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Crouched at her desk, Mizuki feverishly traces the opening lines of the book she has read over and over for the past three months.
“Mine has been a life of much shame. I can't even guess myself what it must be to live the life of a human being.”
The yellowed page crinkles under her touch, the crooked pencil lines that underline the paragraph leave dark graphite particles on the pad of her finger.
Mizuki’s has made up her mind.
She picks up a pen and rips off the front page of the book, blank on one side except for the title, ready to write her last words on it . The pen in her dominant hand is shaking horribly, so she squeezes her wrist in a desperate attempt to stop the trembling enough for her to write the damn note. Her family deserves to have her last goodbye, at least. She can’t leave them without saying anything—that would be sinking too low, even for a coward like her. Someone who isn’t even human.
Right as the tip of her pen touches the paper, her computer screen lights up. Mizuki looks up in bewilderment, blinking away the tears that blur her vision. She watches in confusion as the browser opens up all on its own and starts playing the same old video she always watches on YouTube: the opening song for MiraMagi. The show aired its final episode earlier tonight, meaning Mizuki no longer even has the weekly release of her favorite show to keep her alive. She has nothing. The cheerful song fills her with rage rather than comfort, and she launches herself forward, angrily grabbing the mouse. She clicks on the video to pause it, and an ad opens in a new tab. Weird. She quickly closes it. The ad opens again.
Mizuki frowns at the screen, now intrigued. The ad seems to be… Not an ad, actually. It looks like a gimmick webpage, full of gifs and creepypasta-style edited pictures of the cast of MiraMagi. Mizuki has seen this kind of secret webpages, quite popular amongst otakus. However, stumbling on one like she just has is near-impossible. Mizuki scrolls to the bottom of the page, where there is a large button. Her stomach drops.
So you want to die? Well, click here, then!
Mizuki clicks the button without thinking, as though her arm moves of its own volition. Her heartbeat is increasing, and she can feel a thin layer of perspiration coating her back and forehead. The page refreshes, showing up as completely black. Then, slowly, a circle starts to appear at the center of the screen. It looks like one of those magic circles Mizuki has seen way too often in anime. She heaves a sigh of relief. As far as pranks go, this one is quite underwhelming. She doesn’t know what had spooked her to the point of near-tachycardia earlier.
She moves the mouse cursor to go close the tab, and the circle suddenly glows brighter. Starting to feel uneasy again, she tries to close the tab. A message pops up in the middle of the screen instead.
Are you sure you want to leave?
Mizuki clicks the red X in the upper right corner of her screen, and the pop-up message changes.
Come on, don’t be a coward.
Mizuki keeps clicking, terrified beyond belief, and every time she clicks a new message replaces the previous one.
Coward.
You could never commit to anything, could you?
Always in a corner, never your real self, not fully.
Complacent. Meek.
Make a choice in your sorry life.
What do you have to lose anyway, Mizuki?
At the sight of her own name, Mizuki jumps away from the screen, her heart beating hard in her chest, a ringing in her ears. She glances at her door, wondering if she should just bolt. When she looks back at her screen, the message with her name is gone, and all there is left on her screen is the drawing of the magic circle, and instructions.
Step 1. Draw the circle illustrated above on your bedroom floor (use chalk, preferably).
Step 2. Kneel inside the boundary of the circle, your knees pointing to the center of it.
Step 3. Call out your name three times, and you shall be saved from your miserable life.
If she had to explain why she did what she did, Mizuki wouldn’t be able to explain it. It wasn’t rational, she knew as much even as she desperately opened all her drawers looking for the chalk she used to mark textiles when sewing. All she knew, as she feverishly traced lines on her bedroom floor, was that one of the messages that had popped up earlier was right. She had nothing to lose, anyway.
The chalk falls from her trembling fingers, and she falls to her knees, hanging her head.
“My name is Mizuki,” she breathes, her voice shaky, “Mizuki, Mizuki, Mizuki.”
