the glass-

Nothing.

"That's..." She stood and crossed to the window, pressing her face against the glass and cupping her hands around her eyes to block the room's light.

"Tomo-chan? What're you doing?"

She couldn't answer. Her breath fogged the window as she stared at the emptiness overhead. The eel drifted closer, its light reflecting in the glass, and for a second Tomoyo saw herself - wide-eyed, pale - against it.

The sky was gone.