—Where am I?

Alicia scanned the space with a frown, like a traveler in fog staring at a strange shore. The air felt wrong, the light thin as rice paper.

Figures with human faces flowed past like a river of masks, but her gut rang like a bell: not one of them was human.

She reached out, hoping to catch a sleeve like snaring a kite string. Her hand slid through the figure as through a hologram, a knife through mist.

But unlike a harmless illusion, her fingers seemed to peel the person like bark, and a heart thudded in her palm like a drum under silk.

Her face went dark as stormclouds; she staggered back two steps, like a leaf beaten by sudden wind. The passerby stitched back together and walked on as if nothing rippled the pond.

Training steadied her like iron rods in a tent. The twist in her gut ebbed fast, like a tide pulling back from black stones.

“Hey, hey, hey! [××] seems to be back!” A sharp girl’s voice cracked the crowd like firecrackers under a winter sky.

Cheers rose like a flock of birds, wild and bright. “[××] is really back!” “[××] didn’t abandon us!”

Who [××] was, Alicia didn’t know; every time the name landed, a bee’s buzz filled her ear, and the syllables fell like rain on oiled leaves.

The ignorance stung like a nettle, but the pull in her chest was a red thread. She let the noise carry her forward like a current toward [××].

They reached the gathering place in a breath, a black sea of heads rolling like night wheat. She saw no [××], only a giant book statue rising like a stone gate.

She hesitated a beat, thought slicing clean like a bamboo knife. She could cut through the crowd and reach the center, since they were just passing shadows.

She lifted a foot, then froze, ice up the spine. At arm’s length, organs would bloom in her vision like raw flowers, and fear set its hook.

“Our mission begins! Today we—” A girl’s voice rang from the center, familiar as an old tune, strange as a dream at dawn.

Coolth blossomed in Alicia’s chest like spring water from rock, the same chill that had saved her in battle. It wasn’t healing now; it tugged like a kite string.

A pull tightened, steady as a fisherman’s line, and her body moved forward without asking, a boat caught by a hidden current.

She neared the wall of people, a paper-thin gap left like the lip of a blade. One more step and she’d see the clockwork of their insides.

She didn’t hesitate. She shut her eyes like dropping a curtain; out of sight, out of mind, a clean sweep of the brush. Her legs broke into a run.

She didn’t need to see; she’d run till the tug in her chest snapped like a thread. Her instinct was a compass, and she trusted it as a mountain.

But the world refused her neat plan. On any other day she’d cross this human river in a heartbeat; today the pull kept tugging like a moon on tide.

Time she could endure like cold rain, but sound slashed where sight was spared. Each body she passed sang from within: heartbeats like drums, guts whispering like snakes.

She’d never trained for this, couldn’t sand it smooth. Every beat carved an image into her mind like a seal into wax, even with her eyes shut.

Her throat heaved, bile climbing like bitter fire. The urge to vomit crested like a wave—

—and broke. The pull vanished from her chest like a cut string. The wet churning in her ears went silent. She’d reached the heart of the circle.

Nausea faded like mist in morning sun, yet sourness clung to her throat like old tea. Even one breath tasted bitter, and she hated that taste.

“Why did you come here?” The voice hit like a metal chime, flat and cold, her disgust snapping like a twig underfoot.

Alicia raised her head. A book hovered before her like a pale carp, its cover eerie and familiar, a face she’d seen once in rain.

It had no eyes, no features, just a book as plain as unmarked paper. Yet she felt its gaze on her skin like moonlight on a pond.

“Repeat: why did you come here?” The mechanical voice pulsed again, a metronome in an empty hall.

“Huh?” She glanced around, seeking the addressee like a sparrow seeking a branch. The crowd was gone, vanished like smoke into a blue sky.

“Repeat: why did you come here?” The same iron tone fell for a third time, each word a nail in wood.

She blinked, realization dawning like a lantern lit in a dark room. The book was talking to her.

“Uh… I don’t know why I came,” she said, the words small as pebbles tossed into a well.

Silence held two beats, still as frost on glass. A magic circle bloomed on the cover like ink spreading on rice paper.

“You shouldn’t be here now. Go back where you belong—[Teleport].” The voice cut clean, a blade through thread.

“Wait—” The word leaped like a startled fish, but the current took her first.

Darkness folded in like a curtain, the world snuffed like a candle. Her head swam, heavy as a bell filled with water.