As soon as the last syllable is out, the circle underneath her glows bright. The whole room around her deforms—almost as though all it contains is melting, emitting blinding, neon lights and merging together.
In times of alarm, Mizuki has always been quick to choose ‘flight’ over any other stress response. However, she finds herself glued to the floor as an unspeakable, primitive fear seizes her muscles, paralyzing them. She couldn’t even scream if she wanted to.
Dizzy with terror and on the verge of hyperventilating, she almost misses the shadow emerging from the center of the circle. Once she notices, she cannot take her eyes away.
There is a blurry, dark silhouette slowly rising right in front of her—a human silhouette. There’s a head first, then shoulders, a torso, legs. Once the figure’s feet touch the ground, a gust of wind suddenly rushes towards Mizuki, who instinctively closes her eyes to protect herself.
“Hello, Mizuki,” a sweet voice murmurs. It makes Mizuki’s skin crawl.
She opens her eyes and looks up at the face of the figure, now fully manifested.
She’s surprised to see a girl who looks roughly the same age as her standing tall in front of her. She’s wearing an intricate dress that would almost seem to be from another era, if it wasn’t for the odd, almost unnatural colors of the fabric. Her brown hair is styled into curly twintails, and she’s wearing a small crown on her head. There are two small red hearts inked in the skin right below her right eye.
Despite the fear gripping her throat and twisting her stomach, Mizuki still thinks the person in front of her is the most beautiful girl she has ever seen. So beautiful, in fact, that Mizuki temporarily forgets that this stranger is either a hallucination (in which case, Mizuki has finally lost her mind, and she’s finally done for) or some sort of demonic apparition (in which case, Mizuki is doubly done for).
“Well? Cat got your tongue?”
The girl smiles, and it would probably look like a kind expression on anyone else, if it wasn’t for her eyes. Mizuki can’t look away from them. She swears she can see colors swirling around in the irises, like twin vortexes sucking her in—Mizuki is going to drown in them.
“Pity. I wanted a talking one.”
Mizuki still can’t say anything, nor move a single muscle. This isn’t real. It simply cannot be. She fell asleep at her desk, yes. Soon she’ll wake up.
“Oh, silly. This isn’t a dream. I’m real. Here,” the girl leans forward and pinches Mizuki’s cheek, hard.
Mizuki hisses in pain and the girl smiles, looking absolutely delighted by Mizuki’s reaction. She pulls on Mizuki’s skin with a wicked grin until Mizuki cannot handle it anymore.
“You’re hurting me,” she squeaks, still too scared to move, and the girl finally lets her go, condescendingly patting her sore cheek twice.
“See? Knew you could talk.”
“Who are you?”
Now that Mizuki has found her voice again, the question rolls off her tongue before the girl in front of her was even done speaking. She looks terribly displeased at that, and pouts at Mizuki.
“Never interrupt me again,” she murmurs, and while she looks like a pouting child, there is something chilling in her tone, something dangerous. Mizuki swallows loudly, and finds her throat is dry.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers shakily, and the girl smiles at her.
“I’ll forgive you. This time, anyway.”
Mizuki nods, struggling to breathe.
“M-may I ask you, if it’s okay, please, what- I mean who are you?”
The girl crosses her arms over her chest and bends over to look at Mizuki with a serious yet somehow playful expression. Now that their faces are so close together, Mizuki can definitely tell that what she saw earlier was not a trick of the light—there are swirls of color in the girl’s eyes that keep spinning in a slow, entrancing way.
“I’m your salvation. I’m what you needed most. But you can call me Ena.”
For some reason, Mizuki’s eyes fill with tears.
“I’m here to grant you a wish. You hate your body, don’t you?”
Mizuki’s heart hurts as she nods meekly. It’s not even the full truth, but it’s close enough.
“Well, I can fix that for you,” Ena whispers, cupping Mizuki’s face in her hands, “I can make you as pretty as a porcelain doll.”
“What do you mean?” Mizuki murmurs, so low that she is not sure Ena can even hear her.
Ena gently caresses Mizuki’s cheekbones with her thumbs, and the gesture makes Mizuki’s chest ache with longing. No one has ever touched like that before.
“I can make you beautiful, Mizuki. Would like that, hmm?”
Mizuki does not why she nods; once again, it’s like her body acts of its own volition. As soon as she does, Ena drops her empathetic smile, twisting and morphing her features in a gleefully deranged expression. Mizuki’s blood runs cold, her stomach sinks. She feels dizzy with fear. What has she just agreed to?
“Oh, Mizuki,” Ena whispers, her grip on Mizuki’s cheeks growing painful, “I have always wanted a doll of my own.”
A bright light flashes in the room, temporarily blinding Mizuki. Seized by panic, she flings her arms around, desperately trying to cling to something, anything, since she is starting to feel like she’s floating. The temperature in the room has suddenly dropped, and Mizuki can’t stop shivering.
“Stay still,” Ena orders coldly.
Mizuki tries to comply, focusing on the feeling of Ena’s hands, still cupping her cheeks.
“I-I’m cold,” Mizuki sobs, though she is not crying.
“That’s only natural, I’m afraid.”
Ena’s hands leave her cheeks, and Mizuki instinctively reaches forward—they were the only thing grounding her. Without Ena’s hands touching her, Mizuki feels adrift.
When she opens her eyes, all she can see are her own hands, stretched out in front of her and pathetically trying to grab onto Ena’s dress, just out of reach.
There’s something off. Something is wrong with her hands.
Shaking with both cold and terror, Mizuki brings her hands close to her face. Her mouth opens to scream in horror, but no sound comes out.
The skin of her hands and arms is marked with deep cracks, yet no blood is spilling out. Mizuki can distinctly see cuts etching themselves all over her skin, and she’s aware that her whole body must be going through a similar process, for the pain she suddenly feels in every limb is agonizing—she knows it would be unbearable, if it wasn’t for the fact that she is in such a deep state of shock that she can barely register the feeling of her own body splitting open, as though bursting at the seams and cracking all over. As abruptly as it has started, the excruciating pain ends, leaving Mizuki lightheaded and out of breath.
“Well, that was the painful part,” Ena says, sounding bored, “The next is mostly transformation magic so it shouldn’t hurt as much. You endured it well. A bit too well, to be honest. I was looking forward to hear you scream. Oh, well. There’s always next time.”
Mizuki can barely follow Ena’s words; everything feels unreal, and she thinks she’s on the verge of passing out. Her vision is growing dark at the edges, her body feels limp and unresponsive. The cold she was feeling earlier is now unendurable, and she finds herself helplessly shivering and chattering her teeth as she floats in a fetal position in the middle of her bedroom.
“Almost there, little one,” Ena coos before she claps her hands once.
As soon as Ena claps, Mizuki feels her whole body compressing, to the point where she is struggling to breathe. Her skin is tingling, and she can’t breathe and oh God, she’s going to die. This is how it ends.
“Ugh, stop having a panic attack, the sounds are beyond irritating. It’s going to be over soon.”
Still hyperventilating and sobbing and unable to stop, Mizuki forces herself to open her eyes and look at her hands once more in a desperate final attempt to find anything to ground herself. A gasp dies in her throat at the sight of the white substance that is oozing out of the crevices that cover her all over. The white substance wraps itself around her fingers, her wrists, arms, instantly solidifying. It almost looks like a new skin, but it’s unnaturally white, and it shines in a way human skin is simply not supposed to, reflecting the unsettling lights shimmering all around her. Without even needing to look, Mizuki can feel this new “skin” growing all over her—it’s a creepy, repulsive sensation, akin to tingling but somehow wrong. Unnatural, unpleasant, repulsive.
The abhorrent tingling sensation spreads from her skin to her insides, and the breath get knocked out of her, as though she has just been hit in the stomach. There’s an overwhelming, unsettling feeling of emptiness inside of her which leaves her bereft, like she’s mourning something she has long forgotten.
Then, as abruptly as it all began, Mizuki stops floating and the floor is once again securely under her bent knees.
“Hmm, very good,” Ena says, taking a step closer to Mizuki. She once again cups Mizuki’s cheeks, and Mizuki gasps at the sensation. It feels… Different, now. She can’t explain how, but it’s like Ena is not touching real skin, even though Mizuki can still register her touch.
Ena leans very close to her face, inspecting it from up close. She frowns at something she sees and spits on Mizuki’s cheek, without any warning. Mizuki feels frozen in place as Ena rubs her thumb over her cheekbone to wipe her own saliva away, as though to clean something. Her movements elicit a squeaking sound, and Mizuki’s stomach drops. It sounds almost like…
“Porcelain,” Mizuki chokes out, aghast.
Ena smiles patronizingly at her. “That was the deal, no?”
“You turned my skin into-” She cannot finish her sentence. She feels sick. Panic is rising to her throat, bitter and overwhelming.
“I told you, no? That I’d make you as pretty as a porcelain doll.”
“I didn’t think you’d-” Mizuki snaps out of her daze enough to cry out in protest, but at the sight of Ena’s threatening stare, she cowers in fear.
“Am I even human anymore?”
Her voice comes out as though she’s begging, and she isn’t even sure what for. Ena licks her lips as she runs her thumbs over Mizuki’s cheeks.
“You’re my doll, now.”
Ena gently kisses Mizuki’s forehead as Mizuki’s mouth hangs open, panting and shaking all over.
Mizuki looks up into Ena’s hypnotic, inhuman eyes, trying and failing to say something. Everything feels wrong and foreign, like all her cells have been rewritten from the inside out. Even her emotions are completely alien, and she is struggling to even name the overwhelming dread-like feeling that is making her feel dizzy. Usually, Mizuki’s fear sits in her abdomen, twisting and turning her intestines and compressing her stomach until she throws up. Now, her fear resides mostly in her mind, and all she feels in her body is an uneasy sensation she has never felt before, yet instinctively knows is panic, dread, terror.
Ena’s hands slide down from her cheeks, stopping every so often to carefully feel Mizuki’s neck and shoulders, as though inspecting her. Mizuki watches as Ena gently grabs her wrist and lifts her limp arm up. She taps on Mizuki’s forearm with a knuckle, and Mizuki winces at the sound it makes—it’s like Ena is knocking on a hollow vase. Apparently satisfied, Ena goes on to feel more of Mizuki’s body, but Mizuki no longer cares. This isn’t her body. It can’t be.
Mizuki feels as though her conscience is retreating to the back of her head, and watches with complete detachment as Ena gently toys with a pale hand knocking lightly on every knuckle. Every time Ena taps, Mizuki feels something akin touch, but not nearly close enough to classify it as such. It leaves her vaguely nauseous, and even that oh-so-familiar sensation is completely foreign to her, yet somehow familiar. A bit like an echo of the real thing—uncanny and distorted.
Ena presses a hand against Mizuki’s chest, closing her eyes and tilting her head to the side.
“Good,” she says after a few seconds, “Looks like it’s gone.”
Mizuki is about to ask what she means, but then it hits her. How had she not realized yet? She’s terrified, right now, and yet her heart isn’t beating as fast as it should.
It’s not beating at all.
The realization guts her, and everything around her suddenly feels even more surreal as her mind burrows itself deeper and deeper under a thick layer of denial and detachment. She tries to take a deep breath to steady herself and get out of this state of mind she has often found herself in, yet it doesn’t help at all. Breathing feels mechanical, almost unnecessary, like it’s simply habit, rather than a vital biological function. Mizuki thinks that if she stopped breathing altogether, she would feel no different.
Mizuki has often felt like her body did not belong to her, not fully; she has always seen her body as clay that she might one day be able to shape and mold into her preferred shape if she lived long enough. Those feelings are incomparable to her current situation: this is simply not her body, not in the slightest.
“I wanna check your joints.”
Ena’s voice startles Mizuki out of her daze.
“Lift your arm for me?”
“M-my…”
“Your arm, yes,” Ena snaps impatiently, clicking her tongue.
Slowly, Mizuki reaches up with her right arm. Her shoulder creaks slightly, and the sound makes her cringe.
“Hmm, okay. Looks good. Wrist and fingers now.”
Mizuki lowers her arm and outstretches it in Ena’s direction. She must have been in a state, earlier, because how could she have missed the fact that her elbow, wrist, and all her knuckles have deep lines running through them?
Mizuki acts on instinct, without thinking, and wiggles her pale fingers under Ena’s intent gaze. More creaking ensues, and Mizuki suddenly realizes what those lines are.
Ball joints.
Just like a doll.
Those aren’t my fingers, she thinks, suddenly growing weary. She can barely keep her eyes open.
Ena reaches for Mizuki’s face, once again cupping her cheeks as she smiles at her. Mizuki feels limp, unresponsive. None of this is real. Even Ena’s sweet breath and the scent of her perfume register as distant—something that this doll is smelling, and Mizuki is simply a spectator.
“You’re so pretty,” Ena murmurs, leaning in even closer, her face a breath away from Mizuki’s, “You’re exactly what I wanted.”
Ena’s words act like a bolt of static electricity zapping throughout her body, finally snapping her out of her dissociated daze. Despite the sudden resurgence of paralyzing fear, so agonizing it is almost making her feel the echoes of nausea, Mizuki cannot help but feel some kind of warmth bloom in her chest. She’s never felt wanted, valued, like this. No one has ever looked at her with the same twisted adoration she can so clearly read in Ena’s hypnotizing eyes. She’s always been a burden, ostracized, misunderstood, shunned away in disgust.
“Y-you wanted… Me?”
Ena nods, smiling with something akin to affection, but more sinister. “You’re my first doll, so I wanted a special one. You’re perfect, Mizuki.”
Mizuki’s vision blurs as something she believes must be a new heart finally surges, coming alive, swelling with an emotion Mizuki is sure she has never felt—she thinks she must be falling in love.
“Perfect,” Ena repeats, shifting her hold on Mizuki so that she can hold her chin in an iron grip, pulling her closer. Ena’s mouth brushes over hers as she speaks her next word. “And my property. My very own Mizuki.”
Mizuki’s mouth stretches into a shy smile, knowing that she probably would be blushing right now, if it wasn’t that her skin is now cold, hard porcelain. She wonders if bright pink paint appears on her cheeks or if she’s lost the ability to emote in this way.
Ena pulls a disgusted expression at Mizuki.
“Don’t smile,” she commands coldly, “it doesn’t look cute at all.”
Something cracks inside of Mizuki, and she instinctively knows it’s something she can never fix. This new body she was stuffed into comes with new sensations, new instincts, new impulses. The sound inside her chest reminds her of a teacup cracking after a sudden change in temperature. She guesses that her new, unbeating heart (or whatever organ is aching in her chest) is now cracked in half.
“Much better,” Ena gloats, satisfied, “You should always look like this—dolls don’t smile.”
Mizuki is hurting. It shouldn’t hurt—she is no longer made of flesh and blood and thus has no nervous system. Yet, it hurts. The pain is different from anything she has ever felt before, and she completely lacks the vocabulary to even begin to understand it. But it is pain nonetheless, and grows in intensity the more the crack inside what she thinks must be a heart deepens.
“Alright, we’re ready to leave then,” Ena chirps cheerfully, abruptly letting go of Mizuki’s face, almost shoving her away in the same way a spoiled child would discard a toy she is done playing with for the day. She takes two steps back and snaps her fingers. The floor underneath Mizuki glows even brighter than before and some sort of portal opens in the center of the circle, right between her and Mizuki.
“L-leave?” Mizuki helplessly rasps out. She doesn’t know how much more she can take.
Ena rolls her eyes, annoyed.
“You’re my doll now, no? You think I’m gonna leave you here, where I can’t play with you? You’re coming with me.”
Mizuki’s head is spinning.
“Where-” The word dies in her throat. Her eyes are stinging with the need to cry, but it seems that this new body doesn’t come with functioning tear ducts, and Mizuki is left blinking up at Ena as her breathing grows more labored. Her eyelids make a barely-audible clinking sound as she flutters them pathetically.
“To my kingdom, dummy. I have a whole castle for you and I to indulge in all sorts of games.”
Ena’s twisted smile finally reactivates Mizuki’s primal fear—she thinks this is what she would feel like if she were in a forest facing a vicious predator.
“W-what about my family? I have to let them know-”
Ena lets out an exasperated groan.
“Why?”
Mizuki opens and closes her mouth a few times. Just thinking of Yuuki and her parents causes her to grow dizzy with guilt. The idea of never seeing them again, never being able to feel their kindness and unconditional acceptance, which so far she had seen as a burden inflicted on them, fills her with unspeakable despair. It tastes bitter, yet acidic, and she dry heaves for a few agonizing seconds before she realizes she can no longer throw up.
“P-please, I’m begging you, at least let me say goodbye. T-they’ll worry… I don’t want them to worry…”
Ena snorts, before breaking into a delirious, cruel laughter.
Mizuki looks up at her, frozen. “W-why…?”
Ena sobers up so abruptly, Mizuki physically recoils. She stares at Mizuki with a vacant expression, tilting her head to the side.
“You hypocrite,” she utters flatly. Before Mizuki can even process what she could possibly mean, Ena raises her arm and snaps her fingers. The front page of the book Mizuki intended to write her note on flies into Ena’s hand, and she promptly shoves it in Mizuki’s face.
“You were going to kill yourself,” she coos mockingly, “Yet, you couldn’t even write them a single line. So don’t pretend you care, now.”
Mizuki physically feels another crack dent the cold, hard organ inside her hollow chest; the cracking sound seems much louder now. It leaves her breathless, even though breathing is no longer necessary.
“Let’s go now, Mizuki,” Ena coaxes. The page goes up in flames, and Mizuki watches with a sinking hopelessness the words “No Longer Human” be swallowed up by bright purple flames until the whole page is but ashes.
For long seconds, Mizuki cannot look away from Ena’s outstretched hand. She thinks of her life—half-lived, always cowering in a corner. She thinks of the bullies at school and the pointed stares and the incessant whispering behind her back. She thinks of endless afternoons spent holed up in her room, stuck on her phone or computer to distract herself from an oppressing, never-ending feeling of dread and hopelessness.
Ena wiggles her fingers in invitation, and Mizuki looks up to meet her unsettling gaze. There is something terrifying about Ena, something ominous, uncanny. The primitive part of Mizuki’s brain knows she should run as far away as possible from her if she wants to survive.
Survive.
Mizuki is tired of surviving. She’s not even human anymore—if she ever even was. She uselessly inhales out of habit one, twice, and nods.
She grabs Ena’s hand, and Ena predatorily grins at her. Mizuki finds there is something comforting about her, for Ena is also not a human—and she wants Mizuki. She called Mizuki perfect. Said she was special. Pretty. Her first.
I’m sorry, she thinks fleetingly, closing her eyes. Mom. Dad. Yuuki. I’m so sorry. Goodbye.
As they both sink through Mizuki’s bedroom floor, Mizuki feels at peace.
It’s like being reborn